by Gus Lee
“I’ll always care for you,” I said.
She crossed her long legs, and then her arms, leaning forward to watch her suspended high-heeled foot jiggling to a rhythm far faster than the pace of my heart. The pain had only begun, and already I was growing numb. She uncrossed her arms, reached into her bag, and gave me a small black velvet box. “This is yours,” she said. Her eyes were wet.
Inside was a very close replica of my Academy class ring. My mother’s initials were on the inside of the white gold and onyx ring bright with the American eagle and the numerals “68.” I looked at it for a long time. I wanted it badly, but I couldn’t wear it. A drill sergeant with an Academy ring. There was no way to explain it. I looked at her.
“It’s beautiful,” I said. “But it’s not mine.”
“Undeserving, huh,” she said in a thick voice.
I nodded and gave it back to her.
“Hold me, Ding Kai,” she said, and I did.
“Goodbye, Pearl,” I said.
I wore the three yellow chevrons of a buck sergeant, the crossed rifles of an eleven-bravo infantryman, the silver wings of a paratrooper. I had no Academy ring or bright yellow Ranger tab. I downed a pack of Cēpacol sore-throat tablets a day to lubricate my voice while yelling, encouraging, and singing West Point jodies (“Left my baby in New Orleans / Twenty-four babies and a can of beans / Sound off”) to my troops. Some of them were college graduates with more education than I, but most came from ghettos, barrios, and the projects, and were not accustomed to reading map contours, magnetic declinations, rifle battle sights, defense perimeters, or Army English.
At night after a long day of running in the dunes, I asked them about themselves, to tell their stories. At first, there was uneasy silence. I asked questions. Where’s home? How many brothers and sisters? Ages, names? Where’d your family come from? What would you be doing now if you weren’t in the green? I wanted the troops to become people to each other. I missed Spanner, McFee, Parthes, Zerl, Caleb, Irkson, Quint, and Schmidt.
The demands of an eccentric Chinese DI led white cryptobigots to speak in the company of blacks, angry black separatists to speak in front of sullen whites, and Hispanics and Jews to speak in front of everyone. I paired whites who died on the obstacle course with blacks who needed help with KP, yellow men who cleaned weapons poorly with brown men who made messy bunks, and rotated them, becoming a Matisse of people, creating mosaics of color, blends of cooperation and unity. Everyone was in my Army, and everyone was the color of olive drab.
Nights were filled with the same dream of reinstatement at the Academy. At times the dream was so vivid that when I awoke I could not accept the reality of my barracks room, blinking again and again in an effort to change the view. In the first moments I had thought it was Camp Buckner, knowing that Deke, Bob, Arch, Sonny, Mike, and Billy Bader were just outside the door. I missed Mike’s rapscallion smile and personality insights, Sonny’s New Jersey patter and generosity, Bob’s ability to throw people out of wrestling clusters, Arch’s wit, Deke’s steady presence, the roar of the crowd. I even missed Moon’s maniacal obsession with Buck Owens and the Buckaroos, whose tragic songs never sounded sad.
In the squad bays snored my platoon with the snorts and unsyncopated rhythms of boys of all colors sleeping under a commonly unfamiliar roof. I opened the barracks door. Company A-3 was not in the street. I wasn’t at West Point. I never would be.
The fire guard stiffened. “Yes, Drill Sergeant?” he said.
“Nothing,” I said, my mouth aching with the word.
Ord was the Sahara, far from my past and removed from the presence and minds of those I had injured or disappointed. The winds blew the sand, the cycles of trainees arrived and left, time slowed, I ran and mongered iron, and I was recovering a confidence that had been absent for what seemed a very long time. My conscious battle with mathematics as a test of my humanity and my worth had ended. I had dropped the rock of shiao, filial piety, and watched it roll down the hill, and I could face west, my back to the Hudson and Boethius’s principles, and look at the sea when I was lonely.
20 December 1967
Dear Kai,
Merry Christmas! I conjured some historically good egg-nog. Earlier this evening, Chase “Byron” Maher, Pennell Hicks, other officers and I toasted the good health and good fortune of absent comrades now in SE Asia, and those with whom we will never again share a nog. We included you in the first group. The SM asked if you had been admitted to college yet.
