The Book of John, Chapter 5
“He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.” Psalm 1:3
When a young man or woman decides to enlist in the armed forces, there is almost always a conversation that takes place between that person and his or her parents. The exact nature varies, as do the encompassing emotions, but the root of it is the same - the parents’ desire to ask, “Are you sure about this?”; to discuss openly the very real possibility that their child may die cold and alone on a faraway battlefield, or in space, or at the bottom of the sea… any number of terrible places to take one’s last breath. Some parents get angry. Some say “no” as though they get a vote in the matter. Some - usually those who served, themselves - nod quietly in acceptance once they get the answers they’re looking for.
Mine were divided.
My mother was opposed vehemently to the idea. My father asked the right questions - starting with the why of it, and because I was expecting that, I was prepared.
I wanted to be part of something bigger than myself. I wanted to make a difference.
I wanted to understand… myself, the world around me, the universe.
“Well,” he’d said with chuckle, “I don’t know as you’ll ever understand the universe, Son. Hell, I’ve got 30 years on you and I’m still no closer to it. But I think this decision is the right one for you.”
My mother cried and hugged me close. She was less philosophical and more realistic in her viewpoint. “You could die, Johnny. You could be killed. Do you understand that? You might leave here in that Earthforce uniform and never come back.”
And I hugged her back and I whispered, “I know.” Did I really know? Had I really given my own mortality as much thought as it might have deserved? Probably not. That’s the blessing and the curse of being so young, and so inherently spoiled. Nothing could hurt me. I was untouchable.
Remember earlier, when I said I was a fool?
Exhibit B.
I was 21, I was invincible, and I was excited to finally be going somewhere with my life. The next day, I submitted my Earthforce Academy application.
I was rejected.
Here I need to get something off my chest: I love my father. I do. But he meddled. He wanted me to succeed, to go far in life, and so when he found out I’d been rejected from the Academy, he “made some calls.” He had friends among the brass, knew people in high places. He was a diplomat, and I was a diplomat’s son, and so help him, John Sheridan was not going to enlist as an ensign. I was going to get into Earthforce Academy, graduate top of my class and get a good assignment on a cruiser as an officer. There were no other options.
So there you have it. John J. Sheridan, Minbari War hero, tactical genius extraordinaire, renegade conspirator, the soldier who led an insurrection against Earthgov and went on to found the Interstellar Alliance… got into Earthforce Academy because someone owed his father a favor.
I didn’t know it at the time, of course. I found out my first day of class. The shit hit the fan then - I called my father and read him the riot act. I used so many four-letter words that an observer would be hard-pressed to figure out what I was actually upset about.
The problem was not what my father had done, exactly. It was the fact that, for once in my life, I felt like I’d done something on my own. I’d made a decision, acted on it, proven my merits and potential and claimed a seat in officer training school. Now all of that was a lie. I’d done nothing. I was nobody. My father had done it all.
I threatened to leave school, but the fact was, I wasn’t going to do that. What I was going to do was to prove I belonged. I was going to work hard, study, find my place and graduate with honors. I was going to be the best damn officer to ever come out of the EA, and my father would have nothing to do with it. I would pave my own road from here on in. I made sure he knew it, too.
In my first year, I was hazed. In my final year, I returned the favor - coincidentally, to a young man named Jeffery Sinclair, who would precede me as commander of Babylon 5 and go on to a greater destiny than I can explain in these pages; certainly a greater destiny than mine.
In 2239, as I prepared to graduate (with honors, in the top ten percent of my class), I certainly had no idea about my destiny, or Jeffrey Sinclair’s, or anyone else’s. For three years, the Academy had defined me. I was an Earthforce cadet. For three years, I’d done what someone else said, when someone else said it, how someone else wanted - Academy routines are rigid and strongly enforced. Earthforce Academy does not create individuals - it creates soldiers. It creates mold-cut military leaders. This should have bothered me more than it did back then, but I was just a kid.
That’s not to say that the Academy and my instructors and peers there did me a disservice or failed to teach me anything. I think the challenge of an environment like that of the Academy is to think outside the box. Ask questions, challenge the norm, think independently and remain a person - because although it’s not a very diplomatic way of saying it (Dad, I can see you rolling your eyes across the lightyears), Earthforce Academy also creates killing machines. That is its prime directive, after all - train people to be military officers. Train them to fight, to survive… to kill. So help me, I was not going to be a killing machine who couldn’t think for himself.
It’s that opinion, and a little bit of attitude and a demand for no interference on my father’s part, that got me my less-than-prestigious first assignment. They thought they would teach me a lesson. Instead they gave me a life-long friend.
***
“Lieutenant Sheridan, I presume.”
“Yes Sir.”
