Months passed. Stories were hardened out and issued to participants of the most extensive deep sea training fiasco of all time. The SEALs were buried with full military honors and their families reimbursed the amount for when servicemen are killed in action, although they were told time and time again it was a training incident. The families never asked a question, the wives and mothers of SEALs often learned long ago that the answers can lead to more inquiries that are never answered.
Wells visited his old diving partner in the Naval Hospital routinely, even donating plasma during the surgeries. Perry gained an impressive scar across his belly and several jagged stitch marks around his chest that he would show proudly during his instructor days at the US Navy Underwater Combat School. He became known as “Patches” among his friends for his stitched together torso. The two men would never speak of their time aboard the U-5918, but they would go out of their way to volunteer for missions with the SEALS.
Miller oversaw that Captain White and his crew were amply rewarded for their speedy assistance in the failed Special Operations Command training op. The USS Pennsylvania received commendations from as high up as the Secretary of the Navy, honoring the crew for their lightning support and recovery efforts in saving the lives of so many of the nations finest forces. Captain White was awarded the Navy Cross for gallantry, and Miller had to type the commendation through a visibly clenched jaw.
Master chief Royale was medically retired from the SEAL Teams after his treatments and physical therapy from a traumatic brain injury. The US Military had learned a lot about brain damage from the litany of head traumas secondary to IEDs in the past wars. Royale volunteered for numerous trial projects, gaining the support of several prestigious medical campuses on his road to recovery. His cells became a minor case study in rarely exhibited and unparalleled repair and recovery for unknown reasons. The Master Chief could not fully open his right eye and would sometimes have a hard time seeing color, but otherwise had fully recovered. He and other members of Strike Team would visit their fallen brothers in Arlington National once a year on the anniversary of the training incident.
Ke returned to the small Coast Guard station for the remainder of her career. She carried on her chest a special operations service ribbon and the close combat award, but never spoke about the circumstances around either. She picked up Lieutenant in record time and was pinned at her award ceremony by Tom and Akin. Commander Akin never received his promotion to Captain, and oddly he didn’t mind. The pair, Ke and Akin, continued operating rescue missions and busting illegal fisheries along the misty, gray coast.
Occasionally at a bar or tavern around the Maine coast, a pair of brothers would be seen, but usually heard first, loudly rabble rousing about a lofty tale of stumbling across a haunted U-boat wreck only a few miles off the coast. The pair of old salt dogs would spill beer, throw fists at each other or others and generally cause a scene until the barkeep had enough. Miller had long ago given up on trying to keep Hunter 11 silent about the operation, but as luck would have it, the pair of old timers had a reputation for tall tales and were wholly ignored. The brothers could still be seen around town, drinking, fishing, or hunting; Tom in his ratty jeans and tucked in T-shirt and Paul with his slight language slur and lopsided grin, a side effect of a diving incident he would say.
The oceans continued to make storms, push tides over sandy coasts, and dominate the eastern horizon from the Coast Guard station. Occasionally the high frequency radios would pick up a tune, or the faintest whisper of noise, muffled from miles of transmission. Sailors along all of Nova Scotia and rescue divers and helicopter crews would occasionally hear it, like words breathed out in wind.
Schon rief der Posten,
Sie blasen Zapfenstreich
Das kann drei Tage kosten
Kam’rad, ich komm sogleich
Da sagten wir auf Wiedersehen
Wie gerne wollt ich mit dir geh’n
Mit dir Lili Marleen.
And the ocean rolled tides,
oblivious to wars,
comfortable with unknown graves
hidden off her shores.