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…
Krummeclass="underline" Knock it off, you idiots.
Morning: You're sick, Quinn, sick.
Haddad: Wonder if the chaplain would understand my situation.
Krummeclass="underline" 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?
Krummeclass="underline" (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.)
In seven days he walked into his summary court-martial, charged with possession of more cigarettes than allowed under Clark Air Base Regulation 295-13. His face was as calm and resposed as only anger could make it, a smooth furious mask. I remembered the night he backed the airman against the wall and slapped him insensible. In the room (artfully enough, Lt. Dottlinger's office), he found our cigarettes, the younger of the two cops from Pasay City, and a very (and I've never quite figured this out), very frightened major. Confronted with the major's fright, and the cop's lack of cockiness and lack of ease, Morning became twice as calm. Though he claimed that he had a plan from the beginning, I believe he didn't know what he was going to do until he saw the major's flushed face, shaking hands, and a pulse that bounded even into the tiny whiskey-busted veins snaking across his pitted nose. I believe that as strongly as I've ever believed anything about him. This is important because I learned my greatest lesson about guerrilla warfare from this: attack establishments with absurdity.
The major read the charges and specifications in a halting voice, then asked Morning how he pleaded. Morning paused for a moment – I know this because I, like an idiot, was listening with a water glass against the office wall from the Day Room – then, in the voice he seemed to reserve for such occasions, blissfully, peacefully, arrogantly, innocently said, "Oh, not guilty, sir. Not guilty at all."
(I could barely contain my laughter, sure that he had discovered what I had about our arrest.)
The major went on, somehow, placing the damning evidence before Morning and his cocky smile.
"What are you grinning about, soldier?" the major asked. "What's so funny?"
"Isn't smiling permitted when at ease, sir?"
"Attention," the major hissed.
When he finished his presentation, the major then asked Morning what evidence he had of his innocence.
"Oh, no evidence, sir. I'm just not guilty, not guilty at all."
(I swear, I swear I heard the major's jaw hit the desk.)
"You don't… have… any evidence?" he asked, his words muffled as if his hands covered his face.
"Innocent men need no evidence, sir, none at all."
After a long silent minute, the major went on as if he hadn't heard, reading very quickly what he had already written on the back of the charge sheet: guilty, etc.; reduced in rank to private E-l; fined fifty dollars; and to be confined at hard labor for fifteen days; to be confined to quarters immediately pending approval of sentencing by approving authority.