Donny found himself hard against not an enemy lineman or a Visigoth but a girl of about fourteen, with freckles and red, frizzy hair and braces, headband, tie-dyed T-shirt, breastless and innocent. But she had more hate on her face than any Visigoth ever, and she whacked him hard on the helmet with her placard, which, he read as it descended, stated make war no more!
The placard smacked him, its thin wood broke and it slipped away. He felt his body ramming the girl's and then she was gone, either knocked back or pushed down and stepped over. He hoped she wasn't hurt, why hadn't she just fled?
More tear gas drifted in. Screams arose. Melees had broken out everywhere as demonstrators leaned against Marines, who leaned back. One could feel strain as the two leaned and leaned and tried to press the other into panic.
It only lasted a second, really, then the demonstrators broke and fled and Donny watched as they emptied the bridge, leaving behind port-a-pots and sandals and squashed Tab cans and water buckets, the battlefield detritus of a vanquished enemy. There seemed no point in pursuing.
"Marines, stand easy," the sergeant major yelled.
"Masks off."
The masks came off and the boys sucked hard at the air.
"Good job, good job. Anybody hurt?" yelled the colonel.
But before anybody could answer, a considerable ruckus arose to the left. Policemen were clustered around the railing of the bridge and the word soon reached the Marines that someone had panicked as they had approached, and jumped off. A police helicopter hovered low, an ambulance arrived and paramedics got out urgently.
Police boats were called, but it took only a few minutes to make it clear that someone was dead.
CHAPTER Six.
The scandal played out pretty much as expected, depending on the perspective of the account.
Girl, 17, killed in demonstration, the Post headlined.
The more conservative Star said, demonstrator dies in bridge mix-up. marines murder girl, 17, argued the Washington City Paper.
No matter, for the Marine Corps the news was very bad indeed. Seven liberal House members demanded an investigation into the matter of Amy Rosenzweig, seventeen, of Glencoe, Illinois, who had evidently panicked in the tear gas and the approach of the Marines and climbed over the railing. Before anybody could reach her, though several young Marines tried, she was gone. Walter Cron-kite appeared to generate a small tear in his left eye.
Gordon Petersen, of WTOP, developed a catch in his voice as he discussed the incident with his co-anchor, Max Robinson.
why marines? wondered the Post two days later on its editorial page.
U.S. Marines are among the world's most feared fighting forces, an elite who have honored their country and their service in hostile environments since 1776. But what were they doing on the 14th Street Bridge May I?
Surely, with their esprit de corps and constant immersion in the theory and practice of land warfare at its most savage, they were a poor choice for the Justice Department to deploy against peaceful demonstrators who had taken up a harmless "occupation" of the bridge as an expression of the long-precious tradition of civil disobedience. The D.C.
police force, the Park Police, or even Guardsmen from the District's own unit, all riot-trained and all experienced in dealing with demonstrations, would have been preferable to combat infantrymen, who tend to perceive all confrontations as us against them.
The place for the Marines is on the battlefields of the world, and the parade ground of the Eighth and I barracks, not on American streets. If the tragedy of Amy Rosenzweig teaches us anything, it teaches us that.
As for the Eighth and I Marines, in the immediate aftermath they were trucked back to the barracks, where they remained on alert and in isolation for two days.
Teams from the FBI and the District Police and the U.S.
Park Police worked over the members of Alpha Company, Second Platoon, Second Squad, who'd been on the extreme left wing of the crowd control formation, and who had seen the girl hanging on for dear life. Three of them had actually dropped their rifles, thrown away their masks and helmets and rushed to her, but in the instant before they reached her, she closed her eyes and gave her soul to God, relaxing backward into space. They got to the railing in time to see her hit the water thirty-five feet below, they got DC Police there within seconds, and within minutes a DC rescue boat was on the scene. If they'd had a rope, they would have rappelled down to the water themselves, but a quickly arriving platoon sergeant had forbidden any of them to jump off the bridge in attempts to rescue. It was just too high. And it wouldn't have mattered. When she was located thirteen minutes later, it became quickly apparent that Amy's neck had been broken by the impact of striking the water at an extreme angle. A report later exonerated the Marines and made it clear that no actual force had been applied to Amy. The Marines said she chose to martyr herself, the media said the Marines killed her. Who knew the truth?
