He looked at his hand.
No blood! Right! OK, something had hit him, but he didn’t know what. Or was he hit someplace other than his side. Must’ve grazed his noggin, must be some reason he wasn’t thinking straight.
Sun blazing through the trees, harsh sun, hot sun, and a hot breeze passed over his body as he lay in the undergrowth. He had trouble moving, joints were achy… he could barely move.
Gotta call Battalion. Gotta find Ramirez or the radio, and he inched to the side thinking to discover Ramirez’s body but all he found was more funny grass, and the spotted sunlight was molten on his back as it came through the thin, funny trees, trees that hid the enemy but didn’t provide cover, and you’d think what was sauce for the goose… Shit. He wasn’t thinking straight.
“Ramirez?”
Forget him. He was gone, off the side of the trail, lying there, dead.
Why was he hearing Bob Dylan in his head? Used to lie in bed and listen to Dylan records with many a girlfriend… OK, not many, not bragging, come on, give me a break, but he loved Dylan and his music, not the folksy stuff all that much but when he started playing with The Band, and the floodgates opened and all the Sixties shit bubbled up while he tried to find Ramirez, because he must’ve taken a damn slug to the head and something was screwy because he just wasn’t thinking straight, why the hell couldn’t he think, find Ramirez, find that radio, call in air support; he had seen at least three Cobras in the area, and they were there to back up the operation, at his beck and call, even if he couldn’t reach battalion headquarters, he could always throw a smoke marker and call in that Cobra to spray the area with 20mm cannon, and that ought to take care of the son of a bitch NVA bastards, but he couldn’t find Ramirez or the radio and he wasn’t feeling very good, maybe he was hit, but goddamn no pain, no pain yet, so he didn’t know what was wrong, but something was terribly wrong…
WHUP WHUP WHUP WHUP WHUP WHUP WHUP WHUP WHUP…
Helicopters! Not firing yet. Maybe they could see the machine gun position, but no, they couldn’t, he’d have to lob a yellow smoke grenade to show them where to fire. He looked up through the trees.
All he saw were birds. Big, skinny, funny-looking birds, what was with that? Abstract expressionist birds, nothing was looking normal, not the vegetation, not the birds, not anything that looked normal for the Central Highlands, but what did he know about local fauna, they didn’t teach you that at OCS, they just make you into a 90-day wonder leader of men, men like Corporal Ramirez, who was dead because the Second Lieutenant platoon leader wasn’t a very goddamn good leader of men, were you, Lieutenant, sir, you asshole, sir?
“Ramirez?”
He just wanted an answer now, he didn’t expect Ramirez to do anything. Maybe Ramirez had been hit by mortar. But there was no explosions, just boom boom coming from all around, but not near. Other battles nearby? Other units pinned down? The whole operation was a snafu, maybe he wasn’t to blame.
“Ramirez, if you can hear me, call battalion headquarters, call in air cover.”
Ramirez wasn’t around. Maybe Ramirez never existed, and all of a sudden strange things got into his head, like the time he put on his mother’s nylon stockings, but that didn’t mean anything, didn’t mean he was queer or anything, just meant he was curious about feminine things, because he liked girls, always had. But he had these strange feminine memories. He felt guilty about holding back with the Army psychiatrist. Routine exam, he’d kept his mouth shut, the doc didn’t press, and that was that. Who would know?
What the hell is going on? Now he was hearing the thump of mortars hitting somewhere off in the distance.
He rolled over onto his stomach and there still was no pain, only pain in his ears from the incessant roar of the machine gun, and sweat stinging his eyes. Otherwise, he was all right. But he couldn’t move. He tried to get to his knees and could not.
Smoke grenade. He needed one. He rifled his pants pockets. No smoke grenade. He wasn’t carrying any. Jesus Christ, had he forgotten to take any? What was the Lieutenant thinking, sir? You shithead.
Splinters were still flying, slugs cutting into wood like it was cheese.
Well, he was checking out. He was out of the battle. It could rage, he was somewhere else, back in the early 60s in high school watching Dick van Dyke and his lovely Laura in her capris pants and flip hairdo, and the Beaver and Eddie Haskell—there was a Haskell Avenue in LA when he lived out there, in the Valley somewhere.
