A Requiem for Crows: A Novel of Vietnam Read online

  Scotty stood in the chow line with the others, his aluminum mess kit and canteen cup ready for the dinner meal. He had learned to carry his empty mess kit upside down to keep the rain from collecting in it before he even got to the serving line. Balancing the mess utensils was made more difficult by having to carry his rifle at sling arms, the canvas strap refusing to stay put over a rain-slickened poncho. His hands filled, Scotty could only shrug in an attempt to get his sling higher on his shoulder and less likely to fall.

  Rain began to run off the lip of Scotty’s steel helmet and down the front of his poncho. He tried to ignore it as he moved forward into the footprints of the soldier in front of him.

  The food line was setup using Army versions of thermal food containers designed to keep the food hot and dry. Neither of which they managed to do. Scotty stepped up to the first server, a soldier from another platoon, and flipped his mess kit right side up meeting the spoonful of lime Jell-O on its way down. The green glob hit the wet bottom of the mess kit and began to seek the low point in the shallow pan’s bottom.

  The next server plopped mashed potatoes into the same spot previously occupied by the traveling Jell-O and it immediately began to thin out as rain pelted it and turned it from a solid into a milky paste.

  The meat was a large slice of roast—equal parts beef and fatty venous highways crossing the red-to-brown, unevenly cooked fat-ringed slab. At the end of the line Scotty pickup up wet bread, butter, a small unrecognizable dessert square from a sheet cake and filled his canteen cup with hot coffee.

  He found a spot under a pine tree to sit and eat his meal. Alone. The others had stopped threatening him about his screw ups, but were still a long way from embracing him and accepting him into the ad hoc friendships which had formed in the platoon.

  Trainees were not permitted to eat in their tents for the same reason they were not allowed to lie on their bunks in the daytime. It was a matter of good order and discipline with a supporting rationale having to do with sanitation. To the trainees it was all just more Mickey Mouse treatment.

  Scotty ate as the rain turned into a Georgia downpour. His food was cold, awash in rainwater and tasteless. But he didn’t care. It was food. He was hungry and the anxiety about throwing his first hand grenade was behind him. And he had done a good job talking Swithins through throwing his first grenade. He felt good about the day.

  As he blew on the coffee and tried to avoid the scalding lip of the aluminum canteen cup he looked around the training area at the clusters of trainees collected into two, three and four-man groups under trees, under the bleachers and just out in the open, too tired to seek relief from the rain.

  A jeep pulled into the rock lined parking lot at the end of the mess area and one of the NCOs he had seen around the battalion but didn’t know, jumped from the driver’s seat and ran over to Russell. He handed Russell something and they spoke briefly.

  Russell quickly gathered the other cadre members from G Company. Whatever it was generated shocked expressions and gestures of surprise. Scotty hoped it had something to do with canceling training due to the weather. He had heard sometimes, when the threat of lighting got high enough they would stop training and return to the barracks. He thought for a moment at just how appealing his lumpy mattress had become at the end of the long training days.

  “Listen up!” Russell stood on the hood of the jeep to be seen and heard by all. “Stay where you are. I have an announcement to make.” He looked at a small piece of paper the courier had brought him and read. “At midday today the President was shot by a gunman in Dallas while riding in a motorcade.”

  All of the trainees began to react and comment on the news. Russell raised his hand. “At Ease! I’ll tell you when to talk and it won’t happen until I’m through here.” He continued to read. “The President died of his wounds at one-thirty Dallas time. The Vice President has been sworn in as President and the Armed Forces have been placed on a higher defense condition.

  “That’s all,” Russell stepped down from the jeep and turned his back to the group, obviously shaken by the news.

  As he entered the building, Eldon Pascoe took off his service cap and snapped it against his leg to dislodge the rain drops before they soaked into the wool turning it soggy. He wound his way up the stairs to Colonel Leggett’s office and interrupted him with a polite knuckle rap on the door frame.

