The Berets

by W. E. B Griffin

  “What’s the story, Craig?”

  “Do me the favor, Paul, please,” Lowell said.

  There was another long pause.

  “Damn you, Craig,” Hanrahan said, then: “Oh, shit. Okay. Do what he wants, Taylor. Good-bye, Craig.”

  “Hat Five, clear,” Taylor said, then: “What is the story, Colonel?”

  “Just take this kid and turn him into your ordinary run-of-the-mill snake-eating killer, Taylor,” Lowell said. “Yours not to reason why, et cetera, et cetera.”

  “Let me have the name, serial number, and organization, Colonel,” Taylor said.

  VI

  (One)

  Pope Air Force Base

  Fort Bragg, North Carolina

  1100 Hours, 11 December 1961

  The Commander in Chief’s visit to Pope Air Force Base and Fort Bragg, North Carolina, was not a simple, casual affair. This being the case, two days earlier a plane had arrived containing representatives of the President’s staff and several senior Secret Service agents. These people made arrangements for communications and reviewed the proposed itinerary for security and press considerations.

  Seven other aircraft, the last of them a chartered Piedmont Airlines Plane bearing the brighter lights of the Washington press corps, arrived at various times before Air Force One, the Presidential aircraft, made a low gentle approach over the Fort Bragg reservation and touched down at precisely 10:59:45, fifteen seconds ahead of schedule.

  The President and his party deplaned and were greeted at the foot of the stairway by Lieutenant General H. H. Howard, U.S. Army, commanding general XVIII Airborne Corps and Fort Bragg, and by Major General Stanley O. Zarwich, USAF, Commanding General, Pope Air Force Base.

  The senior officers were introduced to the President. The roster (prepared by Major General Kenneth L. Harke, U.S. Army, who was for all practical purposes commanding Bragg in the frequent absences of Lieutenant General Howard) included the commanding general and deputy commanding general of the Eighty-second Airborne Division; the deputy commander of Pope Air Force Base; the XVIII Airborne Corps artillery commander; the Eighty-second Division artillery commander; and the commanding general of the Eighth Support Brigade; all the general officers, army and air force, stationed at Fort Bragg and Pope Air Force Base; and, with two exceptions, the officers who commanded the major troop units. The exceptions were the commander of the station hospital, a full colonel, and the commandant of the U.S. Army Special Warfare School and Center, also a full colonel.

  Colonel Hanrahan was not, after all, a general officer, General Harke reasoned. Furthermore, he had been informed by CONARC that it was entirely likely that the President would take the opportunity of his visit to announce that the Fifth Special Forces Group was to be redesignated the Fifth Airborne Combat Team, assigned to the Eighty-second Division. It would be awkward for Colonel Hanrahan to be part of the official party if that was indeed the President’s intention.

  Following the introduction of the general officers, the President got into a specially prepared jeep of the Eighty-second Airborne Division. It was outfitted with chrome sirens and flashing lights; white covers had been placed over its canvas cushions; the national colors and presidential flag flew from special mounts on the fenders; and there was an arrangement of specially welded bars that would permit the President, the Vice-Chief of Staff, and Lieutenant General H. H. Howard to stand up as the jeep slowly made its way down the ranks of the “alert regiment” to take that salute.

  Each regiment of the Eighty-second Airborne Division, in rotation, served one month on alert. The alert regiment was prepared to leave Fort Bragg for any destination in the world within three hours. At this time the 502nd Parachute Infantry was the alert regiment, and they (and their supporting artillery and technical services units) did not stand down from alert status because of the visit of the Commander in Chief.

  They were in fatigues and steel helmets, their loaded trucks lined up on parking ramps at Pope, waiting the order to enplane.

  As appropriate for an official visit by the Commander in Chief, all the other troop units, with one conspicuous exception, were in Class A uniforms. They would carry their rifles at right shoulder arms during the march past. (The alert regiment would carry theirs slung over their shoulders.)

