Mrs. Lieutenant: A Sharon Gold Novel

by Phyllis Zimbler Miller

Wendy asked the question. "Has your husband been to Vietnam?"

  "Yes," Marylou said, "yes he has. But he’s back now."

  "What did you do while he was gone?"

  "I worked. Went out with my friends. I saved my money and bought him the biggest motorcycle and television I could find as coming home presents." Marylou paused. "Then the son of a bitch called to tell me to meet him in Hawaii for a week. He wasn't finished with his mission and he was extending his Vietnam tour another six months. I sold the brand-new motorcycle and television – I was so furious!"

  What did the woman mean by "his mission?" What could he have been doing in Vietnam so important that he had to finish it rather than letting someone else take over? And not come home to his wife when he could?

  Later she asked Nelson about Marylou's story. "What could be so important that a man would risk his life for six more months while his wife waits for him?"

  "Honey," Nelson said, "you just don't understand. It's a man's duty. People's lives depended on him."

  A man's duty? Little boys played with toy guns, threatening to blow off their mama's head when called in for dinner. Grown-up boys played at real war, getting to blow someone's head off when called upon to do so.

  Guns. Wendy's papa offered her and Nelson his gun when they were packing to come to Ft. Knox. "You never know when you might need it," he said. Nelson shook his head no.

  "I'd feel better if you took it," her papa said. "I can always get another one."

  They insisted they wouldn't need it. This was 1970 and Nelson was a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army. They assured her parents they would be fine.

  Guns kill.

  They left without the gun.

  SHARON – IX – June 9

  Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman William Fulbright issues staff report denying enemy was massing for strike from Cambodia into Vietnam as President Nixon charged ... May 21, 1970

  “The thoughtful wife will keep a record of courtesies extended to her and her husband and make some kind of repayment.” Mrs. Lieutenant booklet

  The sun slants across their backs as Sharon and Kim settle down for another afternoon by the pool at the Country Club. Since Memorial Day they have taken advantage of the open pool each afternoon. Sharon now sports a beautiful tan although Kim’s skin remains pale thanks to the generous slathering of suntan oil.

  Sharon looks around the pool at the other women and some men. How many of them truly want to be here and how many simply accept army service as a temporary way station on their life’s journey?

  Sharon flashes on what she learned when last Friday night she and Robert attended the post's religious services for Jewish personnel. She and Robert had arrived a few minutes late at the army chapel, a frame building whose interior barrenness trumpeted its use for the services of different denominations. The Friday night service to greet the start of Shabbat – the Jewish Sabbath – had already begun.

  "They obviously start on military time, not Jewish time," Robert said.

  They took two small prayer books from a stack of books – "Look, Robert, an official army Jewish prayer book." On his head Robert placed one of the provided black satin yarmulkes.

  "I'm the only woman here," Sharon whispered to Robert as they sat down.

  Sharon had a decent Jewish religion background. She attended Sunday School from kindergarten age, started Hebrew School in third grade, had a Bat Mitzvah at age 13 (a Friday night chanting of the week’s Haftorah followed by an Oneg Shabbat dessert kiddish; not the Saturday morning Torah reading service followed by a sit-down luncheon that her brother had), and continued religious school education through Confirmation in 10th grade. She could read along in the Hebrew although she couldn’t translate what she read.

  During the brief army Friday night service, shorter than the Friday night service to which Sharon was accustomed, all but the most important prayers were recited in English rather than Hebrew. Most of the men wore fatigues and their olive drab uniform "baseball caps." A few wore suntans and their uniform green garrison caps. Robert was the only one in civilian clothes and the satin yarmulke.

  The Jewish army chaplain, a young rabbi in suntans with a blue-and-white crocheted yarmulke on his head, said a few words on the Bible portion of the week. At the conclusion of the service he invited everyone into the social hall for cookies and soda pop.

  The chaplain came up to them. "I'm Chaplain Daniel Levin." Robert shook his hand while Sharon smiled. "Lieutenant Robert Gold and my wife Sharon."

