by Dennis Foley
He couldn’t understand why the deaths of LRPs had hit him so hard. He’d experienced KIAs while he was running a rifle platoon, and there was Lucas. But the loss of a team felt like a weight resting on his chest. He rolled the remaining scotch around in the bottom of the cup and tried to shake off the feeling. It wouldn’t go. He lit a cigarette and put out the one that was in his C-ration can ashtray. Exhaling, he decided to move on to something productive—something to take his mind off the bodies on the pallets and the revolting smell of the DDT.
He remembered the letter that he had started in the States. He turned on the light and found it in his AWOL bag. Spreading it out on the desk, he moved his drink and the bottle to a convenient place on the desk and picked up where the letter ended.
He had already written about how he felt about the visit and their marriage plans, so he added how lucky he felt to have her in his life and said he couldn’t wait to see her again. He told her lots, but he told her nothing. He didn’t tell her about the bodies of the dead LRPs that he had helped identify. He didn’t tell her about the bloody, stinking personal effects that he had to help inventory. He didn’t tell her that he had pains in his gut that wouldn’t go away—even with the scotch.
By not telling her the whole truth, he knew he was lying to her. It had been that way with every letter he had written to her and his parents. So, writing was something he kept putting off because he felt so uncomfortable about lying—by omission—all the time. Then he felt guilty about not writing enough. He poured another drink and thought about writing something else—also harmless. But even that made him feel worse. Taking another drink, he tried to rationalize that bad news was not going to help Susan feel any better about anything. Lying to her was in her best interest and not his. He didn’t have a choice. He wanted to protect her. He finished the drink and poured still another.
Finally, feeling the booze, he sat up straight and told himself to shape up. Write something bright, something positive, he told himself.
Picking up his pen, he added that he was sorry that they had not gotten around to discussing the particulars. He would probably be getting alert orders soon, letting him know where he was going when he returned to the States. The rumor mill had it that all returning infantry officers were being sent to training assignments—rather than combat units.
He worried about what that would mean to her career. Did she still want to be a writer? He was sorry that he had not asked her.
There was a knock at the door. “Sir, you in there?” Theodore said from outside.
“Yo, come in,” Hollister answered.
Theodore stepped in, snatched his hat from his head and saluted. “Sir, I’m CQ runner tonight. I was sent over here to get you. The Old Man wants to talk to you.”
Hollister looked at him, a little puzzled.
Theodore picked up on it. “Oh, they tried to call you from the orderly room but your Lima-Lima is out. I’m supposed to check it at this end and then follow the WD-1 back to the switch if the phone looks okay.”
Hollister turned over his letter to Susan and moved away from the desk to give Theodore room to fuss with the field phone.
“Know what it’s about?”
Theodore moved over to the phone and replied, “No sir, I don’t. I just came back from getting some coffee and was told to come get you. Didn’t seem to be any kind of flap, just said, ‘Ask him to come see me.’”
Theodore spotted the picture of Ly, the dead VC lieutenant’s wife, leaning up against the canvas carrier of the phone. “Hey, sir! Where’d you get this picture of this good-lookin’ gook honey with the big tits?”
Hollister was just putting on his shirt, and suddenly his blood pressure spiked. “What?! Put that down! What in hell’s wrong with you, Theodore?”
Startled, Theodore spun around. He wasn’t sure what he had done, but he automatically snapped to attention.
“That came off a VC that we killed. Probably somebody’s wife, and now somebody’s widow, and you come in here and talk shit about her like she’s somebody’s whore! How’d you like it if someone found your girlfriend’s picture on your dead-ass body and started talking shit about it? Huh?”
Theodore started to sputter with no answer.
“Goddammit, Theodore—why is it you have to be running your fucking mouth all the time?” He caught himself getting far too angry and knew that he had to cut it right there before he went too far. “Get your sorry ass out of here, soldier.”
Theodore mumbled yessir, saluted, and bolted through the door, not waiting for a return.
