Sleep My Darlings Page 3
At the conclusion of his remarks, Kennedy walked around the barricades into a crowd of outstretched hands, shaking as many as he could to the delight of those who expected nothing more than a glimpse of their president. He went back into the hotel to the restaurant where he was the scheduled speaker at a Chamber of Commerce breakfast.
From there, Kennedy traveled by motorcade to Carswell Air Force Base, northwest of downtown, where he boarded Air Force One for the short flight to Love Field in the neighboring city of Dallas. The ten-mile meandering drive wandered through suburban developments and traveled the traditional parade route in the downtown area on its way to the luncheon at the Dallas Trade Mart. Crowds of people lined the presidential route.
The celebratory atmosphere was shattered in one moment when everything went wrong as the motorcade turned into Dealey Plaza on the way to the entrance ramp onto Stemmons Freeway. Shots rang out from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, a seven-story building that provided storage for school textbooks and related materials as well as housing a business that fulfilled orders for all these supplies. The front windows of the structure overlooked the plaza on the western end of the downtown area.
The open convertible, carrying the president, the First Lady, Texas governor John Connally, and his wife, Nellie, was the target of the gunfire. The first shot hit John Kennedy in his upper back, nicking the knot on his tie as it exited his body. The bullet then continued on, hitting the governor in the chest, before lodging in the inner thigh of his left leg.
It remained a matter of debate whether one or two additional shots were fired before the final shot ripped through the president’s skull, causing Jackie Kennedy to scream, “They have killed my husband! I have his brains in my hands!”
The car accelerated, racing toward the Parkland Memorial Hospital. The president was declared dead after his arrival. The governor survived his injuries, despite their life-threatening nature.
Kennedy’s assassination rocked Fort Worth, particularly those who had listened to him in the rain or sat in the dry comfort of the hotel dining room. Hours before, Kennedy was alive, vibrant, and close enough to touch, right there in their town. Nancy and Eddie expected that night’s news to be dominated by footage of his local speeches. Instead, their city’s bright moment was overshadowed by the dark news from neighboring Dallas. The presidential assassination wrapped the nation in a blanket of inconsolable grief. The Scheneckers, like nearly everyone in Fort Worth, Dallas, and the whole state of Texas, carried the additional burden of shared shame and guilt.
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Despite Fort Worth’s prominence in the defense industry during Parker’s early years, it remained a sleepy town. Local history buff Jim Nichols said, “The downtown area was so quiet at night, you could fire cannons down the streets and hit nothing but grackles”—the large, raucous black birds that are ubiquitous in Texas.
Still, despite its exploding population, the city maintained a small-town, family-friendly environment with a western cultural flair. The good school system, the high employment rate, and its low-key approach to politics made Fort Worth an appealing place to live.
Rivalry with their next-door neighbor, the more cosmopolitan Dallas, pushed Fort Worth forward. In 1965, before either of the Schenecker boys started school, the city approved a record-breaking $33.9 million bond issue to fund new park and recreation facilities, street repairs, a new city hall and police building, and other needed improvements.
As the Schenecker boys grew up, their hometown was transformed into an exuberant city while maintaining its strong can-do attitude, small-town flavor, and distinct cowboy flair. Trinity Park and Forest Park created havens for family recreation. The Fort Worth Zoo, opened in 1909 with nothing more than one lion, two bear cubs, an alligator, a coyote, a peacock, and a few rabbits, had expanded with many more animals, including monkeys, sea lions, and reptiles in herpetarium. The stock show and rodeo moved from the stockyard to the Will Rogers Memorial Center’s domed coliseum, the first structure of its kind in the world in 1944, making the event the first indoor rodeo venue in the country. Broadening the cultural opportunities were the museums in the city. The Fort Worth Children’s Museum, which became the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History when Parker was six years old, housed the Noble Planetarium (named after Charlie Mary Noble), a delightful experience for any child. When Parker turned ten, the respected Kimball Art Museum opened its doors. Rounding out the city’s offerings was the Fort Worth Art-Museum Center (now known as the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth), the oldest art museum in the state of Texas, chartered seventy years before Parker’s birth.
