The Majors
Page 39
“Let me tell you what happened, Lowell,” Black said. “I was so goddamned mad when that asshole came and said we should handle your case with what he called ‘delicacy,’ I almost kicked his ass. Literally, not figuratively. I had a nearly uncontrollable impulse to open the car door and kick his fat ass out.”
He looked at Lowell to make sure Lowell understood he was telling the truth. “A long time ago, I learned something about myself,” he went on. “It might be useful to you. Whenever you really lose your temper, there is a very good possibility that you’re wrong about whatever pissed you off.”
He paused again. “Phrased very simply, when you break a shoelace, that’s your fault for not noticing the shoelace was worn and should have been replaced. You understand?”
“I don’t get your point,” Lowell said, simply.
“What really pissed me off about you, Lowell, had nothing to do with your screwing the senator’s wife. What enraged me was that I had personally given you an order, and you had disobeyed me.”
“You mean about staying away from Felter?”
“That’s right. Here you are, a miserable major, with a well-deserved reputation for being, on occasion, a colossal fuck-up, and you get an order from the Vice Chief of Staff and you disobey it.”
“I’m guilty of that, sir.”
“And I’m guilty of violating a principle of command that I learned when I was a second lieutenant,” General Black said. “Never give an order you know will not be obeyed.”
“You had the right to expect me to obey your order, sir,” Lowell said.
“The right, sure; but considering the personality, no reasonable expectation that you would.”
Lowell looked at him and said nothing.
“I didn’t think it through,” Black said. “There was no way, no way, that you were going to sever your relationship with a man who had saved your ass in Greece, who had buried your wife when you were off at war, simply because some old fart who can’t pour piss out of a boot tells you to.”
“I don’t think of you that way, General,” Lowell said.
“OK. Put it this way. You decided the order made no sense, so fuck it.”
“Yes, sir. That’s pretty close.”
“OK. Now I’ll explain point two of this little lecture. Once I got pissed off at you, it was easy to keep pouring gas on the flames. Whatsername, the senator’s horny wife, for example. And then I found the real excuse to get mad at you.”
“What was that?”
“‘How dare that young sonofabitch, with a brain like his, with a proven capability of combat command, fuck up his own career the way he has? I’ll fix his ass: I’ll throw his ass out of the army.’”
He stopped and lit a cigarette, and then looked into Lowell’s eyes.
“Am I getting through to you, Major?”
“I understand what you’re saying, General Black, and I’m grateful for the explanation,” Lowell replied. “But I don’t understand the point of it.”
“I dared entertain the hope,” Black said, sarcastically, “that a few words of a philosophical nature might be of value to you in your later career, when you might lose your temper and make a bad decision.”
“They make decisions by committee in the banking business, General,” Lowell said.
“You missed my most important point, Lowell. Perhaps I should have spelled it out.”
“Sir?”
“When you know you’ve made a mistake, you bust your ass to correct it. Even if it means you are going to have one hell of an argument with the Chief of Staff.”
“I don’t want to sound stupid,” Lowell said, “but the only interpretation I can put on that is that you have changed your mind about throwing me out of the army. And I’m afraid to hope for that.”
“As of 1 January 1959, you are relieved from DCSLOG and assigned here for duty with the Army Aviation Board as project officer for the rocket-armed helicopter.”
“Thank you, sir,” Lowell said.
“Don’t make me regret it, Major,” Black said. He met Lowell’s eyes for a moment, and then he pushed open the glass door from the VIP lounge and walked out to the Grumman VIP transport.
They had not, Lowell realized, exchanged salutes. He pushed open the glass door and went out on the taxiway. The door to the Grumman was already closed, and the pilot was in the process of starting the port engine. The Grumman started to taxi.
Major Lowell raised his hand in salute and held it, even when there was no response from inside the airplane, until the Grumman had turned onto the runway and started the takeoff roll.
W.E.B. Griffin is the author of the bestselling Brotherhood of War, Corps, Badge of Honor, Men at War, Honor Bound, and Presidential Agent series. He has been invested into the orders of St. George of the U.S. Armor Association and St. Andrew of the U.S. Army Aviation Association; is a life member of the U.S. Special Operations Association; and is a member of Gaston-Lee Post 5660 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, China Post #1 in Exile of the American Legion, and the Police Chiefs Association of Southeast Pennsylvania, South New Jersey, and Delaware. He has been named an honorary life member of the U.S. Army Otter & Caribou Association, the U.S. Army Special Forces Association, the U.S. Marine Corps Raider Association, and the USMC Combat Correspondents Association. Visit his website at www.webgriffin.com.