Fic: Jack of All Trades
Title: Jack of All Trades
Author: Melyanna
AU: west_gate
Summary: Colonel John Sheppard, USAF (ret.), sits down with Vanity Fair's Veronica Langly to talk politics, family, and home.
Notes: Some of you may recognize bits of this, if you've studied the layout of west_gate much. This is the article that comprises the background of the current header. For a while I've been thinking about the way the media plays into West Wing, and how that can be incorporated into this crossover in the form of interviews, book excerpts, and other non-traditional fics. So... this may or may not go over well. We'll see. ;)
Jack of All Trades
Colonel John Sheppard, USAF (ret.), sits down with Vanity Fair’s Veronica Langly to talk politics, family, and home.
When John Sheppard says that he’s been in weird situations for most of his adult life, no one questions him.
As a veteran of Kosovo and Afghanistan, this pilot probably thought he’d seen anything modern warfare could throw at him - until he was thrust into the Stargate Program and found himself commanding the military force of the Atlantis expedition. “The Wraith were easy compared to some of the problems I dealt with there,” he says, smiling just a little. “I had a lot harder time figuring out how to tell people what to do and how to deal with Elizabeth while she was trying to learn the ropes herself. We butted heads a few times before we got it all straightened out.”
There were other new experiences that didn’t always have to do with work. His commander ended up becoming his wife, much to the consternation of some of the military folks back home. While in the Pegasus galaxy, he and wife Elizabeth Weir adopted their towheaded son Peter. A year later their son Josiah was born, strongly resembling John and named for Weir’s long-time mentor and friend. And now he embarks on what he’s called “the weirdest experience of all”: husband of the first woman elected President of the United States.
“I’m not a politician and never will be,” he confesses. “Elizabeth just gets things that would never occur to me. So this is going to be interesting. I’m not really used to spin.”
Indeed, the retired colonel has never seemed wholly at ease in front of the press. In front of crowds, town hall meetings, and one-on-one, he seems like a natural, and the Weir campaign used that to great advantage. But talking to cameras doesn’t seem to mesh with his style - a folksy charm that doesn’t always mask the fact that he’s an extraordinarily intelligent man.
Of course, not many people believe that he’ll have a lot of time to give interviews once the President-Elect has taken office. Peter and Josiah Sheppard are almost six and five, respectively, and Jill isn’t a year and a half old yet. But John says he’s eager for the chance to spend time with his children, which is something he admits that he didn’t do enough of before he and Weir left Atlantis. “I love my kids, but there were times when spending as much time with them as I wanted to wasn’t an option,” he says, watching the boys kick a soccer ball around in the back yard of their Bethesda home. “I think every parent understands that. But sometimes being a good father and husband and keeping my family safe meant that I wasn’t around. It wasn’t easy.”
When asked what people are going to call him once his wife is commander-in-chief, he rolls his eyes. “I think ‘Colonel’ has a nice ring to it,” he jokes. “And if that doesn’t work for people, we can try ‘First Husband.’ But we live in a country based on experimentation, so I reserve the right to change my mind.”
There’s been a lot of speculation about this relationship since the disclosure of the Stargate eight years ago. People wondered then and wonder now about the power dynamic in their relationship. “We had to establish boundaries pretty soon after we started dating, if you can call it that,” he explains. “One of the first things we decided on was that we wouldn’t have personal arguments in the office, or work arguments in the bedroom. That didn’t always work, but it helped me a lot. But as time went by, we argued a lot less. We’re both very opinionated and strong-willed - Elizabeth would say we’re just stubborn and stupid - but in the end, we’ve always had the same interests at heart. That makes it a lot easier.”
And what about now that she’s going to be in charge of the country? What happens when he disagrees with her politics and policies? “She’s been professionally in charge of me for pretty much as long as I’ve known her,” he says. “She’s a leader, the best I’ve ever served under. I’ve never been prouder of another commander. But at the same time, I don’t blindly follow her lead or anyone else’s. One of the first conversations my wife and I ever had was an argument, yelling and everything. So no, I don’t have a problem telling her that I disagree. And she knows it.”
Finding Atlantis
“Leaving Atlantis was one of the hardest decisions we’ve ever made,” John says. Baby Jill is with him now, sitting on his lap and entertaining herself with a doll. “I know it sounds corny, but Elizabeth and I really found ourselves there. Atlantis saved my career and launched hers. Those people we worked with for so long still are good friends. And Atlantis is where we got married and started our family.”
Was there controversy over those decisions? “That’s putting it lightly,” he says. “But that first year, when we were cut off from everything, taught us a lot. And most of all, it taught us that when you’re in charge, there’s no such thing as impunity. You don’t get to make up the rules. And that includes when someone you care about has their life on the line. You have to be willing to give that up.”