He reached for his service .45, Colt 1911 A-1, and brought it up to look at. It looked strange. What the hell had happened to it? It didn’t look right.
His eyes dimmed, everything dimmed, he was blacking out… and back in the Fifties there was Milton Berle and Martin and Lewis and Sid Caesar, Your Show of Shows, and God was that funny, and even when he didn’t understand the sketches, they were still funny, like when they parodied Japanese films, Kirosawa, The Seven Samurai, you were a kid and didn’t even know the Japanese made movies, for God’s sake, you still laughed at Howie Morris wrapping a kimono or whatever around Sid Caesar, prancing around him and chattering doubletalk Japanese, was that racist, I guess it was racist, but it was hilarious and you laughed, and then there was The Twilight Zone, with cigarette-puffing Rod Serling standing there with a one-way ticket to infinity, submitted for your approval.
Ramirez! McCluskey?
“Where’s that M-60?” he screamed. “Somebody shoot the fuck back!”
Why wasn’t anybody firing? Where was the answering fire. Don’t tell me they’re all hit, for Christ’s sake, don’t tell me that! All thirty of them? Can’t be!
Darkness visible again, dimming light through the trees in waning shafts, spots of blue-green through the rustling leaves, funny leaves, and back we go to the Fifties, Saturday morning lineup of kiddie shows, spending all morning in front of the TV watching cartoons, live action, Fury, Sky King, Johnny Jupiter, Kookla, Fran, and Ollie, Lassie, Space Patrol… Tom Corbett, Space Cadet! Documentary footage of V-2s lifting off, rocketships, space cadets, rays guns, blasters, robots, aliens…
He was hearing more mortar fire now, boom… boom… boom… maybe it was a cannon. No, it had to be mortar fire.
Mighty Mouse, Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, Rocky Jones, Space Ranger… ! Disney on Sunday nights, old Walt… and on weekend afternoons, Mickey Mouse Club—forever let us hold our banners high…
Something had hit his side. It was getting numb. There was something, but all he could bring away with his hand was sweat. He was soaked in sweat. He angled his head and looked down at his body. What the fuck. He was going out of his head. What he saw didn’t make sense.
No, don’t look. You’re screwy. You got hit, you’re bleeding to death… God, I’m bleeding to death here, and he was woozy and not really there, he was elsewhere, somewhere back in his childhood in the nineteen-fifties decoding Captain Midnight’s messages on the Secret Decoder Ring—what was that you said, Captain? Drink Ovaltine, that’s what the captain sent encrypted. Drink Ovaltine he did, every morning and sometimes before his mom tucked him into bed.
Oh, his favorites were the space shows. Always liked Space Patrol, and Tom Corbett and Captain Video—done live from New York, pretty sure, that must’ve been something. He didn’t remember any plots, any stories, just the doc footage of World War II German vengeance-weapons lifting off their pads, doubling for rockets into space. Space travel was simpler then, no fussing with Delta V or… Delta V? Or quantum fluctuation. Or… ? TV kid shows? Quantum fluctuation? String-theory spatiometrics? Stray memories, bits of dialogue from those shows. Decoder rings. Space cadets, silly crap. But he remembered he loved those shows and now they were really going to the moon, the Apollo guys.
String-theory spatiometrics? Where did that come from?
“Lieutenant Ramirez, are you there?”
A voice, somewhere off to the left. Ramirez! Maybe.
“Lieutenant? Come in, this is Rescue Three.”
What the hell was “Rescue Three
”? We need a Cobra gunship, buddy. Where was the voice coming from? It sounded like someone was speaking right next to him, not like a field radio, but like high-end audio on a classical channel. Clear fidelity. What?
Inching in the direction of the voice, parting the odd-colored grasses off the trail while the Soviet gun still hammered away, spreading deadly fire at the edge of the woods, and still that booming and the whup whup whup of helicopters, strange sounds, filtered and changed through whatever was happening to him inside his head, something screwy, something that was the result of getting hit, but he can’t figure out where he was hit. He chances to sit up, like a fool, and hunches over, but he must be out of the line of fire because no slugs find him, and he pulls his shirt out of his uniform pants and looks at his bare side.
His side has a swelling of some sort, a lump topped with a tiny red dot. Not big enough to be an entry wound. He doesn’t know what it is.
