Fourth and Forever

by Bert Carson

  Our parents, now close friends, did not have an issue with the plan. In fact, we realized later that they must have talked about it before we joined them at the restaurant. Three days later a judge married us in his office, at the courthouse in Fort Payne, Alabama. Our parents and a dozen friends and relatives accompanied us. The judge looked at the crowd and said that if there had been one more person he would have moved the ceremony into his courtroom.

  We used two hundred dollars of the eighteen hundred dollars we had saved, to pay for a five-day honeymoon in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Fall had turned to early winter in the Smokies, and the mountains were beautiful. We didn’t notice. In fact, we didn’t think about the Army or Vietnam or anything but each other for five days.

  When we returned to Valley Head, Kathy moved in with me at my parent’s house. For the next three weeks, we resumed our normal work schedule, with one exception, now we ended each day asleep in each other’s arms, rather than alone in our respective homes.

  On Monday, November 28, 1966, Kathy walked with me to the Texaco service station, which was also the Greyhound bus stop in Valley Head. I tried to get her to go back home but she stayed until the bus, already half-full of young men, pulled into the service station. As everyone began boarding, she grabbed me and whispered in my ear, “I’ll be right here waiting for you. Don’t you ever doubt it.”

  We held each until the last possible second, only breaking our embrace when the driver called out, “Let’s go son, I can’t wait any longer.”

  Four hours later, after stops in FortPayne, Collinsville and Gadsden, the bus passed through the gates of FortMcClellan, near Anniston, Alabama. It stopped in front of a large, rambling frame building, where we unloaded. A Drill Instructor met us, checked our names off a roster then led us into the building. What followed was a daylong series of tests, beginning with a physical examination, followed by an interview with a Chaplain, then an interview with an Infantry Captain.

  After a box lunch, which consisted of a stale cheese sandwich, a dried up apple and a half-pint of milk, we were herded into a large room where we sat at individual desks, just like those at Valley Head School. For the next four hours we were given a series of tests to discover our IQ, knowledge level, and ability to communicate. When the testing was complete, the Infantry Captain went to the head of the room and announced, “Gentlemen, you are now soldiers in the United States Army. The term of your service commitment is two years, which begins today. Now, stand and take the Oath of Enlistment. Four hundred and twenty-six of us, from all over northeast Alabama, stood.

  “Raise your right hand and when I say, ‘I,’ you say ‘I,’ and add your name, then repeat each sentence after me. Let’s do it.” He raised his right hand and said, “I.”

  I raised my right hand and said, “I, Josh Edwards.”

  “…do solemnly swear that I will support…”

  “Do solemnly swear that I will support.”

  “…and defend the Constitution of the United States…”

  “And defend the Constitution of the United States.”

  “…against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

  “Against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

  “…that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same…”

  “That I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same.”

  “…and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States…”

  “And that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States.”

  “…and the orders of the officers appointed over me…”

  “And the orders of the officers appointed over me.”

  “…according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice…”

  “According to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.”

  “…So help me God.”

  “So help me God.”

  “That’s it Gentlemen, pick up your gear, go outside, and begin loading on the buses. There’ll be Drill Instructors there to give you a hand.”

  At 2 A.M., after a five-hour drive, the long line of Army buses turned into Sand Hill, the basic training area at Fort Benning, Georgia.

  ********

  During Basic Training, I learned that my test scores qualified me for OCS (OfficerCandidateSchool). That night I wrote Kathy. I told her that I had turned down the opportunity to go to OCS, though I wasn’t sure why.

  Five weeks into Basic Training, everyone filled out a “dream sheet,” a list of their top three choices for advanced training schools. It was called a dream sheet because it was rare that a trainee received the school of his choice. I only listed one school, Rotary Wing Aircraft Maintenance, in plain language, helicopter mechanic and crew chief. I selected that school because it was in Alabama and I knew it would be easy to get home to Kathy or for her to visit me. Kathy’s plan was much better.

  With one week left in Basic Training, reassignment orders appeared on the bulletin board outside the orderly room. I found my name, checked my assignment, and grinned from ear-to-ear. That night I waited almost an hour in a cold drizzle, until it was my turn in the phone booth. Kathy answered on the first ring. “Kathy, I love you. We got FortRucker and RotaryWingMaintenanceSchool!” I shouted.

  “Josh, that’s great. That’s great, honey.”

  We talked until someone began beating on the wall of the phone booth. “I’ve got to run now, Kathy. I love you, and I’ll see you next Friday.”

  Kathy and my parent’s drove to Fort Benning for my graduation from Basic Training. I had two weeks leave before my six-month class began. We spent the first week in Valley Head and then we drove to FortRucker with all of our belongings in a small U-haul trailer hitched behind our car. I couldn’t leave post during the week, and it was against orders for wives of privates to live on post. Kathy already knew that and she said it didn’t matter. We would at least be closer to each other than we would have been if she had stayed three hundred miles away, in Valley Head.

