We Were Beautiful Once

by Joseph Carvalko

  Nick looked at his watch. It was nearly 2:30 p.m. The afternoon crowd streamed into the courthouse. Harris sat, head on his chest, hands alternately pulling on his fingers until they snapped—resigned to the inevitable blowback from Hamilton’s appearance. Lindquist called the afternoon into session and instructed Nick to proceed.

  “Your Honor, plaintiff calls Mr. Trent Hamilton to the stand.” Nick had never laid eyes on Hamilton until now, following the 6’4”, steely-blue eyed, big headed man with the thinning crop of light brown hair as he opened the gate between the gallery and the bar. He wore an Armani gray tailored suit, French cuffs, gold links and a smooth, red silk tie with a perfect Windsor knot. He strode across the well, the sounds from his fresh leathered soles snapping off the walls like a drum roll announcing the man about whom people spoke in the same breath as ‘our next candidate for governor.’ He assumed the stand and stoically faced the crowd. The clerk swore him in. Nick began in a moderately cordial tone. “Mr. Hamilton, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to help us with this matter, the matter regarding Roger Girardin.”

  Hamilton stiffened his jaw. “I will help where I can,” he answered, barely able to contain his rage.

  “Mr. Hamilton, can you tell the court your occupation?”

  “I’m the CEO of Hamilton Helicopters,” he snapped, staring menacingly at Nick.

  “Located where?”

  Hamilton’s face showed a tinge of red. “Our main location is here in the south end of Bridgeport.”

  “And how long have you been with the company?”

  With a slight lift of his jowl, he answered. “Since, well, since my family bought it around 1950.”

  “Sir, you are a veteran of the Korean War, are you not?”

  Trent sat back in the chair. “Yes, June ’50 to October ’53.”

  “Mr. Hamilton, I am going to ask you some questions about your service. You should know that I’ve had an opportunity to review your impressive service record, which I mention because if you need to refresh your memory on a point I have the record here.”

  Hamilton’s face relaxed, the redness disappeared. “Thank you, I do not think I will need it.”

  “What outfit were you with?”

  “The 8240th Army Unit Headquarters X Corp Intelligence. I also was with a unit that did special forces type work.”

  “Weren’t the special forces started in’51 or ’52?”

  “Yes. In 1950, we actually were part of a program that later on, in ’52, was formalized. I believe, but don’t quote me here, part of the program became the Psychological Warfare Center at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. I was with CIC, or the Counter Intelligence Corp.”

  “Were you part of any Army division?”

  “The 8240th combined with command recon activities, which assumed responsibility for behind-the-lines activities, that is intelligence and special operations.”

  “What did special forces—or I guess CIC—do, exactly?”

  “We had different kinds of missions. For example, training partisans in sabotage or laying anti-personnel mines behind the lines. Other missions included operations to contact prisoners in POW camps, establishing escape and evasion routes from the camps. In some instances we worked with the CIA in covert ops.”

  “Were there any other assignments, such as unusual investigations, covert activities against insurgents?”

  Harris inserted himself into the proceedings. “Your Honor, please remind the witness that he is not to offer testimony regarding any confidential or secret military operations or information.”

  Lindquist understood, the government having stressed this in the early days of the litigation. “Yes, Mr. Hamilton, if you believe that any question will require you to divulge any state secret, please tell me in advance and we will retire to my chambers for further inquiry.”

  Hamilton nodded. “Yes. Well, sir, I was about to say, ‘nothing comes to mind.’”

  Nick continued. “So you worked behind the lines?”

  “Yes, we had various missions, mostly behind the enemy lines.” Hamilton answered.

  “There came a time when the enemy captured you, is that not true?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you tell the court what led up to your capture?”

  “Yes, it happened on my second mission behind the lines. August ’52. A squad of about ten paratroopers parachuted in near the Yalu River Estuary, a bunch of islands there. Raining. We were to surveillance what we could of troop movements and supervise the ROK laying of minefields on a road of strategic importance to the enemy.”