  Leggett looked up from his desk, “Pascoe?”

  “Sir, it’s important I speak with you now.”

  Leggett put his pipe in the large ashtray centered on is desktop and looked at the cadet seated in front of the desk. “We’ll finish this tomorrow.”

  The cadet snapped to attention and with a “Yessir” turned and left the room.

  Pascoe stepped into the office and pulled a copy of the New York Times from under his arm. He waved it at Leggett. “This is awful! Kennedy—dead. What a shock.”

  Leggett took off his reading glasses and dropped his gaze in what appeared to be a moment of reverent reflection over the loss. “It’s sad. I kinda’ liked him. Even if I didn’t, I’d still feel sick about this.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m screwed!”

  Leggett looked up at Pascoe. “What?”

  “I’m screwed. Kennedy gets killed—it means for sure we’re going to pull out of Vietnam.”

  Leggett took a deep breath and measured his response. “Excuse me, Major?” It was the first time he had ever addressed Pascoe by his rank. “Are you telling me the death of JFK is causing you a personal problem?”

  Pascoe realized how it sounded and tried to back-peddle. “No. No. It’s not like that. I didn’t mean it like that, but you have to admit Kennedy was behind the advisory build up in Vietnam. And it’s sure to be reversed under Lyndon Johnson. What am I going to do? This is going to make my plan almost impossible.”

  “What are you going to do? What are you going to do?” he repeated. Leggett pounded the bowl of his pipe on the edge of the ashtray to dislodge the charred contents while he tempered his tone. “You, Major, are going to do what the Army wants you to do. You are going to stand by for the changes resulting from this terribly unfortunate turn of events. And you are going to do your duty—whatever it turns out to be.”

  Leggett’s note of sarcasm was not lost on Pascoe.

  “You see, the Army, the White House and history aren’t really all that preoccupied with repairing your damaged career, Major. In spite of what you might think.”

  Pascoe was taken back by Leggett’s tone. “But you told me I ought to—”

  “Well then, let me tell you something else. Over the years you’ve often blown by my office or buttonholed me in a hallway somewhere and the topic of every single conversation was you and your future. Not once did you talk about anything but you.

  “And each time I became more and more disappointed with the officer you were becoming and hoped it was just something you would work through. I made the mistake of thinking you might recognize this because you are terribly bright and you are quite skilled. But I’m afraid I’ve been a very bad judge of character in your case. Each time you walked away from me you did so as a much smaller man in my eyes.

  “And I walked away angry I hadn’t called you on it”

  Pascoe’s face flushed as he listened to Leggett’s assessment of him. “Well,” he said, taking a tone to dismiss Leggett’s words, “you’ve obviously misunderstood my questions and don’t appreciate why I sought you out for your advice, because I admire you and respect you.”

  “Get this straight, Pascoe. We come from different sides of soldiering. I always place the mission and the men and the Army at the top of my list of considerations. You always place Eldon Pascoe at the top of yours. So I suggest you find yourself another career advisor because at this point I’d be inclined to suggest you just might consider resigning your commission for the good of the Army.”

  “Me consider resigning? You can’t be serious,” Pascoe said.

  “Let me put it to yo
u this way. It’s a good thing you aren’t working for me because I’d give you an Efficiency Report to make Colonel Harris’ look like a fucking Valentine’s Day card, mister.”

  The company returned to the cantonment area after three days on the grenade range and even more rain. Scotty was running through the company area with an armload of clean bed linen when he heard his name called. Recognizing the voice, he stopped, came to attention and answered. “Yes, Sergeant.”

  Russell stood on the porch of the WWII era clapboard building which served as the company headquarters—the Orderly Room. “Come here.”

  Scotty searched his memory for something he should have done or something Russell would be on him about as he ran. He reached the steps of the Orderly Room with no idea what Russell wanted and repeated, “Yes, Sergeant.”

