James Crumley - One to Count Cadence

"Why are we having a formation?" I asked.

"What formation?" he said.

We soon managed to get drunk enough to forget about rank, privilege, and pay grades. Saunders was a strange officer, part buffoon, part drunk, and yet (with appropriate apologies to all concerned, particularly Joe Morning) he was the sort of man who would have had told of him in Georgia, "He runs his niggers so damn good 'cause he's part nigger himself." He treated Novotny like a son and me like a younger brother, with that familial respect and trust we couldn't resist. We would have, as they say, followed him into hell that night, but not necessarily the next day. He did give us a ride back to the barracks in his MGB. As he screamed away, Novotny said, "Might follow him to hell and back, cowboy, but I ain't ever riding with him again. Ain't ever."

The next morning at work I told Morning that Capt. Saunders wanted to see us. He said nothing, acting as if he were involved in copying. I added that we would probably get Article 15s because something was up. He, I, everyone had seen the four shiny new radio vans parked in the motor pool, had seen, and understood they meant Vietnam.

He turned to me, removed his cans and said, sneering like a phony villain, "It's so nice to know important people, Sgt. Krummel, to have friends in high places, friends who really care."

"Just show up in Capt. Saunders' office at 1430."

As I walked away, Novotny said, "Nice to have friends, huh?" Morning heard, but acted as if he didn't; I could do no less.

The company formation at 1300, for reasons of national security, was held in the mess hall. The Filipino KPs had been herded out to the volley-ball court, the louvers closed, and armed guards posted at every exit. The blackboard set up behind Saunders announced in small but clear letters: top secret. We were verbally reminded of the classification of the forthcoming talk, then it began.

It amounted, simply, to Vietnam for the 721st Communication Security Detachment, except that we became, in name only, the 1945th Communication Training Detachment (Provisional). Our assignment in the Republic of the Philippines was over, and our duties would be handled by Filipino operators now, ops that we would train as training for the time when we would begin training South Vietnamese ops. That time would come after we had set up a mobile det in Vietnam. But still things weren't simple.

Because of the political implications of snooping on one's own army in a country where the army is in almost constant stages of revolt against the government, Diem had demanded the highest sort of security for our operation. "We will not," Saunders said, "be used as an arm of the political police," but no one had suggested that we would. For reasons of national security, Vietnamese, South, our Det would have to be located, not in Saigon where lovely chicks paraded in au dais, but the south of the central highlands, west by southwest of Nha Trang in the foothills of the Lang Bian mountains, hopefully out of the way of both the Vietcong and the bulk of the South Vietnamese generals. We would also travel to Vietnam in civilian clothes, but our old uniforms would be waiting for us at the new Det.

The major burden of perimeter defense would fall on three reinforced companies of provincial militia (and their families), but due to lack of training and weapons, etc. (the "etc.," patriotism, I assumed), we would have to be ready to be responsible for our own defense. We were going to soldier as well as clerk, for a change.

Our present operations closed as of this day, and one month of intensive training would begin immediately. Basic combat infantryman training in the mornings, working in the new vans, training Filipino ops, listening to tapes of South Vietnamese army tapes, and learning new net operations in the afternoons.

"Remember," Saunders said at the end, "that even though we are advisers in this no-war war, we have the right to fight back if attacked, and if we aren't mentally and physically ready to fight back, a bunch of you are going to find yourselves dead. If you want to stay alive: get ready." If he expected a Hollywood cheer, his face didn't show any disappointment when he didn't get it. "And I'll be kicking asses and taking names to be sure you do get ready." He smiled at the Head Moles, out of their holes for today, but they didn't smile back. They didn't go to Vietnam either, or to Hill 527, which was all I saw of Vietnam.

Comments as we left:

Novotny: Sorry, man, I'm too short to go.

Cagle: Reenlist, stupid.

Quinn: Big rumble tonight. Kick some ass, huh, Frankie?

Franklin: I'm a lover, not a fighter. I got a purple heart for the clap to prove it.

Haddad: My God, it'll cost me a fortune to go, a fortune, my God.

Peterson: Geez…

Levenson and Collins:… (Nothing, because they both, like Novotny, had less than a month to go before their discharges.)

Morning: Fucking America off again to make the world safe for General Motors and AT &T. Tattletales to political spies in one easy step.

Quinn: I got lighter fluid and a lighter, mother, if you want to file your stinking protest right here in the hall.

Peterson: Geez…

Krummel: Knock it off, you idiots.

Morning: You're sick, Quinn, sick.

Haddad: Wonder if the chaplain would understand my situation.

Krummel: Knock it off.

Quinn: I ain't a coward, and I ain't a Commie, and I ain't so sick I can't bust you up in the middle, Morning.

Cagle: Save your verbal enemas for the enemy, you guys.

Someone: Ah, shit, who gives a good goddamn?

Krummel: (whispering) I do.

Morning: (shouting) Me, mother-fucker. I fucking won't go.

Someone: Ah, shit.

In his office, fired by the war lecture, Capt. Saunders was less friendly than the night before. He gave us a long lecture on the dangers of the black market. One might damage the Philippine economy; one might fall in with evil companions, be beaten, robbed, or even killed; one might also get his butt sacked in this man's army. But we were lucky this time, and we could accept company punishment under Article 15. I quickly answered yes, but Morning, as quickly, said no.

Rattled for a moment, then angry, Saunders shook his head, then said "Shit, Morning, go to your quarters. Confined till further orders." As Morning left, Saunders turned to me. "What's wrong with that kid, Krummel? I don't want to convene a court for him. Not now. Damn. What is wrong with him?"

"I understand his mother used to ask the same question, sir."

He smiled. "Can you get him to change his mind? Talk to him?" he asked, turning his chair around so he could stretch his legs.

"No, sir."

"You can't, or you won't?"

"Same thing, isn't it?"

The back of his neck wrinkled, then reddened. "The major will throw the book, the desk, and the chair at him, and there is no one else to sit," he mumbled without moving.

"Yes, sir."

We stayed that way, a sweat stain bleeding across his back, I standing at that mockery of ease, At easel, sharing a common burden, unable to name it, only at ease to acknowledge its mutuality with silence. He turned, blushed, said, "Get the hell out of here, Krummel. I've got a court-martial to draw up. Tell Sgt. Tetrick to come in on your way out."

I did as he said.

Tetrick said to me later, "You best let that kid fall back in his own shit. Here, he can only get you trouble; over there, he can get you killed."

"Nope."

"Why?" I asked him in his room. "For Christ's sake, why?"

"They can't hurt me, man."

"They're not trying." I shut the door behind me.

(I wanted to say, so many things… True, they can't hurt you; they don't need to. The world isn't unjust, it just doesn't care. You walk around expecting injustice, baby, you get it. Just because a man is on the other side doesn't mean he is your enemy. You already understand that about the Communists, but you won't give your friends the same understanding. You can't make the world fit you, you have to fit the world, and it'll crush you if you don't. You already know that, too. I don't ask you to stop fighting; just be sensible about the way you fight. But I don't suppose I've any right to ask him to be sensible; I never was either. I should have said: Okay, man, you're wrong, wrong, wrong, but I'm with you 'cause you got no one else. But I couldn't say that; I could only do it, and keep doing it, and keep doing it, until the end of time. Don't knock the artful cliché.)