Word of Honor

by Nelson DeMille

“No thanks. A towel.”

  He looked at her, rainwater running down her face, and he reached up and wiped her brow and cheeks with his fingers. Their eyes met and held. He put his hands on her shoulders. She stood perfectly still, then put her left hand on his side, then hesitantly her right hand rested on his forearm. Tyson could hear his own heart beating and saw that a vein was fluttering in her throat. He felt his hands and her hands shaking. He drew her closer.

  A footstep on the stairs broke the silence, and they stood apart. Around the corner of the landing appeared Marcy. She said, “Hello, I thought I heard voices.”

  Tyson said, “Marcy, may I present Major Karen Harper?”

  CHAPTER

  29

  General William Van Arken sat in the rear of the lecture hall and listened to the instructor, Colonel Ambrose Horton, deliver the final words of his talk to the two dozen military students sitting in the front row. Horton’s deep, Virginia-accented voice, unaided by a microphone, echoed through the nearly empty amphitheater of the United States Army’s Judge Advocate General School. The school, located within the Charlottesville campus of the University of Virginia, was a three-hour car ride from the Pentagon.

  Colonel Horton’s eyes drifted up into the rear rows and rested on General Van Arken, who was wearing a civilian suit of dark blue. It would have been correct to introduce the Army’s Judge Advocate General, the boss, to the JAG School students, and indeed they would have been honored. But Colonel Horton’s instincts told him that the General wanted to remain anonymous. Horton directed his attention back to the first row and spoke. “It has been said by combat commanders that the battlefield is the most honest place in the world. It has also been said by legal types such as us that, regarding war crimes, there are unique complexities in discovering the truth about a combat soldier doing his duty in the field.”

  General Van Arken listened to the echoes of Colonel Horton’s words die away in the open spaces around him. The chimes of the clock tower struck eight, but the students did not move. The sun was fading from the large vertical windows, and the interior lighting seemed to grow harsher.

  Colonel Horton concluded, “The next time we meet, we will examine those two statements and attempt to reconcile them. Specifically we will discuss atrocities, how they happen, and how we, as Army lawyers, must ultimately deal with them. Thank you.”

  The students stood in unison as Colonel Horton moved from the lectern up the center aisle. General Van Arken met him halfway. Horton said, “Good evening, General. An unexpected pleasure.”

  They shook hands. “This is not official,” General Van Arken said. “Let’s walk.”

  The two men left the lecture hall and went out into the hot night, walking through the nearly deserted campus. Van Arken said, “I’d like your opinion on the Tyson case.”

  Colonel Horton nodded. “Unofficially?”

  “Of course.” Van Arken gave Horton a sidelong glance. The man was well into his seventies and had the distinction of being the only man still in the Army who had been involved in the Nuremberg trials. He was considered by many to be the dean of Army jurisprudence and taught the philosophy of law and ethics to civilian as well as military students. Notwithstanding Horton’s stature, he had been passed over for promotion to brigadier general twice, and in almost any other branch of the Army he’d have been asked or forced to resign. Van Arken said, “Would you like to sit awhile?” He indicated a wooden bench.

  Horton nodded and lowered himself heavily onto the bench. He commented, “I’ve had a busy schedule today.”

  Van Arken sat on a facing bench and replied diplomatically, “This heat has drained me too.” He looked into the old man’s eyes. “Can I speak to you in confidence?”

  Colonel Horton unbuttoned his green tunic and loosened his tie. He replied in a slow drawl, “As long as we don’t stray into prohibited areas, General.”

  Van Arken regarded Colonel Horton for a moment. Horton caused him some measure of unease. The man was a maverick and a nuisance. He lectured widely on the Nuremberg trials, the Calley-Medina case, and on other controversial areas of military law. The Army did not always appreciate his views. Neither did Van Arken, which was one reason Horton would remain a colonel. But Van Arken needed straight answers, and Horton gave them. Van Arken said, “There is some talk that Major Karen Harper has inadvertently damaged the Army’s case against Tyson.”

