The Colonels, page 38
part #4 of Brotherhood of War Series
“We won’t be up here long,” he said. “So make sure you’re ready to go.”
Five minutes later, he gave the order: “Stand up!”
Everybody stood up.
“We’re going to go out the back door,” he said. “It’s easier that way.”
The rear cabin door opened down and became an extension of the floor. The noise level increased. Parker prayed that he would not throw up and shame himself on his first day.
The Green Beret master sergeant held up his right hand, the index finger crooked. It was unmistakable: “Hook up!”
Everybody hooked the static line hook to a stainless steel wire.
The Green Beret master sergeant balled his fists and held them in front of his chest, then made a shaking movement as if he was trying to shake something loose. The miming was clear: “Check your equipment.”
Each member of the incoming class turned to the man nearest him and checked his equipment.
The Green Beret master sergeant motioned for Parker and one other man to walk to the rear of the cabin, signaling with his hand where he wanted them to stop. Parker refused to look beyond the ledge the door had become. If he looked, he knew he would never be able to force himself to take that step. He saw the others fall in line behind him, and then—at the instructor’s gesture—close up.
Holding onto the fuselage wall, the instructor walked out on the open door, then motioned for Parker and the other man (a sergeant) to go to the edge.
Parker felt faint and nauseous.
And then the instructor made a violent pointing movement with his left hand, finger extended, as clear an order as the others had been: “Go!”
Parker couldn’t move. He saw the other line of parachutists begin to move. The instructor appeared beside him and made the signal again—not unkindly—as if Parker had somehow missed it. Parker was prepared for anger, contempt, scorn, even for an attempt to shove him over the edge—and he was not going to go. The friendly reminder overcame that. He stepped over the edge, was aware of the blast of the slipstream, then that he was upside down; and then he felt the tug of the static line as it pulled the drogue chute. A moment later the parachute slipped from its container. It filled with air, and there came the opening jolt.
As he floated toward the earth, faster than the others (for he was heavier than they were), he noticed several other things. They were much higher than he had thought. Seven, eight thousand feet, maybe higher. They must have been in a shallow climb all the way here, and he had been too terrified to notice. And then a body hurtled past him, arms and legs spread wide. Had someone’s main and spare chutes failed to open? Was he going to crash? Was the parachutist’s ultimate nightmare happening?…No. A drogue chute and then the main canopy came out of the falling man’s back and filled. Parker just had time to realize that the falling man—who he now recognized as the Green Beret master sergeant—had made a “free fall” (opening his parachute himself, rather than having it opened automatically by a static line connected to the airplane), when he felt a strange warmth at his crotch. He had wet his pants.
They came to earth in an enormous field. He had time before he landed to realize that the people running the jump had known what they were doing. Hitting a field even this huge from the altitude they had jumped from had required a skilled judgment of prevailing winds by the pilot. Parker had no idea how it had been done.
He came down close to one end of the field. And he was out of his harness and had gathered up his chute before the last of the other jumpers touched down. There was a pathfinder team two hundred yards away, smoke still rising from the bomb that had given the C—130 pilot “winds on the ground.” He walked to it, awkwardly, in all the equipment, carrying his chute in his arms. If anyone noticed the wetness at his crotch, no one said anything about it.
During the next—and very busy—seventy-two hours, they had been broken down into nine-man teams, shown where to pitch their shelter halves, where to dig latrines, and then they had entered what Parker thought of as a basic training program gone wild. They had alternately been given instruction (how to camouflage the face; how to butcher and cook a small pig, how to come down a tower—and later a cliff—using ropes, a mountain-climber’s technique called “rappeling”) and small infantry unit tactics.
The third morning, there had been an informal class in free-fall parachute jumping. The Green Beret master sergeant who had jumped into Camp McCall with them simply brought it up informally, almost casually mentioning that those who felt up to it would be provided with the opportunity to try it that afternoon.
