Our Gang (7 page)

MILITARY COACH:
Objection! Enough mollycod

dling of the enemy. Let's get it over with once and

for all. Shoot 'em!

TRICKY
(considering) :
Interesting idea. I mean that is

just about as decisive as you can get, isn't it? But

may I ask, General, shoot 'em after we round 'em

up, or before? This of course is the problem we

always have, isn't it?

MILITARY COACH:
After, sir, and we are run

ning the same old risk.

LEGAL COACH:
On the other hand, General, be

fore and don't think you aren't running a risk too.

Before,
and I can tell you now, sure as we're sitting

here, you are going to get those civilrights nuts

down on your neck, and I tell you they are a great

big pain in the ass to everybody involved, and can

tie up my staff for days at a time. I

MILITARY COACH:
Granted, they are a nuisance.

But after, and you are going to get yourself mired

down with these Boy Scouts just the way we are

mired down in Southeast Asia. After, and you are

sacrificing what is fundamental to the success of any

attack: the element of surprise. Common sense tells

us that even the enemy is not so stupid as to stand

around waiting to be shot, but if he has had

sufficient warning that he is about to be killed, will

take some kind

of cowardly and, often enough, vicious means of

protecting his life, such as fighting back. Now I, of

course, abhor that kind of deviousness as much as

anyone; nonetheless we must face up to it: these

people haven't the slightest sense of fair play, and

many of them will not even stand still waiting

around to be jailed, let alone killed.

And what about the moral issue? I have a

conscience to live with, gentlemen, I have a tradition

to uphold, I am responsible to something

more important than dollars and cents. And I tell

you, I will not mollycoddle the enemy at the risk of

American lives, unless of course I am ordered to do

so. Mr. President, I must speak from my heart, I

would be remiss as a General of the United States

Army if I did not. Mr. President, if on the day you

took office we had, with your permission, lined up

and shot every single Vietnamese we could find, by

so doing we would have saved fifteen thousand

American lives. Instead, sir, following the course of

action that you have ordered as Commander-in-

Chief, and shooting and blowing them up

piecemeal, catch as catch can, ten here, twenty

there, and so on, we have suffered severe losses of

both men and materials.

Admittedly, by doggedly pursuing your strategy,

we are now beginning to see some light at the end

of the tunnel. And I have every hope that we will

be able to help you make good on

TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS
45

your promise to the American people, that by

Election Day
1972,
and according to your own

secret timetable, you will have accomplished the

complete withdrawal of the Vietnamese people

from Vietnam.

My point, sir, is that we have ways of accomplishing

such withdrawals in a matter of hours. I beg

of you, Mr. President, let us not repeat the errors of

Vietnam in our own backyard.

LEGAL COACH:
Of course, Mr. President, I can

not fault the General on his tactical wisdom, and

believe me, I am not for a moment worried about

taking on these civil-rights nuts. It's just that if we

shoot these Scouts in the street before we round

'em up and jail 'em, it is, as I said, going to create an

awful lot of unnecessary busywork for my staff,

many of them first-rate young men whom I can

employ at far more useful and worthwhile tasks.

However, before or after, Mr. President,

whichever you choose, you can count on my

support. But for you to go on TV and make a

confession, or an apology, or any kind of explanation

for yourself whatsoever, well, to my mind,

nothing could more seriously undermine your moral

and political authority, or constitute a graver threat

to the cause of law and order. I will even go so far

as to say that if you appear in any way to give

ground on this issue-or any issue for that matter-you

will be opening the

46
OUR GANG

floodgates to anarchy, socialism, communism,

welfarism, defeatism, pacifism, perversion, pornography,

prostitution, mob rule, drug addiction,

free love, alcoholism, and desecration of the flag.

You'll see a rise just in jaywalking that will stagger

the imagination. Now I don't mean to throw a

scare into anyone, but the fact is a vast criminal

element in this country is waiting for just a single

sign of weakness in our leader, so as to make its

move. Anything at all that might suggest to them

that Trick E. Dixon is not totally in control, of

himself and the nation, and I hate to tell you what

would follow.
TRICKY
(interrupting) : That's exactly

why I'm having my sweat glands removed, to

show how in control I am.

