Long Range Patrol: A Novel of Vietnam (The Jim Hollister Trilogy Book 1)

by Dennis Foley

  Michaelson gave a cautionary look to his charges, which warned them not to make a fuss or act like country bumpkins at the sight of the sparkling clean and well-appointed dining facility. They all got the message. They would be on their best behavior—well, as good as they could be.

  Inside the mess hall they found a real steam table with a large array of offerings for lunch. The tables had individual chairs and plastic tablecloths. Each chair had a vinyl covering on its back imprinted with the Brigade insignia and slogan.

  Hollister caught Davis’s eye as he was about to make some remark and shook his head to dissuade him. Davis frowned at being stifled.

  Everyone inside was drinking iced tea from real glasses, and their trays were topped with real plates, saucers, and bowls. As fast as a diner sat down, a dining room orderly would take the tray away to allow the diner to place his heaping plates on the covered tabletops.

  Hollister could tell that the LRPs and pilots were on the verge of making a scene over the relative grandeur of the dining facility. It got so bad that he and Davis wouldn’t look at one another for fear that they would break out laughing at the phony elegance that permeated the place.

  The group of outsiders found a large table away from the headquarters rats.

  “What d’ya suppose the redlegs told them?” Hollister asked.

  Captain Shaw tried to wind spaghetti around his fork. “I’d guess they simply gave them a rundown on the delays and gook double-talk they got from Province.”

  “They sure couldn’t tell ’em about firing anything. Maybe they talked about the spiderweb problems in their howitzers,” Davis said sarcastically, tearing apart a roll.

  “Cut ’em some slack,” Captain Michaelson said. “You and I both know that they tried to fire that mission.”

  Davis moved the awful-tasting cold beets to the side of his plate, looked at Captain Michaelson and changed his tone to something more tolerant. “Yessir. I know you’re right. I can’t fault them. But things sure mighta turned out a lot different if they’da stuck their necks out a little.”

  “My guess is that they would have fired without the clearance from Province Headquarters if our people hadn’t been so close to friendly villages,” Hollister said.

  “Friendly?” Captain Shelton said. “Friendly villagers don’t splatter choppers across their front yards!”

  Poking his thumb back toward the investigation tent, Hollister spoke up. “How come there’s no one from Province Headquarters waiting to be questioned?”

  Michaelson looked at Hollister as if he were gazing over the top of bifocals. “You won’t live to be old enough to understand the complexities of Vietnamese political moves, or absence of moves.”

  Each man mumbled some snide remark about the Vietnamese, drawing attention to themselves from the adjacent tables.

  It was the first time Hollister had even spoken to Colonel Lanham, the Brigade Executive Officer. Lanham was seated in the center of the long table flanked by two lieutenant colonels, a major, and a master sergeant. Hollister discovered that he didn’t like Lanham from the moment that he walked into the tent for his turn to be questioned.

  Lanham explained to Hollister that he was presiding over an investigation to determine if there was any wrongdoing in the matter of the fire missions called by Hollister.

  The first words out of the colonel’s mouth pissed Hollister off. The colonel got through his entire canned speech about the purpose of the investigation without ever using the words Province or Vietnamese Army. Hollister could feel his anger growing as Lanham questioned him. He was impatient with the questions, which were so simple and designed to discover nothing troubling. What were the weather conditions? Could you positively identify enemy targets? Were you taking fire at the time?

  Hollister thought that when the questions and answers were strung together, it made the situation sound as if he didn’t really need any supporting artillery fire at all—as if it were a hysterical whim on his part to even call for it.

  It also angered him that he wasn’t given a chance to go into any detail about how threatening he thought the situation was. The questions were posed to get the desired answers—and to discover nothing. When he tried to expand on his answers, the colonel cut him off. In short order he was dismissed without so much as a thank-you.

  Outside, Hollister tried to calm down. He was angry at the tone of the investigation and the obvious attempt to distance anyone in the Brigade from any charges of wrongdoing.