  "Welcome," Chaplain Levin said. "Please join us for refreshments."

  The chaplain turned towards the social hall. Sharon touched his arm. "Excuse me, but why are there no women here?"

  "You mean why aren't there any wives?" He smiled. "Ft. Knox is a basic training post. We have a lot of Jewish draftees here."

  "Jewish draftees!" Robert said. "I never expected so many."

  The chaplain nodded. "They're mostly National Guard and Reserves. And even if they never go to synagogue at home, they come here."

  "Why?"

  "Because for enlisted men it's an approved way to get out of their units for a couple of hours. You know, get out of cleaning the latrines or some other distasteful task. And it's an opportunity to be with other Jews."

  Sharon could certainly relate to that.

  "The few Jewish officers – the ones who have their wives here – they’re mostly doctors and they don't come. On Friday nights they're home with their wives or at the Officers Club."

  "Chaplain," Robert said, "if there's ever any problem, just let me know. I'll do whatever I can."

  "That's what I'm here for, Lieutenant. I know every drill instructor and basic training company commander on the post. Besides, you'll be gone in how many weeks?"

  She and Robert probably won't go back to services at Ft. Knox. It's bad enough to feel out of place being Jewish in a non-Jewish environment. It's altogether another thing to feel out of place in a Jewish environment.

  Two days later on Sunday on the way to have lunch with her grandparents she had said to Robert, "You were right. You made the right decision."

  Robert didn't take his eyes from the road. "Right about what?"

  "It is better to be an officer."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "When we went to services – all those enlisted men."

  “Jewish trainees.” Robert shook his head. "When I was at ROTC summer camp, there was only one other Jew in my platoon. Nobody ever said anything specific to us, but I'm sure that we were singled out for some extra harassment. And we were officer cadets. I can't imagine what would happen to a Jewish basic trainee."

  Sharon nodded, flipping her hair out of her eyes. With the Fiat’s top down the humid air blew through the car. "I really appreciate your going to lunch again at my grandparents' apartment."

  Robert laughed. "You didn't think I'd go again after once sitting in a tiny sweltering hot kitchen at high noon in front of the hot oven having hot chicken soup, hot brisket and hot apple pie?"

  Sharon laughed too. “That’s what I meant.”

  "Where did your grandmother learn to cook?"

  Sharon pictured her step-grandmother as she often described herself playing with the black children in the cotton fields of Mississippi. "She grew up poor. Maybe these big hot meals mean she's made it, or maybe her first husband liked to eat this way."

  "It could have been what killed him."

  They passed the small houses and cluttered yards she'd seen on this back road before with Kim. At one place a little boy clutching a rope swing with one hand waved to Sharon with the other. She waved back.

  "Do you want to see the movie 'Patton' at the post theater?" she asked.

  "Patton's nephew is an armor officer stationed at Ft. Knox right now." Robert smiled. "It's neat that we'll be seeing this movie about Patton while I'm training on tanks and his nephew is also here."

  Neat? Seeing a movie about tank battles in World War II while Rober
t trained on tanks for the Vietnam War? Why did the military hold such fascination for some people?

  The first time she attended a military function flashes in her mind. A few weeks after her momentous decision at the student union, she attended the 1968 ROTC Commissioning Parade for both the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Army at Demonstration Hall Field at “four-ten o’clock” per the formal invitation from the colonel who was the professor of military science and the lieutenant colonel who was the professor of aerospace studies. Robert in his dress green uniform escorted her to the ceremony.

  Sharon felt odd being alongside a man in uniform. She had seen the old black-and-white photos of her father in his World War II army uniform and her mother in her student nurse’s uniform standing next to him. Yet then the U.S. fought a just war to save the world from fascist tyranny. The Vietnam War ....

  As they approached the field, another army cadet greeted Robert, who stopped to introduce Sharon to Walter and his girlfriend Beth, who were to be married at the end of spring quarter. As the four of them continued walking towards the field, Robert and Walter talked to each other about the overnight training the following week – the rations they’d eat, the gear they’d pack.