  “Well,” said Colonel Horton, “what happened between Tyson and Harper as far as I can determine was magic. There is the doctrine in law which says we cannot enjoy the fruits of the poison tree. But we know they taste as good. Better. So, consider the Article 31 investigation a success, General. And end it. Soon.”

  Van Arken said, “I have.”

  “Good. Do you have any guesses as to what Harper will recommend?”

  Van Arken shook his head. “It is really up to Tyson to impeach Dr. Brandt’s testimony. If he does and if there is some substance to whatever he says about Brandt, then it doesn’t much matter what Brandt has said about Tyson. I would not want to go into a courtroom with no evidence beyond two shaky witnesses. And neither would an Army prosecutor.”

  “But as it stands now,” asked Colonel Horton, “Dr. Brandt is unimpeachable?”

  “To the best of my knowledge. I have no contact with Major Harper, of course.” Van Arken looked at Horton. “Do you want to walk?”

  “Yes.” He stood and buttoned his tunic. They walked on a path that cut diagonally across the Green Lawn. The multi-paned windows of the buildings cast light patterns on the dark grass. Van Arken said, “During the Calley business, there was little sympathy for the accused within the JAG. We have a different situation here. Certain people at the top—in the White House and the Justice Department—are beginning to waver. I believe we owe it to the Army and to the nation to press on. And I was wondering if you felt the same way.”

  Colonel Horton looked around at the lighted buildings. He loved this old university founded nearly two centuries before by Thomas Jefferson. It was a magnificent showplace of neoclassical architecture: colonnades, cupolas, rotundas, and balustrades. But more than that, it was a place of mellow moods, an institution that still placed some value on chivalry, honor, and tradition. Horton mused, “What would Jefferson advise us, General?”

  Van Arken took the question to be rhetorical and did not reply. Colonel Horton answered his own question. “Jefferson did not see the law as a narrow vocation but as a means of understanding the history, culture, morals, and institutions of a society. I think if we ran into him on this path now, he’d ask us how it came to pass that the American government is not certain it has the right to judge its citizens.”

  General Van Arken responded, “The question I put to you is, do we owe it to the nation to press on despite our . . . well, our shared culpability in the events of 15 February 1968?”

  Colonel Horton smiled wryly, then said, “Are you looking for me to put something in writing, General? A memo to the White House or the Justice Department?”

  “Well, yes. A sort of white paper from you as a respected jurist. Legally, we are on the right track. But people have raised these moral and ethical questions on both sides of this issue. We’d like to address those, to put this legal framework on a firm philosophical foundation.”

  Colonel Horton rubbed the side of his nose with his bony index finger and spoke contemplatively. “You know, General, when I was a young lieutenant working the prosecution side of the bench at Nuremberg, virtually the entire world was on our side. The press corps covered every minute of the trial, but there was no real scrutiny as we know it today. Consequently, we got away with a great deal. Errors in procedure, that sort of thing. But more importantly, we got away with making up the law as we went along. We hanged who we wanted to hang and were amazed at ourselves when we actually handed out prison terms instead of the death penalty. And there was no appeals process. Death meant death.”

  Horton reflected a moment before continuing.
“There were only a handful of voices raised against the Allied tribunals. I was not among those who had the wisdom or foresight to see that what we were meting out was not justice but revenge. And even if I had understood that, I would not have had the moral courage to raise my voice.” He looked at Van Arken. “I mean, my God, Hollywood blessed us with Spencer Tracy and Judgment at Nuremberg. There was not even the slightest doubt that we were not wholly on the side of the angels.” They continued on in silence awhile, then Colonel Horton said, “General, when you were a young captain working on the prosecution side in the My Lai cases, you were operating in a different world, a different moral climate. The media did their own investigations and in fact forced the Army investigation. The President did not see it as something to be proud of, and national opinion polls showed a majority in favor of letting the accused go free.”

  “Yes, I recall that clearly.”

