CHAPTER THREE
Working at Home
In view of Jimmy Murphy’s experience in a war that may involve him personally, I begin myself to keep up with the Gulf news, reading papers more attentively than usual. At the same time I have a dilemma of my own to resolve, given the incursion into my life of politically correct faculty and administrators taking control of college affairs. Do they represent legitimate progress…given how long women and African Americans have been excluded? Time will tell, or not, as time in its infinite wisdom and infinite ignorance chooses ever to do. It looks like progress to me, no matter that the white male category to which I belong is the object of their scornful exclusion.
Giving no consideration to joining the battle (it isn’t how I wish to spend my remaining days and represents a sea change that appears unwinnable) I decide to relocate to an inexpensive town in New Hampshire or Maine or Vermont, to country that is quiet, pleasing to the eye, more pollution free than the city. In rural New England, as a widower, I’ll be able to get by in a minimal space on my pension and savings, and on reaching sixty-five (ten years hence), the invoking of my social security. I’ll have income enough to pay my way, travel if I wish, and maintain a garden as I go on working at a desk doing what I enjoy doing. A bonus of small town life (writing stories and essays to bring in added income) will be my ability to do as I please while retaining one last student to whom, by correspondence, I can provide educational and personal guidance.
Bristol, near Newfound Lake in New Hampshire, is a town I determine to visit during my ultimate year and a half of receiving a salary. So is Wakefield, a town on Lake Winnepausaukee that I’ve driven through many times on the way to visiting friends who have a vacation home on the meandering body of water, a town that in my passing views appears to have ceased evolving in about 1955 despite its modern automobiles and trucks. Old time diners, stationary shops, dry goods stores, city parks, tree-lined streets, minimal traffic. A quiet life apart from the threats of urban noise, assaults and anger, blaring horns and curses. A peaceful setting within which to live and work, to stroll and shop, to sit on park benches reading books and papers while feeding pigeons and squirrels. An atmosphere within which to think and to gaze unimpeded and uninterrupted over greater distances.
In my reply to Jimmy Murphy’s steno journal I don’t mention my enforced mission of finding a new place to live any more than I share with him or with my children the denial of tenure I’ve suffered upon eight years at Massachusetts State. My concern (assuming Jimmy’s view of me as big brother and father figure) is that he not regard my move as abandonment by an adult male in his evolving life. He’ll likely conclude his enlistment in three years and enter college at twenty-one under the GI Bill. The combat he may face in Kuwait will settle, and we will continue to correspond. He will visit me in New England at a future date. Not a loss of his big brother/teacher, merely a changed address.
Reminding my son and daughter by way of telephone exchanges that I’ll be giving a weekend to driving through central New Hampshire, I don’t mention the soldier I’ve taken under my wing as a correspondence student who has also become something of a son. They won’t mind, though they could experience some passing jealousy or rivalry that I see no reason, just now, to impose on them. Later, I think.
Entering into a mentoring relationship, as I have with Jimmy Murphy, will be regarded as odd by certain busybodies. Not suspect, I don’t think, but odd. A fifty-five-year-old widower and an eighteen-year-old barely mature enough to be in attendance in one of his university classes. It would pass without notice had my wife, Maddy, remained alive. A friendship between a teacher and a former student. But as a single male, beyond sexual life or not, I know full well that suspicion will be aroused. Even as I know there is not now, nor will there ever be, anything about which to be suspicious, I’m aware of the times in which we live and know that most eyes are inclined to see the worst where nothing but the best may exist.
In response to Jimmy’s steno-pad journal I write to tell him how much I enjoy hearing of his experiences, and encourage him not to let his record-keeping slide. I also present him with added small challenges. “When you next write, I’d like to see more sense impressions capturing sounds and smells, colors and textures, the weather, things that give texture and color to the world within which your experiences are taking place. Without giving up any narrative movement, “I add, “try to add spice by capturing the physical world. Recreate a world for readers like me. The smell of shoe polish. Diesel fuel. The squeaky sound of tank treads turning. Keep in mind that all animals communicate through the senses. Effective writing always includes sense-impressing touches presented in subtle ways. Not by saying outright that ‘it’s an overcast rainy day’ but by having someone use their shirttail to wipe raindrops from their glasses. Make a list of all sense impressions available. How do things smell, taste, feel, look, sound? In what ways are the sense impressions conveyed? Stroke them in like dashes of salt and pepper. Don’t overdo it, but give it a try. It will make you a writer worthy of the name.”
My drive and overnight stay in the town of Bristol, next to Newfound Lake, I also keep to myself. I’m becoming ever more of a loner, I realize, while also coming around, at my age, to feeling increasingly vulnerable in the city. At the same time, I feel more contemplative and creative in a town like Bristol that is quiet and safe. Let the teens, students, and twenty-somethings have the bright lights and pulsating sounds, the police sirens and honking horns, the gang warfare and errant gunshots that punctuate each night like warnings of mortality. Myself, I’ll opt for walks on quiet streets to dairy bars that serve milkshakes and hamburgers and close at ten. Walks to a cabin or condo without fear of being mugged…back to my TV, my books from a local bookstore and town library, my falling asleep in a quiet room unlikely to be startled at two a.m. by police cruisers and fire engines bawling into my heart.
Not at all good-looking, I’ve never been distracted by women perceiving me as attractive. Being homely is a role I accepted in adolescence and have lived with ever since. On my initial overnight to Bristol, however, walking into town from a nearby bed and breakfast called the Henry Whipple House, sitting at a counter in an old-fashioned dairy bar to read the local paper and have a bite to eat, I’m apparently different enough to arouse a dash of interest, as much as it takes me by surprise. A fifty-five-year-old teacher wearing a tweed jacket and white shirt and tie, sitting alone late in an evening to read a newspaper. A common scene in Boston, where a diner of the kind would be packed and just starting rather than just ending its day.
I’m the only customer at the counter, and the town’s openness and clarity is conveyed in the friendliness of the waitress. Having no need to rush about, she comes along to ask if I’d like anything else before tearing my check from a small pad. Given that we have the dairy bar to ourselves, I feel free to ask if many apartments or condos are available in town, how expensive they may be, if there’s a local bank she would recommend for checking and savings? In time, as she is straightening things along the counter and I’m about to leave, I say, “Excuse me…could I ask your name?”
Hesitating some, she says, “Roberta. Friends call me Bert.”
I can’t help smiling, nor can she.
“It’s an awful nickname, isn’t it?” she says.
“It’s what it is,” I say. “To be sure, I won’t be forgetting it.”
There exudes a warm smile from her as I say, “Thank you, Bert. Thank you for the info. A pleasure to meet you.”
She keeps smiling as I place money on the counter and turn to leave. There is nothing else from her, no asking my name, to be sure, nor any inquiry from me of her marital status. A woman in her late forties working in an old-fashioned dairy bar, wearing a yellow and white uniform. A straightforward and pretty woman, I think in view of her managing my order and answering my questions. Something about her appeals to me. Her openness, I believe. Her pretty smile. Something simple I had come to believe would never be presented again to me.
If I visit Bristol again to delve into possibilities of houses and condos, my thought is to stop by to see her again. Maybe to ask if a hardware store is close by, or a supermarket or pharmacy. Or a local restaurant where she might join me for a bite to eat and some casual conversation.
August 1990
Iraqi troops stormed into the desert sheikdom of Kuwait today, seizing control of its capital city and its rich oilfields, driving its ruler into exile, plunging the strategic Persian Gulf region into crisis and sending tremors of anxiety around the world. Witnesses in Kuwait said that hundreds of people were killed or wounded as Iraqi ground forces, led by columns of tanks, surged into the desert emirate at the head of the gulf.
There’s a quote from something I want to include in my journal. It grabbed my attention when I read it, given the chatter in the air about our ultimate destination.
