W E B Griffin - BoW 03 - The Majors

by The Majors(Lit)

  "It is practically an item of faith within the noncommissioned officer corps that second lieutenants have a value on a par with a rubber crutch for a cripple, or lactation glands on a male camel.

  "I believed this myself, gentlemen, when, before I was afforded the opportunity of an education at the United States

  Military Academy at West Point, I served as a platoon sergeant with the 140th Tank Battalion.

  "Ninety percent of the commissioned officers with whom you will be associated during your stay with us, as well, of course, as one hundred percent of the warrant officers, have had service as noncommissioned officers.

  "I would therefore like to make the friendly suggestion that any thoughts that any of you have regarding beating the system because of your vast and varied experience as soldiers in sundry assignments around the planet Earth should be dismissed as wishful thinking.

  "We are going to teach you two things while you are here.

  We are going to teach you how to fly rotary wing aircraft.

  Since you are all in excellent physical condition and possess a degree of intelligence at least as high as that of officer candidates, and since flying, frankly, is not all that difficult, that phase of your training should pose no problem.

  "We are also going to make a valiant effort to turn you into officers and gentlemen. An officer is someone charged with the responsibility for other men's lives; there is no greater responsibility placed on any human being. A gentleman is someone who has earned the respect of his peers and subordinates by his personal character. His word is his bond. He accepts -and executes orders without any mental reservations whatever.

  "There is no bed check here, gentlemen. There will be no guards posted to keep you from walking out the gate and spending the night with your wives in the Daleville MotelŽor wherever else you have stashed them. When you are ordered to be in your quarters, you are expected to be in your quarters. Your very presence here means that you have given your word to faithfully execute all orders.

  "You will not be punished, in other words, for going AWOL.

  You will be dismissed from the program as being unfit to be an officer and a gentleman because your word cannot be trusted.

  "Neither do we function here on the buddy system. You will cover for your friends at your own risk. A gentleman is not a snitch who will run to his superiors to report the misbehavior of his peers. On the other hand, to give you a specific example, should it come to our attention that someone missed a formation, that someone failed to appear at the appointed time, at the appointed place, in the proper uniform, and that whoever was in charge of the formation covered for him, the result would be immediate dismissal for both individuals.

  "That's all the explanation of how things operate that you're going to get, with this final exception. You will be marched from here to the quartermaster warehouse, where you will receive a complete issue of uniforms, from T-shirts and shorts to flight suits. Those uniforms will be adorned with the insignia prescribed for the various grades of warrant officer candidates, and with no, repeat no, other insignia of any kind. It will be impossible to tell, for example, a former first sergeant of a parachute infantry company from a former recruit E-l. And that, gentlemen, is the point.

  "From the moment you put on those new uniforms until you graduate, or are dismissed, you can forget that you are a noncommissioned officer whom a grateful government has seen fit to equip with authority, and the symbols of that authority, as well as the symbols for whatever unusual contribution you may have made to the profession of arms in the past.

  "You are all equal. What you are now, gentlemen, is WOCs.

  And what a WOC is, is something one fwows at a wabbit."

  It was not, Staff Sergeant Franklin had decided, your typical bullshit welcoming speech.

  (Two)

  By 21 November 1958, when Captain Philip Sheridan Parker

  IV marched into Dog Company WOC Battalion, Shiny

  Balls Oppenheimer, having completed eighteen months of satisfactory service, had received an automatic promotion to first lieutenant. His charges had gone through various stages of ground school, and phases I through IV of flight instruction.

  They would graduate just before Christmas, on completion of phase V (Light and Medium Transport Helicopter Operation

  Under Field Conditions).

  Shiny Balls saw the Chevrolet staff car with the Collins

  VHF antenna mounted incongruously on its roof pull up before the company and correctly concluded that it was a messenger from On High; specifically, since only the post commander's staff car was equipped with the Collins antenna and the radios to go with it, an officer from the post commander's staff bearing amnesty for the WOC sinners.

  He waited in his office for the little ballet to be carried out.

  The WOC charge of quarters, at a little desk by the door, bellowed "Atten-hut" when the general's messenger entered the building. A moment or two later, the command was repeated as the general's messenger entered the orderly room.

  "Sir," the WOC officer of the day barked crisply, "WOC

  Stewart, J. B., officer of the day, sir."

  "Stand at ease," the general's messenger said. "Would you please offer my compliments to the tactical officer and inform him that I would have a word with him. My name is Parker."

  The WOC officer of the day (the position was rotated daily among the WOCs) knocked at Shiny Balls's open door, was told to enter, entered, saluted, and said, "Sir, Captain Parker offers his compliments and requests to speak to the lieutenant, sir.

