The General's War

By David Hall

The Viet Nam war is all but over, and the American troops are lookingforward to coming home and getting on with their lives. But someoneapparently forgot to tell General Rush. Incensed that his governmenthas given up, hes determined to mount one more operation, if just tosalvage a bit of national honor and personal pride. THE GENERALS WAR takes a comic and irreverent look at the kind of military thinking that gets us into wars in the first place and keeps us there long after we should be gone. Must reading for history buffs and concerned citizens.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 24, 2003
• ISBN: 9781465324696

Book preview

THE

GENERAL’S WAR

David Hall

Copyright © 2003 by David Hall.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author‘s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

Correspondence:

New Army Press

PO Box 9582

Fort Collins, CO 80525-0500

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Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

To The Generals

There are no generals’ wars,

no chess games

where grand strategies clash

electrically

over carved

inconsequential

knights and rooks and pawns.

I found in the end

no triumph in standing over

inert raw meat

that once had been

like me

but found

nonetheless

prophetic signs in the entrails

and all in the same dark hand:

The body is through with evolution.

Which means the stomach

will gain no special gift

for ingesting bullets,

the heart no secret sealing wax

to cover shrapnel holes.

To my nerves and tissue

I apologize for patriotism;

to my bones

I go down on one knee

to ask pardon

for my dreams of intellectual violence.

We are not constructed for war.

CHAPTER 1

As the war slogged ignominiously to a close, some of those last long days lay quiet and fragrant across the blasted land like memories of a more innocent time. Enough lush vegetation had survived—ferns and bamboo everywhere, scattered groves of coconut palms, whole fields of bright poppies the size of dinner plates—that on these golden days it threatened to rise once more and reclaim the countryside, to engulf the people in a wild rush of exotic perfume and sweet nostalgia.

And the people, weary from decades of fear and confusion, longed to be engulfed, swallowed into the past, to awaken from the war as from a bad dream. On days like these they emerged from cocoons of silence to flutter along the dirt roads and paddy dikes almost happily, whispering, chattering, sometimes laughing out loud.

This same giddy mood enveloped the foreign soldiers, too. Far from home and having long since lost interest in everything except getting back alive and un-maimed, they loitered about their barracks, gulping beer and smoking cigarettes, some for the first time in their lives, listening to radios and tape recorders, swapping stories about the real world back in Iowa and New Jersey and Texas; suspended in time, daydreaming.

But that same tropical breeze wafted a scent of a different kind through the open window of Major General Rush, who sat glowering at the giggling women in the dusty road with huge baskets of laundry balanced on their heads. It was the sickly sweet stench of decay, of rotting opportunity.

You’d all be laughing out of the other sides of your mouths, he growled, if we’d listened to Goldwater and nuked your asses. The only Senator with balls.

As he watched the idle soldiers flirting with the laundry girls, he was dismayed to realize that they were becoming, right before his eyes, civilians. Goddamned grab-ass civilians. Couldn’t even wait to get home. He turned from the window in disgust and sat back in his big swivel office chair, one of the few amenities he allowed himself, and blew into the room a cloud of cigar smoke that billowed as if from a marking grenade, but darker, grey-black, like a monsoon storm.

What a waste it had all been.

And not just a waste of lives—all wars were that—but far worse: a waste of time. The general’s own precious, dwindling time. There would be no more wars, at least not in his lifetime. The civilians would never allow it. Everybody was too embarrassed about this one, and would be for a good long time to come. War would be a taboo topic at cocktail parties for more than a few social seasons.

And this one was all but over. Any newspaper, even The Stars and Stripes, would tell you that. The whole thing had just ground to a halt, like an overheated vehicle that finally locks up and sits in the road steaming, stranding the helpless passengers far from home.

Helpless.

The word echoed in the general’s mind, a whispered taunt, a dare. And it was especially ugly to listen to all day, and most nights, too, when he knew, deep in his most military of hearts, that all he needed to shut it up was more an operation, one last chance to score before the game ended.