  As he stood there field stripping a cigarette, a jeep rolled up with two familiar faces in it—Wasco and Elliott. Hollister had remembered them fondly as being fair and seemingly hardworking in their investigation of the hamlet leveled many months before.

  “How y’doing, Hollister?” Wasco asked.

  “Fine, sir. What brings you two here from Nha Trang?”

  Wasco pointed toward the tent where Michaelson was still inside being questioned. “We’re a little involved in the investigation.”

  “Whatever happened to the one you were doing on that hamlet that got wasted?” Hollister asked.

  Wasco patted Hollister on the back in a slightly patronizing manner. “Still working on it, son. But we’re closing in on the bad guys on that one.”

  “Well, I hope you can work some of your magic on this one. There’s a Viet colonel that needs someone looking over his shoulder.”

  Wasco and Elliott exchanged knowing looks.

  “Guess we got some bad news for you, partner. That colonel you’re talking about just got himself promoted to brigadier general the other day. He’s in Nha Trang right now, picking out furniture for his new office.”

  “What?! Are you shitting me?” Hollister asked, incredulous. “That fat asshole got promoted? He belongs in jail!”

  “Sorry, but he’s the new Chief of Operations for Military Region Two,” Elliott said.

  “Why him? Why did he get promoted?”

  “He’s got family in high places in Saigon—so the story goes,” Wasco speculated.

  Baffled, Hollister shook his head at the news. He couldn’t believe the turn of events. He thought of Easy and Theodore and the others and what it cost them. He could feel the heat rising and knew his face was flushing.

  “Don’t worry. We’re on the case. He can’t escape an investigation just because he has a new address,” Elliott said.

  There was more that Hollister wanted to know, but the conversation with Wasco and Elliott was interrupted by the yelling coming from inside the tent. Hollister was unable to tell exactly what was being said inside, but was sure that Michaelson was very angry and letting the colonel know it. His tone of voice was way up on the high end of what might be considered insubordinate and disrespectful.

  Everyone outside the tent stopped talking to listen to the noisy discussion going on inside.

  Wasco patted his pockets, looking for a cigar, realized that he must have left them in the jeep and walked back to it.

  Hollister looked at Elliott for some sign. He had a feeling that there was lots more to it than Elliott or Wasco had said.

  “This guy a double agent, a VC in an ARVN uniform?” Hollister asked.

  “’Tween us? I don’t even think he’s that principled. My gut tells me that he has just figured out several ways to make money off the war, and he spends what he has to to keep making money and stay in a position where he can turn another piaster,” Elliott said, so only Hollister could hear him.

  “Can you prove enough of this to get to him?”

  “I think so, but no time soon.”

  “Why? What the hell’s the holdup?” Hollister asked.

  Elliott jabbed a thumb toward the tent. “That colonel in there’s going to make sure that the American skirts are squeaky clean before he even thinks of making some rash charge that could blow up in his face.” He leaned even closer to Hollister and continued, “Ya see, in their country an investigation is like an indictment. You try to pin something on a high-ranking Viet and
you better have a damn good pin, pal.”

  Wasco returned. Elliott gave Hollister a look that suggested he not reveal the details of what he’d just been told. Hollister gave him an almost imperceptible nod.

  “So how long before you all get somewhere with what you’re investigating?” Hollister asked.

  Wasco lit his cigar, took a drag and picked a bit of loose tobacco off the end of it. “What? You wanna be around when we start putting out the wanted posters?”

  Hollister straightened up. “I sure as hell do!”

  “You better extend, then.”

  All the way back to the LRP compound, Michaelson was uncharacteristically quiet. Hollister could tell how angry he was by the way he kept clenching and unclenching his jaw. He decided not to interrupt Michaelson’s thoughts with questions.