  "Ask the captain to come in," Shiny Balls said, and prepared to stand up behind his desk.

  "Sir," the WOC officer of the day said, at rigid attention,

  "Captain Parker, sir."

  "Lieutenant Oppenheimer, K. B., sir," Shiny Balls said, saluting.

  "Good afternoon, Lieutenant," Captain Parker said, returning the salute. He looked at the WOC officer of the day. "Be good enough to close the door when you leave," he said. The door was closed.

  "It is the general's desire," Captain Parker said, "that your sinners be pardoned for all sins."

  "Yes, sir," Oppenheimer said. "I suspected that might be the purpose of the captain's visit.

  "I wish the announcement of the general's gracious gesture to be withheld from the troops until I have a word with one of them," Parker said. "One who is, I understand, a genuine, no question whatever about it, wise-ass."

  "Who would that be, Captain?"

  "Warrant Officer Candidate Franklin, William B.," Parker said.

  Shiny Balls looked uncomfortable.

  "May I say something, Captain?"

  "Certainly."

  "Now, I'm not trying to excuse what he did. It was wrong.

  I know it was wrong, and he knows it was wrong. But..

  "But?"

  "He's a good man, Captain. Solid. And it isn't as if he had only 135 hours of flight instruction, if the captain gets my meaning."

  "Your loyalty is commendable, Lieutenant," Captain Parker said, dryly. "And duly noted."

  "Yes, sir. Shall I send for him, sir?"

  "Just tell me where I can find him," Parker said. "I am going to have a word with him here, and then I am going to take him away from the company area for further counseling.

  You may make announcement of the general amnesty after we leave."

  "Yes, sir," Shiny Balls Oppenheimer said. He turned to a chart on the wall and pointed out to Captain Parker the location of WOC Franklin's WOCQ. (WOCQ stood for warrant officer candidate's quarters. It was pronounced WockYou. It was far more often mispronounced.)

  Captain Philip Sheridan Parker IV rapped once with his knuckle on the doorframe of WOC Franklin's WOCQ.

  WOC Franklin, who had been sitting at his study desk, jumped to his feet.

  "Sir, WOC Franklin, W. B., sir!" he barked.

  "Stand at ease, Mr. Franklin," Captain Parker said. Franklin assumed the position of "parade rest" rather than the somewhat
less rigid "at ease."

  "My name is Parker," Captain Parker said. "In addition to my other duties, I am the post equal opportunity and antidiscrimination officer."

  "Yes, sir," Warrant Officer Franklin said.

  "It has come to my attention that you have been charged with, and are being punished for, a rather serious violation of flight safety rules."

  "Yes, sir."

  "The army generally and the commanding general specifically are determined that there be absolutely no discrimination based on race, creed, religion, or country of origin."

  "Yes, sir."

  "I am here, Mr. Franklin, to determine whether you are guilty as charged or whether this is an incident where you are being discriminated against because of the pigmentation of your skin."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Well?"

  "Sir, I am guilty as charged. It had nothing to do with me being colored."

  "Colored'?" Captain Parker asked, in an incredulous tone.

  "I was under the impression that the descriptions now in vogue to describe those of the Negro race were black' and AfroAmerican.'

  I haven't heard the term colored' used in some time."

  Franklin, visibly uncomfortable, took a moment before replying.

  "Sir," he said, "it had nothing to do with my race."

  "As I just informed you, Mr. Franklin," Parker said, "I am the post equal opportunity and antidiscrimination officer. It is my function, not yours, to determine whether or not the charges that you recklessly endangered an aircraft' are based on fact, or are one more manifestation of racial prejudice against those whom you quaintly chose to refer to as colored."'

  "Yes, sir," WOC Franklin said.

  "To that end, Mr. Franklin, I am about to subject you to an unscheduled check ride."

  "Yes, sir," Franklin said, visibly surprised.

  "Get your helmet and your flight suit, Mr. Franklin," Captain

  Parker said. "I will wait for you in a sedan parked in front of this building." He turned on his heel and walked out of the room.

  WOC Franklin jerked open his locker and took out his gray flight coveralls and his helmet. He debated for a moment whether to put the flight suit on now, or wait until they got where they were going. He decided it would be best not to keep this Captain

  Parker waiting. He folded his flight suit over his arm, put the helmet on his head, and ran down the corridor toward the stairs.

  Parker was sitting in the back of a Chevrolet sedan. Franklin saw the Collins antenna on the roof, and thought: Jesus Christ, this is the general's staff car!

