Brotherhood Of War: The Lieutenants Part 25

"Sir," Felter said. "I think I would be suited to be an intelligence officer."

"Why?"

"I have a flair for languages. I speak German and Polish and Russian. And a little French."

"Russian ?"

"My mother's family, sir."

"There is more to intelligence than linguistics," Bellmon said. He had just realized that while he had planned to kill some time by making the expected remarks to a bunch of dumb lieutenants, he was now faced with the opportunity to offer some genuine advice to a lieutenant who was obviously anything but dumb, and to whom, in fact, he owed his life.

"Yes, sir, I understand that," Felter said.

"The truth of the matter, Felter, is that most of the good intelligence officers in the last war-and I would suppose in all wars- were civilians in uniform. The mental training which makes for a good regular officer in peacetime is not often valuable in the intelligence business. What I'm saying, I suppose, is that we need very bright people to be intelligence officers, but that there is no place in the peacetime army for a bona fide intellectual."

"Sir, are we going to have a peacetime army?"

"Take that further, Felter," Bellmon said. "Explain yourself."

"I saw in the newspaper last week that we've taken over for the English in Greece, sir," Felter said. "That's hardly garrison duty."

There was a moment's silence as Bellmon sifted through a manila folder on the desk before him.

THE LIEUTENANTS TELECON MEMO.

Record of Telecom- Between 0-1 This Hq and Office of the Adjutant General, War Dept (Col J C McKee & Lt Col Kenneth -Oates) '"

Colonel Oates stated that the Chief of Staff had approved a request from the Commanding General, United States Army Military Advisory Group, (USAMAG-G) for 86 company grade combat arms officers to serve as advisors to the Royal Greek Army. If possible, such officers should have a knowledge of the Greek language, combat experience, and be willing to serve a minimum tour of one year in hards.h.i.+p conditions. A levy of two officers has been laid upon Fort Bragg (including all subordinate units). Col. Oates further states that he must have the names of selected officers within 24 hours. Volunteers will proceed as soon as possible via mil: air to Frankfurt, Germany, for transs.h.i.+pment to Athens.

"Where else in the world do you see trouble spots, Felter?" Major Bellmon asked. "Just for conversation, of course."

"Sir, I think I'm talking too much," Felter said.

"Where else, Lieutenant?" Bellmon said. "If you haven't learned by now, it's high time you did, that when you open your mouth, you better be prepared to finish what you started to say."

"Yes, sir," Felter said. "India, sir. With their independence. Indochina, against French colonialism. China, where the communists are probably going to win. That may have implications for Indochina, too. Korea. The Philippines. Palestine, I don't want to forget that."

"Tell me about Palestine," Bellmon said.

"The Zionists are not going to give up. And neither are the Arabs. They will not tolerate a Jewish state."

"Whose side are you on?" Bellmon said.

Felter was sure now that his mouth had got him in trouble.

"I'm Jewish, as well as a Jew," he said. "My sympathies lie with the idea of a Jewish state."

"And if you were ordered to Palestine, on the side of the English, for example, against the Zionists?"

"I don't know, sir. I would probably resign."

"Don't say that to anyone else, Felter," Bellmon said.

"Never let the enemy know of your options until you have to." He paused. "A cla.s.smate of mine is over there. Resigned his commission. Fighting for the Zionists."

"And you don't approve, sir?"

"No, Lieutenant, I don't," Bellmon said. "Does that make me in your eyes a bigot? An anti-Semite?"

"No, sir. But it ill.u.s.trates my point about Palestine being a trouble spot. There's very little room for reason on either side. In a way like northern Ireland, which is another trouble spot."

"I hadn't even thought about Ireland," Bellmon confessed.

Having said that, he realized that Felter's a.s.sessment of the world was very much like his own. Charitably, it was realistic; or cynical. Like his own.

"Your next a.s.signment will be with troops," Bellmon said, formally. "Junior officers need the responsibility of command. The following are vacancies available to you: 1st Cavalry Division, Dismounted, Kyushu, j.a.pan; 187th Regimental Combat Team, Airborne Hokkaido, j.a.pan; 24th Infantry Division, Hawaii; 5th Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kansas; 82nd Airborne Division, here at Bragg; Any of the infantry basic training centers; 1st Infantry Division, Germany; Trieste United States' Troops. . . that's the old 88th Mountain Division. . . in Trieste. They call it TRUST. Those are your options, Lieutenant."

"Sir, I heard that we're going to send company-grade officers to Greece. Would that be considered duty with troops?"

"Where did you hear that?"

"From some of the men in cla.s.s, sir. A number of them have volunteered."

"Volunteers are apparently being solicited from officer's with combat experience," Bellmon said. "You have none. At least officially."

