The Colonels, page 22
part #4 of Brotherhood of War Series
“I see,” Hanrahan said. “General, I’ve worked with MacMillan before. I think I can handle him.”
Black’s eyes narrowed.
“The point I had hoped to make, Colonel,” he said, coldly, “is this.” He paused. “Let me back up a little. I believe that the notion of the United States developing a force of highly trained officers and noncoms to serve as the nucleus of native forces is a sound one. I was impressed with how many German divisions were tied up in Greece and in Russia by guerrillas, and I was impressed with the whipping the Vietminh gave the French at Dien Bien Phu. I believe, in other words, in Special Forces.”
“I’m pleased to hear you say that, sir,” Hanrahan said.
“I also agree with Major Felter that you’re the man to get it going and that it should not be under airborne,” General Black said. “And finally, I believe—but I will not entertain your questions on the subject—that in the very near future it may be necessary to deploy irregular forces such as those I expect you to develop.”
That was a bolt out of the blue. Hanrahan had difficulty not asking for amplification.
“Having established that,” Black went on after a moment, “I want you to understand that you’re standing all alone down there. In your position, you should have influence in high places. You’re not going to have it. I can’t do anything for you, for the reasons I have just given, and Felter won’t be able to do you any good, because he has to keep his hole card. There will be pressure to have you relieved. Felter can stop that, because anybody trying it would have to go to the President and tell him his man was wrong. The only man who could do that would be the Chief of Staff, and I don’t think the Chief of Staff is going to go to the President and demand that you be relieved because you persist in wearing a funny hat and are somewhat less than enthusiastic about the role of parachute troops in the army of the future. But Felter cannot use that hole card every time Triple H Howard harasses you.”
“I take the general’s point,” Hanrahan said.
“I hope so, Hanrahan,” Black said. He took another bite of his sandwich.
“Colonel Hanrahan,” he said. “The military attaché of the U.S. Embassy in Paris is retiring as of 1 February. You have been nominated for the position. It is a stabilized three-year assignment, and carries with it certain prerogatives. There is diplomatic status, a generous per diem, a uniform allowance, an entertainment allowance, and some other things. Would you like to go to Paris?”
“I am perfectly satisfied with my present assignment, sir,” Hanrahan said.
“I can only presume that you know what you’re doing,” Black said. He extended his hand. “Thank you for coming to see me, Colonel.”
“Thank you for seeing me, General,” Hanrahan said.
“Apropos of nothing whatever, Hanrahan, just to satisfy my curiosity, has Special Forces appealed to our Puerto Rican troops? Do you have many Puerto Rican volunteers? Or, for that matter, any other Hispanics?”
“I don’t have any figures, sir,” Hanrahan said. “I’ve seen some black faces, and there are, what’s the phrase, ‘Latin’ sounding names, not many, on the rosters.”
“Hmmm,” the Vice Chief of Staff said. “Have a nice trip home, Colonel.”
“Thank you, sir.”
(Two)
Fayetteville, North Carolina
2305 Hours, 7 January 1959
There was no direct air service between Fayetteville and Washington. Hanrahan had to fly first to Atlanta, and wait there two hours for Piedmont Flight 203. When he finally arrived in Fayetteville, a Green Beret, a buck sergeant in fatigues, was standing inside the terminal waiting for him. He saluted snappily.
“Good evening, sir.”
“Evening,” Hanrahan said, returning the salute.
“Give me your stubs, please, sir, and I’ll get your bags,” the sergeant said. “The car’s out in front.”
“My wife’s meeting me,” Hanrahan said.
“No, sir,” the buck sergeant said. “The OD called her and told her we’d be out here anyway and would pick you up.”
“Well, fine,” Hanrahan said, handing the baggage checks over. “Thank you.”
There was another Beret, another buck sergeant, leaning on the highly polished fender of the staff car.
“Good evening, sir,” he said, saluting crisply, and then opening the door. “Nice flight?”