Parker, in his naiveté, had concluded that he would have the opportunity to decide whether or not he could face up to that ordeal at some later date, after this frenzied version of basic training in small unit tactics was over. The opportunity came much sooner than he thought.
After lunch (10-in-1 rations cooked by the trainees themselves), they were shown their next problem. They would proceed from Point A to Point B by infiltration, making the twenty-six-mile trip on foot. They would have twelve hours to do it, starting at about 1500. People would be looking for them. But they were expected to move undetected. And they would reach Point A by free-fall parachute jump. Those who didn’t wish to attempt a free-fall parachute jump at this time would please stand up.
They are not going to shoot me if I stand up; not cut the buttons off my uniform and march me past ranks of troops while the band plays “The Rogue’s March.” The worst that can happen is that they will mark my records, “Unsuited for Special Forces Duty” and reassign me elsewhere, most probably back to aviation.
On the other hand, it is entirely likely that I will freeze going out of the airplane, and be unable to pull on the D-ring, and smash myself into pulp on the ground. Or that I will manage to open the chute and land in a tree somewhere, and break my leg, or my back.
And furthermore, he has made it plain that this is a volunteer thing; I am not being ordered to jump. He has made it easy to say, “No, thank you, not just yet.”
He realized that he was being tested. They were making it easy to say no, because that would give them a better idea of his balls factor than ordering him to jump. They might not throw him out for refusing now; it was likely they would give him (and anyone else who declined) another chance, but he suspected that note would be taken of his response.
Two men, an officer and a sergeant, stood up and said they would really feel more comfortable making a free fall after some additional training. The Green Beret master sergeant seemed neither surprised nor disapproving, and the temptation to stand up himself was terrible.
He was again wrong in what he expected. He expected a bus ride back to Pope Field at Fort Bragg, and then another Air Force C—130 for the jump. Instead, they were route-marched back to the huge field where they had first landed. They traveled light, having been given permission to leave behind any equipment they didn’t consider necessary to their infiltration maneuver. They had left behind everything but the harness of the field equipment. They were wearing brimmed fatigue caps instead of helmets. Rather than put up with its weight, Parker had also left his shelter-half behind. He had one blanket. Either it would not rain and he could stay warm with the blanket, or it would rain and he would be miserable. He had the .45 pistol in its holster and the M14 rifle and six magazines. He had a carbine bayonet, a canteen, a compass, a map, and enough dehydrated food for supper and breakfast.
At the field he expected some sort of inspection of equipment, a review of the problem, “constructive criticism” by the instructor of his planned route of infiltration.
Instead, a moment after the Green Beret master sergeant glanced at his watch and then at the sky, a familiar aircraft (an Otter) appeared low on the horizon, its flaps already down for landing.
The DeHavilland of Canada U—1A “Otter” was the largest single-engine aircraft then in military service. It was a high-wing monoplane powered by a 600-horsepower Pratt & Whitney engine with a maximum gross weight of 8,000 pounds; and it was capable of carrying eleven troops. Philip Sheridan Parker IV knew all about the Otter. He had nearly a thousand hours of Otter time. Most of it was in Alaska; a lot of it was on floats, some of it on skis.
He was unabashedly jealous of the pilot of this Otter as it taxied up to them, turned around, and gave them a blast of its propeller. The pilot would do his job here, let the idiots jump, and then fly back to Bragg for a cold beer before going to the club for the steak special.
The pilot was an old-time chief warrant officer. He looked familiar to Parker, and Parker hoped the reverse was not true.
“Who’s senior?” the warrant asked.
Parker raised his hand.
“The way we do this, Captain,” the chief warrant said, “is my crew chief, who’s got a set of headphones, will tell you when to go. Understand?”
Parker nodded.
“I’m going to put you out at 4,000 feet,” the warrant went on. “That doesn’t give you much time if your main chute fails to open. On the other hand, you don’t want two canopies open. Be careful.”