Commander Jack Maynard smiled as he gave the young officer before him a once-over. Brand-new, freshly pressed Earthforce blues, spit-shined boots, clean-cut, and nervous as all hell. The young man’s Adam’s apple actually bobbed with a nervous swallow as he saluted Jack and continued to stand at attention. Yeah, he’s new. Jack shook his head slightly. “At ease, Lieutenant.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
“Walk with me.”
“Yes Sir.”
With hands behind his back and long, calculated strides, John Sheridan followed his CO across the landing pad toward the cruiser that awaited them, the cruiser that would take them up out of Earth’s orbit and toward the moon.
“You’ve been on this run before, I hear,” came Jack Maynard’s voice from over his shoulder. John had to strain to hear - they were walking into a warm, late spring wind, and that, coupled with the engine noise that increased as they approached the cruiser, muffled Maynard’s words. “With your father.”
“Yes Sir.” John felt like he was yelling at the top of his lungs, and he still wasn’t sure his words carried forward to the other man’s ears. It didn’t seem to matter, though. Maynard carried himself with a confident ease. The roar of the engine as they reached the gangplank cut right through John’s senses and he had to reach up to cover his years, but Maynard just stopped and leaned against the gangplank’s metal rail and stared right into the engine with a big smile as the wind whipped his graying hair back from his face.
“And that is the last time I’m going to mention your old man. Scout’s honor.” John raised his eyebrows but said nothing. He wasn’t sure he could, in the wind and the noise, but Maynard was clearly right at home. “Soak it in, Lieutenant. You never realize how much you miss the engine noise until you’re out there in the vacuum of space and there’s no sound coming from her at all.”
John was certain his ears were going to start bleeding, it was so loud. He had definitely long passed the pain threshold, but Maynard just looked at his new second-in-command, shook his head and laughed. “Come on inside.”
The ship’s airlock sealed behind them, cutting off the noise to all but a faraway hum, and John said a silent prayer of thanks. He followed Maynard down the narrow walkway that connected the bulky engine and bridge on either end - the design seemed silly to John. He and the other cadets had often compared these smaller, Shuttle Class ships to the barbells they lifted in the gym.
“She’s not much to look at, but she’s built as sturdy as they come,” Maynard said now as they reached the bridge. He waved his hand with a flourish toward the navigation station. “All yours, Lieutenant. Make sure you strap yourself in. I requested you for a reason, and I don’t need your brain matter splattered all over the hull the second we leave orbit.”
Sheridan complied, but after he was strapped into his chair and had given the control board a once-over to make sure he knew where all the gizmos and gadgets were located, he spun around in his chair and turned a frown on his CO. “Permission to speak freely, Sir?”
“Always, Lieutenant. Always.” Maynard was chuckling, grinning the way he had been since that first salute on the landing pad, and Sheridan wasn’t sure he liked it. In one sense it was comforting. In another, Sheridan couldn’t quite decide if he was being laughed at or laughed with.
The lieutenant frowned deeper, and licked his lips. “I only knew I was assigned here. I… didn’t know I was requested.”
“Your instructor MacDougan is an old friend. When he heard I needed a new second, he suggested I snatch you up before someone else did.”
“He did?”
“Uh huh.” Maynard kicked his feet up on the console before him and folded his hands behind his head. It was the least professional posture John had ever seen, and he was slightly horrified.
“Why?” He knew his tone was a bit disrespectful. That didn’t seem to matter at this point, even if he’d been able to control it.
Maynard sighed, looking out the window at the landing pad for a long moment before looking Sheridan square in the eyes, his smile gone for the first time. “Because we have a philosophy in common, Lieutenant. You raised several kinds of hell in MacDougan’s class because you had an uncommon failing for a cadet: You believe that you wear the uniform. It does not wear you. You put it on and it doesn’t make you something; you, the person inside, make decisions and choices not because they are in compliance with your directive, but because they are just and because they are right. I wanted you in here with me so that I could spend a good couple of years teaching you that this is the right way to think before you get shuttled onto a destroyer and face any real kind of danger; before you have to make the tough decisions. We are soldiers, but we are men. We are not machines. Never forget that, Lieutenant.”
There was a long pause, both men staring at each other. Maynard had said his peace and seemed to be waiting for his second to speak, but Sheridan couldn’t get his mind to settle on a proper follow up. He finally swallowed and nodded nervously. “Yes Sir.”
“Good.” Maynard’s smile returned, and then his laugh, and John couldn’t help but return it. “Now. Let’s get this tin can some altitude, shall we?” He pushed several controls at his command station. “Ground control, this is Eudora. All systems go and we are ready for launch.”
“10-4 Eudora, you are go for launch. Have a safe flight.”
John felt the shuttle lift from the ground, angle upward, and then it seemed he blinked and he was surrounded by the familiar endless blanket of stars. Have a safe flight, indeed. I may never come home.