“Yes, thank you,” Hanrahan said. He got in the back of the car. There was a thermos of coffee, a china mug, and a copy of the semiofficial Fort Bragg newspaper, the ParaGlide, on the seat.
“Who are we meeting, Sergeant?” Hanrahan asked.
“Sir?”
“What are you guys doing out here?” Hanrahan asked.
“Meeting you, sir,” the sergeant said.
He was on leave, and thus not entitled to official transportation. They’d somehow learned when he was coming in and met him. With a thermos of coffee. He was touched.
He picked up the ParaGlide and glanced at the front page. There were two familiar faces, smiling faces, on it. General Howard’s and Mac MacMillan’s. Hanrahan read the headline.
82ND A/B DIV MEDAL OF HONOR WINNER
RETURNS TO HOME OF AIRBORNE
Below the picture, which occupied four columns, was the story.
Lt. Gen. H. H. Howard, Commanding General of the XVII Airborne Corps and Fort Bragg (left) is shown welcoming Lt. Col. Rudolph G. MacMillan back to Fort Bragg. General Howard described Col. MacMillan as one of the “legendary troopers of the 82nd Airborne Division in World War II.”
“Col. MacMillan,” General Howard related, “was in the 82nd Airborne before it was officially a division. As Pathfinder Platoon Sergeant of the 508th PIR, he made every combat jump the regiment made during the war. He was given a battlefield commission during Operation Market-Basket, shortly before the action during which his exploits against overwhelming enemy forces earned him the Medal of Honor.
“It was only after the last of his men had been killed or wounded, and his ammunition gone, when he had literally nothing left with which to fight that MacMillan fell into enemy hands,” General Howard went on, “and that didn’t hold him down either. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his incredibly courageous and resourceful escape from a prisoner-of-war camp.”
“Colonel MacMillan also served with great distinction in the Korean War,” General Howard went on, “where he twice earned the Silver Star. And more recently, he was invested as a Chevalier in the French Legion of Honor following a special assignment with the 3rd Parachute Regiment of the French Foreign Legion at Dien Bien Phu in French Indochina.
“Col. MacMillan,” General Howard said, “is the paratrooper’s paratrooper, an inspiration to everyone connected with Airborne, indeed to every soldier. And speaking for everyone at the home of Airborne, it’s great to have him home.”
“Jesus!” Hanrahan said.
The sergeant turned around at the word, in time to see Hanrahan toss the paper aside.
“What about that guy?” the sergeant said. “John Wayne! Is all that crap true, Colonel?”
“Nothing is ever all true, Sergeant,” Hanrahan said. “You’ll shortly have a chance to judge Colonel MacMillan for yourself.”
“Sir?” the sergeant asked, confused.
“Colonel MacMillan is being assigned to us,” Hanrahan said.
“It didn’t say that in the paper,” the sergeant said.
“No,” Hanrahan said, “I noticed.”
The other sergeant arrived with the bag and got in the front seat.
“Sorry it took so long, sir,” he said.
“Tell me, Sergeant,” Hanrahan said, “do any of the sterling troopers of the Special Warfare School ever fall from virtue and visit Blood Alley?”
The sergeant hesitated before replying.
“Not many, Colonel,” he said. “Sometimes, if they just miss a bus, they’ll go to Clara’s for a beer while they’re waiting.”
“Clara’s Cafe? Is that still in business?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Take us by Clara’s, Sergeant,” Hanrahan said. “Let’s see if anybody missed the bus.”
The two enlisted men exchanged glances with each other.
“Yes, sir,” the driver said.
Blood Alley was a street lined with bars, hockshops, Army-Navy stores. Clara’s Cafe was in the middle of the second block.
The sergeant in the passenger seat jumped out and opened the door for Hanrahan.
“You guys stay here,” Hanrahan said. “I won’t be a minute.”
The interior of Clara’s Cafe was very dark. Smoke hung heavily in the air. There was a strong smell of disinfectant which did not quite overwhelm the sour smell of beer. It was packed tightly with soldiers, in and out of uniform.