He motioned them into the airplane’s rear door as he climbed up the landing gear strut to the cockpit.
Since he was to be first out, Parker boarded last. There was not room enough in the Otter cabin to move around very much. It was only when he got into the airplane that he noticed the seats had been removed. The crew chief had lined up the jumpers on the floor of the cabin, facing the rear, one man sitting within the spread knees of the man behind him.
It’s a violation of flight safety regulations to transport personnel without seat belts, much less sitting unrestrained on the cabin floor.
Jesus, Parker, this is not the Army Aviation School!
The door had been removed. As soon as the Otter began to roll, there was a howl of wind, and where Parker sat it whipped at him.
The crew chief, a young sergeant, looked at Parker and pointed at his head. It was only after a moment that Parker realized the sergeant was telling him he had his fatigue cap on. If he jumped with it on, he would lose it. Parker took it off and put it inside his fatigue shirt.
A few minutes later, the crew chief motioned them to their feet.
Belatedly, Parker wondered about checking equipment. Who was to give that order?
Jesus, dummy, you’re “senior.”
He turned around awkwardly and checked the equipment of the sergeant behind him. He realized, shamefully, that the crew chief would not have jumped them if they had not checked their equipment. He would have given the order himself, and then reported:
That dinge captain, remember the one who wouldn’t go? I knew we were going to have trouble with that one. He was so scared he forgot to check equipment!
The crew chief motioned him to the door.
He stood on the threshold, holding on to each side of the doorjamb, forcing himself to look straight ahead until the ache in his neck became so painful he could no longer maintain the awkward position.
When he did look down, he felt fear first, then nausea, then dizziness, and then—recognizing the symptoms—vertigo. He was disoriented, sick, and terrified.
The crew chief touched his shoulder.
He didn’t move. He couldn’t move.
The crew chief gave him a shove, not hard enough to push him out the door, but so there could be no mistaking the order. Parker looked at him and saw contempt in his eyes.
He pushed himself out the door. The horizontal stabilizer flashed past his face, and then he was turned over somehow and the world was turning around him, first sky, then earth, then sky again.
The D-ring! The fucking D-ring!
He put his hand to his chest, found the D-ring, and pulled. It came off in his hand, which somehow surprised him. He was aware of something moving behind him. Then there was a jolt and a gentle popping sound as the canopy filled with air.
There was a tugging at his right leg. He looked down and saw the M14 dangling from a web cord. It had been strapped to his leg and had torn loose somehow. He wondered if he was supposed to try to pull it up and strap it in place again. There wasn’t going to be time for that. The ground, a much smaller field than before, was coming up to meet him. He noticed for the first time that an H-19 was sitting on the ground, and to judge from its slowly spinning rotors, hadn’t been there very long.
Surprise, surprise! Now that you’ve jumped from an Otter, you’re going to do it all over again from an H-19.
He landed badly, knocking the wind out of him, frightening him badly for a moment.
“You all right, Captain?” a voice asked. What he saw was highly shined boots and above them stiffly starched fatigue trousers. He looked further up and saw Colonel Paul Hanrahan. That explained the H-19.
“I’m all right, sir,” he said, struggling to his feet.
“Got something for you,” Hanrahan said. He held something in front of Parker’s face. It was a brand-new major’s gold oak leaf.
(Four)
The Office of the Commandant
U.S. Army Special Warfare School
Fort Bragg, North Carolina
1645 Hours, 20 May 1959
“Go right in, Major,” Sergeant Major Taylor said when Parker appeared in his office. “The colonel’s waiting for you. May I offer the major a cup of coffee in addition to my congratulations?”
“Yes, indeed, Sergeant, you certainly can,” Parker said. He was a coffee snob. In the Olden Days, before he lost his mind and joined Special Forces, every morning he had ground the beans of coffee Toni’s father sent them from Boston and brewed coffee which he then carried around all day in a thermos. There was no way he would drink a lesser brew. “For the last four days, I have been drinking a black liquid made from a mysterious black powder and water laced with a purifier that smelled like horse piss,” he said.
