The Generals

by W. E. B Griffin

  Jesus, I love her!

  He crawled with infinite care out of bed so as not to wake her and walked on tiptoe out of their bedroom, and then downstairs. There was a light on in the kitchen. Craig Lowell was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee, two thick folders stamped SECRET and TOP SECRET on the table before him.

  “Christ, what are you doing up? I heard your typewriter going at half past one.”

  “I get a lot of sleep in Vermont,” Lowell said dryly. “And I wanted to get this done as quickly as I can. I’m just about finished, as a matter of fact.”

  Geoff helped himself to a cup of coffee and sat down.

  “There was one argument I didn’t use last night,” he said.

  “Which is?”

  “That I am a married man and want to start a family. Soldiers get killed, and that wouldn’t be fair to Ursula.”

  “I won’t argue the point,” Lowell said, but then argued it: “Death is inevitable. You can get mugged on Washington Mews as well as shot in the service. When your number is up, it’s up. And my experience has been that if you’re going to get blown away, it happens in the first thirty days of combat. If you get through that first month, it has been my experience, you’ll get through it all.”

  “The counterargument to that is that you can stick your neck out only so many times before getting it cut off,” Geoff said. “And then I think of Parker. Christ, I don’t want that to happen to me. Jesus, what it would do to Ursula.”

  “It would be tough on her,” Lowell said. “I see Phil’s wife—”

  “She’s a doctor, isn’t she?” Geoff interrupted.

  “Yeah,” Lowell said. “The last time I saw her, she told me that she’d been offered a professorship at Harvard Medical…now that would drive your old man up the wall, a black woman in the Harvard Club.”

  Geoff chuckled.

  “But, as much as she wanted to take it, she didn’t think she could. It would be tantamount to admitting that she thinks Phil won’t come back.”

  “Will he?”

  “He’s alive. We know that. Felter found out. But that’s no guarantee that he’ll come through it all right.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Bragg. She wants to talk to you.”

  “Why?”

  “I told her you checked out the site for me.”

  “I can’t tell her anything I didn’t tell you. Did you tell her what I told you?”

  “Yes, of course. I don’t think Toni expects anything new. It’s just that you saw him over there, and just before he went down.”

  “He was in high spirits,” Geoff said. “He had just heard what they had done to you.”

  “Phil and I were in Basic Officer’s Course at Knox together. My son was born there. Phil and his father are his godparents. I had to go tell the colonel that Phil was down. That was tough. You make your point about what happens to a soldier being tough on his people. But I suppose that it’s just as tough when your husband gets run over by a bus.”

  “Being dead is better than being in the Hanoi Hilton,” Geoff said. “The day they made me a second john, my boss got carried off. A rough old Russian, a master sergeant named Petrofski. I think about him a lot.”

  “You were the only one left, is that right?”

  “Only one left on my feet,” Geoff said.

  “Mennen was very impressed,” Lowell said. “He’s not big on battlefield commissions.”

  “Mennen said I could resign when I came home,” Geoff said.

  “Go to Bragg you mean?” Lowell asked. “When are you going?”

  “I was hoping I could do it by mail,” Geoff said.

  “No, they’ll want you there for a physical and the paperwork. Would you like to go today?”

  “Today?”

  “I’m going to Benning in the Commander to drop off the briefcases. Bragg’s on the way. It might be fun to return in triumph where you once arrived such a fuckup.”

  “I’ll ask Ursula,” Geoff said. “The Village is not my idea of a romantic setting. We could rent a car and drive over to Hilton Head…that should be nice this time of year.”

  (Four)

  Office of the Commanding General

  U.S. Army Special Warfare Center and School

  Fort Bragg, North Carolina

  1440 Hours, 22 August 1963

  “In the worst possible scenario for this situation,” said Brigadier General Paul Hanrahan, “you would be here with Lieutenant Craig, Craig. You have a tendency not only to say dirty words when crossed, but to go off half-cocked and do and say things that should not be done or said.”

