Word of Honor (42 page)

"Compared to what? The Four Seasons or the mess hall?"

"The Four Seasons, sir."

"Never been there. Hey, I guess I should stop baiting 326 * NELSON DEMILLE

you. It's not your fault you were a successful civilian. I recommend the steak. Good meat, and they have a charcoal grill.

Tyson put his menu down. "Fine." He lit a cigarette. Neither spoke. A new waitress came with the drinks and left with their dinner order. Levin observed, "We'll have the whole staff come and check you out by dessert. "

Levin raised his glass, and Tyson realized the colonel was one of those men who felt that alcohol was a sacred nectar that needed to be offered to some worthy sentiment before it was imbibed. He also realized Levin was getting a little rocky. Levin said, "I wish you a happy stay here."

They drank, and they spoke in general terms for a while, discussing the post and how the Army had changed in the last two decades and how it had remained the same.

Levin had another drink, and Tyson admired his capacity. Levin said apropos of nothing, "I told you I was raised in Brighton Beach. My father used to work here at Hamilton. He was a maintenance supervisor, a government employee. My brother and I used to tell everyone he was a G-man.

Levin laughed.

Tyson stirred his drink. He didn't know where this was heading, but he was fairly sure he didn't want to get there.

Levin continued, "Anyway, I used to come to work with him sometimes on weekends-when I was in high schoolthis was during the Korean conflict."

"War. I I

"Whatever. Anyway, I guess I was very impressed by the officers strutting around. They had nicer uniforms then, and some of them carried swagger sticks. I was very impressionable. "

Tyson said, "My father claims he saw Lindbergh take off for Paris, and that inspired him to be a flier. He was a Navy pilot. When was this addition to the club built?"

Levin seemed intent on his own narrative. "And I would sweep the floors and change the light bulbs. Right here . . . well, I mean in the original section. This was the 0 Club then, too. Anyway, I would see these gentlemen at their mess on Sundays, and I guess it stuck with me, being from a hard-up family. So in college I joined the ROTC program, and here I am."

Levin drank some water and cleared his

WORD OF HONOR 9 327

throat. "You can put a Jew in the Army, Tyson, but you can't put the Anny in the Jew. I don't know why I stayed. I guess there must be something about it I like."

Tyson commented, "A military career can be very rewarding. "

"I guess the officer corps is a quick way to achieve genteel respectability. It's always been for southerners. Why not a Jew from Brighton Beach, Brooklyn? Right, Tyson?"

"Why not?"

"Look, I'm not that drunk, and there is a point to this. We are all equal in social standing, we are all gentlemen by act of congress."

"Yes, sir. "

Levin leaned across the table. "But I want to reveal to you an inequity in the system. Even though the Army does not care about your background, breeding, or social standing for purposes of promotions, assignments, or career advancement, they do care about that when they court-martial you.

Follow?"

"Sort of."

"Let me make an unfortunate but necessary comparison. Lieutenant Calley, the platoon leader of My Lai fame, was an underprivileged kid, as I recall, lower-middle-class background. You were quite the opposite type of officer and gentleman. " Levin drew on his cigar and lowered his voice. "Now, I don't know what thefuck happened at that hospital, Lieutenant, but let's assume something happened that was not entirely kosher, not precisely in keeping with 'The Rules of Engagement' or 'The Rules of Land Warfare.'

Okay? Then you, Benjamin Tyson, were supposed to be able to make finer distinctions of morality than a man like Calley. Follow?"

Tyson did not respond.

Levin continued, "You are more accountable and more liable than the poor schnooks around you who are firing their rifles into helpless people. No one will be sympathetic or understanding or offer the defense that you were just an underpriviliged, teenage draftee who was as much a victim as a victimizer. You were an educated, mature man, a volunteer, and an officer.

" Levin pointed his cigar at Tyson. "You may not have pulled a trigger, but if you

328 * NELSON DEMILLE

did nothing to stop it-even at the risk of your own life then God help you. " He jabbed his cigar toward Tyson.

The two men stared at each other, then Levin said, "That's the point. " i

Tyson replied, "Social rank, too, has its problems."

