Fardy Wore His Uniform That Morning

Chapter 1: Work cooked

The first strange thing was not that Warrant Officer Fardy was standing in the parking lot before sunrise.

It was that he was wearing his uniform.

In all the years I had known him, I had never seen him arrive at work in anything but civilian clothes. He usually wore brown trousers, a pale shirt, and a narrow tie that always looked slightly crooked. His uniform remained inside the building, pressed and waiting in a metal locker.

But that morning in 1973, he stood beside the far row of cars in full dress, his cap low over his eyes.

I stopped and saluted.

He raised one hand, though not quite in a salute.

“Go on in,” he called. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

His voice sounded distant, as if it had crossed a much larger space than the parking lot.

I went inside.

At twenty-two, I was the lowest-ranking man in the office. That meant I arrived first, opened the blinds, turned on the lights, and made the coffee before anyone else appeared. It was not an official duty, but the military has many duties that never appear in writing.