by Dennis Foley
First Sergeant Mann went to the admissions desk while Hollister hurried down the hall to the emergency room. An army nurse started to make a move like she was going to stop Hollister from going into the treatment area and then had a second thought when she looked at the expression on his face. He was clearly in no mood to be messed with.
“My name’s Hollister. There’s a man in here assigned to my company,” he said to the backs of four lime-clad hospital staffers who hovered over a naked, shaking body on a paper-topped examining table.
“Wait outside!” a voice said, no one bothering to turn around to give Hollister the courtesy of knowing just who spoke.
“You talking to me?”
Finally, a doctor, graying—thin on the top—turned. “Weren’t you talking to me, Captain?”
“Listen, I’m not here for an argument. I just want to find out about my man.”
“Well, just wait outside, and we’ll have something to tell you,” the doctor said sarcastically. He quickly turned back to the soldier who had progressed from shaking to strong convulsions.
Hollister knew the doctor was right. He had no place there. Still, he wanted to make sure the soldier was being treated and someone was looking out for him.
He stepped back toward the door he had entered and watched while the soldier struggled against the large tube they were forcing up his nose and down into his stomach.
Hollister met First Sergeant Mann in the waiting room. They decided there was no use in both of them waiting. There was plenty to be done back at the company area and most of it was on the first sergeant’s desk. He left and promised to send back Hollister’s driver and jeep.
The floor-model ashtray had a little trapdoor in it. Each time Hollister finished a cigarette, he dropped it into the chrome clamshelllike jaws and then pushed down on the plunger. The jaws opened; the butt fell into some dark tube where it disappeared into the base of the ashtray.
Hollister tried to use the time in the waiting room to think. His head was so crammed with things all competing for his time and attention. He was still undecided about going back to Vietnam. In the back of his head, he knew it would happen. He just fooled himself into thinking he could still stop the wheels from grinding him out of Fort Benning, to Fort Bragg for the Special Forces qualification course, and then on to Vietnam to a Green Beret assignment.
And there was Susan. Nothing short of quitting would satisfy her. He couldn’t accept her ultimatum. He loved her. He missed her. But one way or the other—they were in very real trouble, and he knew it.
“You the boy’s CO?”
Looking up, Hollister saw the doctor who had run him out of the treatment area. He had taken his scrubs off and was wearing his uniform—complete with lieutenant colonel’s leaves.
“Yes, sir,” Hollister said, getting to his feet. “How is he? Is he going to make it?”
The doctor pulled his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Yeah, he’ll live—but he won’t be good for much.”
Hollister was confused by the comment. “You mean he isn’t okay?”
“I mean that kid had enough pills in him to make him the next American on the moon. He fucked himself up pretty good. His heart stopped for several minutes, and it looks like there’s enough brain damage to keep him in another world than ours the rest of his days.”
The news just cut through Hollister. He shook his head and absentmindedly looked for his cigarettes.
“You know anything about him?”
“Yes, sir. He was sent to me for some remedial training for being involved in drugs in the first place. He’s from a mining town in West Virginia. He served a year in Vietnam with an engineer company. He wanted to get a job as a heavy equipment operator when he got out of the army.”
There was nothing Hollister could do for the soldier. He resigned himself to the fact that even seeing him would not make the soldier’s life any better. He walked down the corridor and found himself face-to-face with Colonel Valentine. It was obvious to Hollister the man was unhappy from the color of his face.
He stuck his finger out and poked it at Hollister. “What the hell is going on? I give you these people to shape up, and every goddamn time I turn around, another one is putting more poison in his system? You better have a goddamn good explanation for this, Hollister.”
Hollister’s immediate impulse was to hit the colonel right in the face. He surprised himself with the urge, but Valentine had definitely picked the wrong time to screw with Hollister.
“Colonel, I’m no expert in this drug thing—”
“You can damn sure say that again. Not only are you screwing up this job—I have to find out you were stopped recently by the MPs for drinking.”
“I don’t understand, sir. An MP who used to work for me in Vietnam stopped me to say hello. I was never cited for anything.”
“Because he was your friend, I’m sure. And that’s another thing that irritates me about you, Hollister. I think you are just too damn familiar with enlisted men.”
Hollister got even angrier at the way Valentine said enlisted men, like they were some kind of bugs. “I’m proud to call many of them my friends, Colonel. If we can stand shoulder-to-shoulder together in combat, I don’t see how it is ever possible to be too familiar with them later.”
“Damn it, Hollister, I was told you were a water walker and you were the man to take on this job and what did I get? I got unsatisfactory performance out of you, Captain.”
Hollister could feel the blood pulsing in his neck. He clenched his fists and released them to dissipate the anger rising in him. “Well, maybe you did pick the wrong man, Colonel. I’m a troop commander, not a fucking nurse.”
The colonel’s face flushed. “At ease, mister. You are on the edge of pissing me off, and I am very close to relieving your ass.”
