CHAPTER SEVEN
Jana Leigh Merriman fell in love with Cadet John Jackson Hastings the moment she saw him standing at Trophy Point. It was “Ring Weekend” at West Point, a tradition in which rising First Classmen receive their cherished class rings at the Academy. It was a cloudless day and the Hudson River, banked on either side, splashed and splattered with the browns, oranges and reds of autumn leaves set an artist’s tableau as a backdrop. A slight breeze drifted off the river far below in the valley lending a fall chill and a hint of cooler weather to come. The presentation ceremony had concluded and Jana’s twin brother, Cadet Lieutenant Sam Merriman was pleased to introduce his parents and sister to his friend and Regimental Commander, a tall and handsome young man from Utah. Jack Hastings looked born for the uniform. Indeed, he could have been a model for recruitment literature for the Academy.
The year was 1979 and Jana was beginning her own senior year at the University of Texas. A beautiful young woman with her short blonde hair, blue eyes and shapely figure, she had led a busy social life while pursuing her own degree in nursing. She was a fraternity sweetheart and never wanted for a date. Many a young man had sought it but she had given her heart to no one. She had certainly never experienced the palpable physical sensation that left her smitten, almost speechless, when she shook the hand and felt the penetrating eyes of Jack Hastings.
Tom and Sheila Merriman were proud of their only children, both of whom would be graduating the following June. Sam would be off to serve out his commitment in the U. S. Army, and Jana would pursue her career in one of the many hospitals near their home in Houston. Or so they thought.
On that special weekend when friends and family descend on the Academy, Jack Hastings was alone in the crowd. His parents were undergoing a vicious divorce back in Utah which both used as an excuse for not making the trip. Truth be told, he didn’t miss them. Both of his parents had their own busy lives, his father as a land developer and mother as an attorney. The family had never been close so Jack didn’t miss what he had never had. He also had never had a ‘steady’ girlfriend or one special enough to invite for Ring Weekend. But this unexpected encounter with Sam’s sister became the silver lining to the gloomy cloud that had been his prospect for the weekend. To the surprise of the Merrimans, Mister Hastings, as all cadets are addressed, asked Jana to dinner in nearby Highland Falls that first evening, an invitation she accepted without a second thought. The following evening at the Ring Banquet, Hastings sought out the Merrimans. He latched on to Jana and the two were inseparable the rest of the evening. She would recall in later years the feeling of her heart in her throat when Jack Hastings appeared before her impeccably dressed in his formal mess dress white uniform. Thus began a romance that continued, long distance, through their senior year. On two occasions, Jana had been able to fly to New York to meet Jack for a weekend in the City. Jana had never even come close to sleeping with a man and had earned a well deserved reputation among the boys back in Texas. The “Ice Queen,” they called her. But with Jack Hastings, she felt powerless to his advances. His experiences with the opposite sex had begun earlier and he had learned well. Indeed, his gentle carnal skills brought out in her an enthusiastic sensuality that she found baffling. They laughed and joked that their weekends in New York may as well have been spent on a desert island, or in an isolated forest. They abhorred the times when, tired of room service, they would finally succumb to their pangs of hunger and leave their hotel room to get something to eat. But they didn’t stray far.
Jack Hastings received his commission at West Point as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army on June 7, 1980. On June 8th, with Second Lieutenant Sam Merriman acting as Best Man, Jana Leigh Merriman became Mrs. Jack Hastings in a ceremony at the Cadet Chapel. She was now an Army wife.
The Army provided an interesting life for the Hastings. From an early age, Jack had known that he wanted to make it his career. His ambition was obvious to all who met and served with him. In late night bull sessions at the Academy, he had earned the nickname ‘General’ from his fellow cadets. And none of them doubted for an instant that he would someday be one. Following Officer’s Basic training in the Field Artillery at Fort Sill, Lieutenant Hastings was assigned to a howitzer battalion in Germany. He excelled at everything handed to him as a junior officer. Having learned early that politics count in the military, Hastings made a point of getting to know well all the senior officers with whom he served and came in contact.
Hastings’ new brother-in-law, classmate, and comrade-in-arms, Sam Merriman, chose Armor as his service branch and attended his Officers Basic Training at Fort Knox, Kentucky. His objective was to fly helicopters and serve in the air cavalry. After completing his training at Ft. Knox, Merriman was sent to flight school at Fort Rucker, Alabama. Whereas Hastings was the politician, Merriman made his mark by serving with excellence. He showed remarkable skill during his flight training and was assigned to an assault helicopter company in Fort Campbell, Kentucky to gain some experience before being recalled to Fort Rucker to serve as an instructor in the Aviation school. Already qualified in rotary wing aircraft, helicopters, Sam breezed through a fixed wing qualification course gaining him ratings in the few airplanes that the Army flew.
While at Fort Campbell, Sam Merriman met and fell in love with Sonya Youngblood, a young freelance photojournalist working on assignment for National Geographic magazine. After a whirlwind romance of six months, the two married in a small ceremony performed by an Army chaplain at the post chapel. Given short notice, Lieutenant and Mrs. Jack Hastings were not able to return from Germany to attend. But the two young officers, now bound by family as well as profession would see each other as often as they could. And, it would be inevitable that their paths would cross through their military service.
