by Dennis Foley
The boy worked very hard on the boot until it shined like new. Soon he had converted the ragged-looking leather to a deep ebony gloss that made the unshined boot look even worse by comparison.
Just when Hollister thought the boy was getting up to get a better angle on the other unshined boot, he shouldered his shoeshine box and started to walk away again.
“Hey,” Hollister yelled. “Where are you going? You haven’t finished my other boot!”
He looked down to confirm that the job was not complete only to see that the contrast between the two boots looked ridiculous. One was beautifully glossy and black, while the other was scuffed, bleached, and dirty.
Hollister looked back at the boy, who now leaned against the large tree. “You want two boots for three P?”
“Well, of course I do!” Hollister said. “I can’t walk around with one almost white boot and one black one.”
The boy took the shoeshine box sling off his shoulder again and said, “Okay, I do it—ten P.”
The barbers and a few soldiers who had gathered burst out in laughter. Everyone delighted in the boy’s triumph over the American officer.
Hollister knew he had been had and broke out in laughter. He, too, found it clever of the little shoeshine boy. “Sure,” he said. “You make it your best shine, and I’ll give you twenty P.”
The boy came back, repositioned his shoe box, and started on the remaining boot—smiling smugly.
Hollister knew he was stuck with the hair down his back until he could grab his next shower, but he tried to brush it away with his hand by reaching down the back of his shirt.
“Here comes the first sergeant,” Dewey said, gesturing toward a large, khaki-clad frame walking out the tail ramp of a C-130 that had stopped only two hundred meters from their jeep.
Hollister wanted not to believe that Dewey was right when he saw the obese first sergeant waddling toward them carrying an equally overstuffed B-4 bag in each hand. Hollister double-checked the large yellow first sergeant’s chevrons on each sleeve of the wilted khaki shirt—sweat-stained at the neck, under the arms, and in horizontal bands where his body rippled. He had some kind of pomade on his hair that pasted it to his red and sweaty scalp, his piss cutter was folded up and stuffed under the epaulet of his shirt, and he had a familiar mannerism that had always looked stupid and sloppy to Hollister.
There was nothing about the man that convinced Hollister he was what Juliet Company needed.
“Mornin’, Cap’n. I’m First Sergeant Morrison. I’m guessin’ from your uniforms that you must be from the Lurps.” He dropped his two bags and stuck his hand out.
Hollister shook his hand. “Yep. Sergeant Dewey here is your reception committee, and I’m just waiting for a ride to the rear myself. Welcome aboard, anyhow.” He resisted the urge to wipe the sweat from Morrison’s fat, clammy hand on his trousers for fear it would embarrass the man.
“I’m looking forward to getting on the job. I’ll bet trying to keep track of this company is gonna be a first sergeant’s nightmare.”
“Oh, not right now, Top. We got most of the teams in for one of them damn cease-fires,” Dewey said.
“So the entire company’s back from the field?” Morrison asked.
“Yeah, but some of the troops are still in Nha Trang going through Recondo School. ’Cept for them, everyone we got’s in Cu Chi.”
“Good. I’d like to get a look at the troops as soon as possible.”
Hollister knew he wasn’t happy with his first impression, but that was no excuse for him to insult the man. He decided to reserve judgment until he had time to find out more about Morrison. Anyway, he thought, it was up to Major Sangean to decide if the first sergeant could cut it.
But tipping the scales at around three hundred pounds, Morrison was not likely to please Sangean. There may have been many things that Hollister didn’t yet know about Sangean, but tolerance was not one of his long suits.
As Hollister got into the Huey, he was struck by the way the business of the war in Vietnam had become more and more impersonal. He remembered it as a brotherhood with a common cause, but now he was finding himself getting into a chopper flown by pilots he would probably not exchange five words with and would probably not run into again during his tour. It brought back the gnawing feeling he had about how the increase in numbers of troops, numbers of operations, and numbers of requirements on the combat resources put the life of the LRP at greater risk. He was convinced that he had to make his point at Field Force Headquarters even though he was expecting resistance.
