The Berets

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The Berets Page 14

by W. E. B Griffin


  “Now I’ll see your identification, if you please,” MP Five said.

  Lowell made no move to comply.

  “Sergeant!” MP Five snapped.

  “Sir,” the sergeant said, “may I see some identification, please?”

  “Certainly,” Lowell said, and handed him his AGO card.

  The MP sergeant looked at it, looked at Lowell, and then handed it to MP Five.

  MP Five paled.

  “Colonel, there’s apparently been some sort of misunderstanding,” he said.

  “Now that you know who I am, may I see your AGO card, please?” Lowell asked.

  Red-faced, the major produced it. Lowell took a notebook, wrote down the name, and then handed the AGO card back.

  “Now I would like an explanation of this extraordinary episode,” Lowell said.

  “Colonel, would you wait here for just a minute, please?” MP Five said.

  “If you wish,” Lowell said.

  MP Five trotted to his car and spoke on the radio. Then he came back.

  “Colonel,” he said, “Colonel Sauer’s compliments, and would you please follow me to Colonel Sauer’s office?”

  “Who is Colonel Sauer?”

  “Colonel Sauer commands the Eleventh Infantry Regiment, sir.”

  “What an extraordinary coincidence,” Lowell said. “Just the man I was going to see.”

  (Four)

  Headquarters

  Eleventh Infantry Regiment (Training)

  Fort Jackson, South Carolina

  1005 Hours, 10 December 1961

  Colonel Fritz J. Sauer, Infantry, was short, barrel-chested, and crew-cutted. He was wearing fatigues. They had been tailored to his body and were stiff with starch. Sewn above the breast pocket were embroidered representations of the Combat Infantry Badge (Second Award) and senior parachutist’s wings with two stars. The circled A of Third Army was sewn to his left sleeve at the shoulder, and the Indian head of the Second Infantry Division to the shoulder of the right sleeve. Regulations permitted the wearing on that sleeve of the shoulder insignia of the division with which the individual had served in combat.

  Colonel Sauer had the choice of wearing the insignia of the Second Infantry, a battalion of which he had commanded in Korea; the Eighty-second Airborne Division, a platoon and a company of which he had commanded in War II; and the Ninety-sixth Infantry Division, a company and a battalion of which he had commanded in War II. This move from the Eighty-second came about after he’d caught a couple of Schmiesser rounds in the leg at Anzio. He had to be reassigned when he got out of the hospital and couldn’t pass the jump physical.

  Colonel Sauer had been around the army awhile, and although he was fully aware that the Eleventh Infantry Regiment (Training) was neither the Sixteenth Infantry Regiment of the First Division, or the 505th of the Eighty-second, it was a regiment of the United States Army, and he was the regimental commander, and he didn’t have to put up with some chair-warming sonofabitch of a Pentagon flyboy nosing around in his affairs without even the simple goddamn courtesy of coming to the regiment and announcing his business. It was Colonel Fritz J. Sauer’s intention to burn the ass of this sonofabitch as it probably had never been burned before.

  “Colonel,” his adjutant announced over the intercom, “Major Hasper is here with Lieutenant Colonel Lowell.”

  “Ask Colonel Lowell to come in, please,” Colonel Sauer said.

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Come in,” Colonel Sauer ordered.

  The fat little shit from the Provost Marshal marched into the office, followed by a tall, mustachioed officer in Class As.

  The MP major saluted but said nothing.

  The tall mustachioed officer, who had his brimmed cap under his left arm, crisply saluted and held it.

  “Sir, Lieutenant Colonel Lowell, C. W., reporting to Colonel Sauer as directed, sir.”

  Colonel Sauer’s adjutant, who had suggested that it would be a good idea to have a couple of witnesses, slipped into the office accompanied by the S-2. They were both captains.