And he doesn’t know what those swellings are on his chest. Something is definitely screwy.
“Lieutenant? Rescue Three to Lieutenant Ramirez. We lost you, there. Are you all right?”
He stretched out again and lay his head near where he thought the voice was coming from. Then he found it. But it wasn’t the PRC-25 field radio. It was some tiny little hand-held thing, black, with no antenna, and it was squawking.
“Lieutenant Ramirez? Are you there? You were just talking to us a while ago. Did something happen?”
He grabbed the unfamiliar object and spoke into the tiny metal mesh grate. “What is this thing? Are you a Cobra, come in? This is McElroy, Joshua T., Second Lieutenant commanding Third Platoon, Alpha Company. Need a Cobra for air support, any Cobra in the area, will mark target with yellow smoke. Can you read, over?”
A short silence.
“Lieutenant Ramirez? Is that you?”
“Ramirez is dead! This is Lieutenant McElroy! NVA unit pinning down my platoon! Need air support! Can you assist?”
Another silence preceding: “Lieutenant, I think you are in need of medical assistance. Don’t worry, we will be down to take you out of there very shortly. Stand by.” It was a calm voice, authoritative, soothing.
What in the hell are they talking about? “No! No, no, no! Need air support before medical evacuation! We are pinned down by heavy NVA machine gun fire! Need air support, any helicopter gunship in the vicinity. Come in! Do you read me?”
No answer.
“Don’t send the Huey. Need a Cobra, now! Need concentrated fire on my marker.”
But he had no marker! What was he going to do? Nobody was answering. Was he completely alone? Did they all vamoose back to the clearing as soon as the RPD had opened up? Maybe Hueys were coming to take them out and here he was, still on his back in the woods, being shot at.
But it got dark again and he was in Saigon at Lee’s and the bar girls were sidling up to him and the sound system was blaring the Doors and he was sipping a beer watching the busy thoroughfare through the window, people in dark pajamas pedaling bicycles up and down the street; he really hates it here, hates the war, but he got drafted and he is no peacenik and wanted to do the right thing but he has doubts, he thinks the war may be a mistake, but he has no say in the matter, so he takes the Officer Qualifying Test and scores big, because he has his BA and Army tests are a snap for any college grad, and lo and behold, he is an officer leading men into battle…
The machine gun stops. What is going on? He still hears the thud and boom of mortar explosions. But the machine gun has stopped chattering. He hears something humming.
Two figures, shadows at the edge of the woods now, backlighted by sun, and why aren’t they getting hit? Silence now. Strange silence. As if…
“Lieutenant Ramirez?”
They are standing over him, looking at him through goggles.
“Who’s the leader of the club that’s made for you and me?”
“He’s crazy.”
“Take another look, Corporal.”
“Oh. She’s crazy. The hair fooled me.”
“Cadet Lieutenant Patricia Ramirez, meet Planetary Guardsman Anselm Reilly. ‘Ansy’ is what he’s called, usually. Right, Ansy?”
“Who are you guys?”
“We’re here to help. Cadet Ramirez, you have passed your Survival Training Field Exam. I see something has bitten you, here on the side. Puncture mark, swelling. You’re pretty well envenomed, but I recognize the single puncture. I have the appropriate antivenin right here, but we’ll have to get you up to the cruiser pronto.”
“Don’t you guys realize there’s this huge unit of North Vietnamese regulars around here? This is a big operation. What the hell are you doing in those space suits?”
“Take it easy, Lieutenant. Lie back down. I want to give you an injection. Never mind about the North Vietnamese. What we have to worry about is an anaphylactic reaction to the critter that bit you.”
Reilly edged closer. “And she passed the exam?”
“Sure, she stayed alive well past the pick-up time. Then a pesky little local poisonous slug bit her, and there’s obviously been some hallucinating.”
“What was she chattering about? North who?”
“Tom Corbett! Are you guys space cadets?”
“No, but you are, Cadet Lieutenant. I have no idea, Corporal. Sounds like twentieth-century historical and cultural references. You familiar with the period?”
“Me? Hell, sir, I don’t know anything about Earth. Who cares?”