Hollister picked up Ly’s photo and held it in his hand. He thought of Susan, and Lucas’s Cindy, and the photos of the girlfriends and wives in the wallets of the dead LRPs at the GRU.
He realized that he had had too much to drink and had overreacted to Theodore. He threw the picture across the room, sat down on his cot, and dropped his face into his hands. He wanted to make the pain go away, but had no idea how. After a minute he whispered to himself, “Nice, Hollister. Really fucking nice. What an asshole!”
Then he remembered that he had to go see Captain Michaelson. Getting to his feet, he buttoned his shirt and looked for his hat. It was on the field table next to the letter and the almost empty bottle of Johnnie Walker.
He picked up the letter and tried to decide what to do with it. There wasn’t time to finish it, but he wanted to get it off. He pulled out his pen and added, Honey, got to run. Boss needs to see me. Can’t finish now. Want to mail. Know that I love you, Jim.
He stuffed the letter into the envelope and licked the flap. Like most envelopes, it wouldn’t stay closed in the humid weather. He put it in his pocket till he could get some tape. Then his eyes fell on the bottle. He thought about having a short one. No, he wouldn’t.
He walked out into the night.
Hollister passed through the mess hall on the way to the orderly room. Sergeant Kendrick saw him coming and was about to holler “at ease,” but Hollister raised his palm to stop him. He then turned to the pot of simmering coffee and poured a cupful. “Thanks—needed a cup.” He wondered if Kendrick could tell that he’d had one too many scotches. He wondered if the Old Man would.
In the orderly room Hollister saw Easy hunched over a stack of paperwork. “Midnight oil, Top?”
Easy looked up and quickly snatched his glasses from his face. He was vain about wearing them, but they weren’t an option when he was trying to read. He got up, dropping the glasses on the paperwork. “Casualty Feeder Reports on the KIAs. I’d rather have my ass kicked in a rock fight, Lieutenant!”
“I know what you mean. The boss in? He wanted to see me.”
Easy stepped around his desk, slipped into Michaelson’s office, and then stepped back out. “Yessir, he’s free. Go right on in.”
Hollister realized that he still had the coffee cup in his hand. He quickly put it down on top of a file cabinet and entered Michaelson’s office.
The captain was leaning on the window ledge, looking out into the dark, when Hollister entered. “You wanted to see me, sir?”
“Yeah, sit down, Jim. We have to talk about a few things. You want some coffee?”
Hollister wondered if he had slurred his words. Did the Old Man know he had had too much to drink? “Yessir … I’d like that.”
Captain Michaelson turned around and yelled, “Bernard!”
“I know—coffee, sir,” Bernard yelled back, having just walked into the orderly room.
Michaelson looked over to Hollister. “So … how ya doing, Ranger?”
“I have to admit it got to me, sir. Hell, I just now ripped Theodore’s head off and shoved it down his throat over nothing.”
Michaelson sat down and leaned back in his chair. “Well, you’ll have plenty of time to make up with young Mr. Theodore.”
Hollister looked up for a sign of the real purpose of the meeting.
“Jim, we have to make some assignment changes around here and we have some big training holes th
at we have to fill.”
Bernard slipped in, put down the two cups of coffee, and silently stepped back out.
Michaelson thanked Bernard, took a sip, put the cup down, and picked up a piece of lined paper with notes on it. “We’ve been hurt bad in the last couple of weeks. The hardest part after the losses is the realization that we are at fault for some of the KIAs. We have either not trained these folks well enough or we are overestimating our own survivability. Either way, we have to get on it, and now!”
“Agreed,” Hollister said.
“I’m hurting for junior officers. I’m not long for this job, and you’ll be getting seriously short in no time. First platoon has no officer and is missing a team and a half. It’s gonna call for some buckling down and some heartbreakin’ reassignments.”
“Where do we start, sir?”
“I’m going to have to peel away some of the most experienced people to rebuild the first platoon. I need to find a replacement for Lucas and one for you.”