“I gave zat boy good Christmas present, early,” he said.
Our sad news is that Edwin MacPellsin was killed in action in the Iron Triangle. He will be buried in his hometown in Iowa. Daniel Spillaney, who played so heroically against Navy, was killed when his chopper went down near the Cambode border, close to where you worked your border tactics problem. Wasn’t he your assistant Beast squad leader? Jack Armentrot lost his legs and one arm. I regret telling you such bad news.
What are your plans? You must be busy, running a BCT schedule: up until midnight writing your troop evals, prepping handouts and lectures; 0500 reveille. If I know you at all, you’re drilling your boys as if they were cadets. In your free time, remember not to give up on your college education. Personally, I would hate to have this particular Sergeant Major upset with me. But my life is blessed; I will marry this summer, and have never been happier. In my youth, I must have done something very good.
We three received orders for our second tours in Vietnam. Byron will take his poetry to SE Asia soon; I go with my culinary skills in the fall. Keep the home fires burning (using your unusual fuels). We all send our best. God bless. H. Norman Schwarzhedd
“Mr. Ting,” said the admissions clerk, “we have a problem.” UC was not inclined to admit me after my academic failure in a major East Coast college. I had an acceptable GPA, but they were confused by my academic disqualification resulting from failing one class and by the number of units earned. After UC had cast out a good number of my Academy courses because no equivalents existed in its catalog—or anywhere else—they gave me 177 quarter-units. I needed only three more to graduate.
“You failed a course,” she said, “obviously, because you took too many classes. You could’ve graduated in junior year. But we can’t take you unless someone from engineering recommends you. Your reference sources are humanities and letters. You’re not going to study engineering here, but that was your major at that … other place.” It was 1967. No one in California liked West Point.
I wrote to the Bear, asking for a letter of recommendation. The letter from Major H. Norman Schwarzhedd arrived that week. As his father had helped my father, the son had helped me.
With the new year of 1968, I purchased a slightly dented, mildly blue ’55 Chevy for three hundred dollars from a sergeant first class bound for Nam. I was filled with raucous affection for this four-wheeled machine with a radio. I drove up and down the coast with the windows down, visiting San Simeon, William Randolph Hearst’s castle, and became a permanent diner at China Moon Cafe in Seaside. I felt an abiding loneliness, which even black-bean chicken chowfun and the comfort of the Chevy could not alleviate. I looked at elegant women in Carmel, missing the days when full-dress cadet gray could make me look like I belonged in the upper tier of society. I had possessed a chance to know young women and to be a West Pointer, and realized that I had seen the best days of my life. I thought of Momma LaRue. I imagined hugging her.
I put on a clean uniform and drove up Route 1 to San Francisco, feeling the pull of the old ’hood and the aura of the Pyramids. I was returning to where I had been an ardent would-be black youth, where I had been a slave to a hard queen, where I had failed at family and romance. I was going up the Nile to Egypt.
I thought of Toussaint. I used to practice his walk, imitating the glide in his feet, the angle of his straight back, the strut so quietly hidden in the shoulders and arms, the height of his head. I would try it, and we would laugh so hard. Now, as the Pacific glistened
to my left, I turned off the radio and practiced talking to him. “Toussaint. Damn, it’s good to see you. Man, I’m such a fool. Sorry I haven’t called, or written.… Toos—how are you, man?… Yeah, I’m a sergeant. See, I flunked out of West Point.…” I exhaled, consumed with gnawing fears. I was afraid he was in Vietnam. I feared he was already dead.
I turned off Nineteenth Avenue and drove through Golden Gate Park to the Haight, and started taking my shocks. The Haight was filled with young white people dressed up like East Indian mystics. Hippies. I turned north on Central.
Cutty’s Garage had new management. Joe Cutty and Hector Pueblo were not there. Mrs. Timm’s Reliance Market was closed and boarded up. The barbershop with its black-and-white linoleum-squared floor was gone and made into an apartment. The Lew Wallace Eatery—with the two angry cooks, Rupert and Dozer, who made the best fries in the City—had been replaced by a dismal hairdresser’s shop that seemed headed for the same fate. The whole commerce of the ’Handle had collapsed under the gravitational pull of the “supermarket” of Petrini Plaza. I drove down McAllister, my mind awash in childhood memories, jarred by the sense that I did not belong here, that I would not be remembered or accepted.
