“You no cry long time, Jack,” Dr. Boon said as I walked back into his office, trailed by the naked women. (I had made a rule that the women could watch me bathe if they were naked too.) “You tell me story how Geelhot and Jack fuck up.”
That stopped me in the doorway and I teared up. Which caused the good doctor and his wife to begin blubbering in earnest. Was I personally creating mass depression in the entire damn Asian theater?
I sat back down, lit a cigarette, and sighed. Then I told him the story. Even the parts that I had to piece together from Gearheardt’s tall tales and drunken ravings. How he personally knew the President, for example, and had been there when the war was cooked up.
PART 2
There is no class of people so hard to manage … as those whose intentions are honest, but whose consciences are bewitched.
—Napoleon
Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.
—Napoleon
Here I come to save the day!
—Mighty Mouse
3 • The War Begins
(Cue War Drums)
“I had CIA pizza duty, Jack. They don’t let freckle-faced teenagers deliver pizza to the White House, you know. All CIA and FBI, except that most of the kitchen help at Pizza Joe’s were ex-KGB defectors. I never trusted them,” Gearheardt said.
“I was just minding my own business, slicing and pouring, when the President started whining and complaining to the guys in the room. Mostly military.”
In the Oval Office there were the President, three of his aides, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines, and an Asian guy in a white coat. The President was in his shirt sleeves, slouching in an easy chair. His aides were behind him, all in dark suits, perched on the edge of their straight-backed chairs. There weren’t enough places to sit where the President could see you, so it was kind of musical chairs. If one general got up to make a point, another general would slide into his seat. The President looked harassed and tired. He was talking to no one in particular about his worry that the American people might think he was a candy-ass.
As the pepperoni was being sliced the President was saying … .
“ … so everyone thinks I’m just a baggy-assed liberal with all this Great Society horse hockey. I asked you boys to find me a war to run and you ain’t found shit.”
“Well, sir, we’ve had some boys poking around in Vietnam for years now as advisers, but they haven’t seemed to stir anything up.” This from the Army chief of staff.
“I could bomb Naples, sir,” the chief of staff of the Air Force said brightly. “I was there in the big one, and the Italians couldn’t fight worth a damn.”
“Well, that’d be great, General. I kind of had in mind somebody that we could think of some damned reason for bombing. Last I heard Italy wasn’t pissing in our mess kit. Ain’t there anybody that nobody likes?”
“I meant because of the Mafia thing, Mr. President,” the Air Force general said.
The President glared at him and then began pinching his large nose.
The room was silent. Chins were rubbed. Noses stealthily picked. Space stared into.
Finally the Marine commandant spoke up. “What about the queers, sir? We could sure as … .”
“For chrissakes, General, what is this fixation you got with queers? Hell, half the damn Navy is queer and you don’t see us bombing them.”
“With your permission, sir, I could get that started within …” the Marine began enthusiastically.
“With all due respect, Mr. President.” The Navy chief was on his feet. His seat was immediately taken by the Army chief, who beamed around the room as if he had accomplished a coup. “I deeply resent the implication of your remark about the naval services.”
The President waved him down, which unfortunately was onto the lap of the Army chief, who dumped him onto the floor.
“Oh, hell, Sparky, don’t get yore dander up. I wuz just kiddin’. You gotta throw the jarheads a bone every once in a while ’fore they get restless on the reservation. Heh, heh.” He looked back at his aides, who all went ‘Heh, heh’.
The room fell silent again. The President turned to his aides again. He rolled his eyes and shrugged. The aides rolled their eyes and shrugged.
“Anybody want another slice of the mushrooms and peppers?” asked Gearheardt.
“Who the hell are you?” the President demanded.
“CIA pizza man,” his top aide responded before Gearheardt could speak.
Everyone ate in silence while Gearheardt busied himself gathering crusts and pouring soft drinks.
Finally the Army chief, now standing—forgetting he would lose his seat—spoke. “Sir, since we already have people in Vietnam, perhaps we should explore that possibility further. The previous President evidently thought the situation there might be exploited if his campaign needed it.”
The commandant joined in. “Yessir, maybe the Navy could go over and do that amphibious assault they’re so famous for.” He giggled into his hand and elbowed the Air Force chief on his left. “Get it, amphibious assault?”
“It doesn’t mean what you evidently think it means, you nincompoop,” the Air Force general replied without looking at him.
The admiral glared at the commandant, while everyone else seemed to be trying to think of something wise to say to the President.
The Army chief continued. “Maybe we could provoke them if we were to escalate our activity. At the moment we are only acting as advisers in non-combat roles”—all of the military people and Gearheardt laughed—“but we could maybe violate the Geneva Accord that we worked out in Laos. This could destabilize the political situation in the theater and introduce an element of counter-counterbalance whereby the communists would be forced to react with conciliatory gestures or admit to their own hegemony and escalate their own violations of the Accord. Under each scenario we could sneak in a couple of quick bombing missions and just see what develops.”
The President could be heard muttering under his breath something about shutting down the “goddam War College.” To the Army chief he said, “Tom, I get that kind of bullshit advice about every three seconds from those idiots over at the State Department. I don’t need to hear it from the soldier boys.”