When a young man or woman decides to enlist in the armed forces, there is almost always a conversation that takes place between that person and his or her parents. The exact nature varies, as do the encompassing emotions, but the root of it is the same - the parents’ desire to ask, “Are you sure about this?”; to discuss openly the very real possibility that their child may die cold and alone on a faraway battlefield, or in space, or at the bottom of the sea… any number of terrible places to take one’s last breath. Some parents get angry. Some say “no” as though they get a vote in the matter. Some - usually those who served, themselves - nod quietly in acceptance once they get the answers they’re looking for.
Mine were divided.
My mother was opposed vehemently to the idea. My father asked the right questions - starting with the why of it, and because I was expecting that, I was prepared.
I wanted to be part of something bigger than myself. I wanted to make a difference.
I wanted to understand… myself, the world around me, the universe.
“Well,” he’d said with chuckle, “I don’t know as you’ll ever understand the universe, Son. Hell, I’ve got 30 years on you and I’m still no closer to it. But I think this decision is the right one for you.”
My mother cried and hugged me close. She was less philosophical and more realistic in her viewpoint. “You could die, Johnny. You could be killed. Do you understand that? You might leave here in that Earthforce uniform and never come back.”
And I hugged her back and I whispered, “I know.” Did I really know? Had I really given my own mortality as much thought as it might have deserved? Probably not. That’s the blessing and the curse of being so young, and so inherently spoiled. Nothing could hurt me. I was untouchable.
Remember earlier, when I said I was a fool?
Exhibit B.
I was 21, I was invincible, and I was excited to finally be going somewhere with my life. The next day, I submitted my Earthforce Academy application.
I was rejected.
Here I need to get something off my chest: I love my father. I do. But he meddled. He wanted me to succeed, to go far in life, and so when he found out I’d been rejected from the Academy, he “made some calls.” He had friends among the brass, knew people in high places. He was a diplomat, and I was a diplomat’s son, and so help him, John Sheridan was not going to enlist as an ensign. I was going to get into Earthforce Academy, graduate top of my class and get a good assignment on a cruiser as an officer. There were no other options.
So there you have it. John J. Sheridan, Minbari War hero, tactical genius extraordinaire, renegade conspirator, the soldier who led an insurrection against Earthgov and went on to found the Interstellar Alliance… got into Earthforce Academy because someone owed his father a favor.
I didn’t know it at the time, of course. I found out my first day of class. The shit hit the fan then - I called my father and read him the riot act. I used so many four-letter words that an observer would be hard-pressed to figure out what I was actually upset about.
The problem was not what my father had done, exactly. It was the fact that, for once in my life, I felt like I’d done something on my own. I’d made a decision, acted on it, proven my merits and potential and claimed a seat in officer training school. Now all of that was a lie. I’d done nothing. I was nobody. My father had done it all.
I threatened to leave school, but the fact was, I wasn’t going to do that. What I was going to do was to prove I belonged. I was going to work hard, study, find my place and graduate with honors. I was going to be the best damn officer to ever come out of the EA, and my father would have nothing to do with it. I would pave my own road from here on in. I made sure he knew it, too.
In my first year, I was hazed. In my final year, I returned the favor - coincidentally, to a young man named Jeffery Sinclair, who would precede me as commander of Babylon 5 and go on to a greater destiny than I can explain in these pages; certainly a greater destiny than mine.
In 2239, as I prepared to graduate (with honors, in the top ten percent of my class), I certainly had no idea about my destiny, or Jeffrey Sinclair’s, or anyone else’s. For three years, the Academy had defined me. I was an Earthforce cadet. For three years, I’d done what someone else said, when someone else said it, how someone else wanted - Academy routines are rigid and strongly enforced. Earthforce Academy does not create individuals - it creates soldiers. It creates mold-cut military leaders. This should have bothered me more than it did back then, but I was just a kid.
That’s not to say that the Academy and my instructors and peers there did me a disservice or failed to teach me anything. I think the challenge of an environment like that of the Academy is to think outside the box. Ask questions, challenge the norm, think independently and remain a person - because although it’s not a very diplomatic way of saying it (Dad, I can see you rolling your eyes across the lightyears), Earthforce Academy also creates killing machines. That is its prime directive, after all - train people to be military officers. Train them to fight, to survive… to kill. So help me, I was not going to be a killing machine who couldn’t think for himself.
It’s that opinion, and a little bit of attitude and a demand for no interference on my father’s part, that got me my less-than-prestigious first assignment. They thought they would teach me a lesson. Instead they gave me a life-long friend.
***
“Lieutenant Sheridan, I presume.”
“Yes Sir.”