Our move to Graf, in any case, begins as an alert that catches everyone off guard. Catching people off guard is a way of maintaining a cav edge. Border duty, for which the edge evolved over forty-four years in the Fulda Gap, may be a thing of the past but isn’t anything anyone is inclined to give up. An alert is called, setting off a sprint to our big mud-bellies.
The schedule, we had been told, would be to start loading at 0900 after morning chow in the mess hall and last-minute tying down. Our task in any case is to road-march the big mud-bellies to the rail head, where a soldier in each crew (but for tank commanders who walk backwards to do the guiding) will back the M1A1s and Bradleys up a concrete ramp onto rail cars. Then an alert is called at 0400! The barked order is to be in convoy by 0430. Grabbing rucksacks, checking out assault rifles from the armorer in the basement, soldiers rush in all directions as word flies that a simulated hostile force has breached the recently erased East German border and has to be met head-on. It’s also shouted that midday chow will not be served until we arrive at Graf and have stopped the enemy…when a field kitchen will become operational.
“Let’s hope the chow isn’t simulated!” is shouted out, as is “I thought the army moved on its stomach!” and “Does ‘operational’ mean my scrambled eggs will come from powder and be served cold?”
With my roommate Sherman Killebrew I lope to The Claw with my rucksack in one hand and my assault rifle in the other, only to find the lieutenant and Sergeant Noordwink already present, gear tied down, waiting for the crew to come running. Tanks and Bradleys with motors growling, lights flashing, back-up signals beeping, are jockeying in the cool predawn darkness in anticipation of moving out.
“Killebrew, take the driver’s seat, start the engine, clear all systems, and prepare for loading and rolling,” the lieutenant shouts.
“Thought Murphy would do it, sir,” is Killebrew’s reply.
The Lieutenant pivots, livid. “Get it moving, Corporal! Don’t ever question an order from me, not under alert conditions!”
“Only joking, sir.”
“Bad timing if you think that’s a joke. Get it moving!”
The starting of the 1500 horsepower diesel, the checking and clearing of its systems, the creaking and squeaking of the mud-belly itself into convoy is part of a test that will conclude when the beast is on a rail car, tied down, and approved by the German Bahnmeister.
“Pay attention, Murphy, you’ll be up next,” Sergeant Noordwink says as we climb aboard and enter the vehicle’s belly through its several hatches.
Inside, getting into seats and harness, into defined positions as Killebrew cranks up the diesel power, Noordwink shouts “Murphy, these are alert conditions…while what we’ll be doing at Graf is gunnery! Alert moves need to be SOP, as automatic as scratching your ass.”
“Gotcha, Sarge,” I say, attributing Noordwink’s grouchy tone with me as the newcomer to awakening early and missing his coffee.
“Firing for score, Murphy, is but one aspect of tank warfare,” Noordwink calls. “There are twenty other skills that are just as important.”
“Gotcha, Sarge,” I call back.
“Don’t be insolent!” he replies.
“Don’t mean to be, Sarge.”
“Pay attention! Keep your mouth shut! Keep your mind on your business!”
I settle into the loader’s position, checking systems while locking in focus as ordered. I’m not in a warm and fuzzy mood myself and know that I should avoid human interaction for a bit…until all has been checked out, control has been established, and we’re underway. Is this the family life we’ve heard so much about? Grouches snapping at each other for no real reason?
Friendship is a private issue for me and as we roll squeaking to the rail-head, I consider how I’m doing. Okay, I think. Friendship will evolve as we compete in the field and do other things together.
Our speed is nine miles per hour and first light–it’s 0430 hours–is washing in. My crewmates remain silent, the lieutenant and Killebrew are in their hatches as we squeak through cool early autumn air, and I think, well, so far so good, nothing too special, but okay. Riding in a 60-ton tank–70 tons when armed and fueled, as it is now–filled with an anticipation I’ll probably never know again.
Friendship is an issue for me because I’ve wanted from the beginning to do better in the army than I did at home. As the man of the family, I had but few friends in the first place. Not my stablemates and almost no one at school. Acquaintances, but hardly friends. (Only you, Bro, and your willingness to listen and reply!)
The risk is to backslide into the loner I was in high school. If you want to have friends, you have to be one…as was repeated a dozen times at Knox and here in Germany. Make an effort, I tell myself, and so it is that I begin looking for something to say in our grinding mud-belly that will get through to my comrades and let them know I’m here and likewise missing my morning coffee.
“Lieutenant…can we roll through Dunkin Donuts for some take-out coffee?”
The Lieutenant snorts a laugh–fortunately–and I feel saved from the branch onto which I dared to crawl.
“I could go for an Egg McMuffin,” Killebrew adds through his helmet mike, and I sense that here in action, as a crew, my reticent roommate may be coming around.
“I’d like that…rolling through Dunkin Donuts for coffee,” the lieutenant says. “We’d make USA Today! Welcome to sleep and food deprivation, you dog soldiers,” he adds. “This is the life of a tanker!”
“There’ll be coffee at the railhead,” Noordwink lets us know, his mood changing.
“I have some in a thermos,” the lieutenant volunteers from his TC hatch. “Pass a cup and I’ll pour you a touch. It’s what I brought it for.”
“Don’t mean to be insubordinate, sir,” Killebrew says, “but I’m getting the impression that some of the white folks around here had early notice of an alert.”
“Eyes and mind on the road,” the lieutenant says. “Insubordination is punished by no coffee!”
“Sir, I’d go for a taste,” I say. Seated next to the loader’s trap-sprung door where the mud-belly’s ordinance is stored, I swivel to unstrap my rucksack and free up my canteen cup.
Noordwink relays the cup to the commander’s seat, where the lieutenant pours from a canvas-colored thermos and, passing it back, says, “Toujours pret.”
Receiving the cup, holding a wash of coffee, I take a sip and say, “Tastes great…has me smiling already.”
To my surprise, Noordwink adds, “Touché,” as if to reconcile his grouchy behavior and say that this is how it should be, that all is well in The Claw.
“Murphy, you’re what we’ve needed here,” the lieutenant says. “Not to speak ill of a recently departed loader, but there’s some chemistry here now. Fast gun, too, I’m hoping. Says The Claw will score distingushed for the first time ever! I’m tasting it! Welcome aboard.”
“Thank you, sir,” I reply. “Let’s hope so.”
“You know what you know,” the lieutenant says.
All at once, at a day-breaking hour in August 1990, I feel brotherly with my crewmates as I had been told I would. Here I am, more part of a team than I was as a stablemate at the gym (but for Willis Webb) where, though I tried, they were unable, in their anti-white anger, to let me in. Everybody was out for number one, while here it’s live or die as brothers, black or white…and I need to say that I like it.
In a passenger compartment of the train that is carrying–on rail cars–our chained-down armor the fifty-odd klicks to Graf, as my crewmates snooze, I watch Germany and Europe clicking by through the clean German glass. Being here, being in the army, isn’t bad. I had my doubts–doing what my father did–but am into it and liking it.
One of these days, when gunnery and field maneuvers are over, I’m going to make my way into town, if only to have a closer look at where I’m stationed. Bindlach. Bayreuth. I’ll take a bus to one town, and a bus to the other. If I were not in armor there would be extended time in garrison, and female soldiers would be in the ranks with us. Truth is, I wouldn’t have been as happy–or as proud–if I hadn’t gone armor and become a tanker. Nor am I sorry–unlike older soldiers who have wives, children, girlfriends–to think that we may end up going to the Middle East. The war games, the gunnery and field maneuvers we’re undertaking, may be competitive and heart-stopping for old timers, while my deeper feeling is to go for the real thing–to advance to gunner, to show my stuff, to get back into the ring in a sense with Hector Chavez.