  “Yes, so here we are today, both of us veterans of two of the most important military trials of this century, and I hope we’ll keep in mind the lessons we both learned. We have no excuses for errors in judgment.”

  Van Arken replied with a touch of impatience, “What I learned from the My Lai trials, Colonel, was that the nation and the world will not tolerate barbarism in the armed forces of the United States no matter how that barbarism tries to disguise itself as battle.” Van Arken drew a breath, then continued, “And Nuremberg, for all the faults, showed the world that civilization will not tolerate barbarism even when it becomes the national policy of a sovereign state. It is my considered opinion that if we are ever again to judge our enemies, legally or morally, we must first judge ourselves no matter how painful it may be to do so.” Van Arken continued, “Any contemplated trial of Benjamin Tyson must serve as a warning to every combat officer in future wars that he will be held accountable for his actions until the day he dies.”

  Colonel Horton wondered how much of what Van Arken said was in the interests of justice, humanity, the Army, or the nation and how much was in the interests of General Van Arken and his career. But he did not want to be uncharitable toward the man. He might well be sincere. Horton spoke in a conciliatory tone. “Certainly, General, what you say is correct. But on a less theoretical level, I want to point out to you those unique complexities in discovering the truth about a combat soldier who was doing his duty in the field. Tyson was sent to Vietnam to kill. Any court-martial that is convened will not have to determine whether or not he killed but if he killed the right people in the right way.”

  Van Arken replied tersely, “My concern is that the entire question of the morality of the war will be raised as a defense. At Nuremberg you operated from a position of moral certainty.”

  “So did the Nazis. If you raise philosophical questions and try to drag me into it as an apologist for the government, you will give the case more stature. And that will play into the hands of the defense. That is my advice to you, though I give it grudgingly because I quite frankly don’t believe that justice is being done.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the climate that existed in 1968 allowed not only the crime but the cover-up to flourish. Something had gone fundamentally wrong with the ethics and standards of the officer corps, the Army, and the nation. We’ve corrected much of that. But we can’t go back and start court-martialing lieutenants until we call the generals to account. And the civilians in those past administrations. That’s another thing I learned at Nuremberg.”

  Van Arken nodded. “That is what I’m afraid the defense is going to say. I’m afraid they’re going to offer what has come to be called the Nuremberg defense.”

  “Good for them,” snapped Horton. “I often have fantasies of convening a national inquisition and subpoenaing every son of a bitch who got us involved in Vietnam.”

  They continued in silence, then came to a crosswalk. Van Arken stopped. “Can I buy you dinner, Ambrose?”

  Colonel Horton shook his head. “Thank you, General, but I have to work on tomorrow’s lecture.” He stared at Van Arken awhile, then said, “You know, Bill, you’ve been a force in getting this case under way, and I’m not certain that is your function. I’m not being critical. You’ve filled a vacuum left by the Justice Department, who should be pursuing this, and I congratulate you on your devotion. However . . . you see, I feel our civilian bosses are setting us up. They learned something from My Lai, too. As our enlisted men would say, we’ve pulled some shit duty.”

  Van Arken nodded. “I’ve figured that out. But that doesn’t alter our obligation. My obligation.”

  Colonel Horton said impatiently, “You’re rather sure of yourself, aren’t you? I mean, you’re sure you’re on the side of truth and morality. Well, I’m not so sure.”

  “Just what does that mean?”

  “I mean, Bill, you’ve spoken of accountability. And I’m thinking that if Lieutenant Benjamin J. Tyson did in fact command a platoon that massacred approximately one hundred men, women, and children, then where is the moral justification, sir, in offering the platoon survivors—the actual trigger-men—immunity?”

  Van Arken didn’t reply.

  “So you see, General, don’t tell me you want to pursue this because of some moral absolute, because there is none. That is the main lesson I learned at Nuremberg.”

