Tyson approached slowly, and the nearer he drew, the quieter the park became, as if this were a protected zone, a place where it was understood that one did not fly kites, throw Frisbees, or play radios.
The atmosphere around the black memorial was not unlike that of a funeral home: silent, somber, subdued. An al fresco mortuary.
Though he had been to Washington on business, he had never come here. Yet he felt he knew the place after years of media exposure. As he moved closer, however, he realized that no photograph could capture the essence of this vast headstone, no news film could convey the impact of its hushed presence. Unlike other shrines to the dead, this was a tactile and participatory memorial. People were passing their fingers over the etched names, reading them, pointing to them, making pencil rubbings of a name with any piece of paper at hand.
Tyson stopped some ten feet from the black granite wall. On the rising lawn behind and above the wall stood six men in jungle fatigues. They seemed to be a permanent part of the site, soldiers frozen in time at the vertex of the black wedges, standing precariously close to the precipice. Tyson had the impression they were young men, but that was because he associated jungle fatigues with young men. On closer scrutiny he saw they were men nearer to middle age, his age.
Tyson moved closer to the wall and stood on the paved walkway that paralleled it. Other men of about his own age had on bits and pieces of uniforms. A wasted man sat in a wheelchair; two men walked with canes. And there were those in good clothing, with no visible signs of wounds, who in some subtle way were nonetheless identifiable as veterans. Tyson saw in those faces something he had not seen in nearly twenty years—the Thousand Yard Stare. He felt he was among a gathering of wraiths, and he swore they stank of the jungle and were splattered with Asian mud. He had a sudden fear that he’d see a face he knew. He wanted to turn and walk quickly away, before the black arms of the outstretched walls engulfed him. He drew a breath, turned, and found himself facing the bronze statues of the three soldiers clad in jungle fatigues. They each seemed to be in a trancelike state, though it was not the Thousand Yard Stare, but an oddly lifeless look as though the sculptor had consciously tried to represent three ghosts.
He turned back and focused on the names in a tall black panel near the vertex: James B. Alexander, Robert J. Betz, Jack W. Klein, David J. W. Widder, Lawrence W. Gordon. There were no ranks, he noticed, no unit designations, no clue as to whether they were Army, Marine, Navy, Air Force, or Coast Guard, no hometown, age, or any vital statistic; just names arranged chronologically from the first deaths in 1959 to the last in 1975. And this, he thought, was as it should be, just names. The mothers, fathers, wives, children, brothers, and sisters knew all there was to know about the names.
Tyson saw flowers stuck between the stone panels, flowers strewn at the base of the monument, photographs set against the wall. Here and there were more impressive floral arrangements. To his right, lying on the black stone bordering the base of the wall, was a first baseman’s glove.
“Can I find a name for you?”
Tyson looked to his left. Beside him was a young girl of about sixteen, in jeans and T-shirt. She had nice eyes and a good tan but was otherwise rather homely. She carried a pad and pencil. Tyson said, “Excuse me?”
“I can find the location of a name.”
“Oh . . . okay . . . Browder. Roy Browder.”
The girl replied, “That might be a common name. Do you have a middle initial? A date of death?”
“Date of death, February 21, 1968.”
“Okay. Be right back.” She walked quickly to the east end of the memorial, and Tyson saw her approach a woman in the green uniform of the National Park Service. The woman had a thick registry book and was looking up names for people. The young girl, Tyson realized, was a sort of free-enterprise link between the overworked civil servant and the visitors.
Tyson looked back at the polished wall and stared beyond the white-etched names into the dark mirrored stone. The granite was reflective, he thought, in the sense that it reflected the living and that the living reflected on the dead. If that was its purpose, then the monument worked.
An attractive woman, a few years younger than Tyson, stepped onto the narrow grass border between the wall and the path. She touched her finger to a name, and Tyson looked at her reflection. He saw her lips pucker in a kiss, then turn up in a sort of wistful smile. She winked and turned. Tyson’s eyes followed her, and he saw her join a man on the path. The man, Tyson thought, looked somewhat uncomfortable.