But he knew he wouldn’t get that chance. Intelligence activity had all but shut down in the rush of sudden evacuations, and even if he had a solid lead on a Viet Cong village, where would he round up enough combat troops to take it? He had only one functional unit left under his command, the Sixth, and it was so decimated by casualties and rotations back to the States that it was good for little anymore but picking up cigarette butts and burning shit in big barrels. Besides, it was commanded, to use the term loosely, by Colonel Majeskie, and the less said about the colonel the better so far as General Rush was concerned: a goddamned civilian in khaki drag if ever there was one.

No, there would be no more operations.

Unless …

Suddenly there was a sharp knock at the door.

It was Major Hartley, the Division Operations Officer.

Sorry, sir, but there’s a girl here who insists on seeing you.

The general frowned. Girl? What girl?

Before the major could answer, the door swung open and a native girl about twenty shoved by him into the office. She held in one hand a small transistor radio that blared American country music and in the other a pair of canvas combat boots with gleaming leather toes which she dumped on the general’s desk.

Here’s you boots, she said. Fifty piasters and make it fast.

Do you want me to see her out? said Major Hartley.

The general thought a minute. Not yet. He shooed at the major as at a fly. Consider yourself dismissed, Hartley.

Major Hartley saluted, bowed nervously, and made his escape.

The general glared at the girl. Who in hell do you think you are? Why didn’t you leave those boots on the porch like you’re paid to do? Did somebody invite you in here?

I invite me, snapped the girl. These my last boots to shine. You give me money now! She smiled proudly. I going to America.

In a pig’s eye! snorted the general.

The girl stamped her foot. I am! I got my papers!

General Rush slammed a fist on his desk. I don’t want you in my country!

It wasn’t anything personal. In fact, the general never thought of the girl personally at all. He knew her only as Suzie, a sassy Oriental who over-charged him for bootshines. He didn’t want to know her any better. Glaring at her now, he was suddenly assaulted by an awful vision of getting home to America and finding it virtually overrun by this devious race. Everywhere he went they’d be: checking out groceries, delivering newspapers, repairing cars, installing phones, maybe even, worst of all, working in banks. And always they’d greet him with that old familiar phony-baloney smile and fake meekness while secretly planting bugs in his phone lines, poisons in his produce, Communist propaganda in his morning paper, and tampering with his savings account.

You want to know America’s one big fault? he said. We’re too soft-hearted. We go halfway around the world and help some poor slobs fight a war, and then when it’s over, we invite the whole goddamned bunch to come live with us!

Suzie’s eyes filled with angry tears. You no stop me, boy! I go to America, be big country star! She took a deep breath and launched into a high-pitched, nasal version of Cold, Cold Heart that so un-nerved the general he gave her not only the fifty piasters for shining his boots but an extra ten to shut up. But watching her stuff the bills into her shirt, he had an idea.

You want to make some more money?

Suzie sniffed. You want that kind of girl, you go to Saigon. I no boom-boom nobody. I saving me for America husband. So go stick it some place, G.I.!

With that, she turned her radio up and started out.

General Rush caught her arm.

A whore’s not what I need right now, he said. I need— he lowered his voice —a spy. I need good information. And I’ll pay for it. He took from his pocket a roll of bills and waved it in her face. Two hundred dollars. Dollars. Not that Monopoly money you use.

Suzie stared wide-eyed. What kind information you want?

Ready to do a little business, hey? said the general. He reached over and snatched her radio and turned it off. It’s all yours if you tell me where I can find some Viet Cong.

Suzie grabbed for the radio. Hey, play my song!

Not until I get my information, said the general. He waved the money in her face. Look here, you little idiot. Two hundred dollars! You could buy new dresses with it! Or make-up! You could use it!

Suzie shook her head. Play my song.

What song?

On the radio. When you take it from me. My favorite. Find it!