  As with all the previous witnesses, the room became eerily stilled when the subject turned to the events leading to a soldier’s capture. “We worked laying mines for a few days. But, apparently, one of the chutes wasn’t buried well after we’d landed. The Chinese spotted it. The area became infested with NK. One by one, we were captured. I held out for a day or two but was eventually found.”

  “What happened next?”

  “Tied my hands behind my back, marched off a few miles north to what I later learned was Camp 13.”

  “When you got there, did you see anybody from your unit?”

  “No, the men were segregated—officers in one place, noncoms and grunts in another.”

  “Did you not find it odd that you didn’t see anybody from your squad?”

  “At first, but after a while you don’t think about it.”

  “Did you consider that maybe they were killed?”

  “Yes, I suppose things like that go through your head, but I would’ve heard that if it were in the minefield area.” Hamilton no longer showed signs of his earlier outright fury.

  “You joined the service with a man named Jack O’Conner, is that not so?”

  “Yes, that’s right.” Hamilton looked at his hands.

  “And did you go to Korea with Mr. O’Conner?”

  “No, sir. Jack and I joined up as ROTC officers. But Jack was, well how’d you say it? Washed out.”

  “Did you see Jack after that in either the U.S. or in Korea?”

  “Yes, sir, in Korea.”

  “Where and under what circumstances?”

  “We were POWs in the same camp, although we rarely saw one another. I was an officer and being that he was enlisted... well, I saw him from a distance, and we’d wave, but that was it.”

  “Did you see Mr. O’Conner after the war?”

  “Yes, I gave him a job after we got back from Korea. Maybe 1955.”

  “Does he still work there?”

  “No, he left several years ago. Think he quit in ’72–’75 timeframe.”

  “Do you maintain any connection, now?”

  “No, when he left I lost touch. Actually I hardly ever saw him even during the years he worked for Hamilton.”

  “Sir, you were in Camp 13 from the time of your capture through your repatriation in September 1953?”

  “Yes, sir, I was one of the last to get out of the camp,” Hamilton answered, a hint of snootiness in his tone.

  “Why is that, sir?”

  “Because I was, informally at least, the administrator of the Americans."

  “What do you mean informally?”

  “The Chinese put me in charge.”

  To provoke Hamilton, Nick asked, “I would have thought the highest ranking officer would’ve been in charge?”

  “Well the highest rank was in charge of the troops, but I was in the dayroom. I spoke Chinese,” he answered smugly. Then with an air of accountability he continued, “They’d funnel various things through me. I’d communicate them to Colonel Levine. He was the highest ranking officer among us, until he was transferred. But for most purposes, you might say I was the lead man.”

  “And when was he transferred, if you know?”

  “Don’t recall.”

  “But you stayed, did you not?”

  “Yes.” Hamilton looked at his watch.

  “Who precisely put you in charge. What was his
name?”

  “Don’t remember.”

  “What was his position?”

  Hamilton offered little. “Commandant, maybe.”

  “What was his rank?”

  “Not sure, equivalent. Colonel maybe.”

  “Again, do you know why they selected you to remain?”

  Not intending to be overly cooperative, Hamilton remained brusque. “I could only speculate.”

  “Speculate then.”

  “Objection,” yelled Harris.

  Nick came back quickly, “Strike that. Why did you believe that they kept you?”

  Irritated now, he answered. “I spoke Chinese, and in that way I could act as a go between.”

  “Did you get to know most of the troops in the camp?”

  “Well, some, but there were too many. But I’ve always been good with names, and even if I don’t remember them now, if you were to mention someone I might recall.”

  “Roger Girardin.”

  Hamilton looked into the crowd, past Nick. “No, not him, not at Camp 13.”

  Nick waited for a second to see if the witness blinked, but instead Hamilton reached for his pitcher, poured a glass of water and turned the glass around—inspecting the water’s clarity. Nick slowly turned to Harris, but he refused to return his look or to see Nick’s raised eyebrow. But there wasn’t much Nick could do about it.

  “Sir, if you saw Roger in Camp 13, you would’ve recognized him? Is that true?”

  “Objection, your Honor, speculation.”

  “Strike that.”