Three Green Beret noncoms, two sergeants first class and a master sergeant, all in their late twenties, sat hunched over beers at the bar.
“How’s it going?” Hanrahan said.
One of the noncoms turned his head quickly, took in Hanrahan’s beret, and returned his glance to his beer bottle.
“Whadayasay?” he said.
And then realization dawned. There was a silver eagle on the Green Beret. He started to get to his feet. Hanrahan pushed him back down.
“You guys need a ride to the post?” he asked.
The other two Berets now looked at him. One jumped up.
“Jesus Christ!” he said.
“No. Hanrahan,” Hanrahan said. He went on: “Anybody want a ride to the post?” When there was no response, Hanrahan said: “It’s a suggestion, not an order. I just happened to be in the neighborhood…”
“We missed the bus by five minutes, Colonel.”
“Well, if you want a ride, you’re welcome,” he said.
He turned and began to push his way through the crowd.
The three sergeants straightened their berets and tugged at the skirts of their tunics and followed him outside.
An MP jeep had nosed in before the staff car. Both white-hatted MPs were at the driver’s window of the staff car.
One of them spotted Hanrahan and nudged his partner. Then he saluted, trying to conceal his surprise at seeing a full bird colonel coming out of Clara’s Cafe.
“Good evening, sir!” he barked. “May we be of assistance to the colonel, sir?”
“Everything’s under control, thank you,” Hanrahan said. He got in the back of the staff car. The three sergeants came out of Clara’s. Two of them got in the back with Hanrahan, the third in the front.
The staff car drove off.
There were giggles in the front seat.
“That’s a private joke?” Hanrahan asked.
The giggles stopped. There was silence for a moment, and then the driver said: “Colonel, what the one MP said was, ‘May I see your trip ticket, please?’ and what the other one said, was, ‘We got your ass for sure.’”
“Didn’t you tell him I was inside?” Hanrahan asked.
“No, sir, Colonel,” the driver said. “What I did was take my time finding the trip ticket. He just got finished saying, ‘What did you do, steal the staff car?’ when you came out.”
“‘May we be of assistance to the colonel, sir?’” the other sergeant mimicked.
“Have you got something against those two personally?” Hanrahan asked. “Or don’t you like MPs generally?”
“I don’t like MPs,” the sergeant said, turning on the seat to look at Hanrahan. “But they’ve got it in for us. All they have to do is see the beret, and they want to see your pass and ID. Or your trip ticket, like now.”
“And maybe you’re paranoid,” Hanrahan said.
“Colonel,” one of the sergeants said, “maybe I’m bombed and shouldn’t run off at the mouth…”
“So don’t,” another of the sergeants said.
“What those bastards do,” the first sergeant went on, “when they see you in the airport, is wait until they call the plane, and then they ask for your orders and ID, and they study it long enough so that you miss the plane.”
“What I think,” the third sergeant said, somewhat thickly, “is that that bastard Triple H told them to lean on us. Anybody in a beret is fair fucking game for imaginative chickenshit.”
“I’m sure,” Hanrahan said, coldly, “that you’re mistaken, Sergeant.”
“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said, quickly. “Sorry, sir.”
“While I am running off at the mouth, sir,” the first sergeant said, “what were you doing in Clara’s? Looking for us? If you don’t mind me asking?”
“I was just curious to see if it had changed,” Hanrahan said. “I used to go to Clara’s years ago.”
“I thought maybe you were looking for us,” the sergeant said. “The word is that we’re encouraged not to go there.”
“No,” Hanrahan said. “I was just curious to see it again, and once I was there, I thought you could use a ride.”
The last time he had been in Clara’s Cafe, Colonel Paul T. Hanrahan had been a second lieutenant and junior officer of the day. He had gone there with the Military Police when word had come that some crazy bastards from the 508th PIR had gone apeshit. A push and shove had turned into an all-out brawl, which saw a half dozen soldiers hospitalized. The victors were still inside Clara’s Cafe when Hanrahan got there, holding off MP reinforcements and the Fayetteville Police Department with thrown whiskey bottles and whatever else they could pick up or tear from the walls.