It was his first look at the IIFFV Headquarters complex from the air. The chopper flew the length of the sprawling base, which was many times longer than its half-mile width. He noticed that the major factors influencing the complex’s shape were the highway on one side and the farmland on the other. Both were immovable and needed to be avoided if the emplacement of the headquarters and support facilities were not going to cause trouble for the Vietnamese.
The pad had a gaudy-looking South Vietnamese chopper just leaving it. As it took off, Hollister could see the placard on the side near the pilot with three stars painted on it. Inside the chopper were six Vietnamese officers, all wearing clean, crisp fatigues and highly shined boots. Two were wearing lavender scarves around their necks, and sunglasses. The look bothered Hollister.
For a fleeting moment, Hollister let himself be pleased that he was with Americans, not sitting in the far side of the Vietnamese chopper where an American captain sat. Hollister assumed he was in some advisory capacity.
Hollister hopped out of his chopper and grabbed the claymore bag that held his paperwork and some overnight gear he needed to spend the night in Long Binh. He stepped up on the flat spot on the toe of the skid and mouthed the words “Thanks a lot” to the pilot, waved, and walked away.
Out from under the still turning chopper blades, Hollister looked around to try to get his bearings and decide how to find his way to the Operations Section of the Field Force Headquarters.
“Hey, Captain Hollister!”
Turning toward the roadway next to the concrete chopper pad, Hollister spotted PFC Cathcart, the driver from the Ops Section. Hollister waved and walked toward him, not speaking until he was close enough for Cathcart to hear him over the chopper noise. “How ya doin’, Cathcart?”
“Pretty good, sir. You going over to Operations?”
“Not unless I can figure out how to get there from here.”
They were soon traveling down one of the fairly new asphalt roadways that ran the length of the compound. “So how’s life treating you, Cathcart?”
“Well, sir, I been thinking about what you said, and I’m about ready to go in and ask the headquarters company first sergeant to put in a 1049 to come to the LRPs,” Cathcart said hesitantly.
Hollister didn’t respond right away, and Cathcart turned around to look at him for his reaction.
Pushing his arm out, Hollister pulled back the folded collar on Cathcart’s fatigue shirt. It covered a set of cloth jump wings sewn just above his US ARMY tape. “Seems to me you have the qualifications. You put the paperwork in, and I’ll see what I can do on my end to get it okayed. How’s that?”
Cathcart brightened and put his eyes back on the road. “That’s great, sir! I’ll do it today.”
“Good deal. Now, I’m going to be here at least until tomorrow. How about helping me find my way around?”
“You got it, Captain. I’ll switch with another guy and take the duty driver’s job this afternoon and tomorrow. That way I’ll be around the Ops Section if you need anything.”
Hollister entered the headquarters and snaked his way through a maze of desks, chairs, file cabinets, and lockers filled with office supplies.
He was wearing the distinctive camouflage fatigues, and a great deal of attention seemed to be paid to him as he crossed the large room. Some seemed to recognize him as a LRP, and he assumed others just wanted to see what a LRP looked like. He said a litt
le private thank-you that so far he had been able to avoid headquarters duties.
Sergeant Allen saw Hollister approaching, smiled, and stood up. “Well, Captain, how you getting along out at Cu Chi?”
“Don’t really know. Been up to my ass in hand-grenade pins since I got there. But I don’t guess I need to tell you what I’m back for,” Hollister said, smiling.
“Sir, I knew you’d be back right ricky-tick as soon as you checked out the situation forward. My guess is that you might want to be seein’ the colonel.”
“You got that right. I came with a long list.”
“Um-hmmm, I’ll bet,” Sergeant Allen said. “Lemme see if the boss is free.”
“Colonel, I know you have lots of conflicting demands for combat and combat-support assets. But I promise you that you’ll get the best out of Juliet Company if you give these kids the tools to do the job.
