Soldiers and Marines Saga, page 19
“If you want a career in the army after the war is over, you better get yourself an education, and do a lot of reading about history, and our country so you understand the relationship that exists between America’s government and its military. It’s different than most countries, and it’s one of the things that make us great.”
“Yes Sir,” I answered.
What else could I say? But I still don’t get it.
Then Talley got really animated, and tried to explain. He jabbed his finger at me, and said something important.
“A lot of people, including me, think one of the major reasons America is still around after all these years is because our constitution specifies that the military’s commander in chief will always be the President our people elect.”
I must have still looked stupid, and confused, because he continued.
“Look Guns, every officer, including you, is sworn to obey every lawful order. That means our chain of command runs up to whomever the American people elect to be the commander in chief. No officer, not even famous generals like MacArthur, no matter how smart and successful he might be, has the right to ignore a lawful order, and substitute his judgment for that of his commander.”
Spelling nodded.
Then Talley stood up and waved his coffee cup at me.
“The President ordered MacArthur not to move troops to the Chinese border. He flagrantly disobeyed that order, and moved them there. He should have been removed, and he was. End of story. Hell, he should have been court-martialed, and thrown out of the army.”
Then Spelling leaned forward towards me, and spoke very softly.
“Presidents don’t always make good decisions, Chris. But neither do Generals, even real smart ones like MacArthur. Sure MacArthur made a number of decisions that turned out to be a mistake. We all do. But first and foremost, he disobeyed a direct order from the president who commands our military, and for that, and that alone, he had to go. ”
“I understand now sirs, “it’s a mistake that will never happen again.”
It sure as hell won’t.
******
Weeks turned into months, and the seasons passed and turned into another year, and I extended for yet another nine month tour. We went forward and back while a steady stream of good men got hit or had accidents.
Once, some fool was playing with a grenade, and it got him and four other men. Twice I got hit. Both minor. Once when a stray shell, either ours or theirs, landed nearby and nicked my cheek and; once while I was out with a patrol, and a sniper got me in the same damn leg as last time when I was dumb enough to call attention to myself by using a pair of binoculars.
But each day was exciting, and I loved it.
Things then changed forever for me when General Ridgeway attempted to convince General Kim, the new head of the ROK army, and the father of my executive officer and friend, Kim Tae Il, of the need to conduct a final offensive to shock the Chinese and North Koreans into signing a peace agreement. America’s patience, it seemed, was finally exhausted after more than two years of fruitless negotiations and continuing casualties.
“No. I do not approve offensive. Too many junior officers like my foolish son will be killed. He should be colonel, and safe, but cannot be promoted because he refuses to leave your Lieutenant Colonel Roberts who should also be promoted.”
“I understand the problem, General Kim, what can I do to fix it?”
“Okay, here is solution. You make my son’s task force United Nations Division with Roberts as General, and my son as Colonel executive officer. Offensive be successful for sure.”
The sonofabitch has me over a barrel. Ike finally okayed the offensive I’ve been after for more than a year. I wonder if Kim knows. But, hell, why not. Roberts is our best combat commander and we had brigadiers in their twenties in the big war.
General Talley grinned as he gave me the news over a couple of cups of hot coffee.
“The task force is now the 807th United Nations Division, and you’re a brigadier and in command. Kim is a colonel and your executive officer, and I get another star and now command both divisions as a corps commander.”
We click our coffee cups to toast the news.
I am elated. Absolutely elated.
******
Being designated a division, instead of a task force, resulted in a lot of changes. Not the least of which is the ability to operate our own replacement depot, and make battlefield assignments and promotions for soldiers and company-grade officers.
At the suggestion of General Talley, who had increasingly become a friend and mentor, I requested someone he knows in Washington, a warrant officer who works in the office that handles the duty assignments of senior officers. He’ll be temporarily assigned to the new “United Nations Division” to help set up our personnel office. We don’t actually have such an office, and I don’t really think I want one, or need one.
Hell, we’ve been doing pretty good without one.
Talley insisted.
“You do need one, and the guy you want to set it up,” said Talley, “is Chief Warrant Officer Charlie Caine.”
According to Talley, Charlie has been stuck in the Pentagon for years, and will jump at the chance to get away, and actually spend some time in a war zone. It probably helped that Talley sent him a personal note suggesting he could be of great service to the army by coming out TDY to Korea for ninety days.
Less than a week later, I returned to my bunker to find an elfin-like colored warrant officer in an oversize steel pot, an M1 rifle, and fatigues so new they didn’t even have his name sewed on them.
“Hello General,” he says standing at attention and saluting, “I’m Charlie Caine, the personnel guy you requested.”
“Hi Chief,” I say as I returned his salute, and held out my hand, “Just call me Guns. Want some coffee? Lou over there just made a fresh pot,” I said, gesturing towards a sergeant sitting in front of a field radio with headphones over his ears. Lou waved back.