  Nick handed Hamilton a photo. “Sir, here is a picture of Private Girardin just before he shipped out to Japan taken the summer of 1950. Do you recognize that man?”

  Hamilton studied the picture. “I have never seen this man.”

  “Sir, did you not know that Roger Girardin dated Jack O’Conner’s sister before the war?”

  “He may have, but that was thirty years and two wars ago. I can’t be expected to remember that far back, and in any case I did not socialize with Jack’s family.”

  “Mr. Hamilton, did you know any men named Girardin while you were in the service?”

  “There was one, his name was Milton. Pronounced his last name Jerdin, but I think he spelled it with a soft “G.” I’m not absolutely sure on the spelling. Ran into him. I do not have a clear recollection of which it was.”

  “Mr. Hamilton, did any government lawyers brief you on this point?”

  “Mr. Harris may have mentioned the name, but that’s it.”

  Harris reached for his glass, tipped it over and spilled water on his paisley tie. He quickly brushed it off . Nick and the judge looked in his direction. He stood up and pulled out his silver pocket watch. “Your Honor, defendant would ask that we take a short break at this time.”

  Lindquist’s eyes moved to the wall clock and agreed, “Yes, Counsel, we have run over our usual break.”

  Trent and Anna stood up at the same time. She looked at him leaving the witness stand to stretch his legs. She saw him look toward the back of the courtroom where she was sitting and recalibrated the image she’d carried for thirty years. Although now he had the full grown body of a fifty-seven-year-old, he still resembled the boy she had known. She asked Julie, “Do you think he recognizes me? He’s looking over here again. I don’t think he... ”

  Instead of answering Anna, Julie asked, “Why do you think that Jack and Trent never picked up on their friendship after they came home?”

  Anna never told her sister-in-law that William was Trent’s son, and naïvely she did not think that Jack told her either. “I don’t know, guess some things don’t last.” Anna knew their separation was not a simple one, not of boys growing into men, men going to war, diverting lives due to career choices or geography. No, they separated because their lives were so intertwined. The plain fact was that they had a friendship, which was inseparable in college, and then afterward, based on mutual self-interest—parasitic perhaps—winding around one another, growing like tangled banyan trees in a hairy contemptuous swamp over the course of many years, too complicated even for close friends to understand or untwist. She could not see what had played out in Camp 13, but she saw the fleeting guilt in Trent’s eyes for his transgressions before he joined the Army in that instant when their eyes met and he hesitated and quickly turned away. She found it hard to believe that he was the man to whom she gave the sweetness of her youth, but she never regretted it either. After all, as she often thought, without Trent, Will would never have been born.

  Red Hot Cold War

  THE SUMMER OF ’68 FOLLOWING HIGH SCHOOL graduation, Trent’s other son, William O’Conner ventured to California partly to spread his wings and partly to join in one war protest or another—there were hundreds to choose from. Before leaving, he told Jack “Most of these kids being drafted are victims of the power elites who prey on boys, poor kids, most with no way forward.” He and the many young men and women like him were not bystanders: they stood against war and the establishment. They searched for an answer to why America was in Vietnam or why blacks were burning down ghettos. Many ended up finding a new direction, a new despair, or a new drug: marijuana, cocaine, heroin or LSD. William tired of the California scene, returning in September ’69 to attend St. Johns University. But the following year, he quit—partly because he could not afford it and partly because his grades were dismal. He returned to Bridgeport. By the following January, he had yet to enroll in college again. In early March, he received a draft notice ordering him to report for a physical on April 26. He immediately tried to enroll in college and reapply for a deferment.

  Jack was working for HH when Will told him about the draft notice. Trent was spending most of his time at the bank. Jack rarely, if ever, ran into him. He made two attempts to have Trent, an influential member of the draft board, help with the deferment. His old friend and boss did not return the calls. Finally, Jack went to the bank in late March and asked him to pull some strings; after all, he was Chairman of the local draft board. Trent was polite to his old college buddy, war buddy and senior employee of one of his major investments. And although they never spoke about it, there was the paternity connection. They parted on a hearty handshake, and Jack thought that he had succeeded in postponing Will’s military service. When Jack learned that William’s deferment did not materialize, he tried calling Trent, and discovered to his grim disappointment that Trent was in India selling helicopter parts—in all likelihood returning too late to do anything to divert the army’s intention to induct Will.

