by Dennis Foley
He worked his way over to the Orderly Room and checked on paperwork and then tried to track down Sangean, whom, he was told, was at the Officers Club.
The tape recorder they had all chipped in to buy was wailing “Bad Moon Rising” as Hollister walked in. Sangean had given Captain Newman the job of morale officer. It was his responsibility, because he was the commo officer, to acquire the latest rock and roll music and have it copied to reels of tape for the club. Creedence Clearwater Revival was not the kind of music that could be heard on Armed Forces Network.
Sangean was sitting in the back of the room with a cold soft drink and a stack of papers spread out on a table. “Jim,” Sangean said, rubbing his eyes at the bridge of his nose. “You get any rest?”
It struck Hollister that in spite of Sangean’s low-key personality, he had never failed to ask about someone’s welfare.
“Sit,” Sangean said, picking up a handful of folders on the chair next to him. “You want something to drink?”
“No, sir. I ought to get back to Operations and get started on some plans for next week.”
“Nope. You’re off the clock until tomorrow. So have a drink, relax, and get back into gear without killing yourself.”
“Okay, sir. I’ll go for that.” He waved to T.T. at the other end of the room and held his hands, one above the other, to indicate the size of the drink he wanted.
He turned back to Sangean. “Congrats on the promotion, sir. I didn’t get a chance to tell you at the debriefing. Too many visiting firemen.”
“Thanks,” Sangean said. “It doesn’t come without strings though.”
Careful not to spill the drink, T.T. put the Scotch down in front of Hollister. It was just a little bit bigger than a normal double.
Behind the bar T.T. picked up the pencil on a string and made a check mark next to Hollister’s name. They all settled up their bar bills at the end of the month; that way T.T. never had to handle any cash.
After a sip and a long pause, Hollister asked, “What strings?”
“They are putting my green beret back on me. I’ve been alerted to go to Fifth Group in Nha Trang. I sure hope they don’t have any plans on leaving me at Group Headquarters. I’ll lose my mind. Nha Trang’s a place to visit, not to work.”
“That’s shitty. When?”
“Got to report to Group in a month. I’m going to spend a week in Hong Kong on the way. I haven’t had any leave or R and R in twenty-two months.”
“You’ll be able to catch up there,” Hollister said with a knowing smile.
“Yeah, I’m taking a sock full of piasters with me.”
“Peter going to take command of J Company?”
“I doubt it,” Sangean said.
“Tell me there’s someone as good inbound, sir.”
“I don’t know. They don’t tell me as much as you might think. Yesterday I had some seniority; right now I’m the junior lieutenant colonel in Vietnam. My guess is that damn near every infantry major who has picked up the rumor is hustling for this job.”
“When will we know?”
Sangean shrugged. “The big green machine has its own way of doing things. I just hope it’s after my promotion party.”
The thought brought a smile to Hollister’s face. “We sure aren’t going to let you go without spending some of that new half-colonel money.”
Sangean nodded and leaned back. “We need to talk a bit about you. I don’t want to get snowed under nailing down last-minute details and get out of here without spending a few minutes with you. So let’s get it over with now.”
He was leading up to a traditional counseling session, something all commanders were expected to do, but not many did. The turnover in Vietnam rarely allowed the opportunity. Hollister pulled out his notebook.
“Let me tell you that I am going to give you a max on your OER and just tell you privately what I think you need to work on. I’d rather not put my critique in writing. The paper shufflers in Washington don’t need to know our business.
“So know I am pleased with your performance and sorry I’m not going to be able to work with you for the rest of this tour. But that’s this business. We’ll cross paths again.”
The words caused a mixed response in Hollister. He was pleased that Sangean was maxing him out on his efficiency report. He had learned in his few years as an officer that the system was way overinflated and that anything short of a maximum score and exaggerated words of praise were the same as a bad efficiency report. He had also learned not to let the praise on paper go to his head, but to listen to the rater for what he really meant. He knew it would be like Sangean to focus on what needed work and let his approval be assumed by his silence on other matters.
“You’re a good field officer and working on becoming a pretty good staff officer. What you’re missing in the staff business, you’ll pick up in the Career Course. Your main failings are in getting too involved. You take every minor setback and every casualty personally. You work too hard and drive yourself too hard for your own good.”
Hollister started to argue, and Sangean raised his hand to stop him. “I know what you’re going to say. And you’re right. These troops deserve all the time you can give them in training, supervision, and planning. But not when it’s done with you a walking zombie. You need to learn to sidestep some of the things you can’t change and not carry them around with you. I don’t want to suggest that you not spend as much time with the troops, but you know the cost when you do. It makes it that much harder to accept the news when they get killed or wounded. Get a grip on this, Jim, or it’ll eat you up.”
He understood what Sangean was saying. He also understood that he wasn’t advocating being more aloof. But this was something he would have to handle himself. There were no textbooks to give him the exact solution to the problem of familiarity and concern.
Sangean leaned back and pulled a cigar from his shirt pocket. He bit off the end and plucked it from his lips with his fingertips. He lit the cigar and leaned forward, arms on the table. “You decided if you want to stay with the army?”