Only a select few have the clearance to hear all the stories John could tell on that subject, but there’s one that usually comes to mind when the topic of leadership and sacrifice arises. Over the past eight years, one of the most frequently reaired clips from the House Foreign Relations committee’s investigations into Stargate Command (which found that the military had performed well, but demanded Congressional oversight) is from Elizabeth Weir’s testimony, during which she was asked to explain an incident during which she sent John on what should have been a suicide run. Until that point, the public had seen Weir addressing questions calmly and politely, and often with a dry wit. But when that question was asked, she nearly came to tears on the witness stand.
“We came back because of the kids, though,” he continues. “Peter and Siah loved Atlantis, but there was only so much for them to do. We wanted them to be able to play on grass without having to take a twenty-minute ride in a space ship first.” The Federal-style house that the Sheppards bought certainly has a lot of grass in the back, at least when it isn’t winter. “When we found out that we were having another baby, we just decided it was time. It had been almost a decade since we first got there. It was time to move on.”
And move on they did. They came home as public heroes and tried to settle into private citizenship, though John admits that he spent the first few months as a consultant of sorts for the Department of Homeworld Security. He and Doctor Weir fell in love with this house and ended up restoring it - though Weir spent less time helping with the remodel. After all, she was pregnant with Jill at the time, and she was also writing a book about the Atlantis experience.
The book, Finding Atlantis, put the family back in public life and in many ways launched Weir’s campaign. John explains now that discussions of the possibility of running for President started long before then. “We’d started getting hints about it after the first year in Atlantis,” he says. “The discussion started coming from more people when the gate was disclosed. Though I’m not sure how many people thought Jon Stewart was being serious when he first mentioned it. I certainly didn’t.”
It’s hard to imagine that the Democratic party wasn’t already considering her at the time, still basking in the victory of the Santos campaign. After masterminding Matthew Santos’ election and reelection, Josh Lyman took the top seat at the Democratic National Committee - and started talking to Weir as soon as he took over. “Josh took us out to dinner every time we were on Earth. The boys got to be really good friends with the Lyman kids,” John explains.
“Of course, Elizabeth tells a story about the first time she met Josh Lyman. It was during the first Bartlet campaign, and she was brought in to help out with the foreign policy. The way Elizabeth tells it, Josh freaked out about a UN diplomat being brought in, because he was worried about not antagonizing people who hate the UN. Not that those people were likely to vote for Bartlet anyway.”
He laughs about it, but he also adds this: “I’ve discovered that politics works like that a lot. Some people are just always worried about who you’re going to offend, and that’s something I don’t think I’ll ever understand. Trying to please everyone means you’re going to please no one. I suppose it’s best not to alienate people if you can help it, but there’s only so much you can do.”
It’s something he learned in Atlantis, he says, as the leader of a first-contact team. He admits with a smile that he was pretty bad at it at first. “At some point we remembered that we had a world-class diplomat on hand for a reason, so we started using her more,” he explains. “She ended up untangling more than one mess I made.”
Family Guy
With light snow beginning to fall, the boys trudge inside, stowing their coats and gloves and hats without assistance. “They had to defy nature as boys and learn to be neat,” their father explains, ruffling hair as the boys walk through the room, oblivious to the interview that’s going on. “There just wasn’t room back on Atlantis for any of us to be messy. It came in handy on the campaign trail. We never had to send someone back to the hotel to get someone’s shoes.”
In fact, the rough-and-tumble Sheppard boys were, by some reports, considered the good-luck charm of their mom’s campaign. Doctor Weir was unwilling to leave the baby for long periods of time and took Jill with her everywhere, and eventually, the boys were taken out of school to join the campaign trail too. Neither Peter nor Siah is particularly camera-shy, and while their parents have never let the press have free rein on their children’s spare time, the boys did occasionally contribute the “aww factor” on a cross-country flight.
So what’s next? “I’m going to try to teach them to appreciate baseball this spring,” John says. “Being surrounded by Europeans made them both huge soccer fans. There were some people in the last year who were rather shocked that Peter could rattle off the starting lineups of some British soccer teams, but couldn’t name a single baseball player, dead or alive.
“But football - the American kind - is probably a lost cause by now,” he adds with a sad smile.
“I don’t know how life in the White House is going to shape up,” he continues. “I’ve talked to [former President] Jed [Bartlet] a few times, and [current First Lady] Helen Santos too, and the best advice I’ve gotten is to take things one day at a time. Seems like a good course of action right now. I’ve got a family that loves me, and that’s the important part. The most important part. The rest is superficial anyway.”