  Hollister busied himself with the view. He realized how little time he had spent in any other part of the base camp other than the LRP compound and trips to the hospital complex. Everywhere he looked there was construction going on. New tropical hooches, new roads, pole climbers stringing commo wire, Vietnamese laborers filling sandbags, and rocks—white-painted rocks.

  In true rear-echelon fashion, the rocks outlined the paths from the roadways to the entrances of the tents. Every rock had been whitewashed by hand and placed in straight lines. Hollister thought what a distance there was from the headquarters area to the LRP hooches. The actual distance of a half mile was dwarfed by the distance in understanding and appreciation for the risks and the devotion to duty that the kids in his platoon demonstrated every day.

  The letters from Susan and Easy quickly perked Hollister up back at his hooch. The first half of Susan’s letter was filled with little details of what she had accomplished and what she wanted him to know about her preparations for his return. She then filled the second half with plans and questions about Fort Benning and quarters and the little things in life like driver’s licenses, state income-tax filing, and voting registration. Hollister couldn’t believe how her letters were creating a tunnel for him to pass through from warrior to husband. It intimidated him a bit.

  Easy’s letter was like a conversation with him in the hooch. He made recommendations to Hollister on who he ought to move to what slots in his platoon. He discussed strengths and weaknesses of members of the platoon and some others in the detachment. Hollister was amazed at his awareness of the past performance and the potential of each man. Easy couldn’t possibly have any records to help him; still, he knew the time remaining in country for every man still in Hollister’s platoon.

  Hollister put the letter down and thought about Easy, and how every day that he had known him he had learned something new from Easy, about himself and about being a platoon leader. He was sorry that he hadn’t been able to tell Easy that before he got evac’d. He made himself a promise that he would find a way to do it.

  Letters to and from Easy became a common event, but the tone in some of Hollister’s letters must have reflected his confused frame of mind because Easy picked up on it and gently cautioned him, as Michaelson had, against letting revenge be the fuel that stoked his furnace. He did it in a way that didn’t directly accuse Hollister of being vindictive. Instead, he told Hollister a story about a friend of his who had made life miserable for himself and those in his charge over the relentless goal he had set for himself to get back at a drunken radio operator who was asleep on duty one night, costing his unit some casualties. The story was perfectly timed to help Hollister put things into perspective and get on with the business of rebuilding his platoon.

  Hollister put himself into the days he had left and took a sense of accomplishment out of the successes that the teams were having. He had decided to give up any further efforts to push about the investigation. He was convinced that even if the conclusions couldn’t blame the deaths and wounded on Minh, that it would clear everyone on the American side of any wrongdoing.

  Just less than a month before Hollister was due to leave, there was a cease-fire scheduled for a Vietnamese holiday. He went to bed early after having spent the afternoon packing some of his personal effects to ship home by surface.

  Not able to sleep, Hollister got up and tried to write a letter to Susan. He was losing his enthusiasm to write because he knew that very soon he would probably beat a letter home. He had a few drinks and was angry with himself for using the scotch as a sleeping pill. He thought that he would cut back on his drinking when he got back to the States, but for right then, it was the only way to reward himself or to relax. The States would be different.

  He wrote the letter as if it might beat him home, and enjoyed telling Susan that. He also told her how he was trying to make arrangements with the travel section at headquarters to route him through Denver so that he could stop off and see Easy. He hoped that she would understand. He was pretty sure that she would.

  Quickly, the scotch made him drowsy and he went back to bed.

  A soldier shook Hollister vigorously to wake him from the soundest sleep he had had in months. “Lieutenant, the captain wants to see you right away. He said ASAP!”

  Hollister was still half asleep as he crossed the compound trying to tuck his T-shirt into his trousers. He looked around and thought it was strange that there was no noise coming from the team hooches. He looked at his watch to see what time it was and realized that he had left it on the desk next to his cot. He assumed that it was late, and continued to the orderly room, where he found Bernard drinking a cup of coffee in his shorts and shower shoes.

