"None taken, Sir,'~' Oliver said.
Bellmon was not through. "He doesn't have to kiss my -ass, Dick, for a good efficiency report," he said angrily. "He came~ home from Vietnam with a Silver Star and a - DF. "
"I said I- meant-no offense," Cronin said: Bellmon was still not through.
"And he's Norwich, a regular." Cronin ignored .the outburst. He waited a moment to give Bellmon a chance to calm down, then he asked, "Spell it out, Bob. What do you want from me?" Bellmon took a moment to frame his thoughts.
"Yesterday the Chief Signal Officer went to our DCSQPS and pleaded the necessity of having the Chinook grounding lifted."
" 'Yesterday'?" General Cronin parroted.
"Yesterday. Sunday," Bellmon said. "He didn't get anywhere. DCSOPS said he couldn't do a thing without Air Force acquiescence, the pressure was on. Bill Roberts and I are going to be in his office first thing this morning, and we're going 'to hit him again. We just don't have the time to wait for a full-blown accident-investigation report. Anyway, he's going to give us the same speech: he can't do anything without Air Force acquiescence. Whereupon I will say, 'Call Dick Cronin.
The Air Force DCSOPS is willing to go along.' "
"And what am I supposed to say to my Chief of Staff:," Cronin demanded, "when he hears about this and calls me in?"
"Tell him the truth. Tell him that we absolutely have to have the Chinook experience, both at Rucker and with the 11th Air Assault, before the 11th goes to Vietnam, and that the risk is justified. "
"The problem. with that, Bob, is that the Chief of Staff devoutly believes that as soon as Lyndon. Johnson finds out what McNamara has been 'letting you guys get away with, he'll tell him to cut Army Aviation back to where it belongs." Johnson had become President less than two months earlier.
"Back to Key West, you mean, Dick?" the roles and missions of the Army, Navy; Marine Corps, ,and Air Force, including what aircraft the Army were permitted to have, ,had been spelled out in an agreement signed at Key West in 1948.
"Exactly," General Cronin said. "And when that happens, Army Aviation, of the size you're trying to make it-an Air Assault Division with its own large, complicated, and, thus properly belonging to the Air Force, airplanes, and the supporting logistics-will be nothing more than a footnote", like dirigibles: an idea that didn't work."
"Then he's wrong," Bellmon said.
"I don't think so," Cronin said. "I think you're wrong."
"There's no telling what Johnson is going to do," Bellmon insisted. "Felter is doing the same. thing for Johnson. he did for Kennedy, and you know how McNamara hates him." That announcement clearly surprised General Cronin.
"I hadn't heard that," he confessed, then added, "You're telling me you have a mouth at Johnson's ear, is that it?"
"I devoutly hope so," Bellmon said, "but what I'm telling you is that I think we've already gone too far to stop; no matter who thinks what about Army Aviation. And you know as well as I do that we're going to get deeper and deeper in Vietnam. I don't think Johnson is going to pull the rug out from under us-not now. For one thing, we're right. More importantly, McNamara thinks so. I don't think Johnson gives a damn one way or another who has the aircraft. And.! don't think he would risk humiliating McNamara by reversing him that way. What did McNamara make at Ford? A million a year? He wouldn't stand for being humiliated."
Cronin digested that, his face moving as be did, but he didn't reply.
"The 11th Air Assault is going to Vietnam," Bellmon went on. "I think that's really a given. And it needs the Chinook, that is a given. And we need, now, the necessary training in its use. Equally important, we need the logistic data the Board tests are developing. Christ, we don't even have avionic radiation patterns for it yet! We have to fly the Chinook, Dick, and-'right now. We don't have the time to wait for an accident report, passed through channels, by Air Force types who know the Chief of Staff hopes they drag their feet. "
"'It isn't the Chinook alone," General Cronin said. "I really don't think we would object to that. But the Caribou is ace transport airplane, and the Army isn't supposed to have transport airplanes. And the" Mohawk! "
"The Mohawk is a reconnaissance airplane," Bellmon said.
"Come on, Bob, damn it!" General Cronin said furiously.
"A reconnaissance airplane you've armed in Vietnam with fifty caliber machine guns. I know all about your simple ~reconnaissance airplane: I even saw movies a week or so ago of your simple reconnaissance Mohawk shooting up a tank at the Yuma Test Station with thirty-millimeter cannon. That makes it, if not a lighter, then an armed ground-support airplane. And you know the Army's not supposed to have them."
"We're talking about the Chinook'," °Bellmon said. (And jus(a little lamely, Oliver thought.) "We've got to get that grounding lifted. If we don't, people are going to get killed.
It is morally wrong to let that happen because we're fighting about~ roles and missions."
"Yeah, it is," General Cronin said after a long moment.
"Goddamn you, Bob. But OK. With the clear understanding that this is it. This is-the last time. Period. The end. Agreed?"