  The exception was the Fifth Special Forces Group, which had shown up at Pope in fatigues and fatigue caps. Major General Harke was absolutely sure this was a final act of insubordination on the part of Colonel Hanrahan. Hanrahan was as usual being a guardhouse lawyer about his relationship with Fort Bragg and XVIII Airborne Corps. He was a Class II activity of DCSOPS, he was always quick to point out, and therefore not subject to the desires of the Fort Bragg and XVIII Airborne Corps. He had flatly refused to get his troops out of their girl scout hats until ordered to do so by CONARC.

  It should have been perfectly clear to Hanrahan that Major General Harke believed that his troops should be in Class A uniforms. If there had been time, General Harke would have ordered them back onto their trucks to change into the proper uniform.

  But they hadn’t even begun to show up until half past ten (the other troops had begun to arrive at 0730; the last of them were in place at 0930), and there simply hadn’t been time for Harke to order them back to Smoke Bomb Hill to get in the proper uniform.

  Technically, Harke had fumed privately, they were AWOL (Absent With Out Leave, being defined as not being in the proper place, at the proper time, in the proper uniform). It had also bothered Harke to see that it was a rare sleeve indeed in the Fifth Special Forces Group that did not bear the chevrons of at least a staff sergeant. That was something he intended to correct personally just as soon as the First SF Group was redesignated as a Combat Team and placed under XVIII Airborne Corps. He would see all those excess sergeants assigned where needed in the division and put to work earning their pay as sergeants, instead of drawing sergeants’ pay for doing what a private first class should be doing.

  They could call it an “A” Team or anything else they wanted to, but as far as General Harke was concerned, nine men was a squad, and there should be a sergeant as a squad leader, not a captain, and a corporal assistant squad leader and seven privates or specialists, not a second officer and seven noncommissioned officers.

  After the President and the two senior generals climbed into the jeep, General Harke led the rest of the party to the reviewing stand. As he did this he saw in the front passenger seat of the jeep immediately behind the presidential jeep the Warrant Officer with the Bag. The Bag contained the codes the President would need to order a nuclear attack. The Bag Man never got more than fifteen seconds from the President. In the passenger seat of the second jeep behind the presidential jeep was a diminutive lieutenant colonel whom General Harke knew only by reputation. He was—not very common for a Jew—a West Pointer; but he was not much of a soldier, in General Harke’s opinion. First under Eisenhower, and now under Kennedy, he had been appointed the President’s Personal Liaison Officer to the Intelligence Community. So that he could deal with his military superiors, he had been officially named a Counselor to the President.

  In reality, as far as General Harke was concerned, he was nothing more than a paper-shuffler, an infantry officer who had been almost entirely with one ragtag organization or another in Greece and Korea. The little Jew had taken the time to go to parachute school and Ranger school solely in order to pin the wings and the embroidered strip to his uniform.

  And to put the cap on his gall, today he was showing up at Fort Bragg, home of the Airborne, wearing parachute wings, jump boots, and a Ranger patch—and a goddamned green beret.

  General Harke hoped that the Vice-Chief of Staff would say something to him about it, preferably within the hearing of the President.

  The jeeps, having completed the trooping of the line of the alert regiment, crossed the concrete taxiway and deposited the President, the Vice-Chief of Staff, and the Fort Bragg and XVIII Airborne Corps commander before the reviewing s
tand.

  The drums and bugles played the ruffles and flourishes prescribed by regulation to pay honor to the Commander in Chief. This was followed by the twenty-one-gun salute regulations prescribed to honor the President of the United States. General Harke noticed that one of the charges had gotten damp. The report was somewhat hollow-sounding, and a lump of unexploded powder flew out of the howitzer’s mouth to land, burning, on grass between the parking ramp and a runway. The grass ignited.

  The possibility had been planned for. A three-quarter-ton truck with a crew to man a grass-fire—extinguishing apparatus appeared and extinguished the blaze.

  The Eighty-second Airborne Division marched past the reviewing stand, playing appropriate airs. One of these, “Anchors Aweigh,” was in consideration of the President’s service as a naval officer during World War II. The band then marched into position directly in front of the reviewing stand, where they would play during the march past.

