The hard part was having to stand face to face with the family, and that dirty job had fallen on us. But there was no way out.
Ernie and I don’t have much bargaining power with the first sergeant. Ever since an incident over a year ago when we arrested the 8th Army chief of staff, he saw us as a couple of lowlifes. I’d been punished by having to serve a stint with an artillery unit along the DMZ. Ernie’d been relegated the black market detail, making sure Korean dependent wives didn’t buy too much coffee and mayonnaise out of the commissary and sell it for a profit in the ville.
I wasn’t going to beg to get out of this. I’d do it and get it over with.
While I was reading the report, Ernie wandered in. Late again. He sat next to Riley’s desk, feet up, sipping a cup of snackbar coffee. I strolled over and waved the folder under his nose.
“Did Riley tell you about this SOFA case?”
“Yeah,” Ernie said. “Crap City.”
Riley didn’t look up from his paperwork. “I have every confidence that you two can handle it tactfully.”
Ernie snorted, finished his coffee, and stood up. Ever since Vietnam, words like “tactful” have disappeared from Ernie’s vocabulary.
Without looking back, we walked down the long hallway, pushed through the big double doors, and hopped down the stone steps of the CID building. We jumped into the jeep, and as Ernie started it up, he turned to me.
“Who is this guy Ortfield anyway?”
“A young driver who didn’t take his responsibilities seriously.”
“I want to see him.”
There was plenty of time, and I wasn’t in a hurry to face with this Korean family.
“The court-marital starts in ten minutes.”
“Let’s go.”
He shoved the jeep in gear, and we rolled down the tree-lined streets of Yongsan Compound.
The 8th Army courthouse was a small brick building with red Korean tile on the roof turned up at the edges. Inside, a summary court-martial sat in session. The judges, a row of uniformed officers behind a high wooden panel, appeared properly somber. The prosecutor at one table shuffled paperwork. The defense lawyer, a young second lieutenant, conferred with the defendant, Private First Class Dwayne Ortfield.
Ortfield sat hunched over, elbows on the table, listening to his army-appointed lawyer. His hair was longish on top, greased, hanging over his eyes. His dress green uniform hadn’t been properly pressed. With his monthly salary held in abeyance, he probably hadn’t been able to pay his houseboy since the death of Miss Choi Un-suk.
Tough beans.
Ernie and I passed the armed MP at the door, walked down the carpeted steps, and took seats in the gallery. I looked around for Choi Heng-sok, the father of the deceased girl. Neither he nor his lawyer had made an appearance. Since this court-martial was considered to be an internal US military affair, they probably hadn’t even been notified.
The colonel in charge of the proceedings banged his gavel.
Witnesses were called in rapid order. First, the MP on the scene, who confirmed what everybody already knew: he had found a dead girl surrounded by a lot of angry Koreans. He was followed by the Traffic Control Officer, who, although the milling crowds had pretty well messed up the evidence, managed to present the court with some well-done charts of what had happened. With a pointer he noted the position of the other cars, how Ortfield had swerved to his right, and where the antenna had swung out and pierced the thirteen-year-old girl through the eye.
It was Ortfield’s passengers who did the most damage. They went over what they had written in their statements. That Ortfield was driving too fast, swerving around the road, cursing, not listening to reason.
The whole thing went fast. A little less than two hours. Military justice at its best. I figured Ortfield would be spending a lot of years licking cement.
When the defense lawyer went to work, he didn’t even try to dispute the facts. He just said that they couldn’t punish PFC Dwayne Ortfield because it would be detrimental to the mission of the 8th United States Army.
I really couldn’t believe what he was saying. I wondered what it had to do with anything, and I kept waiting for the judge to cut him off, but they let him prattle on.
Road conditions were tough in Korea, the defense lawyer said. Snow, rain, sleet, mudslides, downed bridges, loose electrical lines, mountain roads, floods, you name it.
He had that right, anyway.
And GIs were being sent out into these conditions all the time. They didn’t want to go, but the training mission of the 8th Army and the defense of the Republic of Korea required that they risk their lives in these hazardous conditions. Routinely.
That was true but I didn’t understand what it had to do with the Ortfield case.
If you punish a GI, the lawyer said, for responding to difficult traffic conditions and trying to make time through the undisciplined maze of Seoul, you’d be sending a message to all the other drivers of US military vehicles in Korea. The message would be: don’t take chances. If road conditions are rough, pull over. Or worse yet, refuse to haul the load. After all, one mistake and you end up with your career ruined, a criminal record, possibly with a sentence to the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas.
PFC Ortfield was just doing his job, the lawyer said. Sure, the antenna should’ve been properly secured. He made a mistake. He admits that. But he shouldn’t be punished for the unfortunate accident and for the unfortunate death of a civilian who happened to be standing one meter away from the curb.
To my surprise the judge ordered a ten-minute adjournment.
Ernie and I stood outside for a minute, away from all the people lighting up cigarettes and yapping about the case.
“He’s gonna walk,” Ernie said.
I swiveled my head. “You’re kidding. He might as well have stuck a gun to that little girl’s head and pulled the trigger.”
“She was standing off the curb. He was doing his job.”
“Everybody stands off the curb here. It’s a Korean custom. Besides, she was the safety monitor, and she was supposed to be directing the other girls. And doing your job doesn’t mean speeding through traffic with a loose antenna.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Ernie said. “The defense lawyer was exactly right. Those officers on the panel think about mission first. And if burning Ortfield will hurt the mission of the Eighth Army, they won’t burn him.”
“No way. You’ve got to be wrong.”
“Come on. You’ll see.”
Everyone doused their cigarettes and headed back into the courtroom. We followed and took our seats. The judges filed back in.
I heard the gavel and then the colonel’s voice, but I still couldn’t believe it.
Private First Class Dwayne Ortfield was restricted to compound, his driver’s license suspended indefinitely, and 8th Army Personnel would be notified to review his current posting with respect to immediate reassignment.
They were sending him back to the States with a slap on the wrist.
I stood up and gripped the varnished wood railing. I wanted to scream. But when I saw the clean-shaven jaws of the judges and their crisply tailored jackets as they walked out, I knew it wouldn’t do any good.
Ernie grabbed me by the arm and pulled me out into the cold winter air.
At 8th Army Finance, it took a while for them to count the money in Korean won and stuff it into a leather briefcase. There was already a handcuff on the handle and I attached it to my wrist. It was heavy. Still, it didn’t seem like much to trade for a little girl’s life.
Ernie slid the jeep between two kimchi cabs, honked his horn, found about three inches of open roadway, and hooked his fender in front of the cruising cabbie next to us. When the light turned green, he gunned the engine, swerved in front of the guy, and studied the madly swirling traffic ahead, prowling for his next opening.