I had not attended the church since childhood. All the way up the coast, I wondered if I would go in. I had hated chapel at the Academy, and had vowed after Marco Fideli’s memorial to never enter a church unless it was for my own death. I wondered about Reverend Jones and Sippy Suds Deloitte. I wanted them to see me in uniform, but did not want to explain how I came to be here while my class was at West Point. Yet U.S. Army khakis had never been unwelcome in the storefront Third Baptist; its members had offered too many sons and fathers to the same cloth, for patriotism and in the hope of equality, to decry it. Here, being a sergeant was honorable.
I parked on Grove to watch for Toos and Momma, listening to Motown on KYA. I hadn’t been here for four years, and hadn’t been to church for seven. I had trouble remembering names of the worshipers. I looked for Titus, Alvin, Reginald, Tyrone, and Aaron. An old expression returned: I was itching to see Earline Ribbons and Anita Mae Williams. I wondered what they’d think of me, if they’d accept me all over again. I felt shivers of guilt. I had left the ’hood and gone to the Academy, where I had lived like them during Plebe year, but for three years now I had eaten like a king. Who was I to ask for acceptance from those who had stuck it out with hard times?
I looked at my watch; the Corps would be returning now from mandatory chapel. Kids entering the church turned to check out the Chinese soldier in the dented blue car, their mommas saying, “Stop starin’ at the man and come along.” A lot of the folk wore buttons that said “Kennedy,” and it took me a moment to realize it was Bobby they meant, and not Jack.
Toos and Momma didn’t show. Nor did anyone else I knew by name, as if I had come to the wrong church. The greeter was a short, straight, fortyish man in a white shirt, shiny black suit, and white gloves wearing a large blue badge that said “USHER.”
The doors closed. I heard “Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross,” then silence. Now it would be congregational prayer, members speaking of those in need, to the loud and comradely affirmation of others. Then the announcements. The choir led in “I Don’t Feel No Way Tired” and “I Want to Be a Christian in My Heart,” the tune remaining with me for longer than I wished. Now, I figured, Reverend Jones would be sermoning. I got out of the car, straightened my uniform, and walked to the church. Quietly, I approached the storefront opening. I took a mimeographed bulletin from the stack at the door.
Piano Prelude and Invitation to Worship: Deaconess Manchester
Hymns: 383, 487: Congregation
Congregational Prayer: Congregation
Church Announcements: Baptist Union, Sunday School Training
Sermon: On Reverend King in Memphis: Reverend Jones
Memorial: Alvin Sharpes Who Died for His Country, February 14, 1968,
Ban Me Thuot, South Vietnam: Joseph W. Sharpes
Hymns: “A Great Joy A-Coming,” “You’ve Buried My Sin”: Choir
Alvin Sharpes had been killed in Tet. He had opposed the idea of killing Leo Washington. He loved his father so much, he insisted on being called “Alvin Sharpes” instead of “Alvin.”
The usher emerged and I introduced myself. He remembered Charlotte LaRue and her son, but hadn’t seen them in years. Joe Cutty had sold his garage. He didn’t know a Hector Pueblo. Earline Ribbons died of TB five years ago. Anita Mae Williams was married and a mother, attending S.F. State. Markie T. had moved to L.A. years ago and Titus B. was in state prison. He couldn’t recall any of the other names. Deloitte, the usher said, had gone back South.
I quietly entered. The church seemed to have shrunk. A tall man in a brown suit gripped the lectern. The church had four new pews in front to supplement the collage of unrelated wooden folding chairs. The man was crying, unable to stop. “My son…,” he said in a quavering voice, succumbing to tears as others said, “… the Lord love and keep you.” I left and sat on the steps.
After a while, I heard a hymn I’d forgotten since the days when I carried rock collections in my pockets and daydreamed with great power about the taste of fresh bubble gum.
In the depths of the sea
You carried my guilt far away.
As far as the East is from the West
You’ve removed my transgressions from me,
Yes You did.
So I tell of Your mercy and sing of Your grace
And walk in Your liberty
And live in the awesome light of Your love
’Cause I know I am free.