“I don’t know. My wife is expecting me to come home and hang it up. But as it gets closer, I’m just not sure. It’s been good and bad and even with the war; I’ve met and worked with some terrific people. But I’ve never been a civilian, really. I have no idea what it would be like out there.”
“I’m not asking for a decision. I had the same doubts when I was a new captain. So bank your bet. Make some moves like you’re planning to stay, and it won’t do any harm if you pull your rip cord and bail later.
“You want Infantry Branch to think you are in for the long haul. That’ll give you the best chance of having your career development in place if it turns out to be true.”
“Good plan. Thanks.”
Sangean waved to T.T. for another round and quickly brought it to a head. “You’re a good officer, Jim. I’d be happy to serve with you again, anytime. But you can fuck yourself up if you let this business eat a hole through you. You’ve got good instincts, and I have no problems with your judgment. Just keep listening to your gut. It’ll steer you right.”
“I will,” Hollister said as he pushed the empty glass toward T.T.
“And watch out for that shit,” Sangean said, meaning the booze. “It can jump up and bite you in the ass. I’ve seen plenty get dragged down by it. That’s all I’m gonna say about that.” He raised his cola can in a sort of salute to mark the end of the counseling session.
After several days of getting over the strain of the snatch mission, Hollister quickly got back into his job. The wounded were all coming back to duty, except Ayers, who would need more work on his eyes. He would see, but his tour was over.
The dead were remembered, and Sangean made quite a fuss over having Two Field accept a recommendation for medals for each Hoi Chanh.
Hollister had enough time to absorb the events and decide just what needed to be done to keep another patrol from being baited and ambushed as his
was. He tried to make his decision based on the good of the teams, but knew that some of his own ego was tied up in having been had by the VC.
He was struck with mixed emotions when he read the Operations Summaries that were written at IIFFV Headquarters and distributed to all subordinate units. In them the description of the contact after the snatch was characterized as very successful, yielding plenty of intelligence as well as significant enemy casualties. Somehow, from the Cav’s reported four casualties, the number had grown to an estimated added body count of twelve.
Hollister was angry about the account of the contact, but he was privately relieved to see that it was not described as a stupid move on his part. He tried not to let his emotions get him in trouble over his disagreement with the report, but he made sure Sangean knew how he felt.
Sangean made no secret of how angry he was when he called Major Fowler and dressed him down. Fowler was responsible for the reports and had to be accountable for the contents—even though he denied it.
Hollister tried to reduce his mail backlog while working on more Operations plans for War Zone D. He based them on the analysis of the enemy situation that came from the prisoner and the captured documents. As far as Field Force was concerned, there was a Main Force guerrilla battalion operating in War Zone D as a cadre, whose mission was to facilitate the passage and the concealment of NVA units moving through the area and those who needed to temporarily operate out of Zone D.
“You heard anything about any other friendlies moving into D Zone?” Hollister asked Kurzikowski, who had just returned from G-3 at Long Binh.
“They were dicking around with a brigade of the Hundred and first that was supposed to go in there. But there’s some shit happening north of Ban Me Thout, and they’re going to leave ’em up there for now.”
“So it looks like we keep it, huh?”
“Looks that way to me. Problem?” Kurzikowski asked.
“We’ve been there long enough for the VC to pick up all of our tricks—at least the ones they didn’t know when we first went in there. I want to start doing more to confuse them.”
“Like?”
“I want to put some teams in on strings—no LZs. They have every damn landing zone in the AO covered by LZ watchers. I think if we rappel some teams in and even fake a few rope inserts, we’ll throw them off. How’s that sound to you?”
“Good. I’ve never felt we were getting away with anything they didn’t know about anyway.”
“Let’s do it. But first …”
“I know, sir. More training. I hear you. We’ll get the troops out on the rappelling tower right ricky-tick.”
Night training was essential. Hollister was aware the troops were doing some grumbling about his increased training schedule that had the teams out night and day. But he had remembered Easy’s words, “Careful you don’t kill ’em with kindness.” He was convinced that the more they trained at night, the more he would increase their survivability. So if he got some dirty looks and overheard some shots he’d just ignore it and keep up the training. It might mean someone getting home who might not otherwise.
Hollister stood on top of the rappelling tower watching soldier after soldier climb it, hook up, and rappel down. The night was so dark that it was even difficult to see the safety NCOs at the bottom of the ropes.
“Where are the Hoi Chanhs?”
“Over there,” someone said. “By the shitter.”
Looking across the compound toward one of the latrines, Hollister could make out the glow of two cigarettes. He couldn’t see the smokers, but he assumed it was the Vietnamese.
“Sergeant Bui?” Hollister yelled from the top of the tower.
Bui’s voice came back from the base of the tower, “Airbo’ne.”
“Get those little people over here. This goddamn training isn’t just for the Americans.”
“Yessir,” Bui said, then broke into excited Vietnamese as he chided the Hoi Chanhs for not being at training.
