A Long Way Back

by J. Everett Prewitt

“Colonel. Remember me? Anthony Andrews from the Washington Post?”

  Bertram squinted at Anthony before his eyes widened with recognition. “Yeah. Yeah. I remember. You shot some VC, saved some lives.”

  Anthony grimaced. “Yeah”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “My editor thought since I knew you, I could interview you about what happened.”

  “Not much to it.”

  Anthony waited for Bertram to continue.

  Bertram scratched his unshaven jaw. “People were still talking about you killing those gooks long after you left.”

  “Just trying to stay alive.”

  “Ain’t we all?”

  “How are they treating you? You need anything?”

  “How about a Huey and an extraction team?”

  Anthony watched as a forced smile flashed across Bertram’s face.

  “So tell me what happened for you to be here.”

  Bertram looked down for a while before looking up at Anthony.

  “Two tours.”

  “Two tours?”

  “Yeah. A lot of marriages have problems after one, but two tours, and a lot of them seriously start to unravel, you know?”

  “So your wife was resentful of you being away for so long?”

  “You could say that.”

  “How’d you find out?”

  “Trailed her, as I would any enemy. I didn’t believe it at first. Heidi came from a good, church-going family,” Bertram said, snorting, “but I guess that don’t count for much these days.” He stared at the wall behind Anthony.

  Bertram looked back at Anthony. “How’s your marriage, Anthony?”

  “Huh?” The question caught Anthony off guard.

  “You’re married if I remember.”

  “Yeah. Some problems, but I think they’re worked out now.”

  “Well, watch her. They can’t be trusted.”

  “So, Colonel, why shoot her? Why fire on the other guys?” Anthony asked, ignoring Bertram’s comment.

  Bertram scratched his jaw again. “I don’t know. I guess I snapped.”

  “When did you get suspicious?”

  “I went to surprise her when she was supposed to be at Bible study. We’d had this argument, so I bought these roses, just, you know, something to show how much I loved her. She wasn’t at the church, so I got worried, started looking. When she came home, I asked where she’d been, and she told me Bible study.

  “After that I followed her. I caught them two days before I shipped out to Fort Benning. She was supposed to come with me but said she would come later.”

  Bertram’s facial features hardened. Just his lips moved as he continued. “They were at this party at a restaurant outside of town,” he said in a monotonous voice. “I waited until they came out, laughing, holding hands, not a care in the world—her, him, and this other guy—as if they had been doing this for years. I can’t remember much after except I pulled out my forty-five and began shooting.”

  “Did you know the guy Rhyne who was with them?”

  “Seen him around. Never liked him much. Now I know why.”

  The more Bertram talked, the more Anthony wondered. The colonel was already shell-shocked. Was that all it took to kill—coming home to more mental chaos than you could handle when you thought it was behind you?

  Anthony decided to change the subject. “I see you got promoted since we last saw each other.”

  “Yep. And Colonel Bolt, who sent the fifteen men out, remember him?”

  “Sure.”

  “He’s a general now.”

  Anthony’s mouth fell open. “What? How?”

  “It’s a crazy world.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Bertram scratched his knee. “Your soldiers destroyed a major weapons cache.” Bertram chuckled. “It was one of the caches the 1st Cav soldiers were looking for. Bolt and others took credit.”

  Anthony put his hand to his forehead. “Unbelievable.”

  “You tellin’ me.”

  “So, he gets rewarded for being involved in an illegal mission.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time.” Bertram sat up in his seat. “But you really came down to ask me about those soldiers, right?”

  “I can’t lie that it didn’t cross my mind. I’ve been in contact with a few of them.”

  “I figured you would be, eventually. You were bulldog persistent in getting that story.”

  Pit bull, Anthony thought. He liked pit bull better. “You want to tell me what happened, Colonel?”

  “Time’s up,” the guard said as he stood behind Bertram.

  “Okay,” Anthony stood slowly. “You sure you don’t need anything?”

  Bertram gave Anthony a half-smile. “No. Thanks, Anthony. I got everything I need,” as he waved his hands around.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  Chapter 58

  T

  he colonel looked a little better the next day. He had shaved, and his eyes were brighter. Even his speech was sharper.

  “They’ll probably give me the chair for what I did,” Bertram said quietly. “I’ve become okay with that.” He paused. “It’s funny how just a few minutes in your life can dictate your whole future.”

  Anthony nodded. “How well I know, Colonel.”

  “Just like those young men. They shouldn’t have had to go through what they did.”

  “So why did they?”

  Bertram took a deep breath. “Well, first, the black soldiers didn’t initiate the riot. Then to put fifteen of them in the stockade was wrong.”

  “Was Bolt a racist?”

  “I wouldn’t say that. He promoted a black officer and had good rapport with his black troops until the riot. I think he felt betrayed.”

  “That the black troops would fight back instead of lying down and taking it?” Anthony asked. “Sounds like a plantation-owner mentality.”

  “Bolt was also up for promotion. A riot under his watch was detrimental to his advancement.”

  “So, he acted out of anger.”

  “Probably. I wouldn’t have punished those young men like that, though,” Bertram responded.

