I tossed the sheet back and started to slide out of bed.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“We gotta talk to Strange.”
“Strange? What’d they knock your pervert screw loose?”
“No. Last night, I learned about a file, a secret file containing claims against Eighth Army that have been suppressed, claims that were never processed.”
“Wait a minute.” Ernie placed his hand on my shoulder. “You better stay put. Let me talk to the doctor.”
“To hell with the doctor.”
The morning rounds in a big over-crowded military hospital could take hours. I stood up, the soles of my feet cold on the tile floor. I stepped toward the open closet where I saw my clothes hanging, and when I was about halfway to my destination, an earthquake must’ve hit. The floor rolled, and I remember thinking this was strange because Korea doesn’t have many earthquakes and then the room grew dim, and the lights popped out, and the next thing I knew I was diving through the eternal ether. Everything was dark. Very dark.
Strange sat with both elbows on a Formica covered table in the 8th Army snack bar. A black plastic holder with an unlit cigarette dangled between his thin lips. Cruelly bloodshot red orbs bulged behind his green-tinted shades.
“Had any strange lately?” he asked.
“Can it, Strange,” Ernie told him. “We’re here on important business.”
“The name’s Harvey.”
“Okay, Harvey. You heard my partner’s question. Now answer it.”
The doctor at the 121 had held me a couple more hours for observation, but in the end he decided I had not received a serious concussion and had probably only been dizzy because of blood loss. He told me to take it easy for the next few days, to drink a lot of fluids, and to refrain from heavy lifting. If I experienced any pain aspirin couldn’t help, I was to report immediately to sick call.
“They need the bed,” Ernie told me as we walked out of the hospital.
Military doctors aren’t worried about being sued, and they figure most of us healthy young GIs are about as rugged as plastic soldiers anyway. We take a beating and keep on ticking. I was stiff and sore but otherwise functioning.
“What was the question again?” Strange asked.
“Eighth Army Claims,” I said. “They have a file of every claim for damages made by Korean civilians against the Eighth United States since the end of the Korean War. However, it has come to my attention that there is another file, a secret file of suppressed claims. Claims that have been deemed too embarrassing to the Command or too damaging to see the light of day.”
Strange’s lips tightened. His cigarette waggled. “Who has this file?” he asked.
I slammed my open palm down on the table. “Christ, Harvey. That’s what I’m asking you.”
He glanced around the snack bar, making sure no one was listening. They weren’t. The place was bustling with almost a hundred GIs in uniform and a smattering of Department of Defense civilians on their lunch breaks. Conversation was pitched at a controlled roar.
Strange leaned toward me. His long brown hair was oiled and slicked back neatly over his bald spot. “SOFA,” he said.
“What?”
“The Status of Forces Committee,” he said a little louder, more insistent. He glanced to either side again before turning back to me. “They review those types of reports before deciding whether or not to turn them over to the Eighth Army Claims Office.”
I’d known the SOFA Committee, which was made up of ROK Army and US Army personnel, arbitrated the appeal process for rejected claims, but I hadn’t realized they also secretly vetted the claims before they were even allowed to go to the Claims Office. “How do you know this?”
He leaned back. “How do I know anything that goes on at Eighth Army? I pay attention.”
“You snoop,” Ernie said.
Strange’s cigarette drooped. He looked offended. “That’s a dirty word.”
“Your favorite kind.”
“So this Status of Forces committee,” I said, “they’re the ones who make the decision to suppress certain claims.”
“Who else?” Strange replied. “The Commander doesn’t get involved. He wants deniability in case the shit hits the rotating wind machine.”
“Has it ever?”
“No way.” Strange scoffed. “Mr. Cool who runs the country would never allow it.”
Ernie said, “Where do they keep these files?”
Strange looked around the snack bar, almost swiveling his head in a complete circle, to see if anyone was watching or listening. Luckily for us I don’t believe anyone was, because it would have been obvious Strange was about to tell us a secret. Strange liked everyone to know he knew more than they did.
Well, usually. “I don’t know,” he whispered.
“What do you mean you don’t know?” Ernie asked. “You run the classified documents distribution center. You’re always bragging you know everything that’s going on in Eighth Army.”
“I do,” he said.
“But you don’t know this?”
“I know what I don’t know,” he said, tapping the side of his head.
“Can you find out where the documents are?” I asked.
“It depends.”
“Depends on what?”
“Have you had any strange lately?”
Ernie groaned. We knew what that meant. Strange wanted to be told an elaborately obscene story of illicit sex in graphic detail and in return he’d spill his guts concerning the secret 8th Army claims file. A pervert in charge of classified documents. Somehow, it made sense.
This was my cue. I rose from my chair and hobbled over to the snack bar serving line. Taking my time, I grabbed a sturdy porcelain mug and pulled myself a cup of steaming hot java from the stainless steel coffee urn. At the register, I paid the middle-aged Korean lady twenty-five cents. She didn’t hand me my receipt. I was about to open my mouth and ask for it when she said, “No more free refill.”
“When did this start?” I asked.
“Today.”
The price of everything was going up. I glanced at the table. Apparently so was the price of Strange’s cooperation. He was leaning forward to hear the elaborate story Ernie was making up. From time to time Strange frowned and asked a question. Ernie sighed and kept talking. I stood off to the side and waited. I didn’t really want to hear all this. Finally, when my coffee was about half gone, Strange rose and slunk out of the Snack Bar. I rejoined Ernie at the table.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Nothing a hot shower won’t fix.”
I had just finished my coffee when a siren went off, a huge wailing sound, then stopped. Everyone in the Snack Bar had frozen. And then a cannon fired and the wailing started again, louder this time.
“Alert!” someone shouted. More voices joined the chorus. Virtually everyone in the snack bar, especially those in uniform, was on their feet, grabbing their hats, wrapping toast and doughnuts in napkins and shoving them in their pockets, gulping down final glugs of orange juice or milk or coffee, slipping on their field jackets, and heading for the door, some at a trot, most at a flat-out run.
The wailing of the siren had taken on a pattern, three long bursts and one short.
“Move out,” someone said.
A regular muster alert was one thing. Every soldier assigned to the 8th Army headquarters was required to report immediately to his post of duty. Once there, the time he arrived was logged in, and once the entire unit was accounted for, the unit strength was phoned in to the higher headquarters. A move-out alert was worse. We were to assume our unit was already on a war footing, and we were to first put on our combat gear and check out our weapons at the unit arms room before reporting to either our posts of duty or our assigned defensive positions. Once there we’d be given the order as to whether or not to move out-load up our trucks or jeeps and whatever vehicles our unit was assigned, leave Yongsan Compound, and head to the boonies.
“At least there’s no incoming,” Ernie said. That is, no rounds being lobbed by Communist long-range artillery from the northern side of the DMZ.