On the third day, they arrested Crowe.
Rather, under small arms and under the supervision of two officers from the Naval Investigation Service, Lieutenant Commander Bonson and Ensign Weber, four Marine military policemen marched into the barracks where he and the rest of B company were relaxing while maintaining ready-alert status, and put him in handcuffs.
Captain Dogwood and the battalion colonel watched it happen.
Then Lieutenant Commander Bonson came up to Donny and said in a loud voice, "Good job, Corporal Fenn. Damn fine work."
"Good work, Fenn," said Weber.
"You got our man."
In the aftermath, a space seemed to spread around Donny. He felt it open up, as if oceans of atmosphere had been vacuumed out of the area between himself and his squad and others in the platoon. Nobody would meet his eyes. Some looked at him in horror. Others merely left the vicinity, went into other squad bays or outside to lounge near the trucks.
"What the hell did he mean?" asked Platoon Sergeant Case.
"Uh, I don't know. Sergeant," Donny said.
"Uh, I don't know what the hell they were talking about."
"You had contact with MS?"
"They talked to me."
"About what?"
"Ah. Well," and Donny swallowed, "they had some security concerns and somehow I got--" "Let me tell you something, goddammit, Fenn. If it happens in my platoon, you come tell me about it! You got that? This ain't a one-man goddamn motherfucking operation. You come tell me, Fenn, or by God I will make your young sorry ass sorry you didn't!"
The man's blazing spit flew into Donny's face and his eyes lit up like flares. A vein throbbed on his forehead.
"Sergeant, they told me--" "I don't give a monkey's fuck what they told you, Fenn. If it happens in my platoon, I have to know about it, or you ain't worth pig shit to me. Copy that, Corporal?"
"Yes, Sergeant."
"You and me, boy, we got some serious talk ahead."
Donny swallowed.
"Yes, Sergeant."
"Now, get these men off their asses. I'm not going to have them sitting around all goddamn day like they just won the fucking war all by themselves. Get 'em on work detail, drill 'em, do something with them."
"Yes, Sergeant."
"And you and I will talk later."
"Yes, Sergeant."
Donny turned in the wake of Sergeant Case's departure, which was more like an ejection from a jet fighter than a normal retrograde adjustment.
"Okay," he said to the squad.
"Okay, let's get outside and run through some riot control drills. There's no point just sitting in here."
But nobody moved.
"All right, come on, guys. I'm not shitting around here.
You heard the man. We have an order."
They just stared at him. Some looked hurt, the rest disgusted.
"I didn't do anything," Donny said.
"I talked to some Navy lifers and that's all."
"Donny, if I flash the peace sign in a bar, will you turn me in to NIS?" someone asked.<
br />
"All right, fuck that shit!" Donny bellowed.
"I don't have to explain anything to anybody! But if I did, I'd point out I didn't rat anybody out. Now, get into your gear and let's get the fuck outside or Case'll have us on a barracks party until 0400 next Tuesday!"
The men got up, but their slow heaviness expressed their bitterness.
"Who'll take Crowe's place?" someone asked.
There was no answer.
Julie was released from the lockup at the Washington Coliseum at 4 p.m. that same day, after forty-eight hours of incarceration with several hundred of the more recalcitrant demonstrators. At least physically, it was almost pleasant being arrested, the cops were old hands by this time and as long as everybody cooperated, the process was all right. She spent two nights on a cot in a field where the Washington Redskins practiced when it was their season.