LEGAL COACH
(continuing) : Now, as you

know, there is bound to be a certain amount of

blood shed, when we go ahead and kill these

young people, whether we do it before or after.

This blood is something we seem always to run

into with the killings, one of those facts of death

we have to live with. Reverend, I see you shaking

your head. Are you suggesting that it is possible

to kill people, even youngsters like this, without

spilling blood? If so, I'd like to hear about it.

SPIRITUAL COACH
(anguished) : Well .. what

about gas .. poison gas ... Something like that?

Surely enough blood has been shed in our century.

MILITARY COACH:
The only trouble with gas,

Reverend, if I may speak here on the basis of my

own firsthand experience-the trouble with gas is

that unfortunately we don't have these Scouts in a

big open space. If we had them, say, smack in the

middle of a desert somewhere, sure, spray 'em and

it's over with.

SPIRITUAL COACH:
Couldn't we get them to a

desert then?

LEGAL COACH:
How? (Wary) Are you suggesting

bussing them there?

SPIRITUAL COACH:
Well, yes, busses would do

it, I suppose.

TRICKY:
No, I'm afraid they wouldn't, Reverend. I

have thought this matter through and I have made

my decision: this administration will not bus

children from Washington, D.C., all the way to the

state of Arizona to poison them. That is a matter in

whieh the federal government simply. will not

intervene. This is a free country, and certainly one

of your fundamental freedoms here is choosing the

place where you want your child to be killed.

SPIRITUAL COACH:
And there's simply no way

you can poison them right here?

MILITARY COACH:
Much too dangerous, Rever

end. Start out gassing these kids, and next thing,

you get a wind or something, and you have

poisoned some perfectly innocent adult miles away.

LEGAL COACH:
Of course, you're going to get

some guilty adults too, you know, if you let it

spread far enough.

SPIRITUAL COACH:
Gentlemen, please! I stand

utterly opposed to any course of action wherein

the welfare of 'a single innocent adult is even

remotely threatened. I don't care how many guilty

adults you get in the process.

MILITARY COACH:
All right with me, Reverend.

I'd rather shoot 'em anyway. I have always

maintained that it gives the individual soldier a

stronger sense of participation and accomplishment

to pull the trigger and see the results with

his own eyes.

SPIRITUAL COACH
(to Legal Coach): And you?

LEGAL COACH:
Fine with me. So long as we all

realize beforehand that there is going to be this

blood, and sure as we are sitting here, the media

are going to exploit it to the hilt. I don't have any

doubt whatsoever, given the kind of people who

pull the strings in the press and TV, that they are

going to blow this whole thing out of proportion,

and, for instance, are not going to have a word to

say about the restraint that's been displayed by

our not using poison gas, or bussing. I mean, we

could subject these kids to what is virtually a

cross-country bus trip, a long hot grueling drive

out to Arizona, without food,

TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS
49

water, toilet facilities and so on, prior to killing

them, and yet, as we all know, with the exception

of the Reverend here, not a single member of the

administration has spoken in support of such a

proposal. But will you hear about that on TV? I

think not.

TRICKY:
Oh, no. They never tell that side of the

story. It's not
sensational
enough for them, not

enough gore. Not enough violence to suit their

taste. No, it's never what we didn't do, it's always

what we've done. That, unfortunately, is what these

people consider newsworthy.
LEGAL COACH:
Luckily,

Mr. President, the people of this country are still by

and large passive and indifferent enough not to get

all stirred up by this kind of irresponsible

sensationalism on the part of the media.

TRICKY:
Oh, don't get me wrong, I've-never lost my

faith
in
the wonderful indifference of the

American people. Just because they happen to see

a
little Boy Scout blood on TV ... Boy Scout
blood

on TV? (His lip is suddenly drenched
with

perspiration) They'll impeach me! They'll-1

LEGAL COACH:
Nothing of the sort, Mr. Pres

ident, nothing of the sort. It's only another crisis,

you have nothing to worry about. Come on nowcool,

confident and decisive. Come on, repeat it

after me, you know how to behave in a crisis: cool,

confident and decisive.

50 OUR GANG

TRICKY:
Cool, confident and decisive. Cool,

confident confident and decisive. Cool, confident

and decisive. Cool, confident and decisive.
LEGAL

COACH:
Feel better now? Crisis over?
TRICKY:
I

think so, yes.