The Police had started their Search when a radio call sign I didn’t recognize asked me to secure and mark a one-ship landing zone for my “inbound visitors.” I hadn’t been told about any visitors, but the call could only have come from one of our helicopters, so I chose a harvested rice paddy nearby, and popped a smoke grenade on the stubble.  Soon a shiny, V.I.P.-type HUEY touched down, and out clambered four or five starched-fatigue field-grade officers from the First Cavalry Division Staff. As the HUEY took off, they gathered in a small cluster, looking nervously around, as if expecting the hedgerows to erupt in fire at any moment. Then a Major made a bee-line for a machinegun position on the cordon, to chat with the crew. When I saw him take up the prone position behind the machinegun, I imagined the chaos if all the others fanned out to wander around my perimeter doing the same. Desperate to limit the distraction, I invited them to my Command Post and started a quick briefing about what we were doing.

One helicopter-load was bad enough, but within minutes another unknown call sign asked for smoke on a secured Landing Zone, and soon I found myself with a dozen spiffy Field Grade officers from Division cluttering up my little command post.

A gregarious overweight guy from Logistics peppered me with questions about rations, while an Intelligence Major pumped me for information on where I thought the Fifth North Vietnamese Army Division had gotten to. A few ambled over to corner the radio operators. Of course the Pfc.’s -- awed by all the rank -- were too polite to insist on being left alone so they could devote their full attention to the radio. I felt a surge of resentment. My job was taking care of Company B, not hosting visitors. 

I had to find a way to get this crew of wanna-be combatants out of there. To change the subject I decided I’d call the S-3 back at UPLIFT.  I looked for my radio operator -- who was supposed to be no more than a few feet from me at all times – and saw that the brass had crowded him out of the clearing. Frustrated and cross, I barked:

"Downs!"

Before me, a synchronized field-grade swim team, in perfect unison, plunged face down into the dirt, hugging whatever cover they could find.  When the fifty or so villagers in the holding area witnessed that, they too hit the deck. At this point, Pfc. Tom Downs, radio handset in his outstretched hand, dutifully picked his way around the prostrated forms and hustled towards me. When he smirked, I got laughing so hard I nearly fell off the paddy dike.  Composing myself, I made my call to Battalion. Minutes after that, the muddied visitors must have figured it was time to move on, and they left the way they’d come. 

We never again got surprise visitors from Division. I always suspected the first group of staff warriors passed the word around headquarters:  “Don’t visit B Company, 1/50^th Infantry! That wise-ass Captain makes fun of visitors from ‘higher.’” 

"For, while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it always must be heard. There isn't any other tale to tell, it's the only light we've got in all this darkness." -- James Baldwin, "Sonny's Blues."

Around twenty-two hundred the waiter announces he needs to close the hospitality suite. Several men grab the ice chests, and thirty or more old soldiers file through the austere lobby enroute to the gazebo out by the swimming pool. The Command Post is reactivated, and in no time the Phoenix City, Alabama night air reeks of cheap cigar smoke.       

Reliving our time together in another hot, steamy part of the world, the Band of Brothers divides into small groups that form and dissolve and renew continuously. Men circulate from one huddle to the next, eavesdropping until they find a story they want to contribute to -- or one they just haven’t heard in a while. Those who’ve been to several reunions fall easily into conversation, but all remember how intimidating it was to come to their first one, so newcomers get a warm welcome. The noise level ebbs and flows, but never dies out. Some groups produce bursts of laughter at a funny anecdote, or hoots as one man joshes another. In more subdued cohorts, the story-teller may lose his voice as memory takes him to a place so sad his eyes tear up, and his throat constricts, choking off his words. Usually a nearby buddy will finish the account for him, getting out at last the painful story he’s been wanting to tell for over four decades.

I’m sitting with a couple of Lieutenants from B Company. I’ve just bummed yet another cigar from Thurman Pike, and I’m using his lighter to fire it up when, from behind me on the fringe, a loud voice drowns out most conversations:

          “Did I ever tell you the time the Cap’n tried to drown me?”