  “Let’s go inside and talk, Hayes.”

  Scotty knew no good could come from a private conversation with Russell. What could they possibly talk about not ending up being trouble for him?

  He followed Russell through the Orderly Room’s open central area surrounded by clerks, desks and file cabinets to a small corner office containing only a single desk with a chair squared off in front of it. Russell took the chair behind the desk and pointed to the straight-back. “Sit.”

  Scotty either mumbled “Yes, Sergeant,” or thought he did. He watched Russell move around to the other side of the desk, searching for some clue. He’d never even been in the Orderly Room. Trainees didn’t go to the company headquarters unless they were in trouble. And Russell had never spoken to him alone. Being singled out by Russell was unnerving enough in front of the others, but a private meeting with him brought on a completely new set of fears for Scotty. All of this was made worse by the harsher tone in Russell’s voice.

  Scotty watched as Russell picked up a manila folder and silently thumbed through the contents. “Tell me you aren’t tired of me being on your ass every day.”

  Scotty sputtered, “I ah—”

  “Ever wonder why I don’t get on everyone’s ass same as I do yours?”

  Not wanting to sound picked on, Scotty was quick to reply, “No, Sergeant. I never have.”

  “Bullshit!” He scanned the papers again and laid them down on the desktop, side by side. “Know what these are?” He didn’t let Scotty reply. “Your test scores. They tell me everything about you on paper. But the Hayes in these tests and Hayes in my platoon are two different animals. The scores tell me you are capable of more, but you aren’t showing me shit.”

  Scotty broke eye contact with Russell and looked at the tiled floor unable to find a suitable response.

  “Where do you come from, Hayes? You got a pile of money somewhere? Got a good job waiting for you when you get back to,” Russell glanced at one of the forms and found what he was looking for, “Belton?”

  Scotty looked down at his cap twisted in his fingers. “No. But I have plans.”

  “Yeah, you got plans. Big ones, I’m sure. What kind of plans? You’re going to go back to Belton and drive a truck? You going to work in a warehouse? Just what are you qualified to do? I’ll tell you, Hayes. Nothing. You’re a screw off. A fuck-up.

  “I’ve known kids like you who never thought any farther ahead than the next day. They thought they had the world by the balls and they were wrong too. They were just about your age when they walked right out of Basic Training into the Pusan Perimeter in Korean. You want to see something that’ll pull your head out of your ass? It’s being in a fucking foxhole in knee-deep snow and living at twenty below zero for weeks on end. Seeing guys in your squad shoot themselves in the foot to get off the line. Your days are hell and your nights are worse than nightmares. You stink from weeks without soap or water. You’re feet freeze.

  “One day you’re a private in an eleven man rifle squad. The next you’re one of the few left alive and you’re in charge—responsible for the lives of others. All that time you are up to your chin bad guys trying to shoot holes in your ass.

  “Responsibility’s a burden you’ve never had. It’s your ticket to growing up. It could just be the best thing ever happened to you. Or you just might not be man enough. I could see you goin’ either way, Hayes. The tests don’t tell me if you’ve got the stones to lead, only that you have the potential. Something tells me you’ve heard this pain-in-the ass lecture about potential before. But it don’t mean shit if potential’s all you got.”

  Palms High and his vice principal and his coach’s words came back to bite Scotty. How many more desks was he going to sit in front of while someone told him there was a boat leaving and he wasn’t going to be on it?

  Russell continued. “You see I know things about you, Hayes. I know you been travelin’ light, just gettin’ by. You think all you need to do is smile, laugh and slide through. You know how far that’ll get you in combat?”

  Russell picked up his file and waved it at Scotty. “You’ve got a shitty high school transcript and great Army entrance exam scores. Do you know that? Do you know with your scores you can do about anything in the Army?”

  Scotty was caught by surprise by the contradiction. He shook his head. “No.” He barely remembered the tests he had taken at the Reception Station his first few days in the Army.