  He got in the front seat beside the driver.

  "You know where we're going," Captain Parker said to the driver. The driver was a sergeant first class. Sergeants first class normally do not drive staff cars, unless they happen to be the general's personal driver.

  What the flick is going on? thought Franklin.

  "Yes, sir," the general's driver said.

  He drove them to post headquarters.

  The general's white-painted H-13H sat on the helipad before post headquarters. The general's staff car pulled into the reserved parking place, and the driver jumped out to open the door for Captain Parker.

  "Thank you, Sergeant," Captain Parker said. He beckoned with his finger to WOC Franklin to follow him and walked across the road to the general's H-13H.

  Franklin trotted after him.

  "The general," Captain Parker said, "as an indication of his deep concern that the colored should not be discriminated against, has graciously made his personal helicopter available for your check ride."

  Franklin was now wholly baffled.

  "The general," Captain Parker went on, "was taught to ride a horse by a colored soldier when he was a very young officer.

  That colored, so to speak, the general's thinking about the colored. He finds it difficult to accept the fact that some coloreds, from time to time, really do really stupid things." Parker paused. "I have been led to believe, Mr. Franklin, that you have been instructed in the techniques of preflight inspection of aerial vehicles such as the one before you. If so, please conduct the inspection."

  Franklin conducted the preflight. Captain Parker strapped himself in the passenger seat.

  "Fire it up, Mr. Franklin," he said, and Franklin started the engine.

  Parker depressed the mike button on his stick.

  "Laird local control, Chopper One on the pad in front of the CP for a local flight to Hanchey. The Six is not aboard."

  "Laird local control clears Chopper One for a local flight to Hanchey."

  "Were you aware, Mr. Franklin," Captain Parker politely commented over the intercom, "that Major General Angus Laird took off from this very helipad and, the application of carburetor heat having slipped his mind, flew a machine just like this one into the trees?"

  Franklin looked at Parker. Parker put both hands out in front of his body and made a lifting motion, and then pointed in the general direction of Hanchey Field.

  Franklin saw that the needles were in the green, and inched back on the cyclic.

  "Laird local, Chopper One light on the skids," Parker's voice came over the helmet earphones.

  Ten minutes later, his voice came again.

  "Now that you've demonstrated you can get it up," he said,

  "let's see if you remember how to put it down." He pointed to a clearing in the pine forest in the center of which was a whitewashed circle with a fifteen-foot-tall "H" in the center.

  Franklin made what he thought was one of his better landings.

  Parker made a cutting motion across his throat with his hand.

  Franklin killed the engine, and the fluckata-fluckata-fluckata sound of the rotor changed pitch as it slowed.

  "Tell me true, Franklin," Parker said, "out here where no one can hear us, as one Afro-American warrior to another, just how much bootleg chopper time do you have?"

  "About 600 hours, sir."

  "My, you really must have worked at it, getting that much time."

  Franklin didn't reply.

  "The safety-of-flight allegations made against you, which may yet see your black ass thrown out of WOC school, accuse you of flying one of these things hands-off, in order that you might take snapshots."

  "Yes, sir," Franklin said.

  "Yes, sir, that's what they say I did,' or Yes, sir, that's what I did'?"

  "I was taking pictures, sir. I used to be a photographer."

  "So I understand," Parker said, dryly. "Purely to satisfy my personal curiosity, will you show me how you performed this aerial feat of legerdemain?"

  Franklin looked at him for a moment, as if making up his mind.

  "What you have to do, Captain," he said, "is lock the cyclic under your knee. Like this."

  He demonstrated how to fold the left leg over the cyclic control, the sticklike control to the left of the pilot's seat which controls both the angle of attack of the rotor blades and tlje amount of fuel fed to the engine.

  "All you really can do is hold your attitude," Franklin explained.

  "You control the stick with your left foot and your right knee."

  "Jesus Christ!" Parker said. "And somebody saw you doing this?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "The only reason they haven't thrown your ass out is probably because nobody believes it can be done."

  "Am I to be thrown out, Captain? Is that what this is all about?"

  "No, you're going to graduate. The incident' report has been lost."

  "Jesus Christ, I'm glad to hear that," Franklin said.

  "You really want to fly, huh?"

  "Yes, sir, I do."

  "You were doubtless inspired by some aviator with whom you had contact?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Who taught you how to fly, despite regulations to the contrary?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Who probably came up with this no-hands' technique of flying?"

  "After he taught me how to fly," Franklin said, "we used to practice
at 3,500 feet. He'd try to do it, and I grabbed the controls when something went wrong."