Sir Edmund Fairchild met me in a corridor of Buckingham Palace, his bearing having the same quality as my grandfather’s, the uprightness of men who have spent their lives in proximity to things that require it. He told me my grandfather had commanded a joint American-British operation during the Cold War that had prevented an outcome that Sir Edmund described, with remarkable restraint, as rather disastrous. Few people knew the operation had existed. Fewer still knew what it had cost. My grandfather had been offered a personal commendation by the Queen herself and had declined it.
I asked why.
Sir Edmund said he had requested that the recognition be deferred.
He gestured to a small leather case on a nearby table. It bore both the Union Jack and the American eagle. Inside was a sealed envelope, a medal, and a letter in my grandfather’s handwriting, the neat military block letters I knew from the birthday cards he sent every year without fail.
He wrote that he had declined his honor so that one day it could mean something greater. He wrote that if I was reading this, I had earned it, not by rank but by service. He asked me to deliver the medal where it belonged and wrote that the Queen would understand.