A voice called up from the base of the tower. “Cap’n Hollister up there?”
“Yo,” Hollister replied.
“Sir … Captain Vance needs to see you in the Orderly Room—right now.”
Walking to the back of the cramped mock-up at the top of the tower, Hollister picked a spare sling rope and a snap link off the wall. He flipped the gate on the snap link a couple of times to make sure the spring was still good and then slipped it into his mouth while he tied a Swiss seat around his hips with the sling rope.
Once the running ends of the Swiss seat were tied off in double half hitches, he fastened the snap link to the three passes of rope that intersected at his crotch. After seating the snap link, he looked over to the soldier next in line and motioned for a space in the doorway of the mock-up tower. “How ’bout letting me in there?”
The soldier stepped back and handed the double climbing ropes to Hollister, who dropped them down through the gate, came around, and dropped them through again. After checking to be sure that the gate was closed, he turned his back to the doorway, looked out and down, and yelled, “On rappel!”
With a forceful push of his legs, Hollister leaped up and away from the platform, allowing himself to fall twenty-five feet in the first bound. His feet then slammed against the wooden wall as his braking hand jerked him to a momentary stop, swinging his body back in toward the tower. He felt the impact in his bad leg, but shrugged it off.
Flexing his knees, he pushed off again and let some more slack into his breaking hand, behind his hip. He fell the last fifteen feet, his boots landing flat-footed on the ground. Without hesitation, he yanked some slack into the rappelling ropes and freed them from the gate of his snap link, yelling, “Off rappel.”
The contact siren hadn’t blown, so whatever Vance wanted couldn’t be that earthshaking. After spending his hours in the darkness, the lights inside the Orderly Room seemed extraordinarily bright. As Hollister tried to adjust to the light, he found Sangean and Vance standing in the outer office—silent.
Hollister looked at the two of them and waited for someone to speak.
Vance went first. “Well, we have some shit coming down.”
“What?”
Sangean waved a single piece of paper. “I’ve got a report date at the end of the week.”
“Crap,” Hollister said. “No chance of getting them to change their minds?”
“I’d have to take a bust back to major to stay,” Sangean said with a smile.
There was a long pause which Hollister ended with the realization that without Sangean there would be no commander: “Who’s your turtle?”
“Don’t know. For now it’s Peter here. He’ll be acting CO until they find someone.”
“No chance they’ll make it permanent?”
“Sure, it’d happen if this were a mess-kit repair company. But there are too many eager beavers wanting my job,” Sangean said.
“Well, we sure are gonna miss you.”
Sangean stuck his hand out and took Hollister’s.
Hollister wanted to tell Sangean what he really felt about him, but he felt a little awkward about saying it. He decided to put as much of it as he could into the firmness of his handshake and hope that Sangean understood.
“We ever going to have that promotion party?” Vance asked.
“It’s going to have to be a promotion party and a going-away party combined.”
“We can handle that,” Hollister said.
The company had not had a break in weeks, and Sangean cleared it with G-3 to pull the remaining teams out of the AO and not replace them for forty-eight hours. The break would give Sangean a chance to throw his promotion party and let the troops get some downtime to recharge and even see each other. Too often they were taking turns out in the field on a schedule that didn’t allow the members of a patrol platoon to ever see the other teams.
The platoon sergeants and platoon leaders also needed some time for the essential housekeeping chores that troops had to be aroun
d to accomplish. Equipment inventories, reassignments, billeting changes, maintenance, repairs, and cleanup all required bodies.
The time was also good for the aircrews. The pilots and crew members needed a break, too. Sangean made arrangements for the pilots to take all their aircraft back to their maintenance facilities and bring the crews back for the party.
The company area was filled with the aroma of steaks cooking on half-barrel barbeques that magically appeared. Sergeant Kendrick stood in the middle of the four barbeques flipping steaks and nudging hot dogs with a long two-tined fork.
It was the first time Hollister had seen all of J Company together since he had been with it and the first time he had seen so many of them in civilian clothes. Most didn’t have complete outfits, so they filled out their ensembles with pieces of uniforms.
Shorts and shower shoes seemed to be the two items that each LRP had been able to bring over or get in the PX. The shirts were either T-shirts or no shirts. They all had a beer in each hand, and about half of them wore hats—boonie hats, patrolling caps, floppy hats, and the camouflage berets they had made in town.
By sundown the rock and roll music could be heard for several hundred meters in every direction. Ordinarily, that kind of racket would be considered a breach of noise discipline, but in the months since J Company had inherited the small base within a base, an engineer battalion and an Air Force Pedro rescue helicopter company had moved in on either side of the LRPs. Both units made more noise routinely than the LRPs were making on purpose. So the partying went on without fear of creating a bigger target than they already were.
Once it got full-on dark, some of the NCOs collected over by the mess-hall steps. Something was up. The beer flowed at a record pace, and the normally precise and well-coordinated LRPs began to get sloppy and clumsy. Hollister noticed it and caught Sangean’s eye.
“That’s what we promised ’em—a party.”
“Glad I’m not paying for it,” Hollister said.