  “I think you better explain that, General,” Lowell said.

  “I am in receipt of instructions,” General Hanrahan said, “which state that applications for resignation from Special Forces by qualified officers will be approved in only one of two circumstances. When a request for their services after separation has been made by the Central Intelligence Agency, or for compassionate reasons—after DCSPERS has considered the circumstances of the officer’s personal troubles.”

  “General,” Geoff said, “I had Colonel Mennen’s word when I took the commission. He told me that I would be allowed to resign as soon as I came home.”

  “What’s the second circumstance?” Lowell asked.

  “Good of the service,” Hanrahan said. “In lieu of court-martial. Queers, thieves, weirdos. Lieutenant Craig doesn’t qualify.”

  “Then I’ll have Sandy Felter get the CIA to request his services,” Lowell said, immediately. “And then he can resign from the CIA.”

  “No,” Hanrahan said, a little sharply. “This is what I had in mind when I thought the worst possible scenario would involve you.”

  “Look, Paul, he’s paid his dues,” Lowell said. “Mennen made him a promise. Screw whoever was responsible for your instructions.”

  “I am reliably informed that the source of my instructions was the White House.”

  “Then we’re back talking about Sandy,” Lowell said.

  “Possibly,” Hanrahan said. “That opens two possibilities. First that Sandy was responsible for the order. That seems to me likely. We don’t have enough Special Forces types, and letting go the ones we have doesn’t make sense. If Sandy is responsible, I doubt if he would go along with you sneaking around the rules.”

  “Sandy owes me,” Lowell said, flatly.

  “He doesn’t owe Lieutenant Craig.”

  “I owe Lieutenant Craig,” Lowell said. “I’m the one who sent him to you, remember?”

  Hanrahan looked as if he was going to reply, but stopped himself.

  “It doesn’t bother you at all, does it, Craig, to circumvent the rules that apply to everybody else when you want something?”

  “Not a goddamn bit,” Lowell said. “If I had followed the rules that apply to everybody else, Paul, Colonel Sandy Felter would be eating beans and rice in a Cuban slammer instead of whatever they serve in the Senior White House Mess.”

  Hanrahan gave him a look that could have been resigned or contemptuous.

  “It’s not really a subject for debate,” Hanrahan said. “He has been declared essential—all of us have. Since you are Special Forces qualified, Craig, that includes you, too. So I cannot accept his resignation. I’m sorry, Lieutenant, but that’s the way it is.”

  “I’m essential?” Lowell said. “I suppose that’s why I’m doing what I’m doing? The fate of the nation depends upon my passing ‘An Introduction to Social Theory’?”

  Hanrahan was unable to restrain a smile.

  “How is college?” he asked. “Learning anything interesting?”

  “For Christ’s sake, Paul,” Lowell said. “It isn’t as if we’re trying to get him out of hazardous service. He’s paid his dues, to reiterate. And I presume there is a rotational roster for Vietnam service…. on which he would obviously be on the bottom?”

  “Before he goes overseas, he would have to work his way up the roster, and then he would go eit
her to Europe or Panama before he went back to Vietnam.”

  “What would he be doing?” Lowell asked.

  “Well, first, he has to go to Officer’s Basic Course at the Infantry School, and then we’ll probably assign him here as a training officer.”

  “He already knows how to eat snakes,” Lowell said. “Is that the best you can do for him?”

  At that moment, Lieutenant Geoffrey Craig understood that he had been fucked by the fickle finger of fate. He was not going to be allowed to resign.

  “What do you have in mind, Craig?” Hanrahan asked, slightly sarcastic.

  “You have been given twenty-two slots at Rucker,” Lowell said. “Give him one of those.”

  “I have been given twenty-two slots at Rucker?” Hanrahan parroted. He had, but he was surprised that Lowell knew about it.

  “Twelve for Mohawk training,” Lowell said. “Ten for Helio-Courier*. In addition to the pilots you will get from the regular program.”