“Sir?”
Tyson turned to see the girl beside him.
“Panel 36 E. Line 95. That’s over here.” She pointed.
“Thanks. . . .”
She handed Tyson a green-and-black brochure. “This will help you locate other names if you know the approximate dates of death.” She added, “If you’d like to make a donation to the memorial fund . . .”
“Sure.” Tyson took out his wallet and gave the girl a five-dollar bill.
“Thank you.” She hesitated, then said, “I like to know . . . I mean, who . . . a friend, relative . . . ?”
“A friend.”
“Were you there?”
“Yes.”
She nodded. “My father was killed in 1967. Before I was born. He was a career NCO. Army. Panel 22 E Line 91. Patrick Duggan.”
Tyson wondered if she was asking if he knew him. He said, “I’m sorry.”
“Oh, it’s not painful or anything. Just sad.”
He nodded. She didn’t seem anxious to leave, and it occurred to him that this rather plain-looking girl was lonely. He found that he was curious about the life of a soldier’s posthumous child. Did her mother remarry? Did she live here in Washington? Did the Army really take care of its own? Or did they take her father and leave her and her family to struggle on less than a family on public assistance as he’d once read? But he knew he wasn’t going to ask her any questions.
Tyson’s eyes fell on the sunlit wall again. Long before there were military death benefits and widows’ payments there were grand monuments to the fallen, conceived and built by the lobbies for the dead. And in the regimental mess halls, toasts were offered to the missing. But for the survivors, he thought, there was precious little in the way of glory or sustenance. If he could design a single monument to all wars, it would consist of a statue of a woman with the Thousand Yard Stare.
The girl followed his gaze. She said, “Do you like it? The wall?”
He nodded again.
“Lots of people don’t. Well, most people come here thinking they’re not going to like it. But it gets to them somehow. You know?”
“Yes. I do.”
“My mother said they should have put fifty-seven thousand gravestones on the west lawn of the Capitol.”
“Yes, with my statue of the woman standing among them.” The girl didn’t respond to this but pursued her own line of conversation. “They’d have to see them every day. The Congress. They should have done it while the war was going on. Each week they’d unload gravestones on the lawn. You know?”
“Sounds good.”
The girl smiled.
Tyson and the girl stood in companionable silence for some time, then Tyson said, “Do you know who I am?”
The girl’s eyes fell on his face, and she shook her head.
“Ben Tyson.”
She shrugged.
Tyson shrugged in return and smiled.
The girl stuck out her hand awkwardly. “Pam Majerski.”
Tyson took her hand.
She said, “My stepfather adopted me. Majerski.”
Tyson squeezed her hand before he released it. “Thanks for your help. Panel 36?”
“Right. Line 95. Roy Browder. I think I had him before. Wife, I think.”
Tyson turned and moved down the wall. He stepped in front of the panel. He saw the year 1968 etched in a nearby panel and saw, too, that 1968 took a lot of panels. A bad year. The worst year. It would have been a
good year to spend somewhere else.
He found Browder’s name and stared at it a moment, trying to remember the man and conjuring up the slightly pudgy face with the perpetual cigar jammed in the left corner of his mouth. Browder’s death had moved him deeply at the time, though Tyson had not particularly liked his company commander. But Browder had been the Old Man, the embodiment of gruff, fatherly discipline, the essence of authority, the place where the buck stopped in Alpha Company.
And, on Captain Browder’s death, six days after Miséricorde Hospital, Lieutenant Benjamin Tyson, twenty-six years old and with an ROTC Commission, had become commanding officer of Alpha Company. Had Browder lived, Tyson thought, he would have ultimately confessed to him. And in some way what was happening now would not be happening. The Old Man would have made it right.