  The President, trailed by the Vice-Chief of Staff, the Adjutant General, and that goddamned Lieutenant Colonel Felter in his green beret, took a few steps forward to a battery of microphones set up in front of the reviewing stand.

  The colors followed them, the national flag, the presidential flag, the Eighty-second Division flag, and the red (and one blue) flags of the general officers present. The color bearers formed a rank behind the President and the others.

  “Colonel Paul T. Hanrahan, front and center!” the Adjutant General ordered.

  Major General Harke was surprised at that, but then he thought he understood. It had been a battle to put Special Forces where it belonged; for Special Forces had had more friends that it had any right to have, including that goddamned Jew with the President’s ear. They were going to give Hanrahan a medal, the Legion of Merit, probably, or possibly even the Distinguished Service Medal, although that was normally reserved for general officers but sometimes awarded to especially deserving colonels. They would tend to make the redesignation of the Fifth Special Forces Group into a proper Airborne unit more palatable.

  Far down the parking ramp, the solitary figure of Colonel Paul T. Hanrahan appeared. He was in fatigues. He didn’t even have the common decency to stiffen the crown of his fatigue cap with cardboard to give it a military appearance. Except for the silver eagle pinned to it, it was identical to the field cap worn by private soldiers riding garbage trucks.

  It took some time for Hanrahan to march all the way from the rear of the line of the march, where the Fifth Special Forces Group was positioned, to the reviewing stand. And the band, after four choruses of an appropriate air, went silent.

  There was only the tick of a drummer striking his stick against the metal rim of his drum. General Harke was not sure if the drummer was doing that on order to help Hanrahan march in a military manner, or whether it was his own idea. Harke wished he were not doing it.

  Hanrahan made a one-man column right, stopped ten feet from the presidential party, and saluted.

  “Colonel Hanrahan, Paul T., reporting as ordered, sir.”

  The Vice-Chief of Staff, the Adjutant General, and Lieutenant Colonel Felter saluted in return.

  “Attention to orders,” the Adjutant General read. “Headquarters, Department of the Army, Washington, D.C., eleven December, one-nine-six-one. General Orders number three one zero. Paragraph one. By direction of the President, with the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate, Paul T. Hanrahan, Colonel, Signal Corps, Detail, Infantry, is promoted Brigadier General, with date of rank eleven December one-nine-six-one. For the Chief Staff. J. Eastman Fuller, Major General, the Adjutant General.”

  “Congratulations, General Hanrahan,” the President said. “Felter!”

  Lieutenant Colonel Felter stepped forward and handed the President two silver stars. The President pinned one to each of Hanrahan’s collar points.

  “Congratulations again, General,” the President repeated.

  “Thank you, sir,” Hanrahan said.

  “I have the feeling this came as a surprise,” the President said.

  “An absolute surprise, sir,” Hanrahan said.

  “May I be permitted to observe, General, that I don’t think very much of that cap of yours?” the President asked, smiling.

  “I’m not very fond of it, either, Mr. President.”

  “Colonel Felter has something you might like better, General,” the President said.

  “Mr. Wojinski!” the little man bellowed in a surprisingly loud voice.

  From the side of the reviewing stand, two soldiers in fatigues appeared. One was Sergeant Major Taylor, the other Warrant Officer (Junior Grade) Wojinski. Sergeant Major Taylor carried a pole on which flew the silver-starred red flag of a brigadier general. He took a position beside the other general officer’s flags. WOJG Wojinski marched out to General Hanrahan, his massive hands crossed in front of him. They held a green beret. A silver star was pinned to the Special Forces flash.

  “Now that’s more like it,” the President said.

  Hanrahan put the beret on.

  Wojinski removed his fatigue cap delicately and let it fall to the ground. He reached in his fatigue shirt and came out with his beret and put it on. He saluted the President and marched off.

  From far down the parking ramp, there came a roar of men’s voices.

  Ten minutes later, when the Fifth Special Forces Group, at the tail end of the march-past troop units, passed the reviewing stand, they were all wearing green berets.