He had been able to negotiate a reasonably peaceful solution. The crazy bastards from the 508th were the Pathfinder Platoon, whose sergeant, Rudolph G. MacMillan, was a friend of his. Consequently Mac trusted him when Hanrahan had told him he could either give up (and he would see about squaring things with the colonel), or he could keep on fighting and spend the next year in the stockade.
(Three)
Office of the Commanding General
XVIII Airborne Corps
Fort Bragg, North Carolina
0915 Hours, 8 January 1959
“Colonel Hanrahan, sir,” the sergeant major announced.
“Come on in, Paul,” Lieutenant General H. H. Howard called, cordially.
Colonel Paul Hanrahan, wearing crisply starched fatigues, a Model 1911A1 in a holster suspended from a web belt, jump boots, and a green beret, marched into the room and crisply saluted the commanding general. MacMillan was standing nearby.
“Good morning, General,” he said.
“I was about to say to you, ‘Look what the cat drug in,’” General Howard said, smiling, returning the salute. “But now I wonder if I shouldn’t say that to Mac. Are you running a field exercise, Paul?”
“No, sir,” Hanrahan said. “I’m running fatigues as the Special Warfare School’s uniform of the day.”
“For all hands?” Howard asked, as if greatly surprised. “I thought post regulations prescribed fatigues only for field exercises and work details.”
“I believe that is correct, sir,” Hanrahan said.
“Then, Paul,” General Howard asked, reasonably, “wouldn’t that make you out of uniform?”
“As I understand it, sir,” Hanrahan said, “post regulations apply only to those personnel under your command, sir.”
“I see,” General Howard said, icily.
“I’m sure the general understands that no disrespect is intended.”
“Of course,” General Howard said. “And I’m sure you’ll understand that I think Mac here looks more like a senior officer should than you do.”
Lt. Colonel MacMillan, like General Howard, was in the army green uniform, and like Howard’s his was festooned with ribbons and devices.
General Howard and Colonel Hanrahan smiled artificially at each other a moment.
“Yes, sir,” Hanrahan said. “I take the general’s point.”
He turned to MacMillan and offered his hand.
“Hello, Mac,” he said, “it’s good to see you.”
“Mac’s staying with me until we can work something out about his quarters,” Howard said. “Technically, I suppose, he’s AWOL.”
“That’s very kind of you, General,” Hanrahan said.
“Good to see you, Red,” MacMillan said.
“Sergeant Major,” General Howard said, raising his voice, “would you get us all some coffee, please?”
He gestured for Hanrahan to sit down.
“How was Washington, Paul?” Howard asked.
“About like it always is, General,” Hanrahan said.
“How’s that?”
“Never have so few been led by so many,” Hanrahan said.
Howard laughed politely.
“Did you wear your beret?” General Howard asked.
“Yes, sir,” Hanrahan said.
The sergeant major delivered coffee in china mugs. He offered sugar and cream, which was refused, and then he left the room.
“Mac and I have been gaily skipping down memory lane,” General Howard said. “You’ll never guess where we had breakfast?”
“No, sir,” Hanrahan said.
“With Headquarters and Headquarters Company of the 508th PIR,” Mac said.
“That must have given the mess sergeant a thrill,” Hanrahan said. “How was it?”
“Actually, not bad,” General Howard said. “I like to make an unannounced visit to a mess every once in a while.”
“The last meal I had with H&H of the ‘Eight,’” MacMillan said, “was in Holland.”
“And were you wet-eyed with nostalgia, Mac?” Hanrahan asked, dryly.
“It was a funny feeling,” MacMillan said, looking at him strangely.
“I made a trip down memory lane myself last night,” Hanrahan said. “Blood Alley.”