The Army chief ’s uniform suddenly became three sizes too big. He squatted behind the couch, a tear running down his face. He did have the presence of mind to later put out a memo changing his name to Tom.
Just when the entire group was beginning to mentally review their retirement options, the President looked up from his pizza. A string of cheese stretched from his chin back to his plate.
“Where is this Veetnam deal, anyway?” he asked.
“It’s in Asia, sir,” the Army chief called from behind the couch, a note of hope in his voice.
The President half rose from his chair, startling his aides, who half rose from their chairs, and then dropped back.
“You mean Chinkville? Holy shit and firewater, General. Are you suggesting that we actually try to piss off about eleventy zillion Chinks?”
He looked at his aides and again rolled his eyes. In a stage whisper he said to them, “These boys could get us in reeeel trouble.”
Gearheardt noticed that by this time the Asian in the white mess jacket had seated himself behind the President’s desk. His feet were propped up on the desk and he was mumbling into the phone something about relatives in Manila.
“Well, technically, sir, I believe a Chink is a Chinese. Although these people are similar in some ways, I’ve heard they are not actually Chinese, nor are they any great friends of the Chinese.” This from the Navy chief. He frowned at the Asian mess boy and motioned silently, with a jerk of his head, for him to take his feet off the President’s desk.
“Well if they ain’t Chinks, what are they? They got to be something besides normal folks. I ain’t stupid enough to get us into no war with normal folks, look like us. Can you imagine me goin’ on TV and announ
cing about how many normal folks we dinged? Shitfire, I couldn’t carry the damn pro-Nazi precincts in Chicago.”
“I think, Mr. President,” the Army chief said, “that they call themselves the Viet Men or the Viet Cong.”
The President beamed and slammed his giant hands on the arms of his chair.
“Ookaaay,” he said. “Maybe we got ourselves somethin’ here. Viet Cong, eh?”
He deepened his voice. “I would like to announce to my fellow Americans that today in Veetnam our gallant troops dinged thirty-five or so thousand Viet Congs.” He smiled. “That works,” he said in his normal voice. “How many of these Congs are there? Who supports them? Anybody big?”
The Marine and Air Force generals shrugged their shoulders. But the Army general came around the corner of the couch with a spring in his step. “I could ask around, Mr. President. We’ve had advisers over there for years. Maybe one of them knows something about the country.”
“Well, that’d be nice, General. Why don’t you scoot on back to the Penteegon and ask around. Maybe you could put a note on the bulletin board in the lunch room.”
The Army chief made ready to leave. He was pouting again as the President’s sarcasm sunk in. He deliberately stepped on the wellshined shoes of the Marine commandant, then saluted and headed for the door.
“Why don’t you take this dang boy usin’ my phone on back with you?” the President said loudly.
The Army chief stopped and squinted at the mess boy and then looked at the President. “Sir, he’s not mine. We have blacks. The Navy has the Filipinos.” He left.
The Navy chief leaned forward toward the President. “Sir,” he said, “I’ve got maps and charts over in my office that I could have sent over. The Navy is already patrolling the Gulf of Tonkin.”
“The Gulf of which-many?” the President asked.
“Tonkin, sir. It’s the body of water off the coast of North Vietnam.”
The President’s face became suspicious. He narrowed his eyes and glanced at his aides, who all narrowed their eyes too. Then he looked back at the admiral, who was beginning to recoil from the President.
“North Veetnam? How many Veetnams are there in this deal, anyway?”
“Just the North and South, Mr. President. You see, after the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu, the Nationalist Vietnamese—”
The President held his palm toward the admiral.
“Spare me the details. I remember this deal now. Damn French sons-a-bitches. Boy, talk about givin’ the West a black eye. Are you telling me these are the same guys, these Veet Congs, that I wouldn’t let old Baldy nuke a few years ago, when the Frogs got their asses kicked?”
Hearing the word “nuke,” the Air Force chief woke up. “Just give me the time and coordinates, sir. I’ll have nukes on target in—”
“Calm down, boys. I’m trying to get me some basic info from Sparky here. So, tell me, Admiral, are we for the North or the South?”
“Basically the South, sir. And as to allies, the North Vietnamese pretty well rely on the Russians—”
“I hate those bastards,” the President interjected grumpily.
“—for all their military supplies. And the North Vietnamese leader is a man called Ho Chi Minh.”
The President’s eyes bugged out and he laughed. Then everybody laughed.
“Ho Chee, huh? Well we might have a few surprises for Mr. Ho Chee Cheezit.”
Everyone laughed again.
“Who we got leadin’ our side? The non-Congs?”
“Sir, a man named Diem or something like that was the leader,” the Navy man said.
“Damn? We support someone named ‘Damn’? You know, it’s no wonder these countries never get somewheres. What if my name was ‘Hell’ or ‘Shit’ or somethin’? I’d still be down in the boondocks shovelin’ out the chicken coop.”
“Diem, sir,” the admiral said softly. “And he’s not the real leader right now.”
“And why’s that, smart boy?”
“He’s mostly dead now, sir.” He paused and looked around the room at the other chiefs, all avoiding eye contact. “But we didn’t kill him, sir.”