“I stopped in Seoul and made my manners to General Talley,” Chief Caine said. “Good man. He and I go way back to when he was a Captain, and stepped on his dick a couple of years before the big war started.”
Now that’s a story I’d like to hear.
“I appreciate your coming, Charlie, I really do. Tell you what, let’s walk down to the mess and have a slice of pie and talk. We’ve got a Korean cook who makes great apple pie. We rescued some boxes of apples off the Pusan docks yesterday, and I was promised everyone would get hot apple pie for breakfast.”
Charlie was absolutely entranced by our positions, and the men.
“Yo guns, how we doin?” … “pretty good, Sammy, glad to see you back.” …. “Hey Chuck, this here with the M1 is Charlie Caine, get him a 47 and a couple of clips will ya?” … “Sure Guns, where’s his position?”… “the one next to mine with the periscope.” … “Gotcha. Ten minutes okay?”
… “Sure, we’re going down for some of that apple pie Kim Chong hi promised.”…”You best hurry, Guns, half the motherfuckers on this hill gonna be there when the sleepers wake up.”
Charlie visited with General Talley before he got here; he understood my problem.
“Ben’s right, Guns. The big brass aren’t going to be comfortable with you around once the war is over. Happened last time too. Then, when the next war starts, they’ll run around like chickens with their heads cut off, and desperately try to get you, and the other war fighters, back into the army.”
I sure know that. Look at Hart, Hammond, Spinelli, and all the rest of the guys I’ve known.
“In your case, you’ll have a lot of people who won’t want you retained, or promoted, because you didn’t go to West Point and spend a lot of time in grade pushing paper. But you got a couple of things going for you, including Talley and Ridgeway. With your medals, the army pretty much has to keep you. So the question is where do you want to be kept?”
I’m going to have a choice? No way.
“What do you think my choices are, Charlie? What do you suggest?”
“Well, if I were you, I’d certainly want to keep a low profile until the next war. Don’t take a position that someone with more rank will want for one of his proteges. Got to be something that looks like a dead end. I’ve an idea or two, but I’ll want to think about it.”
Sounds good to me.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Two weeks later, I was in a Jeep driving over to Seoul to see Talley. Charlie was having the time of his life, and told me in no uncertain terms that he was excited about finally being able to walk around the Pentagon wearing a Combat Infantry Badge.
But in between prowling around, and even going out on a couple of night patrols, which he didn’t tell me about until he got back, he’s come up with an idea I like. He even talked to Talley about it, and then drafted a series of orders for Talley and Ridgeway to sign. One set if the signer is Talley; another set if Ridgeway will also sign. Both did.
What Charlie drafted, he assured me, will seemingly lose me into a dead end job in the vast bureaucracy of the Army and the Defense Department.
“Out of sight, out of mind, so to speak” is how Charlie put it. “And make sure you keep the original copies of your orders in a safe place, like a bank safe deposit box.”
******
Talley laughed out loud as he read the orders Charlie wrote for me. He liked them and so did Ridgeway. They all have code word classifications. The first permanently assigned me, until retirement, to the office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Relations. It noted that because of my many decorations anything bad that happens to me or makes me unhappy should be immediately reported to the Secretary of Defense, as it will almost certainly be of great interest to the media, and result in bad press for the army.
Causing the army to get press from the news media, especially bad press, Charlie explained, is almost certain to destroy an officer’s career. Anyone who knows about you will keep his mouth shut, and never mention your name.
The second set reassigns me from Public Relations in the Assistant Secretary’s office to permanent duty, until retirement, as a liaison officer from the Office of the Secretary of the Army to, a blanked out name, and authorized me to be on duty, in either civilian dress, or in an American, or a foreign military uniform of any service.
There were also a number of blacked out sentences and paragraphs. They’ll cause additional uncertainty, said Charlie, in case someone thinks about messing with you.
The third set ordered me, until I retire, to permanently base myself in Paris, or in any other NATO country I deem necessary, to carry out my assignment of familiarizing myself with the military and civilian establishments and institutions of European and other countries, whether members of NATO or not.
The third set additionally directed me to attend both military and civilian training courses and the degree programs and other programs of military and civilian educational institutions; directed all military attaches and commands to assist in the attainment of such goals, or any other I or my agency (blacked out) might specify; and allowed me to interact with military and civilian staff of the Warsaw Pact, and neutral nations, as I saw fit. The third set of orders also allowed me to serve as an observer of the armed forces of NATO, and other nations wearing an American uniform or the uniform of my host country.
The third set of orders also directed all embassy military attaches to use their station funds to pay my salary, provide the housing, travel, and all other allowances, appropriate for my rank and requests, and cover all other expenses I submit including, but not limited to, the fees, travel, tuition, and other costs associated with attending training courses and degree-granting educational institutions, including payments for tutors and translators.
The orders also authorized me to travel by either civilian or military means, and specifically noted that I was neither assigned to NATO, nor to the military attaches, nor in any way subject to their orders, nor in any way required to keep them apprised of my activities and intentions. They went on to specifically order all military attaches, and military commands, to immediately render whatever assistance, support, funds, and materials I request, including immediate access to their personnel, vehicles, funds, weapons, ammunition, supplies, and equipment.