  Van Arken began to reply, but Horton interrupted. “At Nuremberg, I often wondered why the SS guards and the hangmen and the torturers were not called to account in greater numbers. Then I came to realize that had they been called, they would have simply said, ‘I was only following orders.’” Horton added, “As you well know, General, the military constructs a unique subculture whose teachings supersede everything a man has learned in church or Sunday school, everything he has been taught by parents, teachers, and the community—indeed everything he knows in his own heart. So when a soldier says, ‘I was only following orders,’ he has offered a formidable defense and an embarrassing one for his superiors. He has offered the Nuremberg defense.

  “And so, the buck is passed onward and upward, and at every echelon of command we hear the same thing—‘I was only following orders’—direct orders, inferred orders, implied orders, standing orders, and so on. Until we finally come to the top where the sewerage begins flowing downhill again, as I saw at Nuremberg. The top Nazis would say, ‘I could not possibly know how my orders were being misconstrued.’ Or the line I heard over and over again, ‘I had no idea this was happening among my subordinates.’”

  Van Arken drew a short breath and said slowly and deliberately, “You’ve taught the philosophy of the law too long, Ambrose. You ought to get down to cases, as we say. But as I indicated, it wouldn’t be altogether proper for us to discuss this case.”

  Colonel Horton smiled, then replied in a thoughtful tone, “Then let me discuss the fictional case of Lieutenant X who is court-martialed for murder. Everyone assumes that even if he is found guilty, he will not suffer the ultimate penalty—will not stand in front of a firing squad. And that’s a safe assumption since a firing squad has not been constituted to shoot an American in the armed forces for over two decades. But my philosophy of law is this—if you try a man for a capital crime, be it murder or sleeping on guard duty in time of war, then you should fully acknowledge that you may in fact send him to his death. Do not assume that judicial reviews of the sentence will reduce the penalty or that an executive pardon will stay the execution. That’s a game, and the law is not a game. So if you cannot justify in your own conscience a firing squad putting ten bullets into a man—if you have no stomach for that, then you must reduce the charge.”

  “There is no lesser charge for which the statute of limitations has not run out.”

  Colonel Horton’s eyes narrowed. “Ah, I see. We are down to cases. So whereas Mr. Tyson at some previous point in time might be more correctly charged with, let’s say, conspiracy to conceal a crime, at this point in time, it must be first-degree murder or nothing.”

  Van Arken nodded slightly.
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br />   Colonel Horton nodded too, as if he were just discovering an interesting fact. He said, “Well, I must be going. I think I have an idea for my lecture tomorrow. Thank you, General.” Colonel Horton saluted, turned on his heel, and walked off.

  General Van Arken watched him for a few seconds, then turned and walked in the opposite direction. For the first time he began to feel less confident about the justice of his own position. Privately he thought Tyson was guilty; but as Horton had pointed out, he would not want to see the man shot down by a firing squad. He only wanted to hold him up as a bad example for the rest of the officer corps. However, in his zeal to promote the ethical revolution that was sweeping the armed forces since Vietnam, he had reopened issues and debates best left in the past.

  Nevertheless, the thing was started, and there was almost no way to stop it. Like a shout that begins an avalanche, this was growing and gathering force and momentum and thundering with deadly energy toward Benjamin Tyson.

  CHAPTER

  30

  Benjamin Tyson regarded his wife standing on the bottom landing. She wore shower clogs, cut-off jeans, and a white T-shirt. In blue letters across the front of the T-shirt was the Army reenlistment slogan: Keep a Good Soldier In. He wondered where the hell she had gotten that. He noticed her hands were red, and he smelled ammonia. She’d been cleaning.

  Marcy Tyson crossed the small living room and extended her hand to Karen Harper. Marcy said, “I’m so glad we finally met.”

  Karen Harper took Marcy’s hand. “So am I.”

  Both women regarded each other for a few seconds longer than Tyson considered necessary. He said, “Well, I’m glad too.” He addressed Marcy. “Major Harper and I were walking and talking.”

  Marcy looked from one to the other, then remarked, “Perhaps you’d like to go upstairs and dry off.”

  Karen Harper replied, “I’ll just borrow an umbrella, if I may. It’s a short distance to the guest house.”