For Hastings, there followed more schooling at Fort Benning in Georgia, and Fort Bragg in North Carolina, adding skills that qualified him as a paratrooper and an Army Ranger. He carefully mapped out his career and sought the assignments that would get him where he wanted to go. In 1988, Captain Jack Hastings applied for and was accepted into a graduate school program offered by the Army to its most promising officers. He attended Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. for a two year program earning his Masters Degree in International Studies. Upon completion of the program, he pinned on the gold leaves of a Major, just in time to fill the slot of battalion executive officer during the first Gulf War. When he returned, Hastings attended the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, a must for officers destined for higher rank. Major Sam Merriman surprised his brother-in-law the first day of class at Fort Leavenworth when he calmly took a seat next to Hastings in the classroom. Hastings didn’t notice who was sitting next to him until Merriman leaned over and said, “I got you through West Point. I guess I’m gonna have to get you through Leavenworth, too.” A lively reunion ensued; for a short while the two officers were once again, classmates.
For her part, Jana was content with the Army way of life. They bought their first home in Fairfax County, Virginia at the time that Jack attended school at Georgetown. She took the opportunity to advance her nursing skills and through George Washington University, got her Masters Degree in Nursing and was certified as a nurse practitioner in cardiac care. She remained there in Virginia during Jack’s thirteen months in Iraq and nine months in Kansas. Though her career was always secondary to his, Jana was proud of her own accomplishments and took comfort in the knowledge that her skills were marketable, should the need ever arise. With both Jack and Jana focused on careers, children never became a part of their plans.
What seemed to be the perfect marriage, however, was not. Perhaps it was due to the long separations. Perhaps it was due to the adolescent he was before meeting Jana. But, simply put, Jack Hastings loved the ladies. Or, more accurately, he loved the physical gratification that he could take from them. He loved his wife as much as he was capable. But his fidelity to Jana was lost one night early in their marriage wh
ile the young officer was stationed in Germany. A temporary duty assignment took him to Paris for three days. He met a young American tourist from Orlando, Florida in the hotel bar the first night there. One thing led to another resulting in the first betrayal of his vows. Though Jana was confident that she owned the key to his heart, she became aware that her husband’s needs were greater than hers. She loved him and she never refused him. But she came to believe that he was not above an extra-marital fling. Though hardly pleased with the situation, she kept her feelings and suspicions to herself and decided to do so as long as his actions were discreet and never brought her disgrace or humiliation.
In 1993, Major Jack Hastings was again assigned to Fort Sill where he served under Colonel “Wild Bill” Wilcox. Jana was happy to once again be living under the same roof with her husband and came to enjoy the Oklahoma plains town of Lawton, adjacent to the base. She took a part time job in a local cardiology practice to maintain her nursing skills. The Hastings grew to know Colonel Wilcox and his wife, Connie on a social level. Ever the politician, Hastings took every opportunity to keep his commanding officer happy and impressed. Being around and cajoling the Colonel certainly had its place. The pride of Wild Bill and Connie Wilcox was their two daughters, Sally and Annie. Sally was attending college at the University of Oklahoma eighty miles away in Norman; Annie was ten years younger than her sister. When Sally was home for a weekend or between semesters, Major Jack Hastings could not keep his eyes off of her.
On April 19, 1995, a lunatic named Timothy McVeigh parked a rented van outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City. The van was filled with over five thousand pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, thirteen hundred pounds of nitromethane, and assorted blasting devices. The combined materials created a bomb weighing over seven thousand pounds with destructive characteristics that became apparent at exactly 9:02 a.m. Central Standard Time.
Sally Wilcox, now a senior at the University in Norman had just months left before graduation. As part of an elective course in Criminal Justice, she had arranged to interview Special Agent Jack Hanlon of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Agent Hanlon had been very accommodating and had invited Sally down to his office on the third floor of the Murrah Federal Building. Their appointment was set for 9:30. She was searching for a parking place three blocks south of the building on North Robinson Avenue when the bomb exploded.
The blast claimed 168 lives, 19 of which were children under the age of six. It destroyed or damaged 324 buildings within a sixteen block radius. It was the worst case of domestic terrorism ever perpetrated on American soil.
Like everyone around her, Sally was stunned by what she had witnessed. In fact, she didn’t know what she had witnessed. Bricks and debris from the explosion had fallen on her car breaking an axle and crushing the windshield and roof to the extent that she had to crawl out of a rear window. Dealing with some degree of shock, she finally found a telephone and called the office of her father. When the call came in, Colonel Wilcox was somewhere on Fort Sill’s East Range observing the activities of one of the howitzer battalions. Major Jack Hastings took the call from a very distraught Sally and without hesitation, got in his car and drove the ninety-three miles to Oklahoma City completing the trip in seventy-one minutes. He found Sally Wilcox dazed, sitting on a curb beside her car on North Robinson Avenue. He guided her to his car, placed her in it and drove her back to Lawton and to the waiting arms of Wild Bill and Connie Wilcox.
It made sense to Jana when a friendship developed between Colonel Wilcox’s oldest daughter and her husband. Traumatic events have a way of drawing people together. The age difference between them made it unlikely, in Jana’s mind, that it would ever be anything more. Sally returned to school as soon as classes resumed the following week and nothing more was thought of it. She would be leaving for law school at Stanford at the end of the summer anyway.