"If I have to spend time with troops, sir," Felter said, "as part of my education, I would prefer to spend time with troops who are engaged."

"What are you after, Felter, a reputation as someone spoiling for a confrontation with the G.o.dless Red Hordes?"

"I believe it is an officer's duty to learn as much as possible about potential enemies," Felter said.

"It is, of course," Bellman said. "The trouble, historically, is that few people have been able to identify the next enemy in time to do anything about it. What if you're wrong?"

"You and I, Major," Felter said, "already know the Soviet Union is our enemy."

"Watch who you say things like that to, Felter," Bellmon said. "A lot of people think the Soviet Union is just a friendly bear."

Felter nodded.

"It's a hards.h.i.+p tour, Felter," Bellmon went on. "No dependents. Your wife will be denied the opportunity to live high on the hog in an Army of Occupation."

"I understand, sir," Felter said.

Bellmon picked up his telephone and told his secretary to get Colonel McKee on the line. When, a moment later, the telephone rang, Bellmon turned the receiver from his ear so that Felter could hear both sides of the conversation.

"Sir, this is Major Bellmon. I have one of your two company grades for Greece."

"Who's that?"

"A lieutenant named Felter. He was honor grad of the ranger school. He wants to go, and 1 think we should send him."

"I don't think so, Bob," Colonel McKee said. "For one thing, I've already got a couple of people who were 'encouraged' to volunteer. What did your guy do wrong?"

"Nothing, sir. As I said, he was honor grad of the ranger course. He wants to go."

"Bob, I'm not getting through to you. We're dumping people to Greece, not awarding it as a prize. It's a lousy a.s.signment."

"Lieutenant Felter wants to go, Colonel. As honor grad, he is more or less ent.i.tled to pick his a.s.signment."

"There's something you're not telling me, Bellmon. But I'm not going to ask. OK, you want this guy shanghaied to Greece, consider him shanghaied. Give me his full name, rank, and serial number."

(Three) West Point, New York 9 July 1946 Major General Peterson K. Waterford was laid to his final rest in the cemetery of the United States Military Academy at West Point. When the volleys had been fired, when the trumpeter had sounded the last taps, when the flag, folded into a triangle with no red showing, had been placed in Mrs. Waterford's hands by the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, the funeral party moved to the quarters of the Commandant for refreshments.

Major Robert F. Bellmon sought out Captain Rudolph G. MacMillan.

"I haven't had the chance before, Mac," he said, "to express my thanks. My mother-in-law's told me what a help you've been."

"What the h.e.l.l, I was awful fond of the general," MacMillan said, embarra.s.sed.

"And he of you," Bellmon said.

The Chief of Staff of the United States Army walked up and joined them.

"I've got to be getting back, Bob," he said. "But I didn't want to leave without saying good-bye and G.o.d bless, and without thanking you, Captain MacMillan, for all you've done for Mrs. Waterford."

"My privilege, sir," Mac said.

"You were with Porky a long time, weren't you?" the Chief of Staff said. He was a tall thin man, one of the few four-star generals then ent.i.tled to wear a Combat Infantry Badge, which General of the Army Omar Bradley insisted should go only to soldiers who had functioned well in ground combat. More than one general who'd been awarded one by orders he had signed himself had been told to take it off.

"No, sir," MacMillan said. "Not long at all. But Colonel .. . I'm sorry, Major Bellmon and I go back a long way."

"Mac and I were in the stalag, together, General," Bellmon said.

"Oh, of course. I knew there was something." His eyes dropped to the blue-starred ribbon topping MacMillan's display of fruit salad. "You are the MacMillan."

"The one and only," Bellmon laughed.

"And now what happens to you?" the Chief of Staff asked.

"You're sort of left hanging, aren't you? Where would you like to go?"

"Anywhere they send me, sir, of course," MacMillan said.

"Oh, come on, MacMillan. The army owes you something," the Chief of Staff said.

"Sir, now that you bring it up," MacMillan said, "I was about to ask Major Bellmon if he could find a home for a battered old soldier."

"You got a spot for MacMillan, Bob? Where are you. . . oh, yeah. The Airborne Board. I heard about that."

"I think, sir," Major Bellmon said, "that we could find something to keep Mac occupied."

"I also heard-out of school, of course-that you're not going to be at Bragg much longer," the Chief of Staff said.

"Among other things, I. D. White wants you at Knox. Why don't I just-?" He stopped in midsentence and made a barely perceptible movement of his head. A brigadier general walked over. He was a distinguished-looking officer with silver hair, and he wore the gold cord of an aide-de-camp.