~Veronica Langly
Author: Melyanna
AU: west_gate
Summary: Colonel John Sheppard, USAF (ret.), sits down with Vanity Fair's Veronica Langly to talk politics, family, and home.
Notes: Some of you may recognize bits of this, if you've studied the layout of west_gate much. This is the article that comprises the background of the current header. For a while I've been thinking about the way the media plays into West Wing, and how that can be incorporated into this crossover in the form of interviews, book excerpts, and other non-traditional fics. So... this may or may not go over well. We'll see. ;)
Jack of All Trades
Colonel John Sheppard, USAF (ret.), sits down with Vanity Fair’s Veronica Langly to talk politics, family, and home.
When John Sheppard says that he’s been in weird situations for most of his adult life, no one questions him.
As a veteran of Kosovo and Afghanistan, this pilot probably thought he’d seen anything modern warfare could throw at him - until he was thrust into the Stargate Program and found himself commanding the military force of the Atlantis expedition. “The Wraith were easy compared to some of the problems I dealt with there,” he says, smiling just a little. “I had a lot harder time figuring out how to tell people what to do and how to deal with Elizabeth while she was trying to learn the ropes herself. We butted heads a few times before we got it all straightened out.”
There were other new experiences that didn’t always have to do with work. His commander ended up becoming his wife, much to the consternation of some of the military folks back home. While in the Pegasus galaxy, he and wife Elizabeth Weir adopted their towheaded son Peter. A year later their son Josiah was born, strongly resembling John and named for Weir’s long-time mentor and friend. And now he embarks on what he’s called “the weirdest experience of all”: husband of the first woman elected President of the United States.
“I’m not a politician and never will be,” he confesses. “Elizabeth just gets things that would never occur to me. So this is going to be interesting. I’m not really used to spin.”
Indeed, the retired colonel has never seemed wholly at ease in front of the press. In front of crowds, town hall meetings, and one-on-one, he seems like a natural, and the Weir campaign used that to great advantage. But talking to cameras doesn’t seem to mesh with his style - a folksy charm that doesn’t always mask the fact that he’s an extraordinarily intelligent man.
Of course, not many people believe that he’ll have a lot of time to give interviews once the President-Elect has taken office. Peter and Josiah Sheppard are almost six and five, respectively, and Jill isn’t a year and a half old yet. But John says he’s eager for the chance to spend time with his children, which is something he admits that he didn’t do enough of before he and Weir left Atlantis. “I love my kids, but there were times when spending as much time with them as I wanted to wasn’t an option,” he says, watching the boys kick a soccer ball around in the back yard of their Bethesda home. “I think every parent understands that. But sometimes being a good father and husband and keeping my family safe meant that I wasn’t around. It wasn’t easy.”
When asked what people are going to call him once his wife is commander-in-chief, he rolls his eyes. “I think ‘Colonel’ has a nice ring to it,” he jokes. “And if that doesn’t work for people, we can try ‘First Husband.’ But we live in a country based on experimentation, so I reserve the right to change my mind.”
There’s been a lot of speculation about this relationship since the disclosure of the Stargate eight years ago. People wondered then and wonder now about the power dynamic in their relationship. “We had to establish boundaries pretty soon after we started dating, if you can call it that,” he explains. “One of the first things we decided on was that we wouldn’t have personal arguments in the office, or work arguments in the bedroom. That didn’t always work, but it helped me a lot. But as time went by, we argued a lot less. We’re both very opinionated and strong-willed - Elizabeth would say we’re just stubborn and stupid - but in the end, we’ve always had the same interests at heart. That makes it a lot easier.”
And what about now that she’s going to be in charge of the country? What happens when he disagrees with her politics and policies? “She’s been professionally in charge of me for pretty much as long as I’ve known her,” he says. “She’s a leader, the best I’ve ever served under. I’ve never been prouder of another commander. But at the same time, I don’t blindly follow her lead or anyone else’s. One of the first conversations my wife and I ever had was an argument, yelling and everything. So no, I don’t have a problem telling her that I disagree. And she knows it.”
Finding Atlantis
“Leaving Atlantis was one of the hardest decisions we’ve ever made,” John says. Baby Jill is with him now, sitting on his lap and entertaining herself with a doll. “I know it sounds corny, but Elizabeth and I really found ourselves there. Atlantis saved my career and launched hers. Those people we worked with for so long still are good friends. And Atlantis is where we got married and started our family.”
Was there controversy over those decisions? “That’s putting it lightly,” he says. “But that first year, when we were cut off from everything, taught us a lot. And most of all, it taught us that when you’re in charge, there’s no such thing as impunity. You don’t get to make up the rules. And that includes when someone you care about has their life on the line. You have to be willing to give that up.”