“They need to know that if they get compromised out there on that wet pool table that they can bring in the steel on target and not fall through the crack.
“The company is just not suited for deployment in terrain like Hau Nghia Province without having the confidence that it can have almost immediate support once it makes contact. And by rotating the support units, or waiting for what’s available, we never get a chance to smooth out the wrinkles of unfamiliarity that slow down reaction time.
“And Major Sangean and I feel that the terrain isn’t the best and that the company can be even more effective at developing situations and collecting intelligence if you would consider moving the patrols to more difficult terrain.”
Colonel Downing listened and drew his leathered index finger down the letter of justification that Hollister had drafted. He looked up and raised an eyebrow.
“Son, you know that I am sympathetic to your request. But that doesn’t mean I can pull it off. Everyone—four full divisions and five separate brigades—wants his own support package.”
Downing waved his arm toward the small window in his office and continued., “There ain’t a combat commander worth shit out there who doesn’t push higher for more of everything.”
The words disappointed Hollister. He was sure Downing was setting him up for a letdown.
“But you are one of the few who really needs it,” the colonel said, picking up the papers and tapping their bottoms on his desktop to straighten them. “So here’s what we are going to do—you gonna be around?”
“Yes, sir. Don’t think there’s much chance of getting a ride back tonight. Cathcart’s got me set up in the transit BOQ.”
“Good, good. I want you to talk to Major Fowler, my Assistant G-3, when he gets back from USARV Headquarters. I’ll put him on trying to tag some units to tie up with your people.”
A smile crossed Hollister’s face. But the colonel raised his hand to stop him. “I can’t promise you’ll get everything on your wish list there. But we’ll give it a shot. That good enough for you?”
“And about the AO, sir?”
The colonel got up and walked to the map on the wall. He waved his spread fingers over the western III Corps area. “We have only put you guys there for the time being to create a little economy-of-force situation. We could use another infantry division, but we don’t have one. So while the four we have are tied up other places, we’re using Juliet Company to keep from completely abandoning the area we’ve dropped you in. I know it’s not the best. The good thing about it is that it gives you and Sangean time to shake down the teams and get some problems behind you.”
He took a step to his left and tapped the map in the vicinity of the Cambodian border. “We’re soon going to move you guys into where Charlie lives. The Cambodian border between the Angel’s Wing and the Parrot’s Beak is the launching area for combat troops and logistical support. Up till now we’ve been having trouble getting clearance to work that area. I think we’re there. Soon as we move you into the area, you can make life miserable for Charlie this side of the Ba Thu Corridor—the end of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. What do you think of that?”
“Sir, that’s all I can ask for …”
The colonel smiled back at him until Hollister finished his thought.
“For now,” Hollister added.
Chapter 10
AT THE END OF one row of desks was Major Fowler’s. He was on the phone, facing the wall. From the sounds of it, he was trying to communicate over a bad switchboard connection.
“I don’t give a shit! You tell those people that if they can’t seem to find a fucking way to get… Hello? Are you still there? Hello? Operator! Goddamnit, Operator!”
He paused long enough to listen to the explanation the switchboard operator gave for the interruption, then exploded again. “Well, get them back on the goddamn line, and call me back ASAP!
“Goddamnit!” Fowler mumbled to himself. He spun around, slammed the phone down, and tried to reorient himself to the work spread out on his desktop. He had very little working space sandwiched between an in and an out-box. Frustrated, he shoved aside a pile of reports that sat directly in front of him and extracted something from the bottom of the pile. Realizing it was not what he wanted, he dropped it onto the other pile and looked to his in-box, which was starting to hang over the edge of the desktop.
He flipped the classified-document cover back on a file in his in-box and lifted it out. The first page had instructions for him to initial after he had read the attached document. He reached into the breast pocket of his starched fatigue shirt and came out with a GI pen. He pushed the plunger to extend the point only to realize that it didn’t catch. He tried it a second time. Still no results. Finally, he slowly pressed the plunger until it locked into place, exposing the point.