  The President looked at Brigadier General Hanrahan. Tears were running down Brigadier General Hanrahan’s cheeks.

  (Two)

  Headquarters, Eleventh Infantry Regiment (Training)

  Fort Jackson, South Carolina

  1305 Hours, 11 December 1961

  “Sir, Confinee Craig is present, sir,” Colonel Sauer’s sergeant major said, saluting as he stopped four feet from the colonel’s desk.

  Confinee Craig, two feet behind him, also saluted.

  “I am not returning your salute, Craig, because you are under charges and not entitled to the privilege of a salute,” Colonel Sauer said.

  “Sorry, sir.”

  “You will speak only when directed to speak,” Colonel Sauer said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Leave me with this piece of garbage, Sergeant Major.”

  Colonel Sauer stared at Confinee Craig coldly for a full minute before he spoke.

  Nice-looking kid, he thought. Well set up. Looks intelligent.

  “Earlier today, Craig, I went through a very distasteful scene because of you,” he said. “I cannot remember being so embarrassed.”

  Geoff looked at him and then away.

  “A very distinguished officer came to see me,” Colonel Sauer said. “An officer who wears the nation’s second highest decoration, and many others. And he was embarrassed and ashamed to come to me.”

  Confinee Craig looked miserable.

  “He came to beg for you,” Sauer said. “Or not for you. I think he holds you in the same contempt that I do. But for your mother. He told me your mother is under doctor’s care because of the mess you’re in.”

  Confinee Craig looked even more miserable.

  “Do you have any idea how humiliating it is for an officer like Colonel Lowell to have it become common knowledge that his cousin is in the stockade, charged with assault upon a noncommissioned officer, like some scum from the slums?”

  There was no reply.

  “I asked you a question!”

  “I only hit that sergeant after he hit me,” Geoff Craig said.

  “I didn’t bring you in here to argue with you! I asked you a question!”

  “I’m sorry, sir, that Colonel Lowell has been embarrassed by my actions.”

  “You damned well better be! I felt sorry for him, an officer like that, having to come and beg for the likes of you!”

  That’s enough, Colonel Sauer decided. Any more and I’ll have him throwing up on the carpet.

  “Well, I didn’t h
ave the heart to refuse him. Against my better judgment, I’m going to give you a chance to pay for what you did without either further humiliating a fine officer or putting your mother in the hospital. Not that I think you’ll do anything with it but something stupid again and be right back in some other stockade, waiting to be tried.”

  “Another chance, sir?”

  “I personally don’t think you’re man enough to do it. I personally think you’re nothing but a spoiled, over-privileged punk. If it wasn’t for Colonel Lowell, I’d happily send you off to the federal prison at Leavenworth. But I think, if the circumstances were reversed, that he would do the same thing for me. So I am going to send you to Fort Bragg; and from there you are going to Fort Benning for parachute training. When you finish that—if you’re man enough to finish that—you will return to Fort Bragg and go through Special Forces training. It is the toughest training in the world, and I will be personally surprised if you can make it. But if you do, your actions here will be wiped from the books. If you don’t, you will spend the rest of your military service as a cook’s helper in the most remote place that can be found to send you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That’s all? You can’t even say ‘Thank you, sir’?”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Sergeant Major!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Take this piece of garbage out of my sight. Put him in a Class A uniform. Take him to the airport. There will be a ticket to Fayetteville, N.C., waiting for him at the Piedmont counter.”

  “Yes, sir,” the sergeant major said. He took Geoff Craig’s arm and led him out of the office.

  Colonel Lowell came out of Colonel Sauer’s lavatory.

  “You think that was necessary, Lowell?” Sauer asked. “I felt like I was pulling the wings off a fly.”

  “Yes, sir, I think it was,” Lowell said. “Thank you.”

  “Why Special Forces? Have you got something nasty planned for him at Bragg?”

  “Oh, I think Snake-Eating 101 will be nasty enough in itself, Colonel,” Lowell said. “The truth of the matter is—and I wouldn’t want Mac to hear me say it—in a perverse way and from a distance, I rather admire what Hanrahan is doing down there.”