by Dennis Foley
Estlin appeared in the doorway. “He called while you were with the lieutenants. He had a chance to get a couple of teeth capped while he was up at the hospital and said he’d be a couple more hours.”
It was not the answer he wanted to hear. Hollister stood, pulled his beret out of his cargo pocket, and squared it on his head. “I’ll be with the platoon sergeants.”
The meeting with the NCOs was not as tense as the one with the lieutenants. Three of them were older than Hollister, and one was about the same age. He knew one of them. “DeSantis, you been here since I left?”
DeSantis smiled at his old friend. “Yes, sir, and I’m real glad you’re back. Been waitin’ for you.”
“Doesn’t look like you’ve been letting any grass grow under your feet. Congrats on making E-7. You were a buck sergeant when I left, weren’t you?”
“Yes, sir. Perfect attendance at the war.”
There was a little nervous laughter among the others.
“How many of you have been patrol leaders?”
Besides DeSantis, only one, Platoon Sergeant Peterson, raised his hand. “Two years in Charlie Company up in First Field Force, sir.”
“Good. Well, whether you were or weren’t a team leader is not something for you to concern yourselves about right now. What I really want to know is what’s the problem around here?”
They all rolled their eyes at his question.
“Problem, sir?” Platoon Sergeant Phil Seals said. “Sir, you don’t have enough time for us to tell you all the problems.”
Hollister took out a pack of cigarettes, lit himself one, and threw that pack on the table. “Smoke ’em if you got ’em.” He yelled toward the steam table end of the mess hall, “How ’bout somebody rounding up some coffee for us?”
He then turned back to the four NCOs. “I’ve got enough time to hear what you have to say.”
Immediately, the remaining tension cleared from the room as the NCOs candidly told Hollister their problems. They were precise, and he took notes, but didn’t pass any judgment on the worth of their complaints. He just wanted them to get it all off their chests. They were extremely important to the running of the company, and he wanted them to know he felt they were important.
Their meeting went on for two hours. Hollister had a lengthy list of complaints, and the NCOs finally ran out of grievances. Hollister killed a last sip of cold coffee and closed his notebook.
“Okay, my turn to talk. I’m going to turn the screws. You all know that. Same deal as everyone else—you can stay or go. No questions asked. But if you stay, I’m going to bust your humps as hard as the troops. We’ve got one hell of a hill to climb to get back on top around here. Anyone have trouble with that?”
The four were silent.
“Okay, then. Let’s get to work. I want to see your teams—inspection; full field layout tomorrow. It won’t be fun.”
Hollister got back to his office, and Estlin handed him seven messages scribbled on pieces of steno notebook paper, the edges raveled where they had been torn from the spiral ring.
“Sir, there has been a steady flow of people in here to see you about one thing or another. I told ’em that they’d have to wait until I could set up some kind of appointments or something.”
“Okay, Estlin. Sounds like a plan to me,” Hollister said. He looked at the messages. “We heard from my operations officer or the company clerk yet?”
“No, sir, but I have the names of six EMs and two NCOs who want to submit their ten-forty-nines to leave.”
Hollister looked up. “Just eight? Wait until we’re finished with tomorrow’s fun and games.”
The phone system didn’t cooperate with Hollister. He made several attempts to get through to talk to Colonel Terry or Lieutenant Colonel Michaelson. Each time either they were in briefings or the lines were busy.
Finally, he got through to Michaelson and began to unload on him his preliminary situation—which included his frustration about not having a first sergeant or a company clerk.
Michaelson told him some of his problems would be solved right away because he had already been working on them.
Hollister promised to give him an update within forty-eight hours, and then went back to the paperwork. He took a sip from another cold cup of coffee on his desk and then lit still another cigarette.
He was trying to prioritize the messages Estlin had handed him when he heard the squeaky screen door open to the orderly room. He would have paid little attention to the footsteps crossing the plywood decking if they had been even. But they weren’t. There was a solid step and a hollow one. Then a repeat of the uneven cadence as the steps came closer to his doorway. His mind wandered to the possibility, but he brushed it off to wishful thinking. Then he heard the gravel voice.
“Doesn’t this lash-up have a fucking Airborne-Ranger first sergeant?”
Hollister didn’t need to look to know that voice. It was Easy. First Sergeant Evan-Clark. Easy!
“Well, you rascal you,” Hollister said, jumping to his feet to grab the old soldier around the shoulders. “What in the hell are you doing here? How did you get here? Aren’t you supposed to be fishing someplace at a retirement cabin in Colorado?”
Easy laughed. “One at a time, Cap’n. I’m old, and I’m slow, and I can’t answer all yer questions as fast as you can ask ’em. I never could.”
Hollister stepped back and held Easy at arm’s length. “How are you? That’s the first question.”
“I’m fine, sir. And now, you’re fine,” Easy said.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m your new top soldier.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“No, sir. Colonel Michaelson and me pulled a few quick turns and twists and made it happen.”
“How did you even get cleared to come over here?”