Only a select few have the clearance to hear all the stories John could tell on that subject, but there’s one that usually comes to mind when the topic of leadership and sacrifice arises. Over the past eight years, one of the most frequently reaired clips from the House Foreign Relations committee’s investigations into Stargate Command (which found that the military had performed well, but demanded Congressional oversight) is from Elizabeth Weir’s testimony, during which she was asked to explain an incident during which she sent John on what should have been a suicide run. Until that point, the public had seen Weir addressing questions calmly and politely, and often with a dry wit. But when that question was asked, she nearly came to tears on the witness stand.
“We came back because of the kids, though,” he continues. “Peter and Siah loved Atlantis, but there was only so much for them to do. We wanted them to be able to play on grass without having to take a twenty-minute ride in a space ship first.” The Federal-style house that the Sheppards bought certainly has a lot of grass in the back, at least when it isn’t winter. “When we found out that we were having another baby, we just decided it was time. It had been almost a decade since we first got there. It was time to move on.”
And move on they did. They came home as public heroes and tried to settle into private citizenship, though John admits that he spent the first few months as a consultant of sorts for the Department of Homeworld Security. He and Doctor Weir fell in love with this house and ended up restoring it - though Weir spent less time helping with the remodel. After all, she was pregnant with Jill at the time, and she was also writing a book about the Atlantis experience.
The book, Finding Atlantis, put the family back in public life and in many ways launched Weir’s campaign. John explains now that discussions of the possibility of running for President started long before then. “We’d started getting hints about it after the first year in Atlantis,” he says. “The discussion started coming from more people when the gate was disclosed. Though I’m not sure how many people thought Jon Stewart was being serious when he first mentioned it. I certainly didn’t.”
It’s hard to imagine that the Democratic party wasn’t already considering her at the time, still basking in the victory of the Santos campaign. After masterminding Matthew Santos’ election and reelection, Josh Lyman took the top seat at the Democratic National Committee - and started talking to Weir as soon as he took over. “Josh took us out to dinner every time we were on Earth. The boys got to be really good friends with the Lyman kids,” John explains.
“Of course, Elizabeth tells a story about the first time she met Josh Lyman. It was during the first Bartlet campaign, and she was brought in to help out with the foreign policy. The way Elizabeth tells it, Josh freaked out about a UN diplomat being brought in, because he was worried about not antagonizing people who hate the UN. Not that those people were likely to vote for Bartlet anyway.”
He laughs about it, but he also adds this: “I’ve discovered that politics works like that a lot. Some people are just always worried about who you’re going to offend, and that’s something I don’t think I’ll ever understand. Trying to please everyone means you’re going to please no one. I suppose it’s best not to alienate people if you can help it, but there’s only so much you can do.”
It’s something he learned in Atlantis, he says, as the leader of a first-contact team. He admits with a smile that he was pretty bad at it at first. “At some point we remembered that we had a world-class diplomat on hand for a reason, so we started using her more,” he explains. “She ended up untangling more than one mess I made.”
Family Guy
With light snow beginning to fall, the boys trudge inside, stowing their coats and gloves and hats without assistance. “They had to defy nature as boys and learn to be neat,” their father explains, ruffling hair as the boys walk through the room, oblivious to the interview that’s going on. “There just wasn’t room back on Atlantis for any of us to be messy. It came in handy on the campaign trail. We never had to send someone back to the hotel to get someone’s shoes.”
In fact, the rough-and-tumble Sheppard boys were, by some reports, considered the good-luck charm of their mom’s campaign. Doctor Weir was unwilling to leave the baby for long periods of time and took Jill with her everywhere, and eventually, the boys were taken out of school to join the campaign trail too. Neither Peter nor Siah is particularly camera-shy, and while their parents have never let the press have free rein on their children’s spare time, the boys did occasionally contribute the “aww factor” on a cross-country flight.
So what’s next? “I’m going to try to teach them to appreciate baseball this spring,” John says. “Being surrounded by Europeans made them both huge soccer fans. There were some people in the last year who were rather shocked that Peter could rattle off the starting lineups of some British soccer teams, but couldn’t name a single baseball player, dead or alive.
“But football - the American kind - is probably a lost cause by now,” he adds with a sad smile.
“I don’t know how life in the White House is going to shape up,” he continues. “I’ve talked to [former President] Jed [Bartlet] a few times, and [current First Lady] Helen Santos too, and the best advice I’ve gotten is to take things one day at a time. Seems like a good course of action right now. I’ve got a family that loves me, and that’s the important part. The most important part. The rest is superficial anyway.”
~Veronica Langly