  We rented a small furnished apartment, less than four blocks from the main gate. Kathy interviewed at a bank a block from our apartment. The bank manager hired her on the spot and we spent a quiet weekend alone before I reported to the school. Kathy’s plan was much better than mine.

  ********

  I fell in love with Hueys, the helicopter workhorse of the Army. I guess that my love for the Huey made the school simple. I quickly grasped every phase of helicopter maintenance covered in the six-month training, finishing first in the class. The first place finish carried with it an automatic promotion to Specialist 4. The day I graduated, I received orders reassigning me to Vietnam, following a thirty-day leave. That was no surprise. I think every man in the class was reassigned to Vietnam.

  I loaded all of our possessions back into a U-Haul trailer and moved Kathy back to my parent’s house in Valley Head. She was immediately rehired at the bank and the drugstore, with the understanding that she would start work when my leave ended.

  We spent the thirty days talking. Most of our talking occurred on long walks around town and on the seldom-traveled country roads that radiated from the town square like spokes on a wheel. Thinking of those talks, I recall that we didn’t speak about the future, I suppose because we weren’t sure that we had one. We talked about little things. The things we saw as we walked; birds, squirrels, and occasionally a fox. We talked about how much we loved each other, and we talked about many of the things that happened since we first met six years earlier. Without our realizing it, the month passed and that time together became another memory.

  Kathy and my parent’s drove me to Birmingham, where, in compliance with my orders, I boarded a plane to Fort Dix, New Jersey for ‘further transport to the Republic of South Vietnam.’ At the gate, I shook hands with daddy, hugged mother, and then clung to Kathy as she whispered, “I’ll be right here waiting for you, and don’t you ever doubt it.”

  In the next twelve months, I came to doubt many things; Ka
thy waiting for me wasn’t one of them.

  Chapter 2

  I served 12 months in Vietnam as a crew chief. Though I was disenchanted with the presidential position that Vietnam was essential to America’s freedom, I didn’t become a war protester or a defender of war. I came to understand that war is the failure of politics; that there is no justification for it beyond the fact that the men and women we elected to do a job, failed. I’m not a politician nor have I ever aspired to be one. I’m a soldier. I’m one of the people that politicians call on when they finally admit that they have failed. I despise war the way a policeman despises crime and a doctor despises illness. Yet I understand that it’s my job to end it as best I can. After a year in Vietnam, I could not state that in writing, but I felt it, and I knew that it was true. I had become a warrior without realizing or intending it.

  My two-year term of enlistment was scheduled to end three months after my tour in Vietnam was over. Any man or woman with fewer than six months of service remaining after a tour in Vietnam was mustered out of the Army unless they chose to reenlist.

  Kathy expected me to come home a civilian. I walked in the front door and startled her, since I was home a day earlier than she expected. She recovered quickly, and rushed into my arms. We stood in the doorway and held each other for a longtime. The world was silent, except for an occasional sob or soft laugh. I felt the long held tension begin to drain out of her.

  Fear, especially a long held fear, takes a dreadful physical as well as emotional toll. The release I felt was a draining of the never discussed, but always present, fear that she would never see me alive again. I understood that fear. I had lived with it every day for a year. The joke in Vietnam was that the life expectancy of a helicopter crewmember was thirty minutes. I beat the odds and made it home without a scratch, at least without a physical scratch.

  Every minute of that first night home is a permanent memory. More times than I can count, Kathy said how lucky we were and how glad she was that it was over. I watched and listened, all the time knowing that it wasn’t over, but not knowing how to tell her. For the first time in the years we’d been together, I’d done something that affected both of us, without discussing it with her first. Now I was afraid to tell her. Afraid that I couldn’t explain why I’d done what I had done. But most of all, I was afraid that I would lose her, because I wouldn’t be able to make her understand.

  Just before sunrise she said, “Josh, we served our time. We did out part for the country. Now we can restart our life.”

  With the sunrise lighting our bedroom in a soft orange glow, I gently silenced her by placing my forefinger on her lips. “It’s not over,” I whispered into the hush. Answering the question in her eyes I said, “I didn’t muster out in Oakland like we planned. I reenlisted.”

  The questions began to pour from her in disjointed sounds and disconnected syllables, all washed with tears, as she began to grasp what the reenlistment meant. Again, I held my forefinger to her lips. “I’m going to try to explain, so just listen, okay?” She nodded and I removed my finger from her lips and rolled onto my back. I stared at the ceiling through unfocused eyes and began. I spoke slowly, deliberately examining each word before speaking it, “I don’t expect you to understand this. I’m not sure I do, at least not at a level I can explain. And if you want out, I’ll understand.” She flinched at that, but remained silent.

  “I’ve had the idea for a long time. I tried to ignore it, but I couldn’t. I want to be with you all the time, but when I thought about what I would do…for a living, I realized there is nothing I am qualified for that I want to do. I don’t want to go back to construction. Without a degree that’s a dead-end street. There is no trade or profession I want to learn…except one. I love to fly more than anything I have done in my life, but I’m not a pilot. We can’t afford civilian flight school. I thought of all of that and then I realized that I was already part of an organization that has the largest flight school in the world.” I looked at her, searching for a reaction, but there was none.