Gunnery qualification at Graf requires that we proceed through a set of tank tables, from simple to complex, under various conditions of daylight and darkness while wearing gas masks and encountering NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical) agents. Easier exercises lead, finally, to Table VII, which may be run but once, for final qualification. A crew that fails to qualify–to score under 800 on the 1000-point course–will face a debriefing that can have crew members reassigned to APCs or to Bradleys as infantry, or transferred from combat units altogether, retrained as cooks’ helpers or maintenance workers, even drummed from the service and returned to the street, to commence speaking (so I hear) of the chickenshit deal the army was as they seek work in other areas of life. For officers who fail it’s a time to reconsider civil service, sales, real estate, law school. The line in the air: Warriors come to play, and if they can’t get it up, it’s time to say adios, motherfuckers, and get the hell out of the way.
The initial event–the day after setting up camp, using field latrines, eating from mess kits upwind from the smoky field kitchen–is a screening test. Under the lieutenant’s direction, Killebrew and other drivers in 2nd Platoon guide the beasts onto a target range where main guns are bore-sighted, computers are checked and clarified, and single rounds are fired (blue shells fed into the breech by yours truly) in recalibration of the system.
“Up!” I call, to indicate that the cannon is loaded and that I’m clear of its violent recoil.
“On the way!” Noordwink calls from the gunner’s seat on confirming the crosshairs and squeezing the trigger.
Of an instant the belching gun rams its two-foot recoil beside me as the beast rocks like a rhino at collar and exudes an ammonia-laced cordite odor of burnt powder. The exhaust fan whirs, expelling fumes from the turret, and despite my impulse to do so I do not slam in another round and call “Up!”
(See, Bro, how I’m working in some sense impressions like you said I should? You were right, as usual. They do add some spice, don’t they?)
With the vehicle’s engine running, we shift to helmet intercom for conversation. There comes up, all about, a grinding sound as The Claw’s treads roll over earth. Also a smell of hydraulic fluid flowing from its working parts–you could be in a gas station under a car on a lift–joins the grinding movement. It’s an awareness of The Claw being alive. Added awareness is that I’m alive, too, in a way I’ve never been before. There are The Claw’s appendages, its movements, the working of human brains and computers, its lurching back on the belching of rounds. Rolling on, I sense not only that I belong but that the beast with its compartments is invincible, capable of crushing whatever it wishes to crush.
In the days following we zero in The Claw’s machine guns on the same range and proceed to Tank Tables V and VI. Exercises include moving at high speed, and day and night machine gun training against pop-up and slide-out targets as we charge through ragged terrain. Stationary gun fire follows, using the .30 mm cannon mounted inside the main gun, four sets by day and four by night, three of each fired by the lieutenant and Noordwink as a pair, and a lone set of each fired by the lieutenant and me as alternate gunner. Targets pop up from hidden pockets and drop when hit by rounds.
“Roughly a draw,” the lieutenant says. “Sergeant Noordwink’s accuracy is good, as always–though I’ll have to give Murphy the edge in speed this time out. Nor is Murphy’s accuracy bad. In fact, it’s amazing for a novice.”
“He’s saying you whooped his ass!” Sherman confides as we sit out in the air eating from mess kits. “Whooped his ass good! Lieutenant doesn’t wanna hurt his feelings, but truth is nobody fires like that first time out on these ranges! Noordy’s fast enough, but he ain’t fast like you’re fast. You get it together, mon, you be a top gun for sure. I’ve seen some gunners, never seen nothing like that.”
“Europe remains our mission, that’s all there is to it,” Sergeant Noordwink remarks on an occasion of the platoon’s enlisted men waiting after daybreak PT for the lieutenant to return and lead us into loading up and rolling out. News of Iraqi forces refusing to leave Kuwait keeps coming over AFN Radio.
“Think about it for a minute. A front-line unit like 2nd Cav leaving its sector unprotected? The Wall may be down and the Rooskies may be different, but they’re still the Rooskies. You’re gonna load your most lethal armor onto boats and leave Europe’s belly unguarded? I don’t think so. The rumors are a ruse…to get Iraq’s attention.”
Gunnery practice follows day after day. For each set we race through a noisy, dusty, hard-slamming firing routine as if our target loads are the real thing and are generating the hundred-ton recoil we’ll experience if we take the big beasts into combat and fire live ammo. We sweat and shout as a team, targets are picked up by the commander and/or gunner on separate thermal-imaging screens (sensitive enough to identify lone individuals), the gunner calls “Identify!” to confirm, and “On the way!” as he fires. Recoil occurs as I slam new rounds into the breech as quickly as possible and call “Up!” to say the cannon is ready to be fired again and that I’m not in danger of being crushed…until the lieutenant calls “Hold it!” and a pause commences.
Sweat, noise, focus. Speed and accuracy. It’s never a time to let your mind meander. “Taking it downtown is not an occasion for wool gathering in a tank,” the lieutenant likes to say.
Tank Table VII is a practice firing that can be repeated in anticipation of the crucial Tank Table VIII. The latter is a one-time-only combat firing on a different range and is scored like a final exam. Each table includes moving out, day and night firing while slamming over rough terrain at thirty, thirty-five miles per hour. An M1A1 can move at forty while firing accurately with computer assistance at targets over four thousand meters away. The mix of lethal weapons can be used simultaneously, including HEAT and Sabot rounds from the main gun, .30 mm cannon fire from within the main gun, and .50 caliber and 7.62 coax machine gun fire.
(“In World War One,” Lieutenant Kline notes, “a lone M1A1, pending availability of fuel and ammo, could have ripped through an entire German army. Entire French, British, and American armies, too! Nothing could have stopped us, not ever.”)
For one set I need, as loader, to dismount through the loader’s hatch and leave the gunner to load as the TC fires by override. When I climb out and jump free of the moving vehicle the first time, it’s into a dry late August afternoon. I watch The Claw rumble off, raising dust and firing–its main gun belching rounds is louder without than within–looking as alive to me as a seventy-ton bucking bronco working with a ton of electronic brains.
I fire Table VII for practice as alternate gunner, leaving Sergeant Noordwink to reclaim the gunner’s seat for the Table VIII requalification firing. “Alternate gunner’s familiarization!” the lieutenant calls over the radio net as we begin the course. It may be familiarization, but our time and accuracy are in fact Geo Troop showstoppers as The Claw rumbles on. With my butt just above the seat I have the cannon belching fire, the turret pivoting to belch again, swinging right to belch again, returning to center to belch again…one target after another dropping as in a dream.
TC: “Tank left front! Fire!”
Gunner: “Identify! On the way!”
Loader: “Up!”
TC: “PC, left front! Say-bo!”
Gunner: “Identify! On the way!”
Loader: “Up!”
TC: “Tank! Direct front! Say-bo!”
Gunner: “Identify! On the way!”
Loader: “Up!”
TC: “Bull’s eye! Bull’s eye! Kicking ass! Friendly! Right front! Bypass! PC! Left front!”
Gunner: “Identify tank left front! On the way! Say-bo city!”
TC: “Bull’s eye! Bull’s eye! Say-bo city for sure. Gunner, I like your style!”
Sabot (pronounced say-bo) rounds are sharply pointed high-penetration rounds fired from within the main cannon (as opposed to high-explosive-anti-tank HEAT rounds) and have Sherman alone saying “sa-boe.” It’s in the vein of him saying “mon” rather than “man” while the reason for his wordplay is anyone’s guess.
“Incredible shooting from The Claw!” the lieutenant calls as we turn to circle back on the return road. “Incredible! I hoped we’d have a ringer here and troops, as you may have noticed, your glorious leader has been right again! Impressive reflexes, Murphy. Great style…which, as you may know, turns all things to gold.”