Service ended, and I returned to the car until the last of the worshipers had shaken the pastor’s hand. As I walked back, the man in the brown suit embraced his minister, and they wept in each other’s arms. The sight of these two strong men weeping was hard to view. I looked at my biceps, expecting them to be gone. I remembered Marco Fideli’s parents and kept my distance. But the man in the suit saw me. He wiped his face with a crisp white handkerchief from his breast pocket and walked toward me.
I put my hand out. “Mr. Sharpes, I knew your son. He was my friend, I’m so sorry.” I’m Asian, but I didn’t kill your son.
He smiled bravely, eyes wet, cheeks shining, a man wearing his wounds on the outside. I remembered him as the man who didn’t drink. He appeared to be living without sleep. He shook my hand in both of his, the moist hanky wrapping around my fingers. He pulled on his ear the way Alvin Sharpes had when something puzzled him.
“Knew my son in the Army?” he asked.
“No, sir. Used to live here. We were boyhood pals.”
He studied my chest. “Army gave us lots of medals after he was dead. Haven’t been to Vietnam. You going?”
“Don’t know, sir. If I get orders.”
“Hope not. God keep you. I appreciate your sentiment.”
I nodded, my lips compressed. “So sorry,” I said.
Reverend Jones smiled as he took my hand in a strong grip. His face had aged only slightly, his hair was whiter. He was shorter than I remembered. “Good to have you back,” he said in his rich, deep voice. “I recall you as a tiny boy, swallowed up by the chair. You’re a completely grown man. What a pleasure to see how the Lord has smiled on you. Thank you for speaking to Mr. Sharpes.” He nodded his head, his words like soft mountain thunder. “Never can take on too much comfort in grief. You were friends, right?”
I nodded. I found my voice. “Yes. Reverend, have you seen Toussaint LaRue, or Mrs. LaRue?”
He shook his head. “Gone to I don’t know where. Many have up and gone, some back to the South.” He licked his lips. “Hard times,” he said. “This Vietnam is like Korea, all over again.”
“Toussaint, and Charlotte, they can’t be missing,” I said.
He read my name tag. “Sergeant Ting. Kai Ting, isn’t it? All the boys have gone to the Army. Charlotte left town. They didn’t have any relations here in this church.”
“Pastor, how can I find them?”
He shook his head. Then he smiled. “Deloitte’s a lay minister in Mississippi. He’d kick himself hard, missing you.… I’m sorry son. Wish I could tell you better. Pray for them, son—pray that Almighty Jesus is with them. Would you like to sit awhile, and visit? Well, it was good, seeing you. I always wanted you to come back. This is your home. The Lord bless you.”
I walked downhill to Golden Gate and headed for the old block. I had hoped someday to be a muscular, athletic paratrooper in bright jump boots with silver Airborne wings. I had become my childhood dream.
I stood on Indian Head Beach near Range 9, a twenty-five-meter, 70-point firing range, reading my mail and inventorying my assets. I had been accepted at the University of California at Davis, and my military obligation would end before I could receive orders for Vietnam. Mike Benjamin wrote. He was applying to medical school, although the Army had made it clear that it had not sent him through West Point to heal people.
A third of us have been removed from each company to create twelve new ones. New Plebes aren’t like us; you have to be defined “politically” to do something as unpopular as coming to West Point in the middle of this war.
I can’t believe Martin Luther King is dead. I know you really admired him. I don’t understand what’s happening. Everything’s in flux. What’s it really like out there? Is it as crazy as it seems in the papers? It sounds like a race war and Sodom combined.
Sonny and Barbara got engaged. You know how he’s always tutoring classmates. Ordnance is a breeze, so all he can do is tutor Cows in Juice. He does it with a purpose. You ought to write to him; he thinks it’s his fault you got found.
You know about MacPellsin and Spillaney. We still laugh about your answer to his AAA question during Beast.
One of our new Tactics Ps was with the 173d Airborne Bde. He had a big, athletic sergeant with a stupid voice that sounded like Goofy. The sergeant was wounded twice, was put in for a DFC and a Silver Star, and was a general’s son. It was Pee Wee. But get this—in a river action, he rescued a drowning medic. Irony knows no bounds. I told Mr. Flauck. He looked at me sternly and whapped his leg with his swagger stick. “Hmm. Goot,” he said. Sentimental bastard.