Forget the goddamned song! snapped the general. You can find it later, after you tell me where to find some V.C.

But Suzie was adamant. First play my song.

Cursing under his breath, General Rush switched on the radio. It was country music hour on the Armed Forces Network, and Buck Owens sang mournfully, and even more nasally than Suzie, of lost love and long drunken binges.

Suzie listened a moment then shook her head again. Wrong song.

It’s over! the general snarled. The damned song is over! It’s a different one now! Sounds just like the last one!

Suzie stamped her foot. Wrong song! Wrong song!

General Rush was on the verge of violence when something made him stop: a memory, flashing in his mind, of a dog he’d once had that would sit and bark the same few notes over and over until somebody guessed what it was he wanted. Was Suzie trying to tell him something? And didn’t what she was saying sound vaguely, distantly familiar?

He looked at her. Wrong song?

Yeah, she said. Wrong song.

The general’s breath caught in his throat. Quickly he dug some bills out of his pocket and handed them to her. Then he went to the big map on his wall, the one that listed every chughole in the country by name. Running his finger painstakingly along the river that snaked through the swampy delta, he finally found what he was looking for.

This not enough, Suzie said from behind him. You said two hundred. This only twenty.

Twenty, two hundred, whatever it is, it’s more money than you’ve ever had, the general said over his shoulder, so stop your belly-aching and get the hell out of here.

Yeah, right, see you in America, General Jerk, Suzie said, marching out and slamming the door.

Quite the little wildcat, he chuckled, almost fondly. She’ll do fine in America. Just keep her away from my groceries.

He turned again to the map. For a long time he just stared.

Was it possible? Or had he been here so long and suffered so many frustrations and downright humiliations that he’d forgotten how to interpret data? Or was it just that he wanted another operation so badly that his mind was no longer under his command and it saw what it wanted to see, heard what it wanted to hear?

Because the latter two were true, he chose the former. Why wasn’t it possible? Anything had seemed possible in this war, where you never knew who was on whose side or what you were fighting for or even who was ahead at any given time. So why wouldn’t this be possible, too?

Again he ran his finger, like a sampan, down the winding river. Again it stopped on the little black dot.

Rong Song.

A tiny farming village right smack on the river and no more than five miles away.

Why not?

He clicked his heels and called: Hartley! Get in here!

Within seconds, Major Hartley appeared at the door, trembling as usual, holding his glasses to the bridge of his nose with a finger to keep them from sliding down on a river of sweat.

Yes sir?

Get Majeskie on the phone. ASAP!

Major Hartley stiffened. Like virtually every other American in the country, with the exception of the general, of course, and a few other fanatics, he wanted only to put in his time and go home. A call to Colonel Majeskie meant trouble.

May I ask why you want to talk to the colonel … sir?

General Rush stood at the window, his wide solid body blocking the tropical sun almost entirely, casting the room into shadow, lowering the temperature a good five degrees. When he turned around, his glare dropped it another five.

You can ask anything you want, he said, as long as you’ve got the backbone to take the answer. Do you?

Major Hartley, unable to speak, nodded.

Good, said the general. The answer is that I’m scheduling an operation. How do you like that?

Fine, croaked the major, his body slumping suddenly, as if he were a Dover sole that had been swiftly and expertly de-boned at the general’s table. By the general himself. If that’s what you want.

General Rush crossed the room to his desk and began strapping on his pistol. Damned right it’s what I want. It’s what you should want, too. One last operation. Think of it! A farewell gift to the Commies. He clamped his teeth down hard on his cigar. One last chance to kill some Jap bastards.

The major’s voice came out a whisper: They’re not Japs, sir.

The general scowled. It’s that kind of nitpicking attitude that lost this war for us, Hartley. I’ve been through three wars, and I’m here to tell you there were Japs in every one. Jap is a state of mind. You understand?

The major nodded again, his mouth as dry as the road outside.