  Sharon asked Beth, “Aren’t you worried about marrying a man right before he goes on active duty?”

  Beth smiled. “Any time we can have together before he gets assigned an unaccompanied tour ...”

  Sharon persisted. “Don’t you think this war is wrong?”

  Again Beth smiled, as if she understood Sharon. “It’s not really important what I think about the war. I love Walter – and I admire him for his commitment to something he believes in, serving his country. It’s a better goal than most boys here at college have. They seem more interested in getting drunk.”

  As if these patriotic boys could really stop the Communist juggernaut from rolling over the Republic of South Vietnam Sharon thought.

  At the ceremony the commissioning address had been given by Major General Alden Kingsland Sibley, but Sharon had barely listened, her mind distracted by what Beth had said to her. And Sharon had only glanced at the commissioning program listing into which branch each army ROTC cadet was being commissioned, so she had not really absorbed that Robert was one of the few being commissioned in infantry.

  Instead, by the end of the commissioning address, Sharon had accepted that, although she was adamantly against the Vietnam War and thus the U.S. Army by extension, she had to admire Robert for committing to something for which he felt passionate, something bigger than his own juvenile desires. And Sharon realized that love isn’t controlled by political considerations. It’s much more irrational than adding up the pros and cons of the U.S. in Vietnam and then deciding to be anti-war.

  Hours later Sharon and Robert parked in his Corvair on a back road near the sorority house. Since the start of the fall quarter of 1967 the university curfew for women of 11:30 p.m. on weekdays and 1:00 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays had been abolished, so Sharon did not have to fear breaking curfew.

  Sharon and Robert kissed – long kisses that excited the blood.

  Robert reached under the Corvair’s front seat and removed a small gift-wrapped box. “This is for you,” he said.

  Sharon slipped off the wrapping paper. The box from the student bookstore held a tiny American flag pin lying on top of a note.

  Can you understand my commitment to serving our country? Robert.

  She stared at the flag pin, then reached towards Robert’s formal bowtie.

  “Don’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t tie it again. Had to have someone tie it for me.”

  “Why don’t you get a clip-on?”

  “Not authentic.”

  Sharon placed her hand on the bowtie. “What if it’s not tied?”

  “It won’t look right when I go back to the dorm. I’m in uniform.”

  Sharon dropped her hand to the top button underneath the tie. “I can start lower.”

  Robert’s honking at a stray dog alongside the winding road brought Sharon back to the rural Kentucky scenery. And 30 minutes later they pulled up to the two-storey red-brick apartment building where her grandparents had a first-floor apartment. Goldenrod, Kentucky's state flower, scented the air.

  Her grandparents met them at the door, her grandfather clasping a brass-headed cane in his right hand. The hot air from inside pushed against the drenching humidity from outside.

  "Dinner's not quite ready," her step-grandmother said.

  "Maybe we could take Grandpa for a walk," Sharon said. The heat outside had to be better than the heat inside. Outside there might be a faint breeze.

  The old man shook his head. "I can’t walk that far."

  "Of course you can, Grandpa. We'll just go around the block."

  She held his left arm. In slow motion he moved first one foot, then the other foot, his cane tapping out his snail-pace progress from the building’s front door to the street sidewalk.

  "What's new, Grandpa?" Sharon asked.

  The old man didn't answer. He concentrated on shuffling his feet.

  Sharon glanced at Robert, his short haircut a constant reminder – even when not in uniform – of his army status.

  She looked back at her grandfather.

  He was born in a different century, didn't have indoor plumbing as a child or any of the other conveniences she considered necessities. Two things were still the same: 1) the need for a country to have an army and 2) residents of that country who refuse to fight. Her grandfather had told her about this in his Yiddish-accented English.

  "My father – his name was Velvel – was drafted and served six years in the czar's army on the Turkish border. He came one time for a furlough in six years. My mother Chaye Shifra had to go out and peddle dress goods among the rich people, the ones who had money, and my Aunt Rivka – she was divorced – was a dressmaker. She took care of the babies, her daughter and my oldest brother, while my mother sold the goods."