"Thank you," Bellmon said.
Helen Cronin appeared at the door at that moment. She had her hands on her hips and her lips were tight.
But what she saw was her husband and her brother shaking hands.
"Breakfast is on the table," she announced.
[ONE]
Main Post Chapel
Fort Rucker, Alabama
1450 Hours 14 January 1964
The parking lot between the Main Post Chapel and the Officers' Open 'mess was full; the overflow stretched blocks in all directions.
Was Jack Dant that popular, Oliver wondered as he walked quickly from the back door of Post Headquarters, to the chapel, or is some of this morbid curiosity? The thought shamed him, and he came up with another reason for all the mourners:' It is a mark of respect to the widow. There, but for the grace of God, in other words.
He shouldered his way through the crowd standing outside.
There were ushers at the door, but the panache of a general officer rubs off to some degree on his aide, and no one tried to stop him from entering the chapel. He quickly located the
Bellmons Gust the General and Mrs. B; (Marjorie was not in sight), walked up the aisle to them, bent over General Bellmon, and whispered, "This just came in, Sir." Bellmon took it and read it.
PRIORITY
HQ DEPT OF THE ARMY WASH DC I720Z I4JAN64
TO: COMMANDING GENERAL US ARMY AVIATION CENTER FT RUCKER, ALA COMMANDING GENERAL lITH AIR ASSAULT DIVISION [TEST] FT BENNING GA PRESIDENT USARMY AVIATION BOARD FT RUCKER ALA .INFORMATION: COMMANDING GENERAL, CONTINENTAL ARMY COMMAND COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, US ARMY PACIFIC .COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, US ARMY EUROPE COMMANDING GENERAL, US ARMY ALASKA ~OMMANDING GENERAL, US ARMY SOUTHERN COMMAND
I. REF TWK HQ DA I600z IIJAN64 SUBJECT: GROUNDING OF CH47-SERIES CHINOOK AIRCRAFT.
2. EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY CH47-SERIES CHINOOK AIRCRAFT ASSIGNED TO lITH AIR ASSAULT DIVISION [TEST]; USARMY, AVIATION CENTER; AND USARMY AVIATION BOARD, ONLY REPEAT ONLY, WHICH ARE CONSIDERED ESSENTIAL REPEAT ESSENTIAL TO CONDUCT OF PRIORITY TRAINING AND TESTING MAY BE FLOWN ON A RESTRICTED BASIS.
3. ALL REPEAT ALL OTHER CH47-SERIES CHINOOK AIRCRAFT REMAIN GROUNDED PENDING RESULTS OF JOINT USARMY/USAIRFORCE ACCIDENT, INVESTIGATION BOARD.
4. RECEIPT OF THIS MESSAGE WILL BE ACKNOWLEDGED BY PRIORITY TWX. NO REPEAT NO REQUESTS-FOR EXCEPTIONS ARE DESIRED.
FOR THE CHIEF OF STAFF: WINDSOR, LT 9EN, DCSOPS
General Bellmon read it, nodded his head, smiled at Oliver, and handed it back.
Oliver started back down the center aisle of the chapel. As he approached the rear, he saw Marjorie Bellmon and smiled.
She stood up, stepped into the aisle, and gestured for him to sit down. When he looked hesitant, she made a gesture of insistence. He went into the pew and sat down and found himself sitting next to Liza Wood, who gave him a surprised look, and
then an impersonal, perhaps uncomfortable, smile.
He dozed off during the chaplain's eulogy and woke suddenly to an elbow in his ribs.
"You were snoring," Liza Wood whispered intently. He could smell her breath, something like peppermint, and could feel its warmth.
Being awake did not turn his attention to what the chaplain was saying. He was conscious only of Liza Wood's perfume, of the black lace he could see inside her dress at the swell of her breasts and at the hem, and of the soft warmth of her thigh pressing, however unintentionally, against his.
He was somewhat startled when the pallbearers, Charley Stevens among them, second on the right, carried Jack Dant's flag-covered casket back down the aisle.
The chapel then emptied from the front. First the widow and her family, and then the close friends and the brass. The people in the rear, Oliver and Marjorie and Liza among them, were the last to leave.
By the time they were outside, the hearse had already driven off, and General and Mrs. Bellmon were waiting for them.
"Do' you know my mother and father?" Marjorie asked Liza, and made the introductions. There was no indication on either side that anyone remembered Liza slamming the door of Jack Dant's house in the Bellmons', and Johnny Oliver's, faces.
"Are you going to the house, dear?" Mrs. Bellmon asked.
Marjorie nodded. "Liza and I are going to help serving/' she said.
"Johnny, why don't you go with Marjorie?" Bellmon said.
, 'See. if there is anything at all we can do."
"Yes, Sir," Johnny Oliver said.