"Right." Levin settled back in his chair. "I've been following this in the news. And I'm trying to put myself on the court-martial board. I'm sitting there listening to testimony and looking at you. Maybe I'm envious of your good looks, your advantages in life. Also maybe I'm a little awed. I'm thinking to myself as I sit on that boardthat jury-that you are supposed to represent the culmination of our civilization, the final product of the great American experiment. And I look at you in the defendant's chair, and it's hard for me to comprehend how you could have been a party to what they are saying happened there. And that would frighten me, Lieutenant Tyson, because if you were capable of that, then what hope is there for the rest of us?"

Tyson said, "To be honest with you, Colonel, after Vietnam I never again thought there was any hope for any of US."

Levin looked sad.

Tyson finished his drink and lit another cigarette. At length he said softly, "And regarding your estimation of me as a product of our country you are partly right. My concept of right and wrong and of duty in that year of 1968 was influenced less by what I learned in the Army than by what I saw happening in America. I found it difficult to do my duty to a country that wasn't doing its duty to me. The essence of loyalty, Colonel, is reciprocity. A citizen or a soldier owes allegiance to the state in exchange for protection, for the state's allegiance to and duty toward the individual. That is an implicit social contract. I may not have put it so well in 1968, but in my guts I felt my country had abandoned me and my men and in fact the entire Army in Southeast Asia. "

Levin nodded in understanding. "Heavy stuff before a beef dinner. Here's our food. Bon app6tit."

The two men ate in silence, then Colonel Levin began speaking in a pleasant tone as though the previous conver-WORD OF HONOR & 329

sation had been entirely amiable. "Do you want to sign your oath now?"

"Do you have it with you?"

"Right here." Levin tapped his side pocket. "Want to sign it?"

"No, I just wondered if you had it."

"Be careful, Lieutenant."

"Sorry, Colonel. "

Levin shrugged. "Doesn't matter. I called the JAG school in Virginia for a legal opinion. They said the one you signed in 1967 is still good. Be advised that you're still bound by that oath of office.

"I understand."

Levin chewed thoughtfully on a piece of bread, swallowed it, and said, "Do you want some advice?"

Tyson thought he had gotten enough advice over the past weeks to last him twenty years. He replied, "I don't think it would be appropriate for you-"

"Let me worry about that. You've been assigned to me, so I can give you advice as your commander.

"Yes, sir."

Levin sipped on his water, then said, "In case you don't know it, the Army is very nervous about this. They're afraid of you."

Tyson nodded. "So there's some advantage after all to being a respected member of society?"

"Right. And I'll tell you what scares the Army-they're like organized religion in this respect-the Army is scared of scandal."

"Scandal.

"Right. Listen to what I'm saying, Tyson. It might save your neck." Levin looked around the dining hall, then leaned forward and spoke in a confidential tone. "As far as the Army is concerned, any officer who fucks up is ipso facto a renegade, atypical of the officer corps, no matter how fine a background he comes from. The officer corps is like the priesthood.

It is a calling, and when you answer the calling, you leave your world behind and enter a new one. It's not like being vice-president in charge of whatever you were in charge of at whatever that company was you worked for.

When you are an officer in the United States Army your 330 * NELSON DEMILLE

conduct reflects on the Army and the officer corps. Like a priest and his church. So it is not only you who are being judged but all of us: you, me, Captain Hodges, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Follow?"

"Yes, Sir. But Captain Hodges was about ten years old at the time of the incident, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff have turned over a few times."

"But there is a continuity in the military, an institutional memory. If they can claim honors from the past, then they must accept the guilt as well. Your old unit, the Seventh Cavalry, is still trying to live down the Little Big Horn. Conversely, when you finally get your uniform on you'll wear a presidential unit citation given to the Seventh Cav long before you were even born. Point is, you have to somehow convince the Army that you are a typical product of the fucked-up state of the whole military system-not now, perhaps, but certainly at that time. And that you, who used to be a sensitive boy, a boy who got upset when his little pet canary croaked, became really psychotic during all that infantry training. You were a victim of a system that issued little plastic cards called 'The Rules of Engagement' telling you whom you were allowed to kill in less than a hundred words, then turned you loose with an undertrained, undisciplined, and demoralized platoon of seventeen-yearold armed savages from the Ozarks and the slums and made you liable for their actions. Ha, ha, what a laugh!