“Hear, hear,” Sherman says from the loader’s position. “Better than I did my first time out. Remember, sir? Was slow, bypassed targets, took out two friendlies.”
“Three,” the lieutenant says, making everyone in The Claw snicker and gurgle.
“Don’t know why you kept me, sir,” Sherman replies. “Thought for sure it was off to breaking eggs and flipping jacks.”
“Better breaking shells here than in the mess hall where we’d have to eat your mistakes,” the lieutenant says, drawing “Ooohs” of disapproval throughout The Claw. “In any case, good eye, Murphy,” the lieutenant adds.
“Nice work,” comes from Noordwink, letting me know that I’m being accepted.
The Claw’s scores in stationary firing, high-speed firing, firing with the TC riding as observer are passable for each set of targets while it’s on my turn in the gunner’s seat (if I may say so) that we achieve ‘distinguished.’ Above the gunner’s seat, I should say, because I never let my butt settle in. Sherman rides as loader when I fire, and we mesh as a team. He can slam rounds into the breech with lightning speed and, giving all focus to the screen–forehead riding the head rest–I’m able to fix crosshairs in a fluid movement of handles, telling myself no! to friendlies, calling “Tank! Left front! On the way!” when it’s time to squeeze off a round.
As the recoil lifts the front of the on-charging beast half a dozen inches, I ride my body on into the next target, call “PC! Direct front! On the way!” and send another round belching from The Claw’s main gun. Three shots. In firing speed, they belch in at six to eight seconds each. But when the lieutenant says, “Good work, got us a dynamic duo here…a pair of point guards for the state champions!” there occurs the first racial moment in my time in Germany in The Claw.
“Aren’t hoop references racist, sir?” Sherman says.
“Sherman, get a life,” the lieutenant replies. “Three rounds and three hits in twenty seconds is incredible work! Nothing racist about it. Let me tell you, I do not like the R-word! You use it, you better know what you’re talking about in my tank! You know in your heart I was issuing a compliment. You’re just ragging me, right?”
“If you say so, sir.”
“I say so!”
“Yes sir,” Sherman says, while I ask myself what just happened. A racial incident in The Claw? Sherman confronting the lieutenant for calling us ‘point guards’? Have African Americans been brainwashed unto simplemindedness? My response to Sherman, left unsaid: Grow up, for chrissakes! Stop whining about ancient history! Stop reading racism into everything that is said!
Our score doesn’t make the top ten but places no less than fifth in the squadron’s sixty pairings and brings congratulations from the captain. “Geo, White One, you got yourself some shooters who are only going to get better,” the captain comes on radio net to say for all to hear. “First time we’ve ever made the top ten! Was the real thing, woulda kicked Rooski butt all the way to Siberia.”
Rooski butt? Have to say that this sounds off to me, too. Iraqi butt is the target now, there’s no doubt about it. Are these vets not reading Stars & Stripes and tuning in? Everything on AFN and in Stars & Stripes has Iraqis in Kuwait as our focus, not Rooskis in former East Germany or anywhere else. Have they trained to fight Rooskis for so long they can’t see any other enemy?
Hygiene and housekeeping chores take up much of our time in the field, when we’re not practicing gunnery and movement in the mud-bellies. Eating, washing, shaving, polishing, oiling. PT. For privates and PFCs, added work details and guard duty. Shit details.
Most talk, I notice, keeps going not to the running of Table VIII or XII (four tanks in each platoon firing in twenty-four-hour day-and-night teamwork scenarios that obliterate the enemy while using combat engineer and artillery support plus coordination with Apache and Cobra airships overhead…extended exercises designed to avoid fratricide) but to the simulated warfare maneuvers that lay ahead at Hohenfels, a hundred klicks away, and the outrageous and unfair nastiness everyone–but for the lieutenant–says we will have to endure.
“We always lose bad…a downer for a man’s self-esteem…which is why they make us do it,” Sherman says as we sit near The Claw, systems off, waiting to be checked out for the next day’s running of Table VIII.
“Meet the challenge, think how your self-esteem soars,” the lieutenant says from where he’s sitting on a tank fender.
“Not what I learned in Philadelphia, sir,” Sherman says. “Feeling positive helps in life, sir.”
“Sorry if they got it backwards in Philadelphia, Sherman. Army’s not in the business of making people feel good for being incompetent.”
“Coming on a little strong here, aren’t we, sir? This have to do with the racial issue the other day?”
“Sherman, it doesn’t have to do with race, so give it a rest. Has to do with self-esteem and the army’s strategy of knocking you down a peg to see if you’re man enough to get up wiser than you were before! Believe me, you overcome obstacles on your own, self-esteem will intoxicate your psyche and lead to new achievement, even leadership. You’ll be a man, my son. Self-esteem’s one thing I have a handle on. Lots of civilians think the army is dumb, which is a dumb idea in itself. You want to grow up, sign up. Stand up and be a man. You’ll love it because you’ll learn to love yourself.”
“Yes sir,” Sherman says mockingly, which the Lieutenant–having seized the opportunity to round out his earlier lecture–lets pass.
August 1990
Iraqi troops stormed into the desert sheikdom of Kuwait today, seizing control of its capital city and its rich oilfields, driving its ruler into exile, plunging the strategic Persian Gulf region into crisis and sending tremors of anxiety around the world. Witnesses in Kuwait said that hundreds of people were killed or wounded as Iraqi ground forces, led by columns of tanks, surged into the desert emirate at the head of the gulf.
Armed and audacious, Saddam Hussein took Kuwait and no one knew how to stop him. With hindsight it looked so obvious, so wickedly brilliant. There sat Kuwait, fat and ripe, bulging with enormous reserves of oil and cash, boasting an excellent port on the Persian Gulf…utterly incapable of defending itself against Iraq’s proficient war machine.
Iraq’s “proficient war machine” forcing our mud-bellies into a stalemate? I don’t know about that. True, the threat is scary when it gets put like that. At the same time, it has most of us focusing on getting things right. I know firsthand that our crews are competitive and motivated. I can’t see anybody outgunning our superior weapons and equipment. I guess the Russian tanks rolling into Kuwait are good…but are they that good? Do the critics at home have any idea how advanced our equipment is or how disciplined and competitive we are as crews? Do they think we’re relics of Vietnam? If that’s what they think, they’re caught in a time-think we’re relics of Vietnam? If that’s what they think, they’re caught in a time-warp and are going to be in for a surprise.
Hohenfels is going to be hell to pay and more, we keep hearing. Having practiced gunnery at Graf, we’ll be up against an opposing force (OPFOR) of highly trained U.S. soldiers who relish their roles as the teachers of brutal lessons. OPFOR knows the terrain, holds every advantage of surprise, imagination, intelligence, dirty tricks, armaments more advanced than our own. They face one U.S. combat unit after another (which units visit twice a year) while they’re dug in and motivated to kick our asses into yesterday. They cheat, commit sabotage, unleash every NBC agent known to man. They taunt and inflict humiliation on every level, personal and professional. I learn that even if my sensor is not beeping, letting me know that I’m alive (if disabled by wounds) that their unfair behavior will persist and arouse heated anger. At the same time, the losing of one’s cool in retaliation against an OPFOR soldier will have a tanker or dismount scout arrested by MPs and returned to base under charges of contempt, to be fined and reduced in grade, to eat more crap than would have had to have been swallowed in the first place. You see…war is hell.
“We rated less for winning than for how intelligently we play the game,” the lieutenant tells us time and again.
“Means we always lose,” Noordwink adds.
“Whoa, now,” the lieutenant says. “Three percent of the time OPFOR is made to eat it by somebody. Okay, two percent. Maybe less than two.”
“We lose ninety-nine percent of the time?” Noordwink inquires. “Truth is, I’ve never seen anyone beat OPFOR at Hohenfels. Ever!”