The impetus for the expansion of the city was the opening of the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport in 1972. It stimulated the arrival of many corporate entities at Fort Worth, including American Airlines.
Downtown during Parker’s teenage years was transformed into a bustling city center. The Tandy Corporation, the RadioShack company, built two tall office towers with an ice rink between the two buildings. The Bass family built the first hotel constructed downtown since World War One, added two forty-story office buildings, and developed Sundance Square. The Woodbine corporation bought the Hotel Texas, where Kennedy spoke on the last day of his life, gutted it, and renovated it, creating a fresh, vital showcase for tourists and visitors to the city.
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Parker’s home life wasn’t as consistently upbeat as his surroundings. His father’s alcoholism created a fragile atmosphere for the family where unpredictability was the norm.
Some blemishes existed beneath the surface of his hometown, too, subverting the sense of harmony in the community in the early sixties. Although race relations in Fort Worth were far more civil than in neighboring Dallas, problems still arose when school integration became the law of the land. Two college preparatory schools were created from this conflict: Fort Worth Country Day School and Trinity Valley School. From the start, their high academic standards attracted children from economically advantaged families, but the birth of these schools was clearly instigated by a desire to avoid the presence of minorities in the public schools.
Parker and his brother both attended Fort Worth Country Day School more than a decade after its formation, at a time when the racist origins had already faded away in public memory.
By the time Eddie gave up drinking and joined the North 40 chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous, the negative impact of his behavior had already imprinted on the character of his sons. Eddie rebuilt his life, becoming active in the Steeplechase Club and the River Crest Country Club in Fort Worth and the Boston Club, a gentlemen’s club since 1840, and Lake Shore Club in New Orleans. He also served as “The Grand Claw” of the Athenian Literary and Crustacean Society.
Parker, his childhood marked by his father’s erratic behavior, appeared determined not to follow his father’s example. He charted a path in an entirely different direction.
CHAPTER 5
Fort Worth Country Day School was growing physically as well in reputation while the Schenecker brothers were in attendance—from the time Edmund enrolled until Parker graduated, there was constantly at least one major building or annex project under way. Parker performed well academically and excelled on the track team as a hurdler. He graduated in the Class of 1980.
In his senior year, Parker selected Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, to be his institution of higher education. He enrolled in the ROTC program, adding another layer of responsibility to his course studies.
The venerable liberal arts undergraduate school was steeped in history and tradition. It was named Washington College in honor of General and President George Washington after he gave its first major endowment in 1796, literally saving the school from collapse. In 1865, the Board of Trustees unanimously elected General Robert E. Lee as president of their college. He was flattered as he considered the job offer but had some trepidation about accepting it. He was concerned that his leadership of the Confederate army
“might draw upon the College a feeling of hostility. I think it the duty of every citizen in the present condition of the Country, to do all in his power to aid in the restoration of peace and harmony.” The board eagerly awaited his decision. To their delight, he delivered it in person, riding into town on his horse Traveler to accept the position.
Within days of Lee’s death in 1870, the trustees voted to change the name of the school to Washington and Lee University. Lee’s contribution to the culture of the school went far beyond the name, though. Numerous changes occurred under his watch. The Lexington Law School was incorporated into the college; construction of the chapel that would bear his name got under way; the traditional curriculum of uniform studies for all was abandoned in favor of a departmental system where students could elect their own course of study; and the first journalism instruction at any college in the world was established under his leadership.
These changes made a significant impact on the culture of the campus, but they paled in comparison to the single most influential contribution he made to the university—one that no one else had matched before or since. He established Washington and Lee’s signature honor system when he said, “We have but one rule here and it is that every student must be a gentleman.” With those words, honor became the moral cornerstone of the school. The Virginia Military Institute and the University of Virginia had honor systems, too, but they had codified theirs with a long list of regulations regarding behavior and a multiplicity of possible punishments.