  “Old Man’s in the mess hall, sir.”

  Hollister entered through the connecting door and found the room completely dark. He had never seen the mess hall dark.

  Suddenly the lights came on and he was being showered with the spray of shaken-up beer cans and bottles. The platoon had taken advantage of the stand down to throw a surprise going-away party for Hollister. Every member of the detachment had crammed himself into the small room to pull it off.

  To no one’s surprise, the party turned into a regular Airborne drunken brawl. Hollister knew that the noise level of the party was not just to celebrate his departure—that was just an excuse. They were really celebrating a feeling of competence that came from the hard work they had put in after rebuilding the detachment.

  Somewhere around midnight Sergeant Marrietta walked over to Hollister and leaned in close to him to be heard over the singing. “Somethin’s up and I don’t like it.”

  “What are you talking about?” Hollister asked.

  Marrietta turned around and looked toward the doorway. “I was just coming back from the pisser and somebody from Brigade just showed up. They wanna see the Ol’ Man up at headquarters.”

  “Could be some new mission.”

  “No, sir. It’s not anyone I recognize from the S-3 shop.”

  Letting Marrietta’s hunch sink in, Hollister looked at the beer in his hand and decided to slow down just in case something was in the wind. He then looked at the troops getting very drunk. “Well, let’s not spoil the party for them.”

  His head pounded and his mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton as Hollister entered the orderly room, happy to get out of the morning sun.

  Marrietta looked up from Easy’s old desk and responded to Hollister’s questioning look. “Yessir, he’s waiting for you. Let me tell him that you’re here.” He got up and walked to the open doorway to Michaelson’s office. “Sir, Lieutenant Hollister is here.” Marrietta turned back to Hollister and pointed into the open doorway. “Go on in, sir.”

  Hollister started for the doorway and looked at Marrietta’s expression for some clue as to the purpose of the meeting.

  Marrietta was stone-faced serious. He spoke very quietly. “It ain’t good.”

  Standing at attention in front of Michaelson’s desk, Hollister saluted. “Good morning, sir. You wanted to see me?”

  “Sit.”

  The tone in Michaelson’s voice was flat. Hollister couldn’t read anything into it
, but could exclude any discussion about upcoming operations. That topic usually provoked a distinctive tone of excitement and enthusiasm in Michaelson. Hollister looked for some other clues—something to tell him if the subject of the meeting was him or his performance or something he should brace himself for.

  The top of Michaelson’s desk was cleared. The only things on it were the two field phones. Hollister didn’t know what that meant, but like Marrietta said, it couldn’t be good.

  “Jim, I’ll give it to you straight out. I’ve been relieved of command of the detachment. Effective today.”

  Unconsciously, Hollister bolted upright out of his chair. “What? No goddamn way!”

  Expecting the response, Michaelson gestured for Hollister to calm down and sit down. “The deal is that I was not happy with the investigation on the Minh thing. I said so. And it got to the wrong people. General Minh went to his three-star boss and raised hell that I had impugned his honor and insulted him and undermined his authority and charged him falsely, and on and on. Bottom line is that he has insisted that I be punished. So, I’m gone as of today.”

  “But sir—they can’t—what kind of shit is this?” Hollister stammered.

  “You’re wrong there. They can do whatever the hell they want. According to the Brigade XO, I have caused considerable embarrassment for the Americans, and this is their solution. They’re offering my head to the new general. I guess I’ve fallen on my own sword by opening my mouth and not allowing the system to work.”

  There was a sinking feeling in Hollister’s chest that felt cold and heavy. The thought of losing Michaelson so soon after losing Easy was overwhelming for him.

  “Jesus, sir—I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to cause all this—”

  “Wasn’t you, Jim. It’s a symptom of a much bigger problem. I saw it on my last tour with the Viets, and something told me then that sooner or later it was going to come around and bite me in the ass. Anybody who stays here long enough gets eaten up.”