“Wherein lies the lesson,” the lieutenant notes. “Gives you a charge for when the ammo is real, the bayonets are razor sharp, and it’s life or death.”
“What it is,” Sergeant Noordwink corrects, fixing on me as the newcomer. “We’ll be taking on entrenched superior forces in their backyard. Their weapons are calibrated better than ours, as is their training…they live to kick our ass and get promoted for doing so.”
Lieutenant Kline: “You’re getting it. That’s the idea. Developing an edge.”
Sergeant Noordwink: “It’s true, sir.”
Lieutenant Kline: “In Kuwait–which is where we may be going–we’ll be facing Russian T-72s, which, in theory, are competitive with our M1A1s.”
Sergeant Noordwink: “Competitive in theory, sir. Doesn’t mean superior.”
Lieutenant Kline: “Point is, this is a training exercise meant to test your character. Don’t any of you be losing your mo to this cynicism.”
Sergeant Noordwink: “Realism, sir.”
There comes an evening at Graf, off duty for refueling, when four soldiers in flak jackets and dusty battle gear walk by and I recognize the muscular soldier from the Autobahn dustup weeks earlier. DeMarcus Owens. It gives me a shiver to see him. I’m working with Sherman at the time, helping with refueling from a camouflage-painted tanker (The Claw needs to be refueled after every ten operating hours) as the four soldiers pass twenty feet away with M-16s draped over their shoulders. All are African American in the de facto segregation that lingers in the army, and the shortest of the four, the most muscular, is my nemesis, DeMarcus Owens.
“Cav scouts,” Sherman says as I look after them. “Gotta be a tough mother to be a cav scout.”
“One of them’s a gangbanger,” I say.
“In 2nd Cav? You’re kidding.”
“We came in together in the back of a truck from Rhein/Main. He’s carrying a shank in his sock. When I saw it, I guessed he was a gangbanger.”
“You can get dishonorably discharged for carrying a shank in the army.”
“He threatened to cut my throat. Twice.”
“He came at you with a shank?”
“Not exactly. Shank ended up on the Autobahn. Courtesy of yours truly. Which is why he threatened to cut my throat. Threatened again after we unloaded at Bindlach. I say I ‘guess’ because after a while I decided it was too dumb for words to bring a shank into the army and into Germany, that he had to be living in a dream world where carrying was still an okay thing to do.”
What I’m thinking as I talk to Sherman is that one of these days I’m going to run into DeMarcus Owens face to face and learn if he’s a gangbanger or not. It has to happen, living on the same base. If carrying was an immature thing for him, won’t he have left it behind? If he was buying into a childish fantasy of heroism, won’t he have outgrown it by now and be able to say so?
“Gangbanger ain’t gonna make it in cav,” Sherman says. “You go cav, you get with the program or you get cashiered. It’s hard to believe anyone would be carrying after everything they said at Knox. Some of these warriors, the white dudes and the brothers, they take offense. Some very tough guys in armor, believe me. Can snap a neck, crush a windpipe in five seconds. Faster, mon, than you are at getting off those HEAT rounds.”
At Hohenfels, field conditions are severe and we create shelter for sleeping by attaching tarps to our vehicles and staking them on one side. The field challenge isn’t merely gunnery practice but warfare, living and fighting under adverse conditions. “Getting into the animal thing,” as the lieutenant puts it.
The lieutenant, as I am coming to see, is himself a warrior, not what I expected in an officer. He loves the life, wants to fight, carries on about tactics, M1A1s, coordinated strategies. “Of the sixty tons that make up this beast, it’s true, a full ton goes to its electronic brains,” he says one evening as we sit on the ground eating MREs. “More brainpower than an entire army, though it’s true that our little pea brains are needed to turn things on and give them their orders. An M1A1 has eyes that can see an enemy six klicks away even if he’s hiding in the woods or underground,” the lieutenant adds. “Ammo from an Abrams main gun travels at a thousand feet per second. The rounds are so powerful that on blitzkrieging at forty miles an hour we can fire HEAT rounds that will penetrate reinforced concrete ten klicks away, and release a hundred bomblets like a cloud of hand grenades that will kill every plane, person, vehicle, radio within a hundred yards in each direction! We may lose a simulated battle in the days ahead,” he adds. “I’m sure we will, because losing teaches more than winning. But we should not for a second think our vehicle is not a friend or that we aren’t well armed and protected if the real thing comes along.”
OPFOR soldiers pass here and there, walking in pairs, riding in army Blazers and Suburbans. They wear no insignia and, representing a ferocious and unprincipled Soviet force, appear threatening, though our engagement against them won’t start for several days as our squadron continues practicing and preparing for our battlefield encounter.
The fight, when it goes down, will be decided by MILES scoring, a laser weapons system in which each vehicle and soldier wears a transmitter vulnerable to lasers fired by the other side. A rifle can ‘kill’ a soldier by setting off his MILES alarm, while a rifle cannot disable a tank except for a bull’s-eye shot into its rear grillwork. Observer-controllers (OCs) referee engagements and conduct after-action reviews (AARs) in which even junior tankers may be asked to explain what they did wrong and how they would do it differently the next time around. The training procedure is unique to the army, and an officer’s career path can depend on his critical analysis and character as graded by OCs otherwise unknown to everyone. An inability to analyze correctly or to accept blame, through ignorance or pride, can cost as many points as a poor performance. Character and analytical ability are interwoven; one is useless without the other. In battle the best combinations will prevail, while anything less will bring death and defeat.
Captain Kinder, addressing Geo Troop one evening while standing on his command mud-belly against a silhouetted backdrop of dozens of antennas, has us know again that “OPFOR will cheat and lie and deceive at every level. They’ll ambush unfairly and in violation of the ground rules. They hold home court advantage and they’ll exploit everything in every possible way. They live here. They know every square inch of land, water, rock, and tree. They fight one visiting unit after another, and they live to humiliate with the most lopsided scores possible. Be alert to dirty tricks, beginning to end. We ever turn OPFOR itself loose on anyone, they’ll think they’re being hit by an entire brigade of monsters from Mars, believe me. What we’re going to do is fight them with all we have. Equipment, training, motivation, intelligence. We use them as we’ve been taught, OPFOR will know it’s been in a fight. It’ll be some time before they forget Geo Troop, First Squadron, 2nd Armored Cav. Toujours pret!”
“What kind of cheating?” I ask Sherman as we return to The Claw.
“You name it. They sneak behind lines. Bomb latrines. Send in stink bombs that take out HQ tents, mail trucks, water trucks, field kitchens. Just when you think you’re safe and the clock is turned off, they let you have it. You’ll find out.”
I sleep well enough, the food is plentiful, and before long I’m feeling comfortable as a field soldier living outdoors. Near-frosty autumn daybreaks and glorious autumn sunsets mark most days, and being away from garrison, living in a state of grittiness relieved every three days by a shower, begins to feel more comfortable than burdensome. A rare chilly rain has me feeling a desire, on day four, to be back in the barracks or mess hall at Bindlach. Workdays are long–twelve, fifteen hours, running into darkness (when we use night vision equipment), whereupon sleep provides some animal fulfillment under a tent fly with your nose in the air. Then PT and jogging in chilly daybreak temps is invigorating, even joyous, as it triggers an appetite for morning chow from the steaming field kitchen.
Alas, I have a place in existence as a soldier and a tanker. Concerning my soul (I guess that’s what it is), it finds itself nourished one morning when the lieutenant recites from Rudyard Kipling as we sit around outside The Claw sipping coffee. The words excite my heart with a thrill of seeming to count for something:
I went into a theater, as sober as could be…
They gave a drunk civilian room, but ’adn’t room for me.
They sent me to the gallery or round the music ’alls,
But when it comes to fightin’, Lord! they’ll shove me in the stalls!