The seats of the junky old place rose above like a Pentecostal cathedral from the twenties, and in the pen, all the kids had a good time and nobody watched them too carefully. Grass was abundant, the portable toilets were cleaner than the ones at Potomac Park. The showers were never crowded and she got a good wash for the first time since leaving Arizona in the Peace Caravan. Some of the boys caught fantasy touchdown passes in what had to have been an end zone.
But no word at all from Donny. Had he been there on the bridge? She didn't know. She'd looked for him, but then it'd all dissolved in confusion and tears as more of the gas flooded in. She remembered crumpling, rubbing her eyes desperately as the gas drifted by, and then there was the shock of the Marines and she found herself looking into the eyes of a boy, a child, really, big and booming behind his lenses, she saw fear in them, or at least as much confusion as she herself felt, and then he was by her and the Marine line moved on, and as she watched, teams of policemen pounced on the demonstrators behind the lines and led them away to buses. It was handled very simply, no big deal at all to anybody concerned.
Only later, in the lockup, did the word come that a girl had somehow died. Julie tried to work it out but could make no sense of it, the Marines had seemed quite restrained, really, it wasn't anything like Kent State. Still, it was an appalling weight. A girl was dead, and for what?
Why was it necessary? In the lockup, they had a television, and Amy Rosenzweig's young and tender face, freckled, under sprigs of reddish hair, was everywhere. She looked to Julie like a girl she'd grown up with, though she could not remember seeing Amy amid the crowd, but that wasn't surprising, for there had been thousands, and much confusion on the ground.
They let her out and she went back to the campground in Potomac Park. It was like a Civil War encampment after Gettysburg: mostly empty now that the big week was over and the kids in their multitudes had returned to their campuses and the professional revolutionaries to their secret cabals to plot the next move in the war against the war. Litter was everywhere and the cops no longer bothered.
A few tents still stood, but the sense of a new youth culture had vanished. There was no music and no campfires and the Peace Caravan had departed. All, that is, except for Peter.
"Oh, hi."
"Hi, how are you?"
"Fine. I stayed behind. Jeff and Susie are driving the Micro back. Everybody is with them. They'll be all right. I wanted to stay here, see if you needed anything."
"I'm okay, Peter, really I am. Have you seen Donny at all?"
"Him? Jesus, you know what they did to that girl and you want to know where he is?"
"Donny didn't do anything. Besides, I read the Marines tried to save her."
"If there hadn't been any Marines, Amy would still be here," Peter said obstinately, and then the two just looked at each other. He drew her close and hugged her and she hugged back.
"Thanks for hanging around, Peter."
"Ah, it's okay. How was the Coliseum?"
"Okay. Not so bad. They finally reduced charges, parading without a permit. They let us all go today."
"Well," he said.
"If you want me to drive you to the Marine Barracks or something, I will. Whatever you want.
I have a VW from a guy. It's no problem."
"I'm supposed to get married this week."
"That's fine. That's cool. Good luck and God bless.
Let me see if I can help you in any way."
"I think I ought to hang here until I hear from Donny.
I don't know what happened to him."
"Sure," said Peter.
"That's a good idea."
The alert was finally cancelled at 1600 that afternoon, to the cheers and relief of the companies. It took an hour or so to actually stand down--that is, to return the rifles to the armory, to shed and repack the combat gear in its appropriate place in the lockers, to shed the utilities, bag them for the laundry, shower and shave. But by 1700, when the work was done, the captain at last released his men--the married to go home, the rest to relax in town or on base as they preferred, with only a few left on skeleton duty, such as duty NCO or armory watch.
That is, except for Donny.
He was done, and still in his cone of isolation, finally changing into civvies--jeans and a white Izod shirt--when a runner came from headquarters and said he was wanted ASAP. No, he didn't have to dress in the uniform of the day.
Donny returned to Captain Dogwood's office, where Bonson and Weber waited.
"Captain, we could take him to our offices. Or would you allow us to use yours?"