  “If you felt that way, why didn’t you say anything?”

  Bertram sighed. “The army. Everything is based on ‘go along to get along.’ Officers who challenge their superiors jeopardize their advancement.”

  “So you became a lieutenant colonel because you didn’t?”

  “That, among other factors.”

  “What happened with the fifteen?”

  Bertram bent his head a long while, staring at the floor before looking at Anthony. “The North Vietnamese Army had established some twenty bases along the borders of Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Sihanouk’s regime had weakened by 1969, and the NVA were able to move all types of supplies through Cambodia from the north to the south along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

  “In some areas, they cleared out entire villages so their movements would be undetected. The villagers who resisted leaving, they killed.

  “Even though it was illegal, the top brass decided incursive strikes were necessary to stop the flow of supplies, so we sent small raiding parties into Cambodia to ambush, attack, and disrupt.”

  “What did that have to do with the fifteen soldiers?” Anthony asked.

  “Our raids hadn’t gone well. In a previous foray, the VC wiped out the whole team, and the higher-ups were desperate for a successful mission. The 1st Cavs’s next strike would go in deeper than usual to take out two major storage facilities—one deep into Cambodia and one near Vietnam’s border. We knew there was considerable enemy activity in the area, so Bolt comes up with the idea to send these fifteen soldiers into the area as decoys.”

  “More like sheep let loose in the wolf’s den,” Anthony said.

  “True. As you’ve found out by now, most of these guys were clerks, cooks, and general support. They’d never been in combat. Bolt figured while
Charlie was preoccupied with the fifteen soldiers, our men could complete their mission.

  “When Bolt and Major Tilden from the 1st Cav sent them out June 18th, I guess they had planned to extract them when the operation ended, but a few days later, when someone leaked the 25th had conducted an illegal raid, Bolt, Tilden and their immediate superiors tried to cover it up before it went public.

  “The same day of the leak, the 1st Cav soldiers radioed they were in trouble. You could hear the gunfire and the screams, then silence. Shortly after that, all we heard were Vietnamese voices, so Bolt and Tilden, assuming they’d been wiped out, froze any rescue attempt thinking nobody had made it out alive.”

  “But some of the fifteen did.”

  “Yes, they did.”

  “That’s why all the secrecy when they got back.”

  “Exactly. The careers of Bolt, Tilden, General Wyatt, and a few others were on the line if anyone out of the chain of command found out.”

  “I’m sure. Who found them?” Anthony asked.

  “They found us, ironically enough. Valentine’s company happened to be on a sweep that day.”

  “Why ironic?”

  One of the fifteen had served with Valentine. He had taken choppers out several times before, looking for any survivors, according to logs we found later.”

  “How’d he know about them?”

  “The warrant officer who dropped them into Cambodia was a friend of his.”

  “Nobody stopped Valentine from going out on his own?” Anthony asked.

  “Nobody had a clue. He and Warrant Officer Mitchell were close friends. Somehow they got away with it.”

  “That’s why he was missing during the operation I was on.”

  Bertram leaned back in the chair and nodded. “They went a number of times to the drop location, but finding those men would be comparable to looking for a mouse in a cornfield, yet he continued to look.” Bertram chuckled. “But it was the seven soldiers who ambushed the NVA and saved Valentine’s company’s asses—a hell of a turn of events.”

  Bertram laughed outright. It was the first time Anthony had heard Bertram laugh. “You should have seen Bolt’s face when the word got out seven of the soldiers had returned.”

  “That’s why they were sequestered so quickly.”

  “Yep,” Bertram answered. “I’m sorry for the runaround, Anthony, but we were under strict orders.”

  “I understand.”

  “They presented a monumental problem for him since it was reported they were MIA/KIA. When these guys got back, a lot of paperwork had to be reshuffled.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “So then he declared them AWOL for not reporting back on time even though it was Bolt’s fault they didn’t.” Bertram raised his hands. “You know what else is interesting, though?”

  Anthony waited.

  Bertram grinned. “They were talked about like heroes even among the guys they’d fought in the riot, for saving Valentine’s company and blowing the weapons cache.” The smiled faded as he continued. “So Bolt had to make sure these guys are not only isolated but gotten rid of as quickly as possible. They were discharged immediately with other-than-honorable discharges.”

  “Because they were AWOL?”

  “Yep.”

  “The Inspector General’s office looked into it, but the cover-up was so complete from so many angles, they got frustrated and gave up. Plus, there was a lot of pressure on them from some higher-ups who made them let it go.”

  “What about Valentine?”

  “I’m not sure, but they probably withdrew charges against him for not accompanying his troops on your mission in exchange for his silence.”

  Anthony leaned back. “But what if they received information detailing the incident—the time, place, individuals, and contact information?” Anthony asked.

  “I’d imagine they would reopen the investigation, and I would also imagine the general would be screwed along with a lot of other brass.”

  Anthony gazed at the prison bars. “Good.” He looked down at his notes, “Three last questions.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Someone threw a Coke bottle filled with gasoline through my window with a message that said ‘Forget about it.’ Any ideas?”