For its Tommy this, and Tommy that, an’ Tommy ’ow’s yer soul?
But it’s a thin red line of ’eroes when the drums begin to roll…
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
It’s a thin red line of ’eroes when the drums begin to roll.”
When dawn breaks on another day and I’ve had morning chow and washed my mess kit, I enjoy carrying a canteen cup of scalding water to the tank area where I use a half-stump shelf on a tree as a tiny tabletop. Boiling water is available from a galvanized garbage can positioned at one end of the field kitchen, a tractor trailer with fold-out counters that lets the vehicle work like a rig at Fenway, the water hot enough to remain warm throughout a routine of bathing and shaving.
Dipping in with my razor, I manage a shave without using a mirror (don’t mind not seeing my ugly Irish mug) followed by a scrubbing of face, neck, ears, feet, underarms, crotch, and genitals with a warm, soapy washcloth. Then a quick re-dressing in clean socks and underwear. The water has cooled to warm by then in the autumn air, while day by day I feel newer and more manly living out in the air. If it’s happiness (as it seems to be), I have no complaints. All that is missing is a girl to talk to, to tease and adore, to serve wild rabbit or quail roasted on sticks and washed down with German beer.
The night before simulated warfare is due to commence, Captain Kinder speaks to us again as we sit about our mud-bellies. Our engagement with the enemy will come in two phases, he explains. Unless we get annihilated in Phase One. We hear again that as a cav brigade spearheading VII corps our mission will be reconnaissance and stinging. We need to find the enemy and report his location while delivering a stinging blow that will knock him off balance. Moving aside, we’ll provide cover for combat divisions to pass through and hammer the enemy into submission.
Locate. Knock off balance. Move aside while providing cover for the infantry. “Be the head of the spear,” the captain tells us.
He speaks as well of seizing the initiative on an individual basis. Troop commanders are encouraged by the colonel to seize the initiative (in tank warfare it’s everything, he says) and he is urging us to do the same, platoon by platoon, tank by tank, man by man. When an opening occurs, you deliver a punch! You’ll need to read the landmarks accurately and make smart decisions. You won’t have time to write reports or put something up for discussion. “Speed, judgment, response is everything in tank warfare. Everything! Toujours pret!”
The lieutenant adds that the colonel will be observing. “The man’s a five-star general to the troops,” he notes. “Lanky dude. Young, smart, on the fast track. Went to Yale for a PhD and wrote the training manual by which the new army lives. You see him, he’ll treat you like a soldier, with respect. He’s the most admired CO since Jumping Jim Gavin parachuted with the 82nd Airborne into Germany and ended up having an affair with Marlene Dietrich!” he adds, getting us to hoot and howl like a pack of happy dogs.
I sit with Sherman that evening and, as before, he calls me ‘mon.’ “Mon, you got it,” he says, having me know, based on my performance, that I’ve progressed from recruit to crewmate.
“Noordy’s okay,” he adds. “Fool loves to talk. Thinks, like, in full paragraphs. Sounds like he’ll be rotating home by the end of the year. Means the lieutenant will be moving another crewmate–like me–into the gunner’s seat. Or bring in a fast gun from outside.”
I wonder if ‘mon’ is Philly talk but decline to ask. Sherman has two years of college plus two University of Maryland Overseas courses in German–in which he was tutored by an ex-girlfriend from Bayreuth–and I wonder if ‘mon’ is a way for him to distinguish himself as more educated than others, like myself, who say ‘man.’ He has his eye on the gunner’s seat? This is a surprise. I know I’m a step up on him, no matter that he’s a corporal. I know, too, that if the nod comes my way there’s a good chance a racial charge will follow, no matter my performance exceeding his by two to one. Affirmative action. The army brags about maintaining a level playing field, but everyone knows that people of color get two chances to a white guy’s one.
A full day goes to fixing MILES sensors to everything in sight. Referees attach the laser devices to vehicles and inspect the connections–two for each soldier, to helmet and web gear. A tank kill, a laser hit from an OPFOR vehicle, maybe a Russian T-72, will not only shut off a vehicle’s electronics and leave it immobilized but usually kill every crewmate by way of secondary explosions of stored ordinance. If not killed, a crew member can exit with his weapon, can even (the loader’s position alone has an M-16 assault rifle fixed overhead) surface behind an enemy tank and take it out on laser shots to its rear grillwork, while facing all but certain lethal fire from accompanying enemy vehicles and dismounted scouts. “You survive, you earn a point,” the lieutenant says. “You survive and hit an enemy tank, you earn points big time, especially if it gets identified as a T-72. Might-have-beens earn nada. War is hell. When you lose, you really lose.”
A kill endured or scored against an individual soldier will trigger a whine from the laser device. A near-miss, disabling a soldier and calling for emergency first-aid and evacuation, can set off a beep that will kill everyone, including the rescuers. Also, OPFOR ambushes will take place at inopportune times, because in war everything goes wrong and success goes to those who keep ordinary things happening. Mortar and incendiary attacks will occur at any time. Smoke, terrible noise, fires, explosions, nuclear-biological-chemical attacks, and firecrackers can rain down when least expected, requiring first aid and evacuation, even full withdrawal if the alternative is annihilation…all before a unit can even think of going on offense.
“Demoralization happens all the time,” the lieutenant adds. “Promotions for enlisted personnel and career leaps for officers can be literally seized by outsmarting the blinking yellow lights and shrill whines…just as careers will end for any soldiers who show incompetence, lack of character, or cowardice.”
Engagement with OPFOR is scheduled to start at 1500 hours. On an impulse (or a word to the wise, for it’s a conscious if adolescent thought) I leave early for noon chow, at eleven-ten, thinking if I were going to bomb a field kitchen I’d do so at noon, when the lines are the longest. The cooks are willing to serve, and I have food in my mess kit by eleven-fifteen and in my belly ten minutes later–I pack it in–and am returning to The Claw, but minutes later a dozen smoke bombs go off behind me, triggering shrill beeps, whines, sudden chaos. Besides terminating food service for the day, two dozen cooks and soldiers have to sit and endure the squealing beeps that have ended their lives. Looking back, I see an outraged major near the officer’s mess tent heave his coffee mug and whining web gear to the ground (the mug doesn’t break) and bellow at a female referee, “Goddammit, we were told they weren’t going to do that!”
“Never trust an enemy force, sir,” the referee replies.
“I want to see whoever is in charge of this horseshit right now, goddammit!” comes from the major. “You cannot tell me I am out of this maneuver!”
“Sir, I’d advise you to assume your role, or I’ll to have to have you arrested. You’ve lost your field kitchen and your personnel have taken some hits. It’s warfare. Act accordingly.”
The referee, whom the major wanted to strangle, displaying no insignia or rank, walks away. I watch over my shoulder as the major pauses–the prospect of never making lieutenant colonel sprouting between his ears–retrieves his mug and whining web gear and moves on, only to heave the gear yet again to the ground, like an ejected, outraged pitcher on his way to the tunnel.
At The Claw, Sherman is pissed over missing chow and says, “You got served!?”
“Lucked out. Good grub. Macaroni and cheese.”
The lieutenant howls. “You had a hunch the enemy would strike? That’s a question, Murphy.”
“Did, sir. Thought if I was bombing I’d strike at noon and spoil everybody’s lunch. A lucky guess,” I add, not wanting to disclose that my impulse originated from my experience with playing war as a kid in the vacant lots of South Boston.
“Not all luck,” the lieutenant says.
“Memo came out saying the field kitchen would be a safe zone this time around,” Sergeant Noordwink adds.
“Enemy faked the memo,” I note, making the lieutenant pop with laughter.
“Easy to laugh on a full stomach,” Sergeant Noordwink says.