“Well, seems like the army has a problem when it comes to physical exams. If you go to any big post, they almost never have you drop your drawers beyond your privates when they give you the once-over. So I applied to come back to Vietnam, went for the physical, and the damn civilian contract doctor never even saw the top of my peg leg.”
“How about your medical records?”
Easy rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and dropped his voice. “Seems like they got lost somewhere between Fitzsimmons Army Hospital and the physical exam section at Fort Carson. Don’t know how things like that happen. I get really upset when I think there are NCOs out there shuffling papers with such carelessness.”
They both laughed—knowing, full well, Easy made the records vaporize.
“So how did you get all this past assignments branch in Washington?”
Easy winked. “You got any idea how many of them youngsters up there in the puzzle palace were once PFCs working for me? Hell, most of them know if it hadn’t been for old Easy, they’d still be spec fours someplace. Now they think they’re hot because most of them are master sergeants and sergeants major. They owed me, Cap’n.”
Hollister was speechless. The arrival of Evan-Clark was a gift from heaven. If there ever was a man who could help him pull Juliet Company out of its own ass—it was Easy. Hollister finally motioned to a chair. “We have lots to talk about. Are you here? I mean, do you have to go in-process somewhere yet?”
Hollister tried not to watch as Easy moved across the floor to a chair. The last time he had seen Easy standing up, he was carrying Hollister across a flooded rice paddy in II Corps. Since that day, he’d only seen him in the hospital.
With his back to Hollister, Easy cautioned him. “Don’t be worryin’ about how well I walk, Cap’n. I can still kick the ass of every Ranger in your company, and I’ll not be holdin’ you back because I have a plastic leg.” He turned and gave Hollister his trademark grin.
Hollister nodded in acceptance of Easy’s words, but couldn’t get over how much weight Easy had lost and how much older he looked since he had last seen him. He even missed his hemp-rope mustache. “What happened t
o your cookie duster?”
“When the fuckin’ troops started thinking hair was some symbol of manhood and defiance, I shaved it to make my point—a soldier’s a soldier and not a mustache or a sideburn. Kinda hard to bust their asses for looking like hippies when I’m wearin’ a mustache.”
Leading by example—it was what Hollister loved about Easy. He was starting to feel a lot better about taking command of Juliet Company with Easy there.
“Top, we have troubles around here, and you’re going to have to do more than a first sergeant’s job to help me get this train on track.”
Easy slapped his hands together and grinned. “So where do we start?”
“You can start by finding yourself a company clerk and getting with Captain Browning, the XO. As a team, the three of you might be able to get the admin in this company back in shape.”
Hollister started the inspection in the officers’ billets. He cut them no slack and instructed them to get their gear in a higher state of readiness, pack a ready bag with gear to be taken into the field on a moment’s notice, and to get down to the firing range to fire several hundred rounds through each of their weapons.
He reminded each officer that his personal conduct would be as important as his duty performance. He didn’t want to catch any of his officers cutting corners or taking advantage of their rank to avoid unpleasant duty or training. Cross that line, and they were gone.
Once he got to the club, attached to the sleeping quarters, he instructed Browning to have a field phone installed at the bar, connected to allow them to call the orderly room and operations. And the club hours were 2000 to 2400 hours. It would be the only time alcohol would be served there, and the rest of the time the room would be considered a dayroom—no booze. They could read, do paperwork, or write letters there. But no drinking and no poker playing during duty hours.
The real shock came in the team hootches. Hollister found them to be pigsties. The field gear was in sorry shape. He found seven strobe lights with dead batteries and two with broken bulbs. Of the four team leaders he quizzed about URC-10 survival radios, only two knew how to use them and what frequencies they would be on.
The individual weapons were criminal. Rust, crud, and dirt clogged parts, and ammo was corroded and magazines muddy. As far as Hollister was concerned, not one team was in any shape to go to the field with the equipment they had.
He continued through each team hootch and tried to put faces to names as he talked with every member of the company. He felt the resentment of his strict changes in policy, training, and inspection standards. He expected that. Popularity would come at the cost of lives.
The inspection took the entire day. By the time he got through the nightmare in the commo section and the operations section, Hollister was numb. The motor pool was in worse shape than he expected, but he was happy that the motor pool rarely had a negative effect on the combat readiness of a Ranger company. The fact that he had three jeeps that couldn’t be accounted for on the property book was only a minor problem Browning could straighten out, while Hollister focused on training and organization.
Organization was a joke—little rhyme or reason how Simonson had assigned new arrivals to jobs. There were medics in the commo section, and radio operators assigned to the motor pool.
Easy stuck his head into Hollister’s office. “Sir, Captain Thomas is here to see you.”
The announcement set Hollister off. He was irritated that Thomas found it more important to be at a routine dental appointment than at his first meeting with the company officers. He told himself to put his feelings aside and see what the man had to say for himself. “Send him in.”
Captain Charles Thomas entered smartly, stopped in front of Hollister’s desk, and executed a sharp salute. “Captain Thomas, sir.”
“Sit,” Hollister said, unsmiling.
Thomas found a chair and then pulled a notebook out of his trousers pocket. He slipped the ballpoint pen from the rubber band holding it to the notebook and looked up at Hollister.