Fowler placed the pen on the line next to the abbreviation for his job title listed on the buck slip and began to write his initials. He got as far as his first initial before the pen gave up the stream of ink and left a greasy blob on the paper. He reached over and scribbled on a piece of scrap paper. The pen made a circle, then a second loop, then left only an impression in the paper—no ink.
Angrier, Fowler raised his arm and hurled the pen completely across the room. “Motherfucker! Doesn’t any goddamn thing work in this fucking country?”
“I was told you’d be the man to see about some Ops and organization changes, sir,” Hollister said, trying not to find Fowler’s foul mood funny.
Fowler was startled by Hollister’s arrival and question. “Where the hell did you come from, Captain?”
“My CP, sir.”
The answer hit him wrong. Fowler bolted to his feet and rested his knuckles on his desk as he leaned forward toward Hollister. “You get smart with me, young captain, and I’ll have your ass. You got that?
“You goddamn Lurps come in here acting like you are God’s fucking solution to the war and expect everyone else around here to drop what they are doing and jump through hoops for you!”
“Was that a question, sir?” Hollister said with a hint of sarcasm. He wasn’t about to take Fowler’s unjustified shots at him. Fowler responded with a cold expression that left little doubt about his immediate dislike for Hollister.
Hollister made a snap judgment about Fowler. He was sure that there would be more run-ins with him and that he had better watch his back. He had met officers like Fowler before—ambitious, angry, and worried that the war was passing them by. They were always hard to deal with and often unreliable. They seemed to operate as if the unfortunate turns of events in the war were personal.
He remembered a pair of terms that he had not paid much attention to when he was an officer candidate back at Fort Benning, four years before. The terms were “careerists” and “professionals.” It was his Tactical officer who chastised his platoon of officer candidates to avoid the path of the careerist, who makes every decision based upon its impact on his career. He had said that the mark of a professional was one who made the right decision for the men and the mission, not the right decision for himself.
The
only other thing Hollister knew about officers like Fowler was that if you butted heads with them, you ended up wasting a lot of time and rarely ended up with your original goal accomplished. He decided to try to sidestep Fowler’s behavior and get on with what he was there for.
“Sir, I’m sure you have plenty of very important things that are pressing. But I’m in some trouble and need your help.”
Fowler’s mood changed immediately. He leaned back in his chair, as if preparing to pass judgment on Hollister’s words. “Go on.”
“Sir, we need organic support. We’re fairly ineffective as combat patrols if support is delayed by tasking units to support us on a rotating basis.
“I brought in some justification. I think that’s a copy of it in your in-box,” Hollister said.
Fowler plucked it from his in-box and read the routing slip the colonel had attached to it. It simply read: “For your action—Downing.”
“And just where do you suppose I get these units?”
“The way I look at it, if you’re going to give us support from different gunship platoons on a regular basis you’ve got one gun platoon gone all the time. Why not just attach one platoon to us permanently and let us take advantage of working as a team?”
Fowler didn’t argue with Hollister. Instead he waited for him to continue.
Hollister leaned forward and flipped over several pages of requests and justifications. Fowler took them and spread them out on top of his other work.
As Fowler read them, Hollister took a second look at him. You could tell a lot about an officer by the little things. Fowler had a West Point ring on his hand and no wedding ring. He wore a watch with a leather watchband. That told Hollister he had no orientation toward field operations. A leather band wouldn’t last a day in the field. He wondered if Fowler had ever spent much time in the field besides that necessary to earn the Ranger tab on his left shoulder.
The telltale sign of a rear-echelon officer was an infantryman without a CIB. The space over Fowler’s shirt pocket was only partially filled, with a small set of novice parachutist’s wings. Making it to major without earning a CIB or a higher parachute rating made Hollister suspect that Fowler might have spent much of his time in headquarters jobs, maybe even graduate school.