  Bertram’s half-smile reappeared. “You know Bolt is a D.C. resident?”

  “No.”

  “He’s got long arms, Anthony. More than likely it was one of his men.”

  Anthony shrugged. If that was true, at least he wouldn’t have to deal with Hanson anymore. “All the men involved got less-than-honorable discharges. One—Ernie Daniels—got a dishonorable discharge. Why?”

  Bertram put a finger to his forehead. “Daniels, Daniels. He worked in headquarters?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah. The bright one. Bolt never liked Daniels. He thought Daniels was too smart for his own sake, and he might have been the one to leak the Cambodian operation. He also suspected Daniels was the reason the 25th’s rosters were missing.”

  “Did he send them?”

  “No.” Bertram scratched his knee. “I did. Evidently you got them.”

  “You?”

  Bertram nodded.

  “Why?”

  “Not the reason you think. Bolt and Tilden needed to be chopped down a notch. They not only screwed over those fifteen and the 1st Cav troops, but they were getting ready to do it again with other soldiers.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “I kid you not. Some within the hierarchy egged them on after the investigation waned. They’d gotten an all-clear signal to try again, and they were about to. It was probably the same people who squelched the Inspector General’s investigation. I didn’t want that to happen, so I sent you the rosters hoping you would blow the cover off things.”

  “Did they do it again?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  Anthony decided not to tell Bertram that Daniels had committed suicide. He was at a loss determining what he would tell Daniels’s sister.

  Anthony checked his notes. “There’s one guy still missing.”

  “I heard.”

  “You still got contacts on the outside?”

  “Yep.”

  “Any info on him?” Anthony asked.

  Bertram scratched his jaw. “Maybe. I’m going to give you the name of an assistant adjutant over there who used to serve under me in the States.”

  Chapter 59

  O

  ctober 30, 1969

  Anthony had called Xavier Warfield after talking to Bertram. “A Colonel Bertram shed a lot of light on what happened to you guys, and I have some information on Sergeant Stinson.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. I’d like to lay out the story to you as I know it, whenever you want to hear it.”

  Warfield called back the next day. “Mr. Andrews? I told the guys you had some information about Sarge. We want to meet.”

  A light drizzle fell. The temperature in Cleveland was about fifty-five degrees. The sun shone through the clouds as if it were fall instead of winter. Even if there had been twelve feet of snow, it would have still been a beautiful day for Anthony.

  Anthony was elated but also nervous to finally be able to meet the seven soldiers. He sat back and watched as the men gathered in the Cory Methodist Church basement early Friday evening, hugging one another while talking in hushed tones as if still in combat mode.

  Anthony watched Casper grab a recoiling Turner and kiss him on his forehead. Bankston arrived last, but as soon as he entered, the men gathered, spread their fingers, closed them, brought their fists together, and whispered “Wolverines!”

  “What was that you did with your hands?” Anthony asked.

  “Something Sarge taught us,” Robinson answered. “The fingers of a hand are the most dangerous when they are closed together. We were the fingers that became a fist.”

  Casper looked down as he remembered the last time he saw Sarge give the fist. It was when Sarge had to
ld Casper to leave him behind. More than four months later, Casper still struggled with obeying Sarge’s last order. If he had disobeyed, would Sarge be with them today or would all of them have been killed instead? He took a deep breath. How could he second-guess a man who had been responsible for their survival? Yet the question still lingered: How do you leave a man like him behind?

  “Where’d you come up with the name?” Anthony asked.

  “When we were at our lowest,” Casper answered, “we named ourselves. Pound for pound, the wolverine is one of the fiercest animals in the forest.”

  “Wolverines!” Casper shouted. “Wolverines!” the men responded.

  Anthony had waited for the men to greet one another before he announced, “I’m sorry to be the one with the bad news, but as I told Mr. Warfield, I asked Colonel Bertram about Sergeant Stinson.”

  The slight wind blowing against the window screen was the only sound in the room.

  “I called the source Colonel Bertram gave me and learned they’ve found Sergeant Stinson’s body.”

  Casper slammed the table with his fist “Damn.”

  “What? And you’re just telling us?” Holland blurted.

  Silence swept the room.

  “I apologize, but I wanted to wait until you guys got settled,” Anthony said.

  “Where’d they find him?” Warfield asked.

  “Outside Firebase Henry.”

  Casper looked at Warfield. “Firebase Henry. That means he’d made it back? He was almost home.”

  Glover scratched his jaw. “How? He was wounded and barely able to walk.”

  “From what I’ve been able to gather, the VC captured Sergeant Stinson in the area near the border of Cambodia and Vietnam. A guerilla prisoner told his interrogators Sarge escaped after killing a guard with a trowel.”

  Glover grunted. “That’s Sarge.”

  “He killed five more with his guard’s weapon after they found he had escaped, but he couldn’t outrun the other captors and apparently was shot down.” Anthony waited as some bowed their heads.

  “The captured guerilla took them to the area where they last saw him. The search team found the body of a black soldier, but it was decomposed beyond recognition. They confirmed his identification by the name on his jacket and his dog tags. The remains were shipped three days ago. His funeral is Saturday.”