  “But you aren’t likely to do shit until you wake up, pull your head out’a your ass and get some motivation. I can’t give it to you. Now, personally, I don’t really care, one way or the other. It’s up to you. No one’s going to hand you anything just because you have some test scores. For that you have to work. And you haven’t shown any interest in working. Have you?”

  Scotty kept his head down, not wanting to reply.

  “You see, Hayes, where you get started in the Army depends on three things—scores, performance and the recommendation of your company cadre. It’s some amazing shit to me, but on paper you’ve shown aptitude in electronics, clerical, mechanical and more important—leadership.

  “It’s time for you to decide if you want to just piss your time away as another duty soldier painting rocks and hauling garbage or if you want to become a leader and take on some responsibilities.”

  Scotty was having trouble taking in what Russell was getting at. “But I don’t know anything about leadership, Sergeant.”

  “Can’t argue with you there. From where I stand, I don’t know how you lead yourself to the latrine in the morning. But we’re going to find out.” He dropped the papers back onto the desktop, stood up and walked around the front of the desk and looked down at Hayes. “Stand up!”

  Scotty responded to the tone in Russell’s voice and jumped to his feet.

  “Look at you,” Russell said. “You look like you slept in your uniform and shined those boots with a fucking Hershey bar. You aren’t a soldier. You are an embarrassment.”

  Scotty straightened up and met Russell’s eyes. “Yes, Sergeant,” was all he could think to say.

  “Tuck your shirttail in and button your pocket.”

  Hayes fumbled with both, wondering what Russell was going to find wrong next.

  Russell walked back around the desk and opened the center drawer. He pulled out a dark blue armband with bright yellow sergeant’s chevrons sewn on it. He threw it on the desk. “Put this on. Starting today you’re the Platoon Guide. It’s an acting sergeant’s rank with none of the pay, none of the privileges and all of the responsibility.

  “I’ll expect you to get ’em up, get ’em ready for training, keep a running account of where every man is every minute of the day, make sure they get fed, get medical attention if they need it and make sure no one gets stupid on you.

  “At the end of the day you will make sure they all clean their weapons, the barracks and themselves before you worry about Scotty Hayes.

  “This means you will be getting’ up earlier than every other trainee in your platoon and you’ll hit the rack later. You’ll set the example in everything you do from attitude to performance of duty. Your boots will be shinier and your uniform will be
neater. Your bunk will be tighter and you’ll be a better rifle shot, a better bayonet fighter and you’ll max the physical fitness test. In short, you will become a better soldier than any other man in the platoon and look like a walking fucking billboard for Army recruiting.

  “You got it?”

  “Yes, Sergeant.”

  “And if you let me down, just know I haven’t even started to get on your ass. If you let me down, I’ll show you what being on your ass really is.”

  Chapter 5

  THE DARK BLURRED THE FACES but didn’t muffle the noise of the trainees spilling from the barracks. Scuffling across to the company street to find their places on the ground, they fell out of the barracks for their first formation of the day.

  The first man there, Scotty had stood on the same spot each morning in his new post as Platoon Guide for over two weeks. There, in front of his platoon, he waited for them to assemble and form up—transforming them from a crowd to four even ranks of carbon copy soldiers so the morning’s head count could begin.

  “Let’s go!” Scotty urged. “We don’t want to be last. Last to formation and we’re last to the chow hall!”

  The whole company, grumbling, coughing and scuffling settled down as the more than two hundred trainees created six precise platoon formations of four squads each. Each fronted by a trainee Platoon Guide like Scotty.

  The new silence was quickly broken by the sharp bark of commands shouted by each Platoon Guide demanding the squad leaders report their charges present or accounted for.

  Scotty received replies from each of his squad leaders and turned his back to the platoon to face Sergeant Russell standing centered in front of the six trainee platoons, stretched out for half a city block. He then reported his platoon all present.