“We ride on the beast within,” comes from the giggling lieutenant.
“Meaning, sir?” Noordwink says.
“Meaning don’t listen to memos in warfare,” the lieutenant says. “Listen to your gut. Good instinct, Murphy. Impressive. Says you’re in the game.”
The battle proper, following the dirty tricks and a fresh start, begins when a skirmish explodes into an assault. The Claw is one of twenty-five Geo Troop mud-bellies accelerating by then into a hard-driving wedge that has been determined to be an OPFOR flank. The strategy, confirmed by the captain by radio, is not to feint at all, as everyone expects, but to accelerate and hit hard from the west, to turn the enemy into a counter-defensive response that will leave it vulnerable to a surprise attack from the south by Eagle and Fox. The move is bold and secret and was settled on only last night, and a high casualty percentage for Geo is anticipated, the captain notes, adding that fatalities will be resurrected from the dead and allowed to fight a day later. Enduring a 40 percent casualty rate while inflicting 30 percent will constitute mission accomplished. “Ambush remains a possibility,” he warns. “Could come by way of anti-tank missiles from choppers exploding on the scene. At the same time the boldness of our attack will be unprecedented, and our own Cobras and Apaches will rise to counter-attack air-to-air, which reply will also carry elements of boldness and surprise. Force on force,” he says. “Geo’s job is to get in their face, throw them off balance, get their beepers beeping and flashing.”
I hold tight in the loader’s seat as The Claw slams over ground at thirty and thirty-five. Our platoon’s four tanks are moving all but abreast when the lieutenant shouts an order to prepare to commence firing. Our main gun is loaded with a practice HEAT round, and when the lieutenant calls, “Tanks! Right front! Turning east! Commence firing!” Noordwink calls out, “Identify! Inside-out! On the way!”
Riding the recoil, I bang my knee to open the blast door to ammo storage and grab a new round with both hands. Releasing the knee switch (the trap door slams shut automatically) I push the round into the breech, grab the hand grip, shout, “Up!” and listen for the lieutenant to shout the identity of the next target.
Just like that, we’re into a cannon-belching attack. To avoid having an arm or leg smashed by the recoil, riding each firing and lifting of The Claw’s body, I keep hitting the knee switch and doing it again at high speed, loading rounds at ten to fifteen seconds, one after another.
The lieutenant, in the commander’s seat with its separate thermal-imaging screen, coordinates with other tanks and communicates with the captain in his mud-belly blasting on at the heart of things. He communicates with Sherman, too, in his control of The Claw’s speed and direction and the positioning of its array of radar screens. A tread-head at heart, the lieutenant keeps our mud-belly charging like a relentless rhino.
All at once we take a hit. Of an instant the lights go off, screens go dark, sensors start their maddening beeps. Only when the Lieutenant calls into the calamity, “Anybody not dead?” does it occur to me in the din that my sensors remain silent, which has me taking down my helmet and M-16 and squirming in darkness out through the belly hatch into smoky, dusty air, crawling into the open apart from the rear of the tank, crawling another dozen yards as a lone survivor, lifting at last to my knees and crouch-walking to the left until I flatten to the ground to lie on rolled and broken dirt for a moment, trying to sort out what to do.
I run my checklist: Wounds? Crewmates? Should I seek safe ground or, as a cadre combat officer at Knox liked to say, should I follow the sound of the guns?
With all crewmates dead, and knowing I’m not really going to die no matter what my MILES beeper may decide to say, the vacant lots of my childhood are there in my mind and it isn’t a hard call. Despite dust in my eyes and mouth and noise in my ears and skull, my thought is to have a shot at the rear grillwork of a passing enemy tank. M-16 cradled, lifting to knees and elbows, I look over the weedy terrain before crouch-walking another ten yards, and another ten, to where I have a bit of a view as well as some cover from curls of tread-marked soil. Could my non-whining, non-beeping sensors be malfunctioning, giving me a cat’s nine lives on the battlefield?
What a score it would be, I keep thinking, despite ending up dead, if I racked up a tank kill for my crew! With dirt in my mouth and the racket of blinking lights from kills all about, I remain low before dashing another ten yards to another curl of soil and mangled brush, believing I’m hearing, nearby, the squeak and growl of moving armored vehicles. It’s a scene from a horror movie in which I can hear but not see the source of the squeaking until I move again, but ten yards farther I take in a sudden formation of twenty T-72s and command vehicles coming hard along one side, down a slope, their inverted V formation easy to read. It was an ambush! It was! They anticipated our charge as in a chess match, and we did not hit their flank at all but let them hit ours! The sneaky bastards! is my thought. The conniving smartasses! How could they anticipate our strategy? Was it child’s play to them, too, like older kids from another block?
Lying pressed to a curl in rough terrain, extending my neck, I keep myself covered as much as possible by soil. They knew! I keep thinking, no matter the captain saying our maneuver had been devised only last night! Did OPFOR have spies, or had they simply known what an inexperienced troop would believe to be a bold move and lain in wait to smash our flank? However they did it, there are our dead beeping tanks filled with dead tankers, and their T-72s coming on in that angled V formation that will take them past our blinking mud-bellies into flank assaults on Fox and Eagle.
Dust and dirt unroll in their charge while I elbow-crawl a dozen yards to one side, for added concealment within the curling soil. My view improves as the formation of T-72s is passing on the lower side of where I’m pressing the ground with my M-16. What to do? It’s like a movie in which a submarine entering Tokyo Harbor raises its periscope to a sudden view of a flotilla of warships. Act! I tell myself. Seize the moment! Get off a shot at a rear grillwork! Why not a command vehicle, I also think, to disrupt their maneuvering as much as possible? Do it! I think. Seize the day! Fucking do it!
So it is that I twist and rise to my knees, position my M-16 into a shoulder crotch, select the command vehicle at the rear of the passing V, lean into it to settle my aim, and fire one! Instant blinking-beeping-flashing occurs as the vehicle grinds to a stop on losing electronics and mobility. Swiveling left, thinking to work inside-out-left and feeling like Audie Murphy himself in World War II, I’m about to take out another tank when a sound explodes into my ears close–Beeep! Beeep! Beeep!–telling me that I’ve been hit, am disarmed, will get off no more rifle spurts as much as I pull the trigger.
To protect my ears against the shrill sound I roll and push my helmet between my legs as the piercing beeep! keeps stabbing from my helmet and web gear. How could they have hit me? No one is in view! How could I have been seen? Not even Audie Murphy could have beaten electronic sweeps and automatic fire!
Of all things, I realize I’m not dead at all, but wounded! How could I take a hit and only be wounded? Nothing makes sense. What did they do, sweep the perimeter with laser fire on having their command vehicle taken out? I would just as soon have been killed, because now I’ll have to be rescued and given first aid in ways that will call attention not to what I did but to what I failed to do in the relinquishing of my cover, as tenuous as it may have been.
The maddening beeep! persists, throbbing into my skull like an instant headache. Still I need to endure being cited by a referee (a failure of character) and losing any points I may have won for Geo. I did take out a command vehicle, a hit of which to be proud, but now I’ll be IDed as another negative digit requiring first aid. Got greedy. Should have hunkered on scoring the hit, kept pressed into the dirt, and lived to fire another hit into another mud-belly’s rear grillwork.
Half an hour later, the remaining enemy armor gone and the dust settling, charging on, I imagine, to lay seige to Fox and Eagle, a Huey comes clattering, then thwonks to the ground twenty meters away, blowing up so much noise and dirt that my nose, eyes, and ears receive pings of grit no matter how tightly I cover the cranial openings, the thwonk-thwonk so aggravating that I believe my skull is going to explode from its hammering.