Oh… shit!  I don’t have to look to know it’s Richard Wilson.  He’s at his first reunion. Mutterings of disbelief come from some groups, but hearing an NCO call out an officer isn’t usual, and most of the men listen up.

“No, really, look! The Cap’n says: ‘Sarn’t Wilson, Get your ass down there and hook this cable up to the tow-pintle.’” His salvo draws sympathetic murmurs from the crowd, and there isn’t any doubt about just which Captain he’s talking about. Knowing I’m in trouble if I don’t get the initiative, I shout:

          “Hey wait a minute!”      

“Hell, yes,” he presses on, “And him?” Pointing my way, he asserts: “Used to be Captain of the West Point swim team!”  Wilson is warming up now… creative, loose with the facts. And the tactic seems to be working, as many around him are getting into his story. Righteous indignation drips from every word as he bellows:

          “Hell, we had 13-ton of Armored Personnel Carrier, sunk in water so deep you couldn’t see more than the top three feet of the antenna!” He holds out a hand, palm facing down, a yard above the cement.

“I dove down in there, water all muddy… couldn’t even see the APC, much less find the tow-pintle and hook into it. When I come up… he sends me right back down again!” 

Looking over my shoulder at him, I take a long pull on my can of tepid Budweiser. I’m playing catch-up now.

          “God Damnit, Sarn’t Wilson, what was your job?” He cocks his head to one side and scans the smiling faces -- to be sure everyone shares his amazement that the Cap’n should ask such an inane question.

“Cap’n, you know I was the Motor Sergeant,”

“Motor Sarn’t,” I press on, “let’s see now, s’posed to keep the vehicles running… right?”  He nods. 

“And… was that APC running?”

“Running? Hell no it wasn’t running, Cap’n! It was in fifteen foot of water. How could it run?”

“OK. Now, and what was my job?”

          “Why… you were Company Commander, supposed to take care of me… and that’s what I’m talking about. Me not knowing how to swim, you were trying to drown me!”      

 “OK, stalled vehicle. So, I commanded the motor Sergeant to get it out of the water, and make it run.”

“Yeah, but Cap’n, I told you …” he stammered, still playing the crowd.

“OK, now; and who was it that finally got the cable hooked up?”

“Well… you did, Cap’n, but only after you tried to drown me.” Many roar with laughter, but he hesitates, apparently grasping for a fresh line of attack.

“Cap’n, you know… you’d better treat me right. I’ve got the goods on you.”

 “Wilson, what are you talking about now?”

“I’ve got evidence! Even before that time you tried to drown me, you tried to destroy my morals. I have documentary proof!”

“Oh, come on…”

“I have in my possession the official pass whereas you authorized Staff Sergeant Richard Wilson to go to Sin City in An Khe, Vietnam. It’s signed 27 September, 1967, by Richard P. Guthrie, Captain, Infantry, Commanding.” Howls of laughter reverberate from the two storey façade of the motel courtyard as, nose in the air, lips pursed, he pans the crowd triumphantly.

“Now we’re getting somewhere. Wilson, Damnit! You should have been back at the Motor Pool, taking care of the vehicles, and now you admit… you confess you were off in the ville, chasing the honeys!”  The crowd hoots and roars.

“Careful now, Cap’n, or everyone will know. I’m warning you, that pass you signed is going up, on the World… Wide… Web!”

Our faces distorted with mirth, Wilson and I jump to our feet as one, and thread our way through the crowd to come together in a bear hug that lasts.

“Welcome home, you crazy bastard,” I say softly, “I’m glad you finally made it to one of these.”

“Yeah,” he murmurs, “it’s good to be home, Cap’n. You know I’d follow you all the way to East Hell…Welcome Home.”

 

 

This is an essay about my continued search for employment and a "new normal" during the current global economic recession. 

This is an essay about being 50+ and unemployed in a rapidly changing world.