Commander Jack Maynard smiled as he gave the young officer before him a once-over. Brand-new, freshly pressed Earthforce blues, spit-shined boots, clean-cut, and nervous as all hell. The young man’s Adam’s apple actually bobbed with a nervous swallow as he saluted Jack and continued to stand at attention. Yeah, he’s new. Jack shook his head slightly. “At ease, Lieutenant.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
“Walk with me.”
“Yes Sir.”
With hands behind his back and long, calculated strides, John Sheridan followed his CO across the landing pad toward the cruiser that awaited them, the cruiser that would take them up out of Earth’s orbit and toward the moon.
“You’ve been on this run before, I hear,” came Jack Maynard’s voice from over his shoulder. John had to strain to hear - they were walking into a warm, late spring wind, and that, coupled with the engine noise that increased as they approached the cruiser, muffled Maynard’s words. “With your father.”
“Yes Sir.” John felt like he was yelling at the top of his lungs, and he still wasn’t sure his words carried forward to the other man’s ears. It didn’t seem to matter, though. Maynard carried himself with a confident ease. The roar of the engine as they reached the gangplank cut right through John’s senses and he had to reach up to cover his years, but Maynard just stopped and leaned against the gangplank’s metal rail and stared right into the engine with a big smile as the wind whipped his graying hair back from his face.
“And that is the last time I’m going to mention your old man. Scout’s honor.” John raised his eyebrows but said nothing. He wasn’t sure he could, in the wind and the noise, but Maynard was clearly right at home. “Soak it in, Lieutenant. You never realize how much you miss the engine noise until you’re out there in the vacuum of space and there’s no sound coming from her at all.”
John was certain his ears were going to start bleeding, it was so loud. He had definitely long passed the pain threshold, but Maynard just looked at his new second-in-command, shook his head and laughed. “Come on inside.”
The ship’s airlock sealed behind them, cutting off the noise to all but a faraway hum, and John said a silent prayer of thanks. He followed Maynard down the narrow walkway that connected the bulky engine and bridge on either end - the design seemed silly to John. He and the other cadets had often compared these smaller, Shuttle Class ships to the barbells they lifted in the gym.
“She’s not much to look at, but she’s built as sturdy as they come,” Maynard said now as they reached the bridge. He waved his hand with a flourish toward the navigation station. “All yours, Lieutenant. Make sure you strap yourself in. I requested you for a reason, and I don’t need your brain matter splattered all over the hull the second we leave orbit.”
Sheridan complied, but after he was strapped into his chair and had given the control board a once-over to make sure he knew where all the gizmos and gadgets were located, he spun around in his chair and turned a frown on his CO. “Permission to speak freely, Sir?”
“Always, Lieutenant. Always.” Maynard was chuckling, grinning the way he had been since that first salute on the landing pad, and Sheridan wasn’t sure he liked it. In one sense it was comforting. In another, Sheridan couldn’t quite decide if he was being laughed at or laughed with.
The lieutenant frowned deeper, and licked his lips. “I only knew I was assigned here. I… didn’t know I was requested.”
“Your instructor MacDougan is an old friend. When he heard I needed a new second, he suggested I snatch you up before someone else did.”
“He did?”
“Uh huh.” Maynard kicked his feet up on the console before him and folded his hands behind his head. It was the least professional posture John had ever seen, and he was slightly horrified.
“Why?” He knew his tone was a bit disrespectful. That didn’t seem to matter at this point, even if he’d been able to control it.
Maynard sighed, looking out the window at the landing pad for a long moment before looking Sheridan square in the eyes, his smile gone for the first time. “Because we have a philosophy in common, Lieutenant. You raised several kinds of hell in MacDougan’s class because you had an uncommon failing for a cadet: You believe that you wear the uniform. It does not wear you. You put it on and it doesn’t make you something; you, the person inside, make decisions and choices not because they are in compliance with your directive, but because they are just and because they are right. I wanted you in here with me so that I could spend a good couple of years teaching you that this is the right way to think before you get shuttled onto a destroyer and face any real kind of danger; before you have to make the tough decisions. We are soldiers, but we are men. We are not machines. Never forget that, Lieutenant.”
There was a long pause, both men staring at each other. Maynard had said his peace and seemed to be waiting for his second to speak, but Sheridan couldn’t get his mind to settle on a proper follow up. He finally swallowed and nodded nervously. “Yes Sir.”
“Good.” Maynard’s smile returned, and then his laugh, and John couldn’t help but return it. “Now. Let’s get this tin can some altitude, shall we?” He pushed several controls at his command station. “Ground control, this is Eudora. All systems go and we are ready for launch.”
“10-4 Eudora, you are go for launch. Have a safe flight.”
John felt the shuttle lift from the ground, angle upward, and then it seemed he blinked and he was surrounded by the familiar endless blanket of stars. Have a safe flight, indeed. I may never come home.