Arms about my head, I feel burdensome and foolish, frustrated on being removed from the game, disappointed in not having taken out another T-72. Being wounded seems unfair. I saw no infantry, nor anything indicating machine gun fire, no strafing from any vehicle, and as two wind-bent medics press a stretcher to the ground beside me, I shout, “Was I hit? How’d I get hit?” only to have one of them shout back, “How the hell do we know how you got hit? Shut your fucking mouth!”
A final straw, an ultimate frustration of warfare: Overlapping explosions go off all around, creating more whines, the big chopper sensors beginning to blink yellow. Mortars. We’re all dead, just like that. Lights and beeeps! persist as medics drop to the ground, as required, one of them cursing, “Sonofabitch!” Every sensor is whining, indicating that all has been lost in an attempt to rescue a lone soldier who–it will come out–crawled from the cover of a wounded tank and a curl of soil on getting greedy and acting stupidly.
Later, free of beeps and the blinking lights, no one is speaking to me, nor are they speaking to each other. The lieutenant, he of the ever-ready reply, is sitting by himself in the falling light. If our gung-ho lieutenant is demoralized, what hope is there for the rest of us?
“Lieutenant, come on,” Noordwink says, which has the lieutenant flicking a hand and saying, “Leave me alone.” Then, from over the radio net behind us we hear the captain calling, “Captain Kinder here! Word is a soldier from Geo took out a command T-72 and saved the sorry asses of Eagle and Fox! All wasn’t lost at all! Tell me it’s true! One of our guys took out an enemy command vehicle? Are you kidding me?”
The lieutenant perks up and looks my way, given that I was the only soldier in our crew to slip from a hatch with an M-16. “Murphy, was that you? You hit a command vehicle? You hear what the captain just said? Somebody from Geo took out a command vehicle and saved the asses of Eagle and Fox!? Saved 2nd Cav’s ass from OPFOR! That was you, wasn’t it?”
“Had a shot, sir,” I admit. “Scored a hit. Sorry I couldn’t get off more shots before I was taken out by enemy fire.”
“Are you kidding!? You took out a command vehicle! Do you know what that means?”
“Hit it right in the ass, sir. The rear grillwork.”
The lieutenant howls with newfound joy, pushing to his feet. “You saved Eagle and Fox!” he says. “I can’t believe it! Murphy, do you know what it means to take out an OPFOR command vehicle? I am a sonofabitch! You say you’re sorry you didn’t take out more? Creativity! That’s what it is! It’s what I’ve been dreaming could happen around here! Creativity! I’ll tell you this, right now. The gunner’s seat is yours! Sergeant Noordwink will be ZI-ing soon and when he does, the gunner’s seat is yours! We return to garrison, I’m putting you in for E-4, straight off! This is what I’ve been wanting to see around here! Murphy, you confirm my faith in mankind! Take out a command vehicle outside your vehicle in combat, know what you’d do…you’d win a goddamn Silver Star! Posthumously, of course, but you’d win one all the same!”
It’s then that Captain Kinder comes back on the net, his message buzzing with static: “Geo Troop! Hear this! Captain Kinder here! The colonel himself will be stopping by. Wants to salute the soldier from Geo who took out an OPFORS command vehicle. Hope you heard that right. Soldier…whoever you are…haven’t even learned your name…congratulations from me and from everyone. We’re proud to be serving with you. Lieutenant Kline, get your soldier front and center to be saluted by the colonel!”
“Holy shit!” the lieutenant cries. “Did you hear that? Colonel’s stopping by to salute one of our own! Murphy, goddammit…like I say, you restore my faith in mankind! E-4, when we return to base! E-4 and the gunner’s seat before you know it! You’ve earned it! Couldn’t make me more proud in a hundred years.”
“Frigging hero,” Sherman utters sotto voce at my side, which remark draws laughter in the exhilaration alive within me and within The Claw’s four-man crew.
The colonel’s visit, when it goes down, is brief though celebratory for all involved. As we wait outside our vehicle, where the lieutenant checks me over like a mother hen, there suddenly appears a phalanx of half-dozen field-grade officers hard-striding to stay with the tall regiment commander leading the way. As the lieutenant snaps, “Tensh hut!” the colonel says, “Toujours pret!” and throws a nifty little salute.
The officers following the colonel are his aides and adjutants, several mid-twenties majors and early-thirties lieutenant colonels, pleased to be present in a ceremony of a soldier being honored for something good. “This is him, sir, Private First Class Murphy,” the lieutenant says.
“Soldier, what you did was unprecedented,” the colonel says. “I don’t believe an OPFORS command vehicle has ever been taken out like that! Your actions were smart and courageous. In a battle you’d have saved two troops from annihilation. It is my honor, soldier, to salute you.” On which note the lanky colonel snaps off another salute, which gesture is repeated by the field grade officers, who add, “Good job, soldier,” and is returned (if uncertainly) by yours truly. Thereupon, as the colonel adds, “I’ll be talking about this in the AAR. Good evening, gentlemen.”
As the phalanx withdraws back into the night with dim flashlights, the lieutenant says, “You’re IN for E-4! Ain’t nothing going to get in the way of your promotion.”
“Frigging hero,” Sherman mocks as before, failing this time to get any response.
“Those field grade officers,” the lieutenant says. “They’re West Pointers. Except the colonel. Texas A & M. PhD from Yale. Taught two years at West Point. Fast track. Will be wearing a star before you know it, especially with one of his soldiers taking out an OPFORS command vehicle at Hohenfels! Yowee!”
In the regiment’s after-action-review, mention is given, as promised, to “the soldier from Geo who, surviving a lethal blow to his tank, escaped through the loader’s hatch and did no less than destroy an OPFORS command vehicle with a single shot to the T-72’s rear grillwork!”
That was it, in the AAR, though it drew a glance and a wink from the lieutenant. Lesser accolades followed. A major from Headquarters Troop approached in a chow line and said, “Soldier, what you did was remarkable. Good job.”
On our last night in the field (but for those pulling vehicle guard) we’re free to visit beer and/or movie tents. It’s a cool fall night, and thinking beer, I seek out Sherman after chow, only to hear, “No thanks, mon, avoid beer guzzling on a regular basis.”
I go on my way. My feeling, on trying to decide what to do, is that Sherman and I may not turn out to be army buddies after all. Maybe he’s put off that I’m in line for promotion to E-4. In truth he dislikes the army, while my head is in the game and I’m having the time of my life. What choices do I have?
In the beer tent with its dim hanging bulbs, I sip from a large brown bottle of German beer and, feeling an odd melancholy on field maneuvers ending, wonder what it is that allows soldiers to become buddies and what has gotten in the way with Sherman and me. Too little in common, I imagine, while seeing no problem in our racial difference. At least I hope there are no problems, recalling that it was Sherman to whom I pointed out the gangbanger and that I need to acknowledge that Sherman is the only African American in our crew.
Do we have shared experience besides being crewmates? In that early ‘dynamic duo’ designation by the lieutenant, I thought Sherman and I would in fact ascend to a level we haven’t achieved, while it’s become ever more clear that it isn’t likely to happen. If one guy wants to drink and laugh and the other guy disapproves, you aren’t going to become buddies. Oil and water. You’ll go along and get along, but will never bond in the way that friends do.
Back at garrison with its newspapers and TV news reports, rumors of Kuwait and Iraq are flying hot and heavy. Having logged eighteen days in the field, free time is allotted (I’ll be making a trip into town!) and I have time to catch up on my sleep, scan magazines and books in the library, and get up to date with my journal entries.
Wrapping up another steno pad before putting it in the mail (to you, my favorite teacher!), I spend time in the library reading copies of stateside publications to see what is being said at home about what is happening here. All I can say is that the reports are threatening and have me thinking about all kinds of things, not least of all life and death. The war games in the field could become real after all… as removed as Germany may be from the Persian Gulf.