At Washington and Lee, their code called upon the student body to determine the definition of an honor violation and to administer the one punishment they could impose on violators: expulsion. Lee’s system created an atmosphere of trust at the school. Professors accepted a student’s word without question, assuming that they all took their incoming vow to act honorably in all academic and nonacademic endeavors to heart.
Because of this environment, most exams were self-scheduled. Professors frequently assigned take-home, closed-book finals with an explicit trust that the students were being honest when they pledged that they had not received any unacknowledged aid. Parker gained a strong basis of ideals to guide him through his professional and personal life in his years at Washington and Lee.
That was not all Parker took from the experience. The school’s yearbook was called The Calyx, the name of a collection of sepals in a flower, symbolizing “sweetness and loveliness.” He’d remember this title years later when it was time to decide on a name for his oldest child.
When Parker entered the university in the fall of 1980, the student body surpassed sixteen hundred members. The sitting university president, Robert E. R. Huntley, was the only alumnus in the twentieth century inaugurated to this position. During his service prior to Parker’s arrival, the first African Americans graduated from Washington and Lee and the first women were admitted to the School of Law. The undergraduate body remained male only until the year after Parker moved away from Lexington.
Classmate Eric Storey said Washington and Lee “is a small school and everyone knows everyone else. Everyone was Parker’s friend. He was the true gentleman that we all aspired to be. He kept real balance in his life.”
In demonstration of the latter, Parker complemented his diligence in academic studies by playing linebacker on the football team. But his final year was marred by tragedy. On April 11, the Phi Gamma Delta House at Preston Street and Jackson Avenue caught on fire. One student died in the blaze. The death had a strong impact on everyone in the school, including Parker. Reminders of mortality sat uneasy on the minds of anyone that young.
Less than two months later, the Class of 1984 bid farewell to the campus. Parker graduated cum laude with a degree in French and as a Distinguished Military Graduate. For his work in ROTC he also received the Military Order of the World Wars award and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in army intelligence.
CHAPTER 6
After graduating from W and L, Parker went into the army’s Officer Training Program at Fort Huachuca, the prestigious Arizona facility that serves as the army’s intelligence center and the Eleventh Military Intelligence Brigade. The base bore historical significance because it was the unit charged with protecting the Mexican border from the threat of the Chiricahua Apaches led by Geronimo from 1858 to 1886. It was also the headquarters for the Tenth Calvary Regiment, the only African-American unit under American command that fought the Germans during World War One.
The fort abutted the town of Sierra Vista, Arizona, in Cochise County, near Tombstone and just five miles north of the Mexican border. It was an area of stark natural beauty featuring mountains, desert, and, surprisingly, a spot of wetlands. The closest city of any size was Tucson—an hour and a half away.
Sierra Vista was known as the Hummingbird Capital of the United States because of the fourteen species of the tiny, captivating bird living in the nearby Ramsey Canyon. At an elevation of 4,625 feet, it had nearly ideal weather with an average high of seventy-five degrees and an average low of fifty.
From there, First Lieutenant Parker Schenecker reported to duty in Munich, Germany, in 1986, as the aide to Army and Air Force Exchange Service Commander Brigadier General E. B. Leedy. Schenecker was serving in this position when he met Sergeant Julie Powers.
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Munich was the heart of Bavarian Germany and the birthplace of the Nazi Party. The city was 70 percent destroyed during World War Two, but by the time international athletes and the press arrived there for the 1972 Summer Olympics the restoration was complete, with special attention given to restoring historic areas and modernizing infrastructure.
That prominent event earned the city another historical black eye. The 1972 Munich Olympic Games were in their second week of exuberant competition on September 5. At 4:30 that morning while the athletes slept, eight members of the terrorist group Black September scaled a high chain-link fence around the Olympic Village and stole keys to rooms occupied by participants from Israel.