  Lieutenant Colonel Lowell, Colonel Sauer saw, was indeed a Pentagon flyboy with the aviator’s wings and the GSC badge pinned to his tunic. But there were other things pinned to his tunic too. There was a Combat Infantry Badge with the star of a second award. A Distinguished Service Cross. A Distinguished Service Medal. A Silver Star. A Bronze Star with a couple of V’s, meaning more than one award: for valor, not for just being there. And a Purple Heart with several oak leaf clusters. And there were a bunch of foreign decorations, of which Colonel Sauer recognized only the Korean Tae Guk and the Korean Presidential Unit Citation, both of which he was entitled to wear himself.

  Colonel Sauer returned the salute; Lowell completed his, and remained at attention, looking six inches over Colonel Sauer’s head. Colonel Sauer was somewhat annoyed with Major Hasper, who took it upon himself to assume the position of “At Ease.”

  “You may stand at ease,” Colonel Sauer said.

  Lowell shifted position.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” Sauer said, “the means I used to fetch you here.”

  “Not at all, sir,” Lowell said.

  “There seems to be some question of your identity,” Sauer said.

  “Would the colonel like to see my AGO card, sir?”

  “I have seen Colonel Lowell’s identification, sir,” Major Hasper volunteered.

  “Then the question would seem to be what your mission is here, Colonel,” Sauer said.

  “Sir, I had hoped the colonel would grant me an interview in private, sir,” Lowell said.

  Sauer considered that a moment.

  “That will be all, gentlemen, thank you,” he said.

  Major Hasper, who looked disappointed, saluted, did an about-face, and marched out of the room. The adjutant and S-2 followed him.

  “Please have a seat, Colonel,” Sauer said. “Can I offer you some coffee? After which, I would like an explanation of what the hell’s going on.”

  “Thank you, sir, and yes, sir, I would like some coffee.”

  Colonel Sauer ordered coffee and then took a box of cigars from his desk and offered it to Lowell.

  “Thank you, sir,” Lowell said, and took one. He unwrapped it, sniffed it, pinched it gently along its length, and bit the end off. By that time Sauer had his own cigar unwrapped. Lowell extended a lighter. Sauer had never seen one like it before. It was European, he decided. And gold. Not gold-plated. Gold.

  “Nice lighter,” Sauer said.

  “Thank you, sir,” Lowell said. “It was a Christmas present from my father-in-law.”

  The sergeant major delivered two china cups of coffee.

  “I’ll get the cream and sugar,” he said.

  “Not for me, thank you, Sergeant Major,” Lowell said.

  When the sergeant major had left, closing the door behind him, Colonel Sauer said, “You are a very courteous man, Colonel. I am therefore curious why you didn’t have the courtesy to stop by and talk to me before you started nosing around in my affairs.”

  “I can only offer my apologies for that inexcusable breach of courtesy, sir, and hope the colonel will accept them.”

  “What is the interest of DCSOPS in my regiment, to get to the point?” Sauer said.

  “So far as I know, sir, only that you continue to maintain the pipeline of trainees,” Lowell said.

  “Then what are you doing here?”

  “I’m interested in the case of Recruit Craig, sir.”

  “Why?”

  “There are several reasons, sir. One of them being that he is my second cousin.”

  “Oh,” Sauer said. “He asked you to come?”

  “No, sir. And when I left him this morning, I suspect that he was very sorry that I had come.”

  “Why would he feel that way?”

  “Because I left him believing that he is going to spend the next several years behind bars,” Lowell said. “Following which he will have the status of a conv
icted felon.”

  “That’s just about what’s going to happen to him, Colonel, I’m sorry to say.”

  “With respect, sir, I must disagree,” Lowell said.

  “I understand you read his file,” Colonel Sauer said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I recommended that he be tried,” Sauer said.

  “I must presume, sir, that you did so because you were not fully aware of the facts.”

  “Colonel, if you think you can come down here and wave that GSC badge in my face and get that young man off, you’ve got another thing coming.”

  “I am here, sir, because the alternative to my coming was a delegation from the offices of two United States senators.”

  “You’re saying he’s got political influence?”

  “His father is a very wealthy and very influential man. If I may be permitted the use of the vernacular, sir, when Geoff’s father says ‘Shit’ to the junior senator from Connecticut and the senior senator from New York, they squat and make grunting noises.”