  “How do you know about that?” Hanrahan said.

  “Who did you think gave them to you?” Lowell said, “the tooth fairy?”

  “You’re still working for Triple H Howard?” Hanrahan asked. Now that he thought about it, he wasn’t surprised.

  “Perish the thought, sir. In cheerful, willing obedience to my orders, I pass my days in innocent academic pursuit.”

  “Well, if that’s the case, Craig, thank you,” Hanrahan said. “It’s important, I think, that at least some of our pilots think of themselves as Green Berets first and airplane drivers second.”

  “They wanted to form a company, and assign that to you,” Lowell said, “under the ‘administrative control’ of XVIII Airborne Corps. You know what that would have meant. I talked Howard out of that, too.”

  “You want a medal? You got one. I suppose I should have detected your Machiavellian hand in that. I would have thought, however, that your overwhelming modesty would have kept you from telling me about it.”

  “I thought I should make the point that you owe me, too,” Lowell said. “You can pay me back by giving Geoff one of the Rucker slots.”

  “Don’t you think it would be nice if we asked him if he wants to go to flight school?”

  “He’s a nice young lieutenant,” Lowell said. “Nice young lieutenants don’t question their superiors. They know we’re never wrong, and have their best interests at heart.”

  “Oh, God!” Hanrahan laughed. He looked at Geoff. “Well, would you like to go to flight school, Lieutenant? I should warn you if you do, when you get to Rucker, and they find out you’re related to this character, you will become known as ‘Hanrahan’s Revenge.’”

  “Yes, sir,” Geoff said, in a moment. “I would like that, sir.”

  “I own a house down there,” Lowell said. “I think Ursula will like it.”

  VIII

  (One)

  Room BF-746

  The Pentagon

  Arlington, Va.

  0915 Hours, 27 June 1965

  The conference room of the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, U.S. Army, provides a table around which eleven people may sit. There are chairs for an additional ten persons around the wall. The DCSOPS Conference Room is equipped with two Vu-Graph machines; one 3.25-inch-by-4-inch slide projector; a 35-mm slide projector; a 16-mm motion picture rear-projection screen; two tape recorders; a lectern with a microphone; and closed-circuit television.

  The meeting today was chaired by DCSOPS himself. Other participants included the Chief of Staff, CONARC; DCSPERS; the commanding generals, Fort Rucker, Alabama, Fort Benning, Georgia, and the 11th Air Assault Division (Test), based at Fort Benning; a major general representing Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MAC-V); and the Director of Army Aviation.

  All the chairs at the table were filled; and most of the chairs around the wall by the one assistant the Notice of Conference to Be Held had authorized each participant to have. There were two stenographers in attendance. One was at the head of the table with her Steno-Type machine. The other, who was behind the rear-projection screen, wore earphones.

  The subject today was the Manning Chart, 11th Air Assault Division (Test). A Table of Organization & Equipment (TO&E) stipulates the number of officers and enlisted men assigned to a unit, and their ranks. A manning chart names the individuals.

  The conference today would deal with the names of the three general officers, seven colonels, and forty-five lieutenant colonels who would man the 11th Air Assault Division (Test) as of 1 July 1965. At a lower level of command the names of the majors, captains, lieutenants, and enlisted men would be provided.

  The newly appointed and newly promoted Vice Chief of Staff of the Army had been invited to the conference—more of a courtesy than anything else—but he was not really expected to show up.

  He did, as the conference had just been called to order.

  “Keep your seats, gentlemen,” he said. He refused DCSOPS’s offer of his chair at the head of the table. “And you stay where you are, Dick. I’ll sit at the other end.”

  DCSOPS’s briefing officer, a smartly attired, intelligent-looking colonel, went to the lectern, tapped his finger on the microphone to make sure it was working, and spoke: “If I may have your attention, please, gentlemen. The first chart shows just about everything. The subsequent charts will show the individual command structures.”