Tyson moved to the next panel, then the next. He spotted the names of men he knew, men he’d seen die, men he’d seen evacuated with grisly wounds, and men he’d said good-bye to when he’d left Vietnam. He couldn’t say for certain how many people from Alpha Company had contributed their names to this wall, but he thought there were at least fifty.
Tyson consulted the brochure, moved on to other panels, and saw the names of men he knew from other times and places: a childhood friend, two college classmates, men he’d trained with and served with in the States. He thought he knew an inordinate number of the 57,939 Americans listed here.
He walked slowly along the length of the wall until he realized the sun was nearly gone. He moved back to the panels that represented the year 1968. He saw the names Frederick Brontman and Irwin Selig, who had been alive when he left Vietnam, and it was the first he knew of their deaths. He found the names of Peter Santos and John Manelli, who had been killed at Hue on the same day Browder had died. He found the name of Arthur Peterson, who had been wounded in the chest and died at Miséricorde Hospital. He discovered the name of Michael DeTonq, the only man in Alpha Company to be reported missing in action. Following DeTonq’s name was a cross, denoting that he was still missing, but Tyson strongly believed he was not MIA. DeTonq was MOP—missing on purpose. DeTonq, a Cajun from Louisiana, spoke passable French and had undoubtedly chosen to terminate his short military career before it terminated him. Tyson often pictured DeTonq in the arms of a sympathetic French woman. Good for him. Tyson hoped he’d survived the fall of Vietnam and somehow made it back to the States.
Tyson took out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his brow. He turned away from the stone and looked out over the park. Long purple shadows lay in the groves of trees. About a hundred yards away stood a solitary man in full camouflage fatigues and bush hat. Tyson thought for one uncomfortable moment that this was a true ghost, that no one but he saw the man. Then the man raised a bugle to his lips, and the last sunlight glinted off the polished brass. The air suddenly split with the doleful, haunting sound of taps.
The dwindling crowd turned, watched, and listened. The final note hung in the hot, humid air. The man returned to a position of attention, turned smartly, and walked away.
The people around the memorial began moving off as well. Tyson stepped away from the wall, hesitated, then turned back. He ran his hand over the smooth black granite, feeling its radiant warmth, the grit-blasted names, the seams between the panels. His hand slid upward to a height of nearly eight feet, and his fingers rested on the name of Lawrence F. Cane. Killed in action at Miséricorde Hospital. Tyson had written the official letter of condolence to Cane’s mother: Dear Mrs. Cane, You may take some comfort in the knowledge that your son Larry died in the service of his country. Which was true, Tyson thought. People did take some comfort in that. Better than losing a son in a gang war. I knew Larry well, and he was as fine a soldier and human being as I’ve ever had the honor to serve with. Well . . . but after all, speak only good of the dead. He wasn’t a bad sort really. Larry was a valuable and respected member of my platoon, and he will be missed by everyone who knew him. All riflemen are valuable, and they’re all missed. Nothing personal, just practical. I was with him at the time of his death, and I assure you he died quickly and without pain.
Which was, Tyson thought, the only absolutely true line in the letter. Tyson had been with him and could verify that Larry Cane died quickly and without pain because Tyson had shot him through the heart.
Sincerely yours, Benjamin J. Tyson, First Lieutenant, United States Army, Infantry
CHAPTER
19
Benjamin Tyson sat in the Garden Terrace Lounge of the elegant Four Seasons Hotel located at the edge of Georgetown. The Four Seasons was where he stayed when he traveled for Peregrine-Osaka, so this, he reasoned, was where he should stay when he traveled for the Army. He doubted, however, that the Army was going to reimburse him. But really this was for Ben Tyson, he thought; this was for each of the three hundred twenty-two nights he’d stayed awake in the jungles and swamps, in fear and discomfort. They owed him.
He hadn’t changed his clothes and still wore the sweat-stained shirt and slacks he’d worn to the monument. The air-conditioning made his skin feel clammy, and he recalled those occasions when he’d come directly from the field into a frigid officers’ club, the Vietnamese waitresses with blue noses and toes, coughing and sniffling, the Americans drinking cold beer and moving animatedly as though they’d just been revived with a bucket of ice water over the head.