The President narrowed his eyes and frowned, squinting at the admiral.
The admiral gave a very slight nod of his head and rolled his eyes toward Gearheardt.
“Oh,” said the President. “Admiral, why don’t you navigate your way over to your poopdeck and get those maps.”
“Sir, I could ask—”
“Shake a leg, Sparky. I’m on a roll here.”
The admiral rose from the couch and placed his hat on the seat, hoping it would save it for him. He went to the door and hissed at the Asian mess boy, who dropped the President’s phone, slowly got up, and followed the Navy chief through the door.
“Gentlemen, if I may interject,” Gearheardt said from behind the pizza table, “if you’re seriously contemplating action against the Vietnamese, may I suggest that some of my, uh, colleagues might be able to soften up the scene by knocking off some of the leaders. In our opinion, and I’m not talking about the boys down at Pizza Joe’s now, this is a golden opportunity to stop communism in its tracks. Assuming it has tracks in Vietnam.”
Gearheardt noticed that everyone was staring at him with teeth clenched and hate in their eyes. The President impaled an aide with a look and jerked a questioning thumb toward Gearheardt.
“The CIA pizza man,” the aide whispered.
The President drew his still outstretched thumb quickly across his throat and made a gagging sound.
The aide began to tremble slightly. This was the first time that he had ever dealt directly with the President.
“Sir,” he said, leaning forward to whisper, “does that mean you’re through eating pizza? That the pizza man should not talk anymore? Or that you want us to kill the pizza man?”
His voice broke and the commandant of Marines snickered.
“I just want to be sure, sir,” the aide continued.
Gearheardt saved him from further embarrassment. He took his apron from around his waist, wiped his hands on it, and then dropped it on the pizza cart.
“Okay,” he said, “I can tell when I’m not wanted. But you’d better let intelligence into your little scheme.” He opened the door to the closet, walked in, and shut it behind him. Moments later he emerged and squatted behind a large potted plant.
The Air Force chief raised his hand and waved it like a firstgrader. “Sir,” he finally blurted out, “if you’re serious about nuking those folks, I’d appreciate it if we could do a little conventional bombing first. Some of the defense contractors are complaining that we’re not using up their bombs or losing airplanes anywhere near their projections. Their marketing guys see the handwriting on the wall and are on my ass daily.” His voice became confidential. “Sir, they are telling me that they can’t hold these prices for us. If we get on the shit list, pardon my directness, with our own defense contractors, well …”He trailed off.
“I’ll keep that in mind, Pappy,” the President said wearily, as if he had heard this argument many times before.
“Virgil, sir.”
“What’d I just call you?”
“‘Pappy,’ sir.”
“Are you telling me I don’t know the name of my own Air Force chief of staff?”
“No, sir.”
“Good. Pappy, why don’t you vamoose over to the big hangar and send me an estimate of how many bombs you need to drop and airplanes you need to lose to keep our discount. And I don’t want a lot of inflated horse hockey either. That was a goddam Cad-de-lac Deeeville I rode into town, not some turnip truck.”
“Yessir, Mr. President,” the general said, beaming.
After the Air Force chief left, extending his arms and making jet engine sounds, the Oval Office was quiet again. The President and his three aides sat looking at the Marine commandant, who was cleaning his fingernails with his bayonet.
The commandant started to squirm. Finally he spoke
.
“You guys see Sands of Iwo Jima?” he asked. “Damn good flick.”
The commandant shifted on his chair. He buffed the toe of his shoe that the admiral had scraped on the back of his pant leg, and then crossed his legs. He straightened his seam and picked a tiny piece of lint from his tunic.
The President cleared his throat, and the commandant jumped.
“What about me? sir,” the Marine asked.
“You got any info on Veetnam?”
“No, sir.”
“You got maps?”
“No, sir. Not of Vietnam, I don’t think. No, sir.”
“You got bombs?”
“Not many, sir. The Air Force gave us some old World War Deuce crap, but it hardly ever explodes unless we go hit it with a hammer. Hardly worth my men carrying it around.”
He began to sweat. He ran a finger around his collar.
“We got a few good men, Mr. President.”
“Well, that’s mighty peachy, General.”
After a moment the commandant began to tap his foot to a tune he was very softly whistling.
The President leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, cupping his chin. When he spoke, it was low and conspiratorial. The three aides leaned forward.
“General, I’m thinkin’ about a plan that’d be yore fondest dream. You’ll be pissin’ in yore pants and fartin’ Dixie.” He smiled and winked over at his aides. One of the aides winked back, then seemed to realize that he was winking at the President of the United States and began winking rapidly as if he had a twitch. The President shook his large, balding head and looked at the commandant.
“I’m gonna have you attack the United States Navy,” he said.
Pretty sure that he was the butt of a joke, the commandant maintained his poker face. Then he began smiling, then laughing, then howling, slapping his knee, the tears running down his cheeks.
“Boy, Mr. President, I’d give a year’s pay to do that. HA HA HA. Oh, sweet mother.” He wiped his eyes on his sleeve. Seeing the President staring at him, he sobered.
Nam-A-Rama Page 4