And that’s not the worst of it, said the general. "You just watch. After this slimy little war is over, they’ll all go home with us. I know of at least one myself! They’ll be all over our towns and our highways, buying our cars and marrying our daughters. You want some Jap bastard marrying your daughter, Hartley?’

He didn’t wait for an answer but finished buckling his pistol belt, then jammed his helmet onto his broad prickly graying head.

Don’t come crying to me, he said, when some Jap bastard opens a restaurant in your neighborhood and you get food poisoning. I did my best to keep ‘em out, and I’m still doing it!

At the door he hesitated. And don’t bother calling Majeskie. If I’m any judge of character, and lack of it, he’s probably squashed under his desk right now, shaking like a hippie. I’ll pay him a visit in person. As the door slammed behind him, he called back: And get artillery on the horn! We’ll need a full battery for support! Maybe two!

After he’d gone, Major Hartley sat down heavily at his desk and stared at the meticulously crafted short-timer’s calendar he’d spent all morning making. A gust of warm air wafted through the room, gently rippling the paper. Slowly he crumpled the calendar into a ball and dropped it into the olive drab trash can beside the desk.

Twenty-seven days.

It might as well be twenty-seven years.

CHAPTER 2

Colonel Majeskie sat at his desk, thinking seriously about getting underneath it.

He glanced, yet again, at his watch.

Ten more minutes. It seemed an eternity.

With but a few weeks remaining on his tour of duty, the colonel had come to regard the desk as his last-ditch emergency refuge from the sharp eyes of the sniper he knew lurked in the woods beyond the laundry, high in a coconut palm, patiently waiting for a clear shot. If he hadn’t shot anybody yet, it wasn’t because he didn’t exist, as the post doctor had rudely suggested, but because he was infinitely patient. And discerning. He didn’t want to shoot just anybody. He was obviously holding out for the big prize: the commanding officer himself. Like a bee, he would likely sting but once and then die, so he had to make it count.

But would the colonel have sufficient warning to dive under his desk? Probably not. As a child growing up in the Midwest, his family had done periodic drills that involved the whole family squeezing under the grand piano in the family room in case of a tornado, but there was always a weather warning, always time to assemble and bunch together under the heaviest piece of furniture in the house. The sniper, by nature, allowed no such warning. He was always there, with nothing else to do but target and shoot his victim. At a time of his choosing.

As for the colonel, he had come too far, suffered too many shocks and deprivations, to be snuffed out now when he was almost home. In fact, he could easily, and happily, have spent the remainder of his time in-country under the desk were it not for a competing, and just as primal, drive that stole over him every day as the clock neared noon, luring him away from thoughts of huddling under the desk and propping him up in the back window like a big fat target in a carnival shooting gallery.

It was, simply put, lust.

He felt it now, pulling his eyes toward the window, the source of his dilemma, his trauma: the hell-mouth. For the window looked out over a wide drainage ditch to the laundry, where the native girls worked all day washing GI jungle fatigues. The trouble started at high noon, when the girls would come back from a lunch break and, with the tropical sun roaring its fiercest, would pull off their shirts to work bare-breasted.

Being a happily married man far from home, Colonel Majeskie went wild each time. Before long, he became obsessed with the girls, whispering lovingly to them across the ditch, even making up poems and dirty songs that he sang to them in his most suggestive off-key baritone.

Then he would remember the sniper and have to scramble back to his desk, where he would pass the afternoon in agony, hearing the siren laughter of the laundry girls but not daring to risk another trip to the window. By nightfall, the colonel would finally stand up and make his way to his bunk, where he would lie awake thinking about dying, with visions of half-naked exotic young girls dancing in his brain. And he would sweat profusely, which meant that the next morning he had to send his damp olive drab boxer shorts to, of course, the laundry.

A vicious cycle.