  Despite his best efforts to the contrary, Colonel Sauer could not keep from smiling. Under other circumstances, he thought, he would like this Lieutenant Colonel Lowell.

  “You’re not suggesting, are you, Colonel, that I would be in any way influenced by congressional pressure?”

  “I told Geoff, sir, that if the court heard about any political influence being brought to bear, they would throw the book at him.”

  “In that case, Colonel,” Sauer said, “what are you doing here?”

  “I’m a soldier, sir,” Lowell said. “At the risk of sounding presumptuous, I am here to piss on an ember before it can flare up and cause a fire.”

  “I’m not sure I understand that. If it means what I think it does, I don’t like it.”

  “What I mean to say, Colonel,” Lowell said, “is that if that boy goes before a general court, he’s going to walk out free.”

  “I heard he hired a civilian lawyer,” Sauer said. “It won’t do him any good.”

  “I fired the civilian lawyer,” Lowell said. “I don’t want to take any chances that I don’t have to.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “That I devoutly hope the Staff Judge Advocate, if it gets that far, will assign his newest, least-experienced, six-months-out-of-law-school first john to defend Geoff.”

  “That I don’t understand,” Colonel Sauer said.

  “May I speak freely, sir?”

  “Go ahead,” Sauer said.

  “The first defense witness will be the post surgeon. He will testify that there has been a pattern of trainees from Staff Sergeant Foster’s platoon requiring serious medical attention. There have been quite a few falls, statistically speaking, down stairs and in showers. This will be documented by hospital records. Then there will be a series of witnesses, other trainees, who will testify that they heard Staff Sergeant Foster announce his intention to kick the shit out of Geoff. Up until now, these trainees have been frightened into silence by the company commander. He will, however, be summoned as a hostile witness and unless he chooses to swear falsely under oath, he will testify that he threatened the trainees into silence, not only in this incident, but in the ones which preceded it.”

  “Those are pretty serious charges, Colonel.”

  “Yes, sir, I’m afraid they are.”

  Goddamn him, Sauer thought. He’s right about this.

  A wave of anger at his adjutant swept through him. The sonofabitch had told him he’d checked out the facts. Then he turned the anger inside. It was his responsibility to check the facts. He had signed the charges.

  “I’ll look into this, Lowell,” he said. “And if what you allege is true, I’ll have your nephew, or whatever he is, out of the stockade, and some other people in it.”

  “May I continue to speak freely, sir?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I respectfully suggest, sir, that Staff Sergeant Foster has learned an important lesson: Never pick on anybody who’s going to break your jaw. I am really less annoyed at him than I am at the company commander. He should have relieved Staff Sergeant Foster the first time he had an idea that he was beating up the trainees. I had a great big guy in my company one time who used to take people in the bushes and talk to them. But that was educational; it wasn’t sport.”

  Colonel Sauer had in his own mind a bull of a Polish coal miner from Pennsylvania, a platoon sergeant, whose conversations in the bushes with a series of paratroopers had done much to improve the company’s discipline. But he hadn’t broken any bones and then charged the guy he had talked to with assault because he had gotten a punch in himself.

  “I suggest, sir, that court-martialing Foster or his company commander would do the army no good. There are other ways to deal with people like that.”

  There were, Colonel Sauer agreed, and he knew most of them.

  “And what do I do with your nephew? Call him in here and tell him ‘Sorry about all this’?”

  “He’s my second cousin,” Lowell said, “and I would hate to have him (a) spend the balance of his service hating the army, and (b) convinced that all he has to do the next time he slugs somebody is call his cousin, the colonel, who will make things right.”

  Sauer nodded and waited for Lowell to go on.

  “Slugging people, sir, is something that all kinds of people do, not only enlisted men. I have heard stories that a very distinguished lieutenant colonel took offense at the attention another colonel was trying to pay his wife and punched him off an officer’s club balcony.”

  “Apropos of nothing whatever, Colonel,” Colonel Sauer asked, “do you happen to know a Lieutenant Colonel Rudolph G. MacMillan?”

  “I have the privilege of the colonel’s acquaintance, sir,” Lowell said. “The officer I’m referring to, who shall be of course nameless—”

  “Of course,” Sauer interrupted.