Hollister pressed his ballpoint against his notebook to jot down details. “Okay, sir. What’ll it take?”
“Until further notice we will consolidate the first and second platoons for training. Eventually, you’ll be getting two new lieutenants to break in. And I want to spread you around to cover for Captain Shaw.”
“Is Captain Shaw going somewhere?”
“No, I’m grooming him to replace me. That means he needs you to cover for him now and then. So, you’ll be running a larger platoon and helping Shaw. It’ll be good for you.”
Raising his eyebrows, Hollister jotted down a few notes to himself.
“Tomorrow morning I want you to come to me with an accelerated training plan and recommendations on how to cover our leadership losses.”
Standing to stretch, Michaelson absentmindedly unsnapped the clasp on his Rolex and rubbed the skin under it. “Questions?”
Hollister got to his feet and shook his head. “No sir. I don’t think I’ll have any until I get into this. But when I do, I’ll bring ’em to you.”
“Count on it. Now, go get some chow and some rest.” Hollister saluted, “I will, sir. But first I’ve got some things to do. Good night, sir.”
“Theodore!” someone yelled, waking the sleeping soldier.
“What? Who’s that?” Theodore said, pulling the poncho liner from his face.
Bernard closed the screen door to the hooch behind him. “Hey, man. Lieutenant Hollister wants to see you over t’his hooch—right fuckin’ now!”
CHAPTER 15
HOLLISTER FLIPPED HIS FOOTLOCKER open; the lid came to rest in an upright position against his cot. A photo of Susan on the inside of the lid caught his attention long enough for him to steal a moment just to drink her in. He was angry that he was rattled and acting unlike himself. He had always thought that there were other junior officers who were better at many of the skills demanded of a platoon leader, but his best accomplishment was his ability to control himself, his emotions and behavior. Reserve and control were two of the features of the NCO trainers at the Seventh Army NCO Academy that most characterized them as professionals. They could rip a soldier apart without raising their voices or resorting to bullying. They never seemed to sweat, worry, or rattle.
He recognized the trait in a leader, but hadn’t mastered it. If he wanted to lie to himself, he would blame his outburst at Theodore on the deaths or the visit back home or the scotch. But he wouldn’t do that. He blamed himself.
He remembered how quickly he understood the value of self-control while he was in OCS. His experience with the NCOs in Germany helped it all come together for him while he was a candidate. Many of his classmates just didn’t get it. And it was a cause for dismissal for several of them.
But while Hollister recognized the importance, the tactical officers in OCS gave him a hard time about controlling his emotions. They often did things to get under his skin—to make him lose control. After plenty of practice, he changed self-control from a problem to a small success. Hollister agreed with his tac officer when he’d been asked, “What good are you to anyone if you can’t be counted on to be consistent?”
Enough, he told himself as he reached out and touched the tips of his fingers to Susan’s picture. Then he looked for another ballpoint pen. His had started to skip earlier in Captain Michaelson’s office.
The tray was filled with the odds and ends that collect in a soldier’s footlocker—insignia, soap, grease pencils, stationery, bootlaces, the pen he was looking for, and name tapes. Name tapes! He remembered the name tape that he had taken from Lucas’s uniform. He closed the footlocker and went to Lucas’s old wall locker.
Inside, he found the curled and faded name tape lying on the shelf. Picking it up, he picked the short bits of thread that extended from its border as he looked around for some way to nail it up in the hooch. On the locker door he found two different color thumbtacks that still had the corner scraps from some long discarded calendar under them.
He tacked the name tape to a horizontal two-by-four on the hooch frame so he could see it every time he sat at the desk. Then he looked across the room and found Ly’s picture on the floor. He picked it up, walked back to the upright and tucked the bottom edge of it behind Lucas’s name tape.
He had found the place and the purpose for Lucas’s name tape. He would use it to prod himself. He wanted to make sure that when he got tired and felt that he had done enough—enough training, checking, and rechecking—he would remember Lucas. He wanted others to know that Lucas had once lived in that hooch, and he wanted to think that Lucas’s death would help him remember his job.