, 'And then get yourself some sleep," General Bellmon went on. "I'll see you in the morning." When they had gone, Liza Wood looked at him.
"Rough night last night, Johnny?"
"Unfair, Liza," Marjorie said. "Daddy had Johnny up in the middle of the night to fly them to Washington. And I heard him tell Mother that he wasn't tired, he'd slept both wayswhiJe Johnny flew." -:
, 'Sorry," Liza said with what Johnny decided was monumental insincerity. Then she asked, "What was going on in Washington that wouldn't wait?"
"We were trying to get the Chinook grounding lifted," Johnny replied.
, 'And did you succeed?" .
"Yes, we did," he said evenly.
"Good for you. Now you soldiers can kill some other nice young man," Liza said, and turned and walked away.
"What was that all about?" Marjorie asked, shocked.
"I guess the service opened a scar," Johnny said.
"That didn't give her the-right to jump allover you."
"Let it go, Marjorie, but thank you," Oliver said.
"I was about to offer you a ride," Marjorie said. "You look really beat. But I guess you're not going to stay a minute longer than necessary, are you?"
"No. I'm all right. But thank you anyway." -"Well, I like you, anyway," Marjorie said, and rose on her toes to kiss him on the cheek.
The. guy that gets her, he thought, gets the brass ring.
[TWO]
The remains of First Leutenant John M. Dant would be returned to his home for interment in the family plot. That would happen the next day. Oliver had seen the G-I's plans for that. An Otter had been laid on to fly the pallbearers to Ohio and to bring them and. the escort officers back after the interment. The escort officers, a light colonel and a captain from the Aviation Board, would accompany the widow, and the remains, to Ohio, on Commercial Air.
Friends and neighbors of the widow had set up a buffet in the Dant home, to which other friends and neighbors went after the memorial service.
When Johnny Oliver reached the house, the street was full of cars. When he drove past Liza Wood's driveway, he thought for a moment of parking there.
Fuck it! She told me, however politely, to fuck off. If she sees that car there, she'll decide I don't know how to take no for an answer.
He drove around the block, finally found a place to park, and walked to the Dant house.
The widow, looking dazed and pale, was in an armchair in her living room. The callers passed by the chair, saul something, and then went into the dining room where the buffet had been laid.
Johnny took his place in line. As he moved closer to the widow, he wondered what he should say.
Mrs. Dant, I really didn't know your husband, but when I was in the deep shit, in 'Nam, he put his balls on the chopping block for me, and I'm sorry as hell that goddamned rotor assembly came apart.
He bent over her, took her gloved hand, and said, "Mrs. Dant, I'm Captain John Oliver, General Bellmon's aide de camp. The General asked me to find out if there's anything, anything at all, that you need."
"Thank you very much," Mrs. Dant said.
She didn't hear a word I said.
He walked into the dining room and leaned against the wall.
I should be starved; the last thing I had to eat was breakfast in Silver Spring. But I'm not hungry.
Marjorie Bellmon appeared with a cup of coffee and extended it to him.
He shook his head, no.
"It's scotch," she said. "We decided we weren't going to have an open bar, but you look like you need it." He took a sip and she smiled at him. And then someone nudged him in the ribs and he saw First Lieutenant Charles J. Stevens standing beside him.
"Marjorie," Johnny said. "This is Charley Stevens. He's a classmate of mine, and he and Jack Dant flew together in 'Nam. I think I should warn you that he's been an admirer of yours, from afar, for some time."
"Hello," Marjorie said. "Why from afar?"
"Because my pal here has refused to introduce me," Charley said. .
"Well, now that you've met me, what can I do for you?"
"I would really like to have some of the herb tea, or whatever it is, you just gave Johnny," Stevens said. "In exchange for which I will drag all the skeletons out of his closet for your inspection. "
"All right," she said, smiling. "I'd love to know about Johnny's skeletons. Come with me." She likes him, Oliver decided. Well, why not? He's a good looking guy, and amusing. The female of the species is as driven by nature as the male to find a mate.
He watched as Charley opened the kitchen door for Marjorie, and then he turned, swiveling his head around. He would find the light-bird escort officer and tell him the General had sent him to see how he could help. And then he would get the hell out of here and follow his last order to get some sleep.
As he walked down the street to his car, he glanced toward Liza's house.
This is a goddamned fool thing to do, he thought as he turned toward Liza's house. All you're going to do is get kicked in the teeth. Or make her uncomfortable. Or make an ass of yourself. Or all of the above. So why are you doing. it?
He walked up her driveway and to the kitchen door. She was inside, slicing the crust off delicate little sandwiches. He thought she did that with exquisite feminine grace.
I can still go. She hasn't seen me.
That option was removed when a middle-aged woman carrying a small blond boy in her arms walked into the kitchen, saw him, smiled, and said something to Liza.
The Aviators Page 26