  ***

  When Jack could not reach Trent, he went to Father Ryan in hopes that he had some advice. After explaining his situation, Ryan did not think he could be of much help, explaining that he had received one or two calls a month about the draft, and after a few attempts at exerting a subtle ecclesiastical influence on a particular member of the draft board, the bishop told him to keep his nose out of things that weren’t God’s business. Jack sat, head bowed, ready to accept the inevitable.

  “Vietnam, Father, Vietnam. What in hell is it?”

  Ryan kept his feelings in check rather than make Jack feel worse than he did. He did not answer.

  “Father, it’s odd that soldiers hate war, what it stands for, more than anyone—unless they’re insane. But they also justify what they’ve done when it’s over.”

  “Yes, and many of those—especially when they get old—will tell you service during war was their greatest achievement. There’s this need to justify why we’ve been put on this earth.”

  The men sat quietly. “What should I do, then, just accept Will’s situation?”

  “Jack, Will knows a little about mechanics. Send him down to the Army recruiter. I know the guy. I’ll call. Let’s see if they won’t take him. Send him where he’ll be out of harm’s way.”

  ***

  Will was trained at Fort Wolters in Texas to fly helicopters. By the time he had graduated from flight school, he had gained a reputation for kn
owing about helicopter mechanics, owed in no small measure to working summer’s at Hamilton Helicopters. Instead of being shipped to Vietnam, he was sent on a temporary duty assignment to Japan where he worked with Fuji Heavy Industries outside of Tokyo. They were developing modifications to the Huey UH1-J, a derivation of the craft he had learned to fly. Six months after arriving in Japan, he received orders for Vietnam.

  In 1970, Warrant Officer William O’Conner went to Vietnam to fly helicopters, while Anna and Jack watched the war, like the rest of America, through the nightly news projected on the TV.

  Irrevocable Truths

  IN THEIR UNIVERSE, A TWENTY-FIVE watt bulb in the middle of the room supplied illumination when the lights dimmed on the tiny Christmas tree lamps that shone through the cellophane windows of little cardboard houses. The Lionel train ran in a continuous circle. All was well in the manufactured town Jack and Will had assembled in the basement. Upstairs, the doorbell rang.

  Anna answered and an army chaplain asked, “Mrs. O’Conner?”

  “Yes?”

  “I am here from the Army and regret—”

  Anna screamed.

  But, the truth, having been suddenly coiled, irrevocably wound into every fiber of her existence and could not be unwound, by Man, Nature or God. Jack, hearing her shrieks, ran upstairs from the cellar. When the chaplain left, the parents remained clutched until their mind, spirits and bodies deflated. They talked, sobbed, bawled how they would make it through the night, how they would live on. How they would tell their daughter Mona that Will was dead.

  Sometime after the second hour, Jack went back to the cellar. The train was still circling. He remembered the hours that turned into days that turned into years. Will and he laid track. They built neighborhoods. They made platforms of plywood to satisfy their passion for railroading. They built trestles from tiny balsam beams—a quarter inch wide and three inches long—piece by piece, each a truss in the trestle engineered for the locomotive to make its way up the grade. Plaster sidewalks a quarter-inch high curbed streets dotted with cardboard houses. The leaded inhabitants living affluent lives raising children—posed in a solitary positions. A rubber brontosaurus and a plastic dragon Will had placed in the town square and left there by Jack so he would never forget Will’s sense of fantasy—or as a reminder that dinosaurs and dragons might stave off enemies that could disturb the sanctuary of Toyland. Here, even the appearance of movement was an illusion; the locomotive’s headlight cast on a wall never went anywhere, except in Jack and Will’s imagination. Yes, here life was static. What the man and boy could not control in life, they controlled in the miniaturized train towns sprawled across the basement. This would be the land Jack would fashion. If he were God.