Right? You had as much control over them as I have over the weather.

Right?"

Tyson didn't reply.

Levin continued, "If you can threaten to bring the whole temple down around their heads, if you can hint that not only did American boys kill indiscriminately, but got killed in great numbers because of bad training, bad leadership, bad tactics-are you following me, Tyson? This isn't easy for me to say. But I know what it was like then. I was there, Tyson. Not in the infantry, but close enough to the front to see and hear all I wanted to see and hear." Levin looked at Tyson closely and said, "Tell them that if they stand you in front of a court-martial, you will testify for a week, indicting the Army, and that you'll give lots of

WORD OF HONOR 9 331

interviews to the media. Tell them you'll take them with you. "

Tyson pushed his plate away and lit a cigarette. He thought about Chet Brown telling him not to do exactly what Colonel Levin was suggesting he do. Apparently everyone thought he had great secrets to reveal. But Tyson did not recall thinking at the time that the Army was the cause of Misdricorde Hospital. He did not at that time blame them for his actions or the actions of his men. He had not protested the bad training, the immaturity of the troops, the vague guidelines of conduct, or his own unpreparedness as a combat infantry leader. If he had one scrap of evidence that he'd had such thoughts then-a letter home or a memo to his superiors-then, yes, he might reverse the blame for Misdricorde Hospital and indict the Army. But he'd accepted the blame then, and it was not justifiable to rewrite history in order to escape the blame now. He said to Colonel Levin, "I think I have to take this walk alone, Colonel."

Levin sighed. "Yeah. You and Jesus Christ, Tyson. Wise up. " Levin hunched over the club chit with a pencil and tallied it. "How many drinks did you have?"

"Four. I I

"You drink too much. But at these prices you might as well." He looked at Tyson. "Listen, I'm not saying you should indict the Army. I'd never say that. But you should mention the fact that if they indict you, you'll return the favor. They'll back off."

"I'm not much of a bluffer. But thank you for the advice. "

"We talked baseball." Levin stood. "One parting piece of advice, Lieutenant. Get the best goddamned certified military lawyer money can buy. Don't take one of those assigned yo-yos from the JAG office. They cost nothing, and that's exactly what you get. "

Tyson stood also. "I've heard of certified military lawyers, but I'm not certain of what they are. "

"Civilian lawyers certified by the military to serve as defense counsel at general courts-martial. There are only a few of them. Check the bar association."

"Could you recommend one?"

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"No way." Levin picked up the chit and flipped it to Tyson. "You sign for it, Lieutenant. Your club number is T-3 8. 1 wrote it in. Thanks for dinner." He left.

Tyson picked up the chit and saw, written in pencil in the signature space, the name Vincent Corva, Esq. N.Y.C. He erased the name and signed his own.

Benjamin Tyson stood in front of the tunnellike

opening of a large

twenty senior citizens

crowded around wait

ing expectantly for his

next piece of useless

information. There was

no one else in the mu

27 seum except, this

group, and he sus-

pected that very few people came on their own.

The museum itself was interesting, as Levin had said. The caponier was a nearly perfectly preserved specimen of mid-nineteenth-century military architecture. The redbrick pillars rising into the arched ceilings were an appropriate setting for the martial displays. The displays themselves-cannon, muskets, sabers, uniforms, and such-were not unique or particularly good examples of their type, but set in the old fort, in situ, so to speak, they took on a more immediate significance. Still, Tyson thought, as someone

333

334 * NELSON DEMILLE

once said, museums were the graveyards of the arts-in this case the martial arts, which were themselves inextricably tied to graveyards.

Tyson laid his hand on a four-foot-high section of black wrought-iron fence that ran the six-foot width of the casemate opening. He smiled at the group. "This fence has a personal significance for me."