Napalm Dreams
Page 27
“We’re accepting your recommendations,” the general said. “Citations are being prepared for the Silver Star for Sergeants Olchak, Stankow, Epstein, and Washington. Bronze Star with V device for all the other defenders. Colonel Gutierrez has recommended you for the Distinguished Service Cross, and I agree. And in line with your recommendations, we’re beginning the investigation that should lead to Lieutenant Sloane’s being awarded the Medal of Honor. Congratulations, Captain.”
Finn shook his hand, and the hands of all the remaining staff, and kept his tongue. Just as Sam Gutierrez had told him to. He rendered a salute, received one in return, and did a smart about-face and left the command center.
Outside it was raining, as it had been for the last two days. The monsoons were finally here. He stood for a moment and watched the hustle and bustle of the camp, the men ignoring the rain in their haste to pack up equipment, get the base ready for turnover to a Vietnamese division, get the hell out of this benighted country.
He shook his head. Made his way toward the club. Gutierrez was waiting and had promised him a steak dinner and all the wine he could drink.
He and Gutierrez had argued, that day in the shattered team house. Sam had told him that the people in USARV, down in their plush trailers in Tan Son Nhut air base, had followed the battle with great interest. And had decreed, once it was over, that someone out of the team should get the army’s highest award. Surely, someone would have deserved it.
“I think it should be you,” Sam said.
“Nope,” Finn replied, looking a little forlorn when the bottle of bourbon was passed back to him with only a tiny little swig left in the bottom. “Let me tell you about Lieutenant Bentley Sloane.”
“Already heard,” Gutierrez said, his voice curt. “Right now I’m trying to decide if he should undergo court-martial. What he did endangered the entire camp.”
“You could read it that way. But you could also claim he thought up a brilliant tactical maneuver, sucked in the first wave to be wiped out while saving our best weapon for the assault troops in the second wave. And that’s the way it worked.”
“I don’t see it,” Sam said. “Suppose there’s any more bottles back there?”
They interrupted their argument long enough to search, finding a whole bottle of Scotch. Finn wasn’t fond of Scotch, but it was alcohol. Good enough.
“No question he was brave,” Finn said. “Even heroic. Risked his life probably more than anyone else in camp. Wounded, kept on fighting.”
“Wolverines do that,” Sam said. “We don’t give ’em medals for it.”
“One more reason. The most important one.”
“That being?”
“I think we can agree that he should never lead troops in combat again. You try to court-martial him, he’s going to beat it. And someday, somewhere, somebody will suffer. Because he’ll try again. And again, and each time some poor innocent bastard will die. You want that on your conscience?”
“And if he gets the Big Blue, he’ll stop?”
“You know the army,” Finn said, grinning. “Not gonna put a bona fide hero back down where the rest of us grunts are. He’s gonna be a general’s aide, a staff officer, a nice little icon they can sit on a shelf somewhere and bring out when they want to impress the great unwashed.”
Now it was Gutierrez’s turn to smile. What Finn was saying was true. A Medal of Honor winner would have to fight to ever again see combat. The army would make sure of that.
Then Gutierrez sobered. “We’re probably creating a monster here.”
“Yeah. Probably. Pass that bottle, willya?”