When he did finally manage to sink into a fitful sleep, he more often than not dreamed of the laundry girls flinging grenades across the ditch at his open window, their young breasts jiggling in laughter. Sometimes he dreamed of Madeleine and the kids and life in the faraway stateside army, but those dreams usually didn’t last long and always ended in a dishonorable discharge, a costly divorce, and a lifetime of shame. All courtesy of the laundry girls.

He knew it wasn’t normal behavior, but these weren’t normal times, this wasn’t a normal place, and he was lonely, and scared, and in charge. He looked at his watch. Two minutes to noon. He took a deep breath and unfolded himself from his chair, holding onto the desk for support, his middle-aged knees popping and creaking in protest. Once at the window, he closed his eyes for a moment, praying to be spared for at least one more afternoon.

Suddenly he heard a throat clearing.

The general!

His eyelids shot up like cheap window shades. He turned around.

Standing by the desk was Sergeant Hightower, his personal clerk, whose small office adjoined the colonel’s own and who seemed, at least to the colonel, to enjoy sneaking in at the least opportune moments.

Colonel Majeskie was embarrassed to be caught praying. General Rush didn’t think officers needed it, and Hightower was just the type to snitch. (The colonel himself hadn’t felt the need for prayer until recently, until the brown tits and the phantom sniper; now he was almost fanatical about it.)

I wish you’d learn to knock before you barge in, Sergeant, he said sharply as he made his way back to his chair. And don’t think I was praying. I wasn’t. The colonel saw nothing wrong with lying to enlisted men; they didn’t believe half of what they were told anyway.

Sorry, sir, said the sergeant, trying not to roll his eyes, but I did knock. For at least five minutes.

Colonel Majeskie bristled. Did anyone tell you to come in?

No sir, said Sergeant Hightower, but I knew you were in. I thought maybe you were napping.

Napping? the colonel snorted. Do you honestly think a full colonel in a war zone would allow himself the luxury of napping?

An enormous yawn came upon him at that moment, a gaping Grand Canyon of a yawn so difficult to contain that he felt as if he’d swallowed a concussion grenade. As he sat at his desk waiting for his head to deflate to normal size, he realized that the sergeant was still standing there and showed no signs of going away.

What do you want? he asked unpleasantly.

General Rush is on his way to see you, sir.

Colonel Majeskie had begun trying to swallow another cavernous yawn, which he promptly choked on. The one person in the world he most feared and least wanted to see was General Rush, who might at any time decide to send him up in a helicopter to direct troops in the field, a dangerous duty of brigade commanders that the colonel had so far shrewdly managed to avoid.

At first he had been blessed in having good battalion commanders who earned wide regard for the brigade by conducting their operations with complete disregard for his orders. But Colonel Majeskie, having, despite appearances, a measure of pride, finally grew so irked at being ignored by his subordinates that he threatened to court-martial any commander who disobeyed him again.

In the weeks to follow, the battalions one by one began to fall in ambushes, as the colonel, getting his way but also getting more and more addled by his twin obsessions of merciless snipers and topless native sirens, kept sending the troops into hopeless situations, where they were always uninformed, under-supplied, and out-numbered. Down to just a handful of captains to command the decimated units, he had lately begun devoting a large share of his praying time to begging that the war be over before the general went off the deep end entirely and scheduled another—he could hardly even think the dreaded word—operation. There hadn’t been one in weeks, and rumor, or wishful thinking, had it that no more were planned.

So why was the general coming to see him?

I’m very busy, Sergeant, he said. Tell him I’m—I’m out.

Can’t do it, sir, said Sergeant Hightower. He knows you’re here. He said he saw you standing in front of your window when he was inspecting the laundry. In fact, he said to tell you that if he’d been a VC sniper, you‘d be dead right now.

Colonel Majeskie pulled his head into his collar like a turtle.

„So what should I tell him?" said the sergeant.

The colonel knew very well what he‘d like to tell the general, but he also knew what he would have to tell him, and there was a wide world between the two. So he drew himself up as best he could,