But Ly’s photo was the other side of the same notion. Something told him that it would be easy to get so angry and so vindictive that almost anything could be justified in the name of payback. Ly’s photo would keep him from confusing his motivation to train his people to prevent any more useless deaths with revenge. There were plenty of things that Hollister was unsure about, but his gut told him that revenge would be a dangerous and very seductive motivation to give in to. The name tape and the picture would help keep things in perspective.
There was a knock on the hooch frame. “Lieutenant Hollister? You wanted to see me, sir?”
“Come in.”
Obviously unsure about how to act after getting his heels locked earlier, Theodore entered. He stopped just inside the hooch and waited for Hollister to set the tone.
“Spin that footlocker around and sit. I want to talk to vou.”
Recognizing that he still had it on, Theodore snatched his floppy LRP hat from his head and sat down.
“I wanted to tell you that I was out of line earlier,” Hollister said. “I jumped on you for no reason. I’m not saying what I felt was wrong. I just did it wrong. I overreacted, and you were in the impact area.”
“That’s okay, sir. We all get, you know … off days,” Theodore said, bunching his hat up and releasing it.
“I wanted you to know that I’m not angry with you, and I wanted to talk to you about tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes, we’re going to have to make some serious changes in the platoon, and I have to lean on all the old-timers. You’ve been here long enough to be one. I’m going to be recommending some personnel changes to the Old Man and I need some details.
“First thing after chow tomorrow, I want you to get over to the orderly room and get me the DEROS dates on everyone in first platoon.”
He pulled out his notebook and flipped it open. Tearing out two pages, he handed them to Theodore. “And combine the list with this one from our platoon. I’d normally ask the first sergeant or Bernard to do this, but they’re going to be asshole deep in paperwork for days. So, try to get the info without getting in their way.”
“No problem, sir. I’ll get on it first thing.”
Pleased, Hollister stood up. “Good, and I’m going to be leaning on you to help out on training. We’re going to turn up the heat, and I want you to be o
ne of the demolitions instructors. So, break the books before we get to it. Okay?”
“Yessir. Airborne!” He waited for Hollister to return his salute and then quickly stepped through the doorway. Just outside he stopped and turned back. “Ah, sir. About the picture thing—”
“I know. G’night, Theodore.”
“Goodnight, sir.”
The scotch and the cigarettes hurt Hollister’s body as he ran alongside the combined platoon made up of his teams and the remaining members of Lucas’s platoon. It was policy that teams took physical training every morning when they were back at the base camp and not preparing for a mission. There had always been an energetic competition between the two platoons to see which one could do the most PT, make the most noise running, and turn out the largest number of LRPs for morning runs. Those days were over until the decimated first platoon could be rebuilt.
As the formation ran past the billeting area of the Brigade’s Military Police company, it was SOP to pick up the stride, yell louder, and shout insults to the MPs. This always provoked the MPs to hurl back lots of insults from the safety of their sandbagged hooches.
The LRPs’ attitude amused Hollister. He was sure that there were few in uniform who could match the spontaneous bravado of the Vietnam LRP. And his LRPs were no slouches at expanding the reputation.
PT gave way to breakfast and then more training. They spent the first few days after the loss of the LRP team organizing for training. Hollister came up with a list of subjects that he wanted taught, and then prioritized them, knowing that he would never get it all done.
He tapped the more experienced to act as assistant instructors and coordinated the training needs with Captain Shaw and Sergeant Marrietta. They took care of the necessary transportation, ammunition, training aids, and aircraft that Hollister needed.
Hollister would have liked to have had more time, but there was never enough. Captain Michaelson had warned him that the training time would be short. Michaelson was able to convince Brigade to let the detachment stand down for ten days to go to a full training schedule without any combat operations or administrative details to keep the members of the detachment from attending training. He also insisted that every member of the detachment attend training every day and that the pilots and artillerymen who supported the unit do the same. And finally, he ordered that each day start and end with physical training.