Hollister realized the colonel hadn’t even asked about the soldier. “Maybe you should do that, Colonel. It’s obvious to me your visit here has nothing to do with finding out how that boy is in there,” Hollister said, thrusting his thumb toward the emergency room.
Before the colonel could respond, the post sergeant major walked up behind him and excused himself. “Colonel, I don’t mean to interrupt, but I need to speak with you.”
Hollister caught the look in the old sergeant’s eyes. He realized Sergeant Major Sawyer was trying to keep the colonel and Hollister from having a showdown where the colonel would have to prove to Hollister how much more power he had.
“Colonel, I’ve talked with the medical officer of the day, and he said you can get in to see the young soldier before they move him to a ward, but we have to go now,” Sawyer said.
“Right, right, Sergeant Major,” the colonel said, and then he turned back to Hollister. “You and I will finish this later. You are dismissed, Captain,” the colonel said, not waiting for an answer before he stepped off toward the emergency ward with Sawyer.
Hollister stood there, seething in anger at the colonel. He was aware of his own behavior and a little surprised—it just wasn’t like him.
“Captain,” a voice said behind him.
Hollister spun around and almost screamed, “What?” only to find a young private first class standing in the doorway with a set of keys and a vehicle logbook under his arm.
“I’m sorry, sir. First Sergeant Mann sent me to pick you up—if you’re ready to go.”
“Yes, yes I am. Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
CHAPTER 6
SOMEWHERE IN THE NIGHT, Jrae packed up what she could carry on her back and readied herself to move to Da Lat. She fought the urge to cry, knowing her home would be a memory by the end of the day. After taking a last look around inside, she clutched her few possessions and helped Krong down the steps of their longhouse. He had grown increasingly feeble in the recent weeks—never fully recovering from the loss of Sraang.
Jrae stood next to Krong and watched the near chaos in the center of the village. The children were divide
d in their reactions to it all. Some of them screamed in terror at the sounds of the helicopters, while others were curious and unsure of them. The line appeared to split at an age where a child could have had enough bad experiences with choppers flown by both the Americans and the South Vietnamese. Many of them had been the targets or near the targets of gunships. The distinction that these were troop-lift ships was lost on them. For all of them it was the first time they had seen choppers on the ground and in their village.
For the adults it was purely a matter of loss. What remained of their longhouses burned furiously, fanned by the rotor wash of the choppers. Jrae’s was the last to be ignited. A South Vietnamese soldier pulled the pin on an incendiary grenade and lobbed it up onto the thatch shading the porch and steps. The white flame spread to the dry thatch with a pop—involving the entire roof in less than a minute.
The flying cinders from their own longhouse rained down on Jrae and Krong. She looked at the flames and then at Krong. As the longhouse timbers began to collapse, he forced himself to stand erect and straight, as if he refused to be broken by the sight.
Someone pushed Jrae from behind, and she stumbled toward one of the choppers, ashes blurring her vision, smoke choking her and burning her throat.
The last moments in her village were crowded with the memories of her childhood there and in carbon-copy villages along her tribe’s nomadic path. She thought of her dead baby, of Sraang, and other tribal brothers and sisters. She remembered her mother and the days she had spent at her side learning women’s work. She knew she would never see Yoon Dlei again.
The pilots took up a common orbit over the burning village as they waited for the last ship to lift off and join the flight. Jrae clutched the metal seat frame in the chopper and looked out and down at her village. The sensation of flying was overshadowed by the enormity of what she saw below.
All that remained of the structures were burning stumps, once the sturdy upright skeletons of the longhouses. The white ashes outlined the ground the dwellings once shaded from the hot Vietnamese sun.
The smell of burning thatch, rats that had lived in it, and the sweet smell of mahogany smoke filled Jrae’s nostrils. She looked to Krong for some sign and saw him weeping silently at the other side of the open doorway.
The words of the South Vietnamese government were little help to Jrae. They promised safer and more comfortable living conditions at the relocation camp. But they couldn’t promise Jrae she would be forgiven for leaving the grave sites of her ancestors and her child.
As the choppers turned eastward and began to fly down the side of the mountains, Jrae left the old Montagnard world forever.
Lewis pulled Hollister’s jeep to a stop in the circular driveway in front of Building 4—the Infantry School building. Hollister looked over at the towering statue of the infantryman standing watch over York Field.
He remembered the first day he entered the building. It seemed so many years had gone by since then. He didn’t know why, but it made him feel sad. “Lewis, why don’t you find yourself a cup of coffee?” Hollister looked at his watch. “I’m sure I won’t be finished inside an hour.”
Major General George I. Parrish was the ranking man at Fort Benning. He had the tough job of setting the standards for infantrymen armywide and training thousands of soldiers, NCOs, and officers to go to Vietnam.
Hollister was ushered into Parrish’s office by his aide, a tall lieutenant who had been a student of Hollister’s when he taught at the Ranger School. “Good morning, sir, the general will be right with you,” he said, pointing to a chair for Hollister, who declined, preferring to stand.