Taylor laughed.
Parker knocked at Hanrahan’s open door and was motioned in.
“Major Parker reporting as ordered, sir,” he said, as he saluted.
“My, don’t you look spiffy?” Paul Hanrahan said. He had flown Parker back to Fort Bragg with him, and ordered him to get a bath and a shave and into army greens before coming to his office.
“Thank you, sir,” Parker said.
Hanrahan handed him a box.
“This is no present,” he said. “I expect to be reimbursed, but if there is anything faster in the army than a newly promoted corporal getting his stripes sewn on, it is a newly promoted major putting on his first hat with the scrambled eggs.”
Parker took the cap from the box and put it on. It fit. Hanrahan had gone to the trouble of going to his records for his hat size.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Take a look at yourself in the mirror,” Hanrahan said, indicating the door to his latrine, “and when you come back, give me $42.55.”
“Yes, sir,” Parker said.
“I gather you approve,” Hanrahan said, dryly, when Parker came back into the office.
“I was a captain a long time, Colonel,” Parker said. “I was about to give up hope.”
“I know,” Hanrahan said, seriously.
Sergeant Major Taylor delivered the coffee.
“In case the colonel hasn’t noticed, sir,” Taylor said, “duty hours are over.”
“He wants to offer you an intoxicant, Major,” Hanrahan said. “Isn’t that shocking?”
“I’m not shocked, sir,” Parker said.
“I need about five minutes of Major Parker’s time, Taylor,” Hanrahan said, “before we get into the booze. If you want to get home, leave the file drawer unlocked.”
“I’d like to have a drink with the major, sir,” Taylor said.
“Give us five minutes,” Hanrahan said. “And make sure that photographer doesn’t get away.”
“Yes, sir,” Taylor said. He left the office and closed the door after him.
“The reason I don’t have a copy of your promotion orders to give you, Phil,” Hanrahan said, “is because they haven’t been cut.”
“Sir?”
“Oh, don’t worry. It’s official. I got the word from DCSPERS.”
That deserved an explanation, and Parker waited for it.
“DCSPERS has asked me to counsel you, Major,” Hanrahan said.
“I don’t quite understand, sir.”
“You have been wronged by the system, Phil. The reason you were not selected for promotion a lot sooner was because your name was never presented to a board.”
“I don’t understand, sir.”
“It was a fuck-up,” Hanrahan said. “A simple fuck-up, for which somebody is responsible. DCSPERS is concerned that you may decide that the fuck-up was intentional, and based on the color of your skin. For what it’s worth, I don’t think that’s the case.”
“That’s good enough for me, sir,” Parker said, immediately.
“In any event, they’re trying to make amends. Your date of rank will be about two years ago. He didn’t know for sure, but he guesstimated two years.”
“That’s very nice,” Parker said.
“No back pay, unfortunately, but I had the feeling talking to him that if that had been possible, you’d have gotten it.”
“I’m perfectly happy with the gold leaf, Colonel,” Parker said.
“There’s something else, probably more important than the pay,” Hanrahan said. “Speaking bluntly, I’m well aware that you came here because you thought you were never going anywhere in aviation; and this was your last, desperate hope to get promoted.”
“Yes, sir,” Parker said.
“You’re not really the super-trooper type, Parker, and we both know it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Technically, I was not authorized to recruit field-grade officers,” Hanrahan said. “And technically, you have been a major for two years. DCSPERS is therefore willing to reassign you to aviation, in a position not only commensurate with your grade and experience, but taking into consideration the wrong that has been done to you.”
Parker didn’t reply.
“I suppose there is in the back of his mind the hope that this action will keep you from running to the NAACP,” Hanrahan said. “I told him I thought that was unlikely, but I didn’t feel he believed me.”