  “And there’s something else. I enjoy the Army. I’m proud to be a soldier. I don’t like being away from you for even a single day, but sometimes it cannot be avoided. It’s part of the job.” I lay there for a long moment. Kathy didn’t say a word.

  I continued, “I want you to know that it wasn’t a spur of the moment decision. I’ve thought about it for a while.”

  The silence was heavy in the room as I considered my next words. “There’s something else, too. I’m not sure I can say it. Maybe it can’t even be put into words, so I’m just going to say it the best way I can and hope you understand. I left a lot of good friends over there. Some of them won’t ever be coming home and some of them will. I guess that’s why I knew when I left Vietnam, three days ago, that I hadn’t finished what I came to do. If daddy ever taught me anything, he taught me never to leave anything unfinished, or before I was satisfied that I had done the best I could do.” I hesitated, then continued, “Kathy, I did the best that I could do, but the job’s not finished.”

  We lay in the pale light of the new day. “I guess I’ve known for a while that I was going to stay in the Army. I also knew it didn’t make sense so I tried to talk myself out of it. Despite everything I told myself, I knew when the plane took off from Bien Hoa that I would be back. I also knew there was no way I could explain it to you, at least not in a letter or on the phone, and that was the worst part.”

  The silence in the room became as powerful as any living presence could have ever been. It was broken only by Kathy’s quiet sobs. After the crying ran its course, we touched. Quickly the touching became a desperate embrace, molding us into a single form, in the early morning light. Finally, after brushing aside the lingering tears with a corner of the sheet and clearing her throat, she said, “I ought to kick your arrogant butt for even suggesting that I would leave you. Josh Edwards, I said I would stay with you for better or for worse…and I guess that includes dumb, too.”

  She had to pause then, since her own words, and the grin that suddenly appeared on my face made us both laugh. I suddenly realized that I wasn’t going to lose the woman who meant more to me than life itself. Relief flooded over me like water gushing over a broken dam.

  When she regained her composure, she continued, “Mother always said that it wasn’t the place of a wife to understand her husband, but whether it’s her place or not, I understand you, Josh Edwards. I may not understand why you did it but frankly, I’m not a bit surprised that you did. In fact, I’d have been surprised if you hadn’t reupped. If I’m upset about anything, it’s that you didn’t call me before you signed the papers.”

  I started to say something, I don’t know what, but she stopped me with a finger to my lips. “Now it’s your turn to hush and my time to talk. Mother also said that a wife has to be there when she’s needed. I’m not sure I can stand it if you go back to Vietnam, but I am sure of one thing…I can’t stand to live without you, and I’m not going to live without you, at least not voluntarily.

  I’ve watched you become a soldier and I’ve felt your pride. So, if you have to be a soldier, then I have to be a soldier’s wife and I don’t have to understand why. Being your wife makes me proud and that’s all I need to know.”

  She paused. I waited. In a minute or so she turned to me, looked deep into my eyes and said, “Josh, I will always be here for you.”

  Then we both cried.

  Chapter 3

  Thirty days later, I reported to Ft. Wolters, Texas for five months of primary helicopter training. In 1968, the school was graduating 600 pilots a month. Most of them were Warrant Officers with a few Commissioned Officers in the mix. The first four weeks had nothing to do with flying. It was all about how to be an officer. Warrant Officers are a breed unto themselves. Every branch of service has them. They are specialists, men and women skilled in a particular job, whose only command responsibility is in their specialty, in our case, helicopter piloting. That was perfect for
me, I wanted to fly, not command.

  At the end of the first four weeks, we joined the Commissioned Officers or RLOs (Real Live Officers), as we called them when they weren’t around. Finally, flight training began. The school had three helicopter types, the Hughes TH—55s, Hill OH-23s, and Bell OH-13s. The first group activity was to line up according to height. The shortest guys were assigned to the 55s, the next tallest group flew the 23s and the tallest flew the 13s. I wasn’t the tallest in the group, but at 6’2” I was tall enough to be assigned to the 13s. That gave me an advantage of sorts. One that I didn’t recognize until I went to FortRucker for advanced flight training. The first four weeks of advanced flight training was conducted in 13s equipped for instrument flight and that was the type I’d trained on at Wolters.

  At Wolters, we had 3 heliports and 25 stage fields. Seven of the stage fields had western names; the rest had Vietnamese names so we could get used to them.

  There were over 1,200 helicopters at Wolters, a number that increased daily. However, with six hundred graduates every month, no matter how many helicopters we had, it was never enough.

  Our first task was learning to hover over one spot for five seconds. That is a serious test of concentration. A standing joke among military pilots is that to fly a helicopter all one has to be able to do is rub his head and pat his stomach at the same time. In truth, it requires much more coordination than that. Holding a helicopter in a steady hover is like balancing on a big ball, talking and reading a book while drinking a cup of steaming hot coffee.