Hollister had liked the general from the moment he met him. Parrish had just returned from commanding the 25th Infantry Division in Vietnam when Hollister was being considered for the job of honor guard commander. General Parrish had to approve Hollister’s selection since Hollister would be representing Fort Benning at almost every important civic and military event.
The day they met, General Parrish spent an hour with Hollister asking him about Vietnam, training, and leadership. He never asked him any questions about drill and ceremonies or any of the functions he would be required to perform as the honor guard commander.
The general hung up the phone and spun around in his large leather chair. “Hollister, good morning, son. How are things?” the general asked, sticking out his hand to shake Hollister’s.
Hollister leaned over the large desk to shake the general’s hand. “Good, sir. Things are good,” he said—it being bad form to complain to someone several echelons up the chain of command.
“Good. Sit.”
Surrendering to the uncomfortably low-cushioned chair, Hollister sat and placed his helmet on the floor next to the chair so he could take notes on his knee.
“We have a visitor coming tomorrow afternoon—and I want you to turn out your troops and show him just how terrific we are here at Benning.”
Hollister gave a puzzled look because the general normally didn’t talk to him directly about a routine honor guard review for a visiting VIP.
“It’s Westmoreland,” the general added.
“Oh,” Hollister said, understanding the importance.
“He hasn’t been down here since he became chief of staff. And I want him to go away knowing we have things under control.”
“Is there something special about this—other than it being the army chief of staff, sir?” Hollister asked, unsure why they were talking unless there would be a change to the usual routine.
“No, I want you to do your usual bang-up job. I’ve been pleased with your performance, and I want you to just do it the same way.”
“Well, thank you, sir. You can count on my people to get it done right,” Hollister said, still thinking the general had something else in mind.
The general reached over and pushed down a toggle switch on a small intercom.
The voice of his aide on the other end crackled, “Yes, sir?”
“Bring that paperwork in here.”
“Yes, sir,” the aide said before his voice was clipped off by the intercom.
The general let a smile creep across his face. He looked back at Hollister. “You know, Jim, there are lots of tough things a general has to do, spared occasionally by an enjoyable task.”
The aide entered and handed the general a folder and stepped back to wait for any other instructions.
Hollister wasn’t sure what the general was getting at, but he knew he was uncomfortable.
“There are almost eight hundred captains here at Fort Benning—going to school, teaching, and assigned to the garrison?”
“Yes, sir,” Hollister replied.
The general opened up the folder and took out a photocopied set of orders and held them up. “But there are only two names on this promotion list to major for captains who are as junior as you are—and yours is one of them.”
Hollister didn’t believe what he was hearing. He had been deep selected for promotion to major? “Sir? Me? Major?” His brain rattled at the seeming contradiction between his own performance and the announcement. Only officers with the highest efficiency report ratings and an impressive list of tough assignments made the list.
He had never much thought about making major because he didn’t feel he was anywhere near the zone of consideration. He also put off thinking about it because he knew college would be a part of the selection board, and he still hadn’t assembled enough college credits to post to his records.
He had no idea what his efficiency reports looked like since there was no requirement for commanders to show them to the rated officers. He had only seen one. It was the max report that Major Sangean had given him when he was a Long Range Patrol company operations officer on his second tour in Vietnam. He had considered it a fluke or a gift. He surely didn’t think his other OERs were equally glowing in their assessment of his performance. But the proof was there. He would be a major well before his OCS classmates.
The
general stood up and stuck out his hand again to congratulate Hollister. “That’s right, son. You’ve been picked very early to be a new major.” He then made a face of mock frustration. “But since you’re on the bottom of the list, it’ll probably be more than a year before your sequence number comes up. But as of yesterday—you are now a captain, promotable. You’ll be able to take on jobs and responsibilities of a major, even though we aren’t paying you for it yet.”
They both laughed. Only the army could figure out how to get more out of a soldier without paying him for it.
“Sir, I don’t know what to say.”
“Well, just know this promotion is a reflection of how your previous commanders have felt about your performance in peacetime and combat assignments. You have a good record, and you’re a respected soldier. And I’m glad to have you in my command. I know you deserve this promotion, and the army has made a wise choice picking you over so many other captains senior to you.”
The words embarrassed Hollister. He was so surprised by the announcement and the praise from the general, he just stood there mute.
The general laughed. “I understand. It’s a lot to swallow—isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir!”
“You realize this means things are going to change for you? Assignments will be better. You’ll probably be offered a regular army commission, and you’ll, no doubt, find civilian schooling falling into your lap.”
The fringe benefits took a moment to sink in for Hollister. A regular commission was an officer’s version of tenure, and civil schooling meant the army would send him to college on the army’s time.
The morning brought with it all the last-minute checking of details before putting on an honors ceremony complete with the band and an artillery salute battery.
While there was never enough time to check all that needed checking, Hollister hoped that what he did overlook might still be acceptable to the army chief of staff.
He looked at the ranks of soldiers and bandsmen lined up perfectly on imaginary lines on the clipped grass of the parade field. They stood proudly, waiting for the welcoming ceremony to begin.