Stationed For Good ... In Moscow. Vladimir JD McMillin
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“What God does is only for the better.” Was this better, what had happened to her and John?
“I will do everything possible for my family to be happy,” she thought. That was her moment of truth.
The next day Andrei invited her to walk in the nearby park where Galina loved to spend her free time when she was a little girl. He showed her a photograph of young man.
“Do you recognize him?” Andrei asked Galina. “He’s always at American House parties. I don’t think he’s a good dancer, but he’s always there. He’s a sergeant in the U.S. Army. His name is James Myron McMillin. He is of great interest to us. Do whatever you need to do, but we need proprietary information from him.”
Galina remembered him. Everybody at American House called him Jimmy, and he never missed the weekend parties. Andrei was right; Galina never saw him dancing or drinking alcohol. But Galina had noticed him. He drank Coca-Cola. He always stood in the corner, trying not to draw attention to himself. He swayed his head exactly to the beat of the music. He didn’t appeal to Galina—he had a poor complexion and black curly hair that was too long. He was skinny but strongly built; he looked like an athlete. Although she did not immediately think he was handsome, Galina liked his athletic appearance.
Andrei watched Galina carefully. “What are you thinking about? Do you remember him? He’s not a pretty one like many of the other Americans, but it doesn’t matter. Consider it your assignment. If everything goes smoothly, if you do your job well, it will change your life. Please, no more crazy stunts which could destroy your life and the lives of your relatives. You’re lucky that we can forget your stupid affair with Biconish.
“From now on you will report to me about everything that happens between you and this man, Jimmy. You must start to date him on a regular basis, every day. Take him to parks, museums, the circus—they all like the Moscow circus. Invite him to your apartment. Introduce him to your parents. Don’t tell him that your father is working for the secret service. I think he won’t like it.” Andrei grinned with a rather leering smile, yet his tone softened again.
“You can even stay in his room sometimes at American House. You see we let you do a lot of things. Do you job properly and everybody will be happy. Do you understand? We need this guy! Here is my phone number. If you have an emergency, call me immediately. I will talk to you later about your progress.” It gave him pleasure that he would be able to keep watch over Galina and gave Andrei a satisfaction that he didn’t quite understand himself.
As Andrei left, Galina resigned herself, careful not to show her fear and knowing that from now her every step would be watched by these men. She didn’t pay much attention to his phrase “if you do your job well, it will change your life.” Much later, Galina saw these words as a prophecy.
Chapter 3
James Myron McMillin, Jr. was born in a military family in February 1927 in the capitol of the United States, Washington, D.C. His father, James Myron Sr. was a career officer in the U.S. Army, graduate of West Point Academy. A year after James’ birth, his mother Everett had another child, his sister Patricia. It was a close family.
Discipline was a priority in the family but they had plenty of fun together as well. James remembered when he was four years old his dad taught him to play tennis, followed by basketball and then golf. That was the favorite game in the family. Every Sunday after church, everybody was on the golf course. They were disappointed when the weather didn’t cooperate for their Sunday game.
As McMillin Sr. was in the Army, the family was constantly on the move. James Jr.—everybody in his family called him Jimmy—started elementary school in Washington, continued in San Francisco, then San Diego, Honolulu, and the last year of high school in Boulder, Colorado. Their favorite move was to Honolulu. When his dad received his appointment there in 1939, the whole family was excited about it. At that time Hawaii wasn’t a state but it had the largest American military base. It was a big privilege for those in the military to serve there.
“The weather there is perfect almost all year,” Jimmy told his parents nearly every day when he found out they were moving to Pearl Harbor. “We can play golf every day and the weather won’t interfere with our game.” His young heart couldn’t imagine anything more disruptive than that.
At the end of 1941, James Sr. was made Colonel. He and Everett listened to the news on the radio with concern. The situation in the world was ugly with war in Europe; the Germans occupied almost half of the continent and were now close to the Russian capitol. America was in coalition with England and Russia, and was sending food and ammunition to their partners. But there was also Japan, who had close ties with Nazi Germany, and who wanted to control the whole of East Asia. Japanese troops already controlled almost every country in the region. Col. McMillin heard on the radio that President Roosevelt had appealed to the Emperor of Japan for peace. There was no reply.
Col. McMillin thought that probably war was imminent, but his gut feeling was that Japan, inspired by German success, would attack; but when and where would it happen?
Early in the morning on Sunday, December 7, 1941, the Japanese attack force, six carriers with 423 planes, approached Hawaii. At 6:00 a.m. the first attack wave of 183 Japanese planes took off from carriers 200 miles away from Pearl Harbor and headed for the Americans’ Pacific fleet.
Later Col. McMillin found out that if not for the mistake of one officer, whom he knew well, thousands of lives of American soldiers could have been saved. This officer disregarded reports that Japanese bombers were on their way to Pearl Harbor. He thought for sure that they were American B-17s coming from the U.S. coast.
At 7:00 a.m. the McMillin family was awakened by an enormous blast.
“What was that?” asked Jimmy. “An earthquake?”
“I don’t think so,” Col. McMillin said. “I think we’ve been attacked.”
The blasts continued one after another.
“All of you should immediately move to the shelter,” McMillin Sr. said with a commanding voice. All the barracks had basements that doubled as bomb shelters. “We cannot lose a second or we’ll be killed.”
After he helped them move into the basement, he jumped in his jeep and by 7:30 a.m. was at the Pearl Harbor command.
The building was in chaos. The attack was a complete surprise to everyone. Bombs, hundreds of them, were targeted at airfields and battleships. The attack lasted for almost three hours. The Americans lost 2,335 servicemen and 63 civilians in the three-hour attack. The majority of men lost were aboard the Battleship USS Arizona; a 1,760-pound air bomb penetrated the forward magazine, causing catastrophic explosions. The Japanese lost about thirty planes.
The McMillins were as shocked as everybody else by these events. Patricia, who was thirteen, cried for hours. Jimmy sat motionlessly. His mom wrote in a letter to her sister that she saw grey hairs on her fourteen-year-old son’s head.
James McMillin Sr. came home that day only for a minute to tell his family that they should pack their things right away. The military command had decided to evacuate the civilians from Pearl Harbor.
“The bus is already waiting for you,” he said. “You will go to the other side of the island. There is a little airport there. The plane will take you to San Francisco. You will stay there for a while. I will be here until the next orders. Good-bye and remember I love you all.”
The family was reunited only after the end of the war. Col. McMillin fought against Japan on many of different islands of the Pacific Ocean. He spent most of the time in the Philippines, where he was wounded. After his injury, he came back to the United States and rejoined his family. In 1944 the family moved from San Francisco to Boulder, Colorado, where Jimmy graduated from high school and started college.
McMillin Sr. didn’t stay in Boulder long. He was soon appointed a commanding officer of the Huntsville arsenal. Jimmy enjoyed his last year in high school. He was on the football team, and they won almost all their games. Jimmy beat the school’s record for scoring touchdowns. He was also pretty