  He pushed two buttons on the lectern. The lights dimmed, and an organizational chart of the 11th Air Assault Division (Test) appeared on the rear-projection screen. At the top was an oblong box. It was labeled DIVISION HEADQUARTERS and it contained the names of the major general who would be the commanding general, and of the brigadier general who would be his assistant division commander.

  A black line went from the oblong box to the right, where there were three boxes for the General Staff and Special Staff. Each was filled with the names of the colonels and lieutenant colonels who would man those slots.

  Another black line descended downward from the Command Box, and then split off so as to connect to boxes labeled with the names of the subordinate units. There was Division Artillery (under the third general officer, a brigadier); an Aviation Group; a Signal Battalion; an Engineer Battalion; five Brigades; an Air Cavalry Squadron; and a Support Command.

  Each box contained the names of the colonels or lieutenant colonels who would fill the slot. Where applicable, there were “ghost boxes” without names showing. There were, for example, four Signal Companies within the Signal Battalion, four Engineer Companies with the Engineer Battalion, and so on.

  Each of the participants at the conference had contributed to the manning chart. Most of them knew it from memory, and the briefing officer knew that.

  “If there are no questions, gentlemen, I will go on to the next slide,” the briefing officer said.

  “Why don’t I see Lieutenant Colonel Lowell’s name on there anywhere?” the newly promoted to four-star general, newly appointed Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army asked.

  The briefing officer raised the lights in the room.

  “Lieutenant Colonel Lowell’s name will be on the Headquarters and Special Staff Chart, sir,” DCSPERS said. “He is the Deputy Assistant G-3, sir.”

  “Bullshit!” the Vice Chief of Staff said. The vulgarity hushed the room. General Triple H Howard was fully aware of the shock value of an obscenity, especially from someone who rarely spoke one.

  There was a long pause.

  “I am waiting, General, for your reasoning,” General Howard said.

  “Sir, Colonel Lowell is singularly well qualified by rank and experience to be the Assistant G-3. It was further felt that in this assignment, he will be in a position to evaluate the division with an idea to being able to suggest further modifications to the TO&E, and in other ways.”

  There was another almost painful pause.

  “That’s it?” General Howard finally asked.

  “Colonel Lowell was considered for various commands, sir,” D
CSPERS went on, somewhat uneasily, “and it was the consensus—he has commanded nothing larger than a tank company, sir, as I’m sure you’re aware—that others were more highly qualified.”

  “Bullshit!” General Howard repeated. “I don’t know what is the source of your animosity toward this officer, General, but I have had enough of it. The tank company which Lowell commanded was, in fact—and you could have learned this from General Jiggs—of battalion strength. And he commanded it with such skill that it is now being taught on the sand tables at the Point and at Leavenworth. He is a senior aviator as well. For the good of the service, not to mention in simple decency toward him, it is my desire that he be given a command within the 11th Air Assault Division. You have exactly one hundred and twenty seconds to make a recommendation, failing which, or in case I disagree with your recommendation, I will make the appointment myself.”

  (Two)

  Now the Army had an Airmobile Division. The question remained what to name it. The Airborne establishment thought it would be nice to just drop the parenthetical (Test) from the name it now had, making the new division the 11th Air Assault Division, which would thus retain the traditions of the 11th Airborne Division.

  There were those who felt that would produce the wrong image and suggest that Air Mobility was simply a version of Airborne. It was not. It was a new idea; and the Airmobile people, who had to wage a long and bloody bureaucratic campaign against Airborne to get an airmobile Division in the first place, were not now just going to hand it to them.

  The Infantry establishment, agreeing with this opinion, thought it would be nice to add the parenthetical term “Airmobile” to the Second “Indianhead” Division then stationed at the Infantry Center, Fort Benning.

  There were those who objected to this, some unwilling to tarnish the proud name of the Second Infantry Division by associating it with this wild Airmobile concept, and some Aviation types unwilling to turn it over to Infantry.