"Tom, Major Bellmon will call you with the details," the Chief of Staff said. "The idea is to have Captain MacMillan a.s.signed to-Knox. Tell the G-l to find something suitable for him to do there, will you?"

"Sir," MacMillan said, "the minute I get near personnel types, they want me to make speeches. Can it be arranged to sneak me into Knox?"

The Chief of Staff laughed.

"Sneak him into Knox yourself, Tom. I understand the captain's problem."

"Yes, sir," the aide-de-camp said. "Sir, we're going to have to be moving on."

"Let me say good-bye to Mrs. Waterford," the Chief of Staff said. "Get the car."

(Four) McGuire Air Base Wrightstown, New Jersey 10 July 1946 Sharon Lavinsky Felter was ashamed of herself because she hated her husband on the very day be was going away.

It wasn't that she didn't love him. She loved him as she had loved him for as long as she could remember. But it was possible, she had learned, to love and hate the same man at the same time.

She hated Sandy when he was being an officer, when he was giving orders she had to obey, and not listening to her, or even caring what she thought about anything.

They had ridden to McGuire, she and Sandy , and her mother and. father, and Mama and Papa Felter, in a brand-new Buick Super two door. Now especially, with him going away, she needed a brand-new Buick Super two door like she needed a third leg. For one thing, she wasn't that good a driver, and for another, the Buick seemed to want to get away from her almost as if it had a mind of its own.

She had had no say about the Buick at all. He couldn't tell her father or his, or especially his mother what he'd told her ("The question is not open for discussion"), so he'd listened to their objections: All that money. Sharon didn't need a car.

There was the Lavinsky's perfectly good 1938 Plymouth to carry her anywhere the Old Warsaw Baker's Dodge panel truck couldn't take her. If he had to have a rich man's car, he could buy one when he came to his senses and came home.

He heard the objections and ignored them.

"Try to understand this, Sharon," he said to her. "I'm getting a little tired of repeating it. I am a regular army officer." He had told her that thirty-five times. She didn't really understand what that meant, but he had been very pleased with himself when the letter had come in the mail. They'd had to waste one whole day going down to Fort Dix, where he got another physical examination, and then was sworn in. But he was still a first lieutenant, and he wasn't going to get any more money, and the only difference she could see was that they gave him a new, shorter serial number.

Regular army officers, she tried to understand, had different obligations from reserve officers on extended active duty. And for reasons she could not understand, one of these was apparently that they had to have a rich man's car, a new one, just sitting around so that in case one was needed in a hurry, there it would be. "We can afford it. For the couple of hundred extra dollars, I would rather have the reliability of a Buick. If I didn't think we needed it, or I didn't think we could afford it, we wouldn't buy it. Now let it be, Sharon." He made her drive from Newark to McGuire Air Base, although that was the last thing she wanted to do. "Otherwise," he said. "You would never drive it. And I want you to know that you can." It was crowded in the Buick, as big as it was, with Sharon and Sandy and Papa Felter in the front, and Sharon's mother and father and Mama Felter in the back. And with Sandy's luggage in the trunk, the front of the Buick was high up and Sharon had trouble seeing over the bull's-eye ornament on the hood.

And there was a lot of tension in the car, although everybody naturally tried to hide it. The Felters and the Lavinskys were really angry with Sandy, angry and hurt by his behavior and confused by it.

So far as they were concerned, he had done his part by going off to the war when he could have stayed safe and sound at West Point. Then when he had, thank G.o.d, come home in one piece, he had done more than his part by not taking the honorable discharge he had been offered.

Sharon had agreed with everything Mama Felter had said to Sandy, when she really laid it into him. Sandy could be anything he wanted to in life. G.o.d had given him the brains to be a doctor or a lawyer, or anything else he wanted to be.

There was the GI Bill of Rights, which would pay for his education; and the bakery was coming along nicely, so there would be money for them to get a little apartment of their own and maybe even start a family while he was still in school, if .

that's what he and Sharon wanted to do. He had everything a reasonable man could ask for, and he was throwing it all away like a little boy running off to the circus. A soldier! Who did he think he was, Napoleon, because he was so short?

Papa Felter tried to shut Mama Felter up and calm things down. What Sandy was doing, he said, was proving himself, because he was small. After a while, he would come to his senses; he wasn't old yet. He said that Sandy had never had the time to sow any wild oats, the way he'd gone off to the war. Papa Felter said they should stop worrying, and be glad that he hadn't started drinking, or gambling, or chasing women, or whatever, the way most young men did.

After a while, Papa Felter said, Sandy would see things for what they were, and he would come to his senses. He had every confidence in that. For the lime being, if it made Sandy happy to jump out of airplanes, and eat snakes in the jungle the way they made him do in ranger school, they would just have to go along with him.