“What’s your story?”
“Sir?” Thomas asked, unsure of Hollister’s question.
“I show up here to assume command of this company, and you can’t seem to find the time to make it to my first meeting?”
Thomas looked at him, surprised. “Sir, it’s really hard to get a dental appointment around here—”
Hollister’s tone turned tough. “Mister, it’s real hard to get a job as the operations officer in one of the two corps Ranger companies. You get my drift?”
Thomas seemed unsure of Hollister’s irritation and answered with a noncommittal “Yes, sir.”
“I’ve met every officer in the company now. I’ve relieved one, and I’m really not happy with the foot you’ve gotten off on. So tell me what kind of job you do as operations officer around here. But before you do, know I have seen the after-action reports, and they are sorry.”
“Well, sir … I’ve only been the ops officer on paper. Major Simonson used me as the part-time XO, and he took care of all the operations, planning, and training. I’ve never even been up over the area of operations in a chopper. And I’ve been here for four months.”
“Well, I’ll get you out in the AO. Count on it.”
“That’s what I came here for, sir.”
“You’ve been in the field, and you’re Ranger qualified. Where’d you get your commission?”
“I went to Rutgers—ROTC, sir.”
“So … you tell me. You want the job or don’t you?”
Thomas’s face split into a large smile. “Yes, sir. I can do the job.”
Hollister gave him a sour look. “Let me tell you, next to being a team leader, ops officer in this company is the most important job. I’ve had it. And I know it. I won’t take any halfway measures. If you hit the street running and show me something better than I’ve already seen out of you—I’ll keep you in the job. But the minute I find you pulling shit like this dental appointment crap, I’ll boot your ass out of here so fast you’ll be sorry you ever jerked me around.”
It wasn’t until well after midnight that Hollister was finally able to think about getting some sleep. He wandered over to the BOQ and walked through the silent hallway flanked by the company officers’ rooms.
Browning was sitting at the desk in his room writing as Hollister stopped at his open door. “Good-night,” Hollister said.
Browning smiled. “Sir.”
“What is it?”
“I’m really glad we got you.”
Hollister smiled. “I’ll remind you you said that when you are swearing at me and about me. Things are going to get much tougher around here before they get any better.”
“I’m sure. That’s why I’m glad you have the job.”
“Well, okay. By the way, what do you like to be called? Larry?”
“No, sir, since I was a cadet, I’ve always been Brownie.”
“Brownie it is,” Hollister said, and he continued to his room.
He slept fitfully during the night and got up at a quarter to four. While he shaved, he could hear First Sergeant Easy bellowing outside in the company street. He knew they were already on their way to becoming a new Juliet Company.
Quickly finishing his shave, Hollister got into his boots, fatigue trousers, a T-shirt, and his black beret. He was glad to see he was the last officer to leave the BOQ.
Outside, there they were—in the dark, but assembled for the first time for him to see—Juliet Company.
Hollister walked briskly to a post in front of the first sergeant.
“Sir, the company is formed,” Easy said, executing a sharp salute.
Hollister took charge of the formation and moved them out—for the morning run.
It felt good being out in front of an Airborne company again. Hollister quickly shifted them from a quick time to double time and began the Jody cadence from his position up front, flanked only by Estlin, carrying the guidon.
CHAPTER 10
JULIET COMPANY RAN THE streets of the Bien Hoa base camp while the sun promised another hot and humid day. Hollister kept raising the force and the tempo of his voice to encourage the troops to do the same. But he could hear coughing and gasping for breath—telling him it had been some time since Juliet Company had done any real running.
His mind wandered to the times his legs were the only things between him and survival as he scrambled to get from a chopper to a tree line under fire, or vice versa. It surprised him that any man in Juliet Company would not take it upon himself to keep his wind and his legs up to be able to sprint under a full combat load when necessary.
He promised to make every run and every PT formation in order to set the example—even though his days scrambling to get to cover or an evacuating helicopter were probably behind him.
They passed the leg companies’ billets along their run, and soldiers came out to ridicule the Rangers—it had not changed. But as the light allowed him to see better, Hollister could tell the troops were no longer jeering good-heartedly. There was real friction and some palpable tension between a transportation company—predominantly black—and his almost all-white Ranger company. He knew he would have to make a point of recruiting more black and brown faces if he wanted to cut some of the animosity.
The column ran to the end of the road paralleling the runways and made a wide U-turn back toward Juliet Company’s compound. At the top of the turn, Hollister got a glimpse of Easy—at the end of the column, running on his artificial leg. He was limping badly, but keeping up. He was occupying his time badgering three dropouts who were easily twenty years his junior. He reminded them they had both their legs and lower mileage and had no excuse to drop out except they were sorry excuses for Airborne soldiers. Hollister could see Easy’s taunts were making them run just to show the old man they could keep up with an over-the-hill NCO with a wooden leg.
The PT formation was followed by the usual army daily dozen calisthenics. The troops were sloppy and out of shape, but they all kept up with Lieutenant Fass, whom Hollister had tasked with leading the exercises.