He sprawled deeper in his armchair, put his feet on the cocktail table, and kicked off his loafers. He regarded his toes awhile, then drank the last of his Scotch.
A waitress approached, and Tyson ordered his third drink. He was vaguely aware that he should be better dressed for this lounge and for this meeting. But his socioeconomic status being vague at the moment, he thought he could dress as he pleased.
Tyson glanced at his watch. She was late.
He reflected that he had not experienced survivor guilt to any great degree. But sitting here in comfort in the nation’s capital, surrounded by memorials and mausoleums of one sort or another, he began to feel a certain unease, or perhaps it was a maudlinism brought on by a combination of the black wall and the alcohol. Tyson decided he ought not to meet her in his present state of mind. His drink came, and he paid the bill, then rose to leave.
He spotted her coming in from the lobby and felt an unexpected disappointment in seeing that she wasn’t wearing civilian clothing. Her garrison cap was tucked in a side pouch of her black handbag, and she still carried the black briefcase.
Karen Harper looked around the dimly lit lounge, her eyes adjusting to the light. Tyson sat as she approached. She said, “Good evening.” She extended her hand. “I was afraid you’d left.”
“Would an officer and a gentleman do that?”
She smiled as he motioned her to an upholstered chair diagonal to his. Tyson signaled to a waitress, and Karen Harper ordered a white wine. She said to Tyson, “This is a very nice hotel.”
“Nothing but the best for our boys in uniform.”
“You were authorized to stay at the Presidential. Did you get your travel vouchers in the mail?”
Tyson swirled his glass and stared at the ice cubes. At length he replied, “My attorney advised me not to accept any government funds. In any case, I stay at the Four Seasons when I’m in Washington.”
“If you got a haircut and dressed up a bit you could use one of the officers’ clubs in the area. Cheap drinks.” She asked, “Do you intend to report to Fort Hamilton as ordered, in uniform?”
“I’m not sure.”
“I’d strongly advise you to do so.”
“My status is not settled.”
“Your status is clear. You are on active duty.”
He shrugged.
She asked in a conversational tone, “Did you get your business taken care of today?”
Tyson nodded. “I met with a fellow who has done the legal groundwork to establish a nonprofit national defense fund for me. Then I met with a lawyer from the Reserve Officers Association, over on Co
nstitution Avenue. Then I had lunch with some people from the Disabled American Veterans. I have a ten percent disability as you know. Actually I think it’s seven and a half percent, but what the hell. Anyway, they asked me to join, and I did. After lunch I met with a delegation from the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and then I called on my congressman.”
“You’ve had a peripatetic day.”
“Right. And I moved around a lot too.”
She smiled, then said, “It’s good to keep busy.”
“Well, Major, you have to hustle when you’re trying to beat a firing squad.”
“Don’t be melodramatic.”
Tyson picked up his drink. “I had the feeling today that I have a lot of support. That the government and the Army are following an unpopular course of action.”
Karen Harper replied, “Well, that’s the strength of a pluralistic society, Mr. Tyson. Free people rally around a cause or issue and fight the government. I think that’s very healthy.”
“Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
“Yes. The government is aware of all this. But to use a military expression, the Rubicon has been crossed.”
“Are they looking for a way to retreat with honor?”
“I don’t think so. They can’t.”
Tyson commented, “Then the hell with them. They’ll get a fight.”
She said, “I’ve always thought that ninety percent of wars, trials, and fistfights were started because no one knew how to back off while saving face. Perhaps if people didn’t feel the need to save face, we could avoid conflict.”
Tyson snorted. “That’s a very feminine attitude. Face is important, and conflict is not necessarily bad.”
The waitress brought Karen Harper’s wine.
Tyson raised his glass. “To a short relationship.”
Word of Honor Page 22