Thunder in the Morning Calm by Don Brown Page B

She never remarried. Finally, when Granddaddy got sick, she agreed to come back to Corbin Hall to take over the business. She did a fine job. She bore the family name with strength and pride.
    I went to school in all those places, graduated from high school in South Carolina, and went on to beautician school. I practiced ten years as a cosmetologist and married Gorman McCormick, a Naval Academy grad and Navy pilot who flew in Vietnam. We married in 1968. He was a wonderful person, gave me two beautiful sons — your grandsons — but he died of cancer in 1999.
    I worked for a while after Gorman died, but when Mama started getting sick, I came back to Corbin Hall to help her with the business. Gorman Jr., your oldest grandson, went off to Virginia Tech, studied agriculture, and came back to help me run Corbin Hall. He married Brianna, and we call her Bri. She’s very pretty. From down around Edenton. She and Gorman have two great children, Tyler and Jill. They’re your great-grandchildren.
    You’d be proud of your grandsons!
    Gunner worked in a fancy finance job in New York. But he quit to follow your footsteps and his daddy’s in the military. We named him Christianson Pendleton McCormick. The name Christianson came from a Marine, Stanley Christianson, who won the Medal of Honor in Korea. And of course his middle name, Pendleton, well that’s for another Marine who went to Korea, his beloved grandfather. He picked up the name Gunner when he won the Tidewater Shooting Championship sponsoredby the Junior NRA at age sixteen. He became quite the marksman with a .22 rifle! You’d be proud of him, Daddy!
    He’s now an officer on an aircraft carrier named for the man who was president when you left for Korea. I expect he’ll come back and help Gorman with the farm after he leaves the Navy.
    I still miss you. You were so young and never got a chance to live.
    I know where Mama is, and I know where Jeffrey is, and I know where Gorman is. But I don’t know where you’ve gone, Daddy. So I set a plate for you every Thanksgiving at the head of the table. I do it because Thanksgiving was the last time I remember even the littlest bit about you. I don’t expect you to ever sit there or ever to walk in this house again, but I promised years ago that I would always remember you. And although my hope of seeing you has faded with each passing year, I’ll cling to the last dimming rays of a fading hope until I draw my very last breath.
    Your disappearance rocked us all, Daddy. Mama. Me. We never got over it. I love you always.
    See you in heaven, Daddy.
    Your Baby Girl,                         
    Margaret Pendleton McCormick
     
    Four fresh teardrops had smudged the blue ink on the letter.
    The doorbell rang. Then the sound of the front door opening. “Mother, we’re here!” Gorman Jr. called out.
    “We’ve got desserts!” The chipper voice of her daughter-in-law, Bri.
    She refolded the letter, slipped it back into the envelope, and laid the letter back under his special plate. She dabbed her eyes with a napkin.
    “Be right there!” Pushing her father from her thoughts, she hurried to greet her family.

CHAPTER 7
     
    Kim Yong-nam Military Prison Camp
    S taff Sergeant Kang Ho-soon glanced at his watch — 0800 hours. Time to get the old dogs moving.
    He looked over at Chung Nam-gyu and Cho Doo-soon, the two comrades assigned with him to oversee the prisoners. They were drinking coffee in the mess hall and yakking. He knew they were just putting in their time until retirement. Chung and Cho had been at this job in the prison camp too long. They’d lost their ambition.
    Not so for Kang Ho-soon. Although he was new, he saw his assignment to the top-secret prison camp as a testament to the Army’s confidence in his leadership abilities. Before being considered for duty in this top-secret program, Kang had been subjected to extreme physical and psychological tests, all of which he passed. After a second