  “—should have, of course, been punished for this offense. But it was decided, I understand at the very highest level—”

  “Do you happen to know General E. Z. Black, Colonel?”

  “Yes, sir, I have that privilege.”

  “I thought you might,” Sauer said. He was now grinning.

  “—that the best interests of the army would be served by sending this unnamed pugnacious officer to Special Forces at Forg Bragg, where he could expend his excess energy running around in the woods, eating snakes.”

  Colonel Sauer chuckled. “Do you think, Colonel, that your first cousin once removed would be interested in a transfer to Special Forces?”

  “I think, sir, he would probably prefer to remain in the stockade. But I think that if he was properly counseled, sir, he might suddenly view it as a great opportunity to better his country, sir.”

  “What about the paperwork?” Colonel Sauer asked.

  “I think they can have anybody they want,” Lowell said. “A friend of mine volunteered and went to Bragg over the howling objections of his commanding officer.”

  “Why don’t we call Mac and find out?” Colonel Sauer said. He pushed the lever on his intercom. “Sergeant,” he ordered, “put a call through to Lieutenant Colonel MacMillan at Special Forces in Bragg.” He sipped his coffee and then smiled at Lowell. “I’ve known Mac since he was pathfinder platoon sergeant in the 508,” he said.

  The sergeant major knocked and put his head in the door.

  “Sir, I have the sergeant major on the horn. Colonel MacMillan is not available.”

  “May I?” Lowell asked, and reached for the telephone. “Sergeant Taylor, this is Colonel Lowell. How are you? Where’s Colonel Mac?”

  Lowell held the telephone away from his ear so that Colonel Sauer could hear.

  “Over at Pope with the colonel, Colonel. The President’s coming in at 1100, and they’re all going ape shit.”

  “How would a recruit in basic training get into Special Forces?” Lowell asked.

  “That would be a little rough, sir. You’re supposed to be jump-qualified.
And we don’t take hardly any privates.”

  “But there are exceptions?”

  “There’s always exceptions, Colonel,” Sergeant Major Taylor said. “People that come highly recommended or have some kind of special skill.”

  “You were at Anzio with the 508, weren’t you, Taylor? Do you remember an officer named Sauer?”

  “Yes, sir. Captain Sauer. He caught it a couple of days before I did.”

  “Colonel Sauer has a young man, pretty good with his fists, that he thinks would be happy in Special Forces.”

  “Well, that’s a good recommendation,” Taylor said. “What we could do, Colonel, if Colonel Mac agrees, is arrange to transfer him here, and then we send him to jump school. I can probably get Colonel Mac on the jeep radio if you want to talk to him.”

  “Give it a shot, will you?”

  “Hold on, Colonel,” Taylor said. “And I’ll need the name, rank, serial number, and unit, too, Colonel.”

  Colonel Sauer got up from his desk, went to the door, and told his sergeant major he needed Craig’s serial number and full name.

  “Hat Five, this is Hatrack,” Taylor’s voice came over the phone.

  “Hatrack, Hat Five,” came the reply.

  “Colonel Mac around there? Important telephone call.”

  “Hold on.”

  “Colonel MacMillan is busy. This is Colonel Hanrahan. Can I help?”

  “Good morning, Paul,” Lowell said.

  “Christ, what do you want, Craig? The President’s fifteen minutes out. Can it wait?”

  “All you have to do is say yes,” Lowell said. “Taylor’s on the line.”

  “Yes to what? What are you up to, Craig?”

  “I’ve been beating the bushes, dredging up bodies for you.”

  “Why is it that I am suddenly suspicious, Craig? Does this body have a name?”

  “Geoffrey Craig,” Lowell said.

  “What’s his claim to fame?” Hanrahan asked. “What’s his rank?”

  “He’s just like Mac. Goes around punching people. He just broke his sergeant’s jaw”—he paused—“after provocation. The sergeant got in the first blow.”

  “No, I don’t want him. Absolutely not. What is this?”

  “It’s important to me,” Lowell said.

  There was a pause.

 

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