The frosting on the cake was a coded, and highly classified, message Charlie drafted for General Ridgeway to send to the army attaché at the Paris embassy noting that I will be arriving in the immediate future, and requesting that the attaché and the embassy provide any and all assistance I might request.
In other words, the orders signed by General Ridgeway make me out to be either a pigeon-holed “has been” who couldn’t be touched because of my medals, or a spook with unlimited powers, about which no comments should be made nor questions asked.
Caine had smiled when he handed them to me. Then he really surprised me.
“After I got the call from General Talley, I asked one of the deacons at my church about you. He said I should do everything I could to help you. Do you remember a great big black man by the name of Harold Jackson, Stonewall Jackson? He’s at the Pentagon now. He says you treated him right and he got his warrant because you put him in for it and made sure he got it. Is that right?”
Stonewall. I’ll be damned. I sure do remember him. He’s a major reason the task force was so successful. One hell of a soldier and the best scrounger in Korea, and that’s no small compliment in the army.
“Stonewall? Stonewall? Well I’ll be damned. I sure do remember him. How is he? When you see him please give him my best and warmest regards. He’s a major reason we survived that first terrible year.”
Then I closed my eyes and for a moment I could see him standing there with a big smile.
“Stonewall. I’ll be. Where is he now, and what’s he doing?”
******
Two days later I helped Colonel Kim’s father pin a star on him, shook a lot of hands and promised to stay in touch with a bunch of people I’ll never see again, and got a ride to the Seoul airfield to head for Tokyo, and leave the war behind.
And I’m not feeling very happy about leaving.
— END OF BOOK ONE —
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Novels in the Soldiers and Marines Saga
By Martin Archer
Soldiers and Marines–
Peace and Conflict –
War Breaks Out –
War in the East –
Israel’s Next War –
Book Two
PEACE AND CONFLICT
Chapter One
My trip from Seoul to Paris on MATS flights was interminably long and the
seat in the C-54 Skymaster became increasingly uncomfortable after the first few hours. It was my first time flying on a MATS flight. From what the sergeant on the desk told me, it looked like I’d be hopscotching my way around the world with plane changes, and refueling stops, at various air bases along the way.
If I had it to do over again, I think I would have treated myself and flown commercial. And I could have done it; I was flush with more than three years of combat pay in my pocket. That was more money than I’d ever had in my entire life, even though it was all in military script.
The payroll officer told me I’d be able to change them for real dollars, or a money order, when I go to Tokyo. I sure hoped so.
******
Tokyo was my first stop. I decided to spend a couple of nights in the transit wing of the Bachelors Officers Quarters so I could, at Charlie Caine’s suggestion, shop at the big Tokyo Base Exchange for clothes and change most of my script into a cashiers check I could use to open a bank account wherever I settled.
After I checked in at the BOQ, I took a taxi to the Base Exchange. I bought a couple of suitcases, a complete wardrobe of army uniforms, and a couple of ribbon sets. I also bought a civilian suit, a couple of sports jackets, trousers, and lots of socks and underwear.
The service was excellent, with a couple of little Japanese tailors buzzing about, and chattering away to each other as they made chalk marks, and stuck in pins. It was the first time I’d ever had clothes tailored. Somehow, I found it all quite enjoyable.
It became an event when I put on the dress uniform with its permanently attached ribbons. It started when I bought a pair of new dress shoes and walked around for a few minutes outside the shoe department to see how they felt.
Shoes are a big deal for me; I know what happens if they don’t fit
It was the first time I’d ever worn my medals, and the looks I got from the troops, and some of the dependents, as I walked around the store, were really gratifying. They knew what the ribbons meant. On the other hand, wearing them attracted attention, which was the very thing Charlie Caine had warned me not to do.
“Sir, Sergeant Rogers, Sir. May I shake your hand, Sir?” He was an older, white haired soldier, and actually had tears in his eyes.
Right then and there I decided that in the future I would only wear them when it was absolutely necessary. I’m supposed to blend in so I figured that wearing them would never happen again.
******
Paris in May is absolutely lovely. Somehow it was exactly what I was looking for—something good, something far away from destruction, dead men, and torn up bodies. Perhaps things would have turned out differently if my first day in Paris had been damp and overcast. But it wasn’t; it was an absolutely gorgeous day with big puffs of white clouds in a beautiful blue sky.
The first thing I did was check into the BOQ next to the airfield to wash up, and iron the wrinkles out of a set of khakis. They had the ribbons sewed on them as well.
After a bit, I came downstairs, and asked the white-haired master sergeant on the desk if he could arrange some kind of a ride to the embassy for me.
“Yes Sir,” he said. Then he actually gasped out loud, and popped to rigid attention with his eyes glued to the blue and white ribbons with the stars on the top row.