The terrorists, wearing track suits and carrying duffel bags packed with assault rifles, pistols, and grenades, burst into the rooms, killing a coach and a weight lifter and taking nine others hostage. They demanded safe passage to Egypt for 234 prisoners—predominately Palestinians—detained in Israeli jails as well as the founders of the Red Army Faction held in German penitentiaries.
After negotiations provided transportation to an airfield, a rescue attempt planned there failed. As a result, all remaining nine Israeli coaches and athletes, a West German police officer, and five of the eight members of Black September were shot dead.
Bavaria, however, had more to offer than dark notes in history. It is surrounded by the great natural beauty of mountains and gorges with waterfalls; stunning palaces and romantic castles; a Benedictine monastery with the area’s most loved beer gardens; and an unparalleled calendar of festivals from the world-renowned Oktoberfest in the fall to the Strong Beer Festival in the spring. It is a land of lederhosen, dirndls, and lots and lots of beer.
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While stationed in Munich, Parker was responsible for the bidirectional flow of information between the commander and his subordinate military units and managed family support programs and human resources efficiency. Love was in the air when volleyball brought Julie and Parker together in 1987. Julie was the coach of the men’s team, and when Parker signed up to participate it brought him into Julie’s orbit.
Sharing common interests and goals, they were drawn to each other and began to date. Parker told People: “The more time we spent around each other, the more we fell in love.”
For the young army officer and the enlisted translator who specialized in Russian, the posting in Germany was a chance to launch great careers. In the late 1980s, the Cold War was still going strong. The Berlin Wall still divided Germany, the teetering Soviet Union was still a powerful adversary, and the U.S. military intelligence operations were focused in West Germany.
Parker remained in Munich but wa
s transferred to the Sixty-Sixth Military Intelligence, a group whose primary mission was to conduct counterintelligence operations. He served as commander of the HHC (Headquarters and Headquarters Company), a military unit by definition and practice that ranged in size from 85 to 225 soldiers, under Executive Officer Greg Zellmer.
Parker developed and managed training and life support programs for headquarters personnel; provided food service, billeting, supply, and maintenance support; and shouldered the responsibility for internal morale and discipline programs for the theater troops.
Timothy G. Fredrickson, a former army Slavic linguist who served with Julie and Parker, described their unit as “a group of the elite of the elite.” The unit, located in a Cold War hot spot where defectors and other personnel assets were abundant, “was the only place in the entire U.S. Army an interrogator could do his job on a daily basis.”
Paul Muehlmann, a retired army intelligence officer who served with Parker and Julie during this period of time, said, “We played volleyball together for the Munich military team and I have very fond memories of both of them. Parker was an outstanding young officer.”
CHAPTER 7
In 1990, the army sent Parker back to Fort Huachuca as an instructor and the executive officer of his brigade. His relationship with Julie survived the separation. The time apart was not easy for Julie. She was diagnosed with depression in 1992 and treated with medication by a psychiatrist. Even after Parker’s return to Munich, she did not inform him of this illness. She saved her secret until after they were married.
Julie and Parker grew their relationship until it was time to make a deeper commitment. When they were ready to take the next step, the Schenecker and Powers families gathered together in New Orleans, on October 10, 1992, at the historic 140-year-old Trinity Episcopal Church on the corner of Jackson and Plaquemines Streets, at the nexus of the Uptown and Garden Districts. Trinity is one of the more noteworthy houses of worship in New Orleans, and its ornate Gothic/Norman splendor with breathtaking architectural detail welcomes attendees into the interior, where vaulted ceilings added a formality and sense of permanence to the exchange of vows. As fading light drifted through elaborate stained-glass windows, Parker and Julie were wed in a six o’clock service. Afterwards, the new couple celebrated with guests at the New Orleans Country Club, best known for its Robert Weed–designed golf course.