“Right. I’ve seen this before. Rare, but it happens. It’s those historical war simulations, and the deep social and cultural immersion cadet gamers undergo. It’s very specialized neuralware to give an extra dimension to the simulation. They take on historical personae complete with life histories, memories, the whole panoply of cultural baggage, so as to better understand how the war in question was fought.”
“And when she got bit, she starts hallucinating the last simulation she was in?”
“They do quite a lot of military gaming at the Academy.”
“Didn’t she say she was some guy named McElroy and that Ramirez was dead?”
“One of her avatars, most likely. I don’t think women took part in actual combat in that historical period. But she obviously remembered that ‘Ramirez’ was around here somewhere. She’ll come around as soon as this stuff gets working. There. Cadet, can you walk?”
“She doesn’t look like it.”
“Get the gurney, Corporal.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m a space cadet!”
“Whoa, is she going to be all right?”
“Perfectly. After all, that’s what she is. Ancient term for it, but she is one.”
“What the hell are those noises, if you don’t mind my asking, sir?”
“I know this planet. That chattering sounds like an Uzi bird.”
“Bird?”
“Actually, a tree-dwelling reptile.”
“Sounds like an automatic weapon! And what’s that booming sound?”
“The locals call them ‘boomers.’”
“Huh. And those birds up there. Sounds like a war zone.”
“I don’t know what they’re called. Maybe all this racket triggered the hallucinations.”
“I’m sure you’re correct, sir. I’ll be right back.”
“Who’s the leader of the club that’s made for you and me?”
“Uh-oh, that antivenin might take a little longer than I thought.”
The ship lifts and the jungle rolls below. It’s not a helicopter, hardly makes a sound. Could it be one of ours, or are these guys little green men? Where are they taking me?
My breasts seem part of me now. I am a woman. I’ve got my commission! I’m Patricia Ramirez, Second Lieutenant, Terran High Guard. And she closes her eyes and her head lolls toward the window and the ship hums and throbs around her.
As she opens her eyes again, the jungle falls away. Why is the horizon curving like that?
…Forever let us hold
our banners high—High! High! High!
Editor’s Introduction to:
THE DEADLY FUTURE OF LITTORAL SEA CONTROL
by Commander Phillip E. Pournelle, U.S. Navy
The United States has always been a maritime power, and freedom of the seas has been our policy since the founding of the Republic. We have known since President Thomas Jefferson refused to pay tribute to the Barbary Coast pirates that blockade might not be enough. Sometime you must control the coastal areas and send the Marines to the shores of Tripoli.
The control of littoral areas generates different fleet requirements than controlling the high seas. Commander Phillip Pournelle has been involved with the future of naval requirements, including fleet structure, for years. This article was recently published by the United States Naval Institute and is reprinted here by permission of the institute. The opinions in the article are, of course, his own. There is a lively debate about the future of the Navy, and how the Fleet should be structured, in Naval circles. Those interested in it should consult the Naval Institute Proceedings, where the various features of the force, including submarines, carriers, surface vessels, information warfare, and the Marines, are discussed. This essay concentrates on an important part of the debate.
When I was in the aerospace industry, I used to say that “the opinions expressed here are my own, and not necessarily those of the Aerospace Corporation or the United States Air Force, and I think that’s a damn shame.” The opinions expressed here are those of Commander Pournelle, and not necessarily those of the United States Navy.
And I think that’s a damn shame.
THE DEADLY FUTURE OF LITTORAL SEA CONTROL
Commander Phillip E. Pournelle, U.S. Navy
This article is reprinted here with the permission of the United States Naval Institute
In an age of precision-strike weapon proliferation, a big-ship navy equals a brittle fleet. What is needed is a revamped force structure based on smaller surface combatants.
The U.S. Navy is building a fleet that is not adapted to either the future mission set or rising threats. It is being built centered around aircraft carriers and submarines. Surface ships are being constructed either as escorts for the carriers or as ballistic-missile-defense platforms. While the littoral combat ship (LCS) was originally intended for sea-control operations in the littoral environment, its current design is best employed as a mother ship for other platforms to enter the littorals. The result of all this is a brittle—and thus risk-adverse—fleet that will not give us influence, may increase the likelihood of conflict, and will reduce the range of mission options available to the national command authority.
There Will Be War Volume X Page 22