  Although Velvel was rewarded for his six years of baking for the czar's army – granted the rare privilege of a Jew in Russia being allowed to own land, he did not let his sons serve. As each son came of military age, Velvel sent that son to America. No son of his would fall into the czar's clutches!

  Ship after ship at the turn of the century brought escaping immigrants to America – "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free." The immigrants fled harsh governments and years of required military service. Was this so different today when long-haired draft protesters waved their "Make love, not war" placards and burned their draft cards in demonstrations across the country? They protested what to them seemed a harsh government and they yearned to be free of the quagmire of the Vietnam War.

  Sharon shifted her hold on her grandfather's arm. "Did you go over to the Jewish Community Center this week?" she said.

  "It's too far."

  "Grandpa, it's a block away! How could it be too far?"

  The man stopped. "I'm sick," he said. "Real sick. My doctor, he doesn't believe me." Tears rolled down his cheeks.

  "Grandpa!" She'd never seen him cry.

  Sharon put her arm around his shoulders. Robert supported him on the other side. "Let's go back to the house. We'll take care of it."

  Now at the Country Club pool as the sun shines on Sharon’s suntanned back she reaches into her straw bag and pulls out the book she started last night.

  Opening a magazine, Kim asks, "What are you reading?"

  "’While 6 Million Died’ by Arthur D. Morse about the Holocaust."

  "What's the Holocaust?"

  Sharon hesitates. Does Kim not know about it?

  "When the Nazis – the Germans – during World War II killed six million Jews."

  Kim sits up. "What do you mean the Germans killed six million Jews?"

  Sharon sits up too. "Did you have American history in high school?"

  "Senior year."

  "Did you study World War I
I?"

  Kim looks at the magazine in her lap, then up at Sharon. "We didn't get that far in the book. We spent most of our time on the Civil War. We just got up to World War I when school ended."

  Sharon will have to explain.

  "You've heard about Hitler, right?"

  "Yeees."

  "Hitler, the leader of the Nazis during World War II, was obsessed with getting rid of people whom he considered untermenschen – subhumans. He set up concentration camps to exterminate – kill – all these people.” Sharon pauses to take a breath, keep her voice even. “Besides the six million Jewish men, women and children killed solely because they were Jews – the Nazis also killed millions of others, including Gypsies, religious dissenters, political prisoners, mentally and physically deficient people, and homosexuals. The book is about how the U.S. did nothing to stop the killing."

  Kim's face flushes. "What could the U.S. have done?"

  "For one thing, bomb the train lines used to bring the Jews and others to the death camps. For another, make it clear that there would be severe retribution against people who were involved in the killings after the war was won by the Americans and our allies. What's more, right-wing groups in the U.S. prevented Jews trying to escape Hitler from entering the U.S. Even children were turned away."

  Kim peers down at her magazine. "I want to read this article. I'll ask Jim about the Germans tonight."

  Sharon lies back down. There's no purpose in continuing a conversation that makes Kim uncomfortable. You can only change people's thinking if they’re open to change. If you push too hard, their minds close, perhaps permanently.

  Sharon stares at the book’s open pages. All her known relatives and all Robert’s known relatives left Russia at the turn of the century. Years before Hitler they had sailed steerage across the Atlantic to not only escape service in the czar’s army but to escape the pogroms – murderous attacks on Jews by mobs led by Cossacks or incensed by rabble-rousers.

  One day, after her grandfather bought her cherry strudel at a Jewish bakery in Chicago, he told her about his trip to America in the bowels of a ship: "On the boat they gave us herring, black bread and beer. We were eating the herring and black bread and drinking beer like all the rest of them were doing. There was a real religious man there and he was about to die – he wouldn't eat any of the food because it wasn’t kosher. There was also a sister and brother – their mother packed them all kinds of kosher food with whiskey and wine in a big basket. We begged them to sell us some food so we could give it to this real religious man but the brother wouldn't do it.