"Yes, sir, go ahead," said Dogwood, who wanted to get home to see his own wife and kids too.
"Stay here. Duty NCO will lock up when you're finished."
"Thank you, Captain," said Bonson.
So Donny was alone with them at last. They were in civilian clothes this time, Weber looking like the Sigma Nu he'd undoubtedly been at Nebraska, and the dour Bonson in slacks and a black sport shirt, buttoned to the top. He looked almost like a priest of some sort.
"Coffee?"
"No, sir."
"Oh, sit down, Fenn. You don't have to stand."
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."
Donny sat.
"We want to go over your testimony with you. Tomorrow there'll be an arraignment, at the Judge Advocate General's Offices at the Navy Yard, nothing elaborate. It's simply a preliminary to an indictment and trial. Ten hundred.
We'll send a car. Your undress blues will be fine, I've arranged with Captain Dogwood for you to be off the duty roster. Then I think we'll give you a nice bit of leave.
Two weeks? By that time, we should be able to cut orders for your new stripes. Sergeant Fenn. How does that sound?"
"Well, I--" "Tomorrow won't be hard, Fenn, I assure you. You'll be sworn in and then you'll recount how at my instruction you befriended Crowe and traveled with him into a number of peace movement functions. You'll tell how you saw him in the presence of peace movement strategists such as Trig Carter. You saw them in serious conversation, intense conversation. You needn't testify that you overheard him giving away deployment intelligence. Just tell what you saw, and let the JAG prosecutor do the rest. It's enough for an indictment. He'll have a lawyer, a JAG JG, who'll ask you some rote questions. Then it's over and done and off you go."
Bonson smiled.
"Clean and simple," said Weber.
"Sir, I just ... I don't know what I can tell them.
There were hundreds of people at those parties. I saw no evidence of conspiracy or deployment intelligence or--" "Now, Donny," said Bonson, leaning forward and trying a smile.
"I know this is confusing for you. But trust me. You're doing your country a great service. You're doing the Marines a great service."
"But I--" "Donny," said Weber, "they knew. They knew."
"Knew?"
"They knew we had Third Infantry committed in Virgin ia that the DC National Guard was a complete fuckup, the 101st Airborne was stuck at Justice and the 82nd down at the Key Bridge and that the cops were frazzled beyond endurance after eighty straight duty hours. It was an
elaborate game of chess--they move here, we countermove, they move there, we countermove--all set up to get them to that bridge where they'd be faced by United States Marines where the chances of a big-time screw up on television were huge. And that's just what they got: another martyr. Another catastrophe. The Justice Department humiliated. A propaganda victory of immense proportions. They're parading with Amy's name in London and Paris already. Give them credit, it was as skillful a campaign as there was."
"Yes, sir, but we tried to save her. The girl panicked. It had nothing to do with us."
"Oh, it had everything to do with you," said Bonson.
"They wanted her going off the bridge and the Marines to take the fall. See how much better that is than the Washington Metro Police or some third-rate National Guard unit, most of whom'd be demonstrating themselves if they had the chance? No, they wanted a big scandal to be laid right at the Marines' feet and that's what they got! And Crowe gave it to them. Now, it is mandatory to get this fact before the public, to show that we were betrayed from within and to move swiftly to restore confidence in the system by eliminating the treason. And I can't think of a more edifying contrast for the American public than between Crowe, an Ivy League dropout with his fancy connections, and you, a decorated combat veteran from a small Western town doing his
-duty. It'll be very educational!"
"Yes, sir," said Donny.
"Good, good. Ten hundred. Look sharp, Corporal.
You will impress the JAG officers, I know you will. You will inherit your own future, the future you and I have been working on, I know it."
"Yes, sir," said Donny.
They rose.
"All right, Weber, we're finished here. You relax, Fenn. Tomorrow is your big day, the beginning of the rest of your life."
"I'll get the car, sir," said Weber.
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