Friendly Fire (10 page)

“Well, yes,” Dobkin said, “but he's entitled.…”

“I don't care,” Peg said.

“Okay, but if you should change your mind.…”

“We won't!” Gene said with such certainty that Peg looked at him with surprise.

“You don't want one either?” she asked.

Gene Mullen had been on one of the first honor guard firing squads in Iowa during World War II. The body of a young Army private killed on Wake Island had been brought back to Des Moines for a military funeral, and his grave was no more than twenty-five feet from one of the main roads into Des Moines. As Gene and the rest of the honor guard had stood at attention with their rifles at present arms, car after car had passed by. Not one driver had slowed or paid the least bit of attention. Gene had never forgotten the sham their lack of respect had made of the young soldier's sacrifice. He didn't want that to happen to his boy. And, too, Gene had been angered by Dobkin's obvious eagerness to hold a military funeral, an eagerness that suggested Michael's death meant no more to him than an opportunity for all the local American Legionnaires and VFW members to dress up in their uniforms so that they could play soldier again. Gene knew who would make up Dobkin's honor guard firing squad, and later, when Peg asked Gene why he hadn't wanted a military funeral, he answered, “I don't want those Legion types firing over our son's grave.”

Several of the Mullens' friends called that afternoon to ask them to release the news of Michael's death since there were still many people in La Porte who thought it was only a rumor. Peg hadn't realized that the Army, as the Mullens had requested, had not sent out the news to the press. She called the local radio and television stations and newspapers and confirmed what Gene had told them the day before, that Michael had been killed by ARVN artillery and that the story could now be released.

Father Shimon, who had declined the Mullens' invitation for dinner Sunday night, did stop by later for some coffee. At first, conversation around the kitchen table was casual and light. Gene discovered that he and Father Shimon had been together at Camp Dodge for about a year just after the start of the Second World War. They talked about life in the Army until, over second cups of coffee, Gene asked the priest what he thought of the Vietnam War.

“Do you consider this war an immoral war?” Gene asked.

“
Im
-moral?” Father Shimon repeated, licking his lips.

“Yes or no?” Gene asked.

“Peg knows I'm, ah-h, against the war.”

“Then you do consider the war immoral?”

“Yes-s-s.”

“And how long have you felt this way about the war?” Gene asked.

“I've been, ah, thinking it for about a year.… I have my own private feelings about it.”

“Only ‘private' feelings?” Gene asked.

“I've never taken a public stand on the war.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don't think that's my place. I don't make public statements,” Father Shimon said. “I have private feelings, my own, ah, personal feelings. I go to veterans hospitals. I say prayers. Peg knows how I feel.”

“Peg knows!
Peg knows,”
Gene said angrily. “But nobody else does. What kind of man of God are you? Why don't you stand up like a man and speak out instead of whisper against the war!”

Father Shimon sat in embarrassed silence.

“Do you plan to take any public stand?” Gene asked him.

“No-o-o, Gene, I don't think so.…”

“Why not? Because you're chaplain for the American Legion?”

“Gene,” Peg said, laying her hand on his arm, “wasn't Sergeant Fitzgerald supposed to get back in touch with us today?”

“That's right,” Gene said, “he never did call about the escort, did he?”

Father Shimon, grateful for the change of subject, finished his coffee and hurried home.

“What was the matter with you?” Peg asked Gene later. “I thought you were going to hit him!”

A little after ten o'clock the next morning Army Captain Ralph T. Pringle introduced himself as the senior survivors' assistance officer. He had come to the farm to pick up their request for the special escort and alternate special escort. The Mullens provided the names, ranks, serial numbers and APO addresses of two boys who had been in college with Michael, both of whom were now in Vietnam. Captain Pringle said he would send their request to the Pentagon immediately since time was short, and the Mullens naturally wondered why, if time was so short, hadn't Captain Pringle or Sergeant Fitzgerald got in touch with them yesterday?

“Now, Mr. and Mrs. Mullen,” Captain Pringle was saying, “you can plan on a delay of about ten days between the time of your son's death and his body's arrival. That would mean he should arrive in Waterloo on or about the … let's see, the twenty-eighth.”

“He'll be here Saturday?” Gene asked.

“We can't state that for certain,” Captain Pringle said. “The time of his arrival depends entirely upon the number of deaths in Vietnam during the week he died.”

“We know that,” Peg said. “Sergeant Fitzgerald told us the body is returned when they have enough to make a planeful. I also know Michael will be home soon. I'm sure the losses are greater than we're being told. I'm positive of that.”

Unknown to Captain Pringle and the Mullens, Michael's body was to arrive in Oakland that very day.

Late that afternoon an Iowa couple whose son had been killed in Vietnam the year before came to the Mullens' farm to lend sympathy and support.

“The thing that sticks most in my mind,” the father told them, “was the night before our boy left for Vietnam, he was lying on his bed in his room and I went in to see him. I walked in and he turned over and looked at me and he said, ‘Dad?' he said, ‘Dad, I'm scared.' He was lying there shivering, shaking in his bed. He said, ‘I'm so
scared
, Dad.'”

“You see,” the mother said, “our son told us he'd never come back. He died only a month after he got there. I knew he would. I knew it! The day he left for Vietnam I
knew
I would never see him again.”

Peter Dobkin arrived back at the Mullens' farm a little after nine thirty on Tuesday morning with a third telegram. Dobkin stood at the door, looked at his watch, cleared his throat and announced, “Time Zero Nine Thirty-seven Hours. To: ‘Oscar E. Mullen, Rural Route Thr—'”

“I can read,” Peg interrupted impatiently. “Just give me the telegram.”

“I got to,” Dobkin said. “It's my job.” He read them the telegram, which stated that Michael's remains would be consigned to the funeral home of the Mullens' choice in Waterloo, and again he suggested they consider a military funeral, but when he saw the look on Peg and Gene's faces, he decided not to press the matter and left.

Gene immediately telephoned William Wagner, a La Porte lawyer and former mayor, who was then vice-commander of the local American Legion chapter. “Now look,” Gene told him, “this Dobkin is plain bothering us about having a military funeral, and we're not going to have one. So you better not send him out here again!”

That morning's mail brought the first letters from others whose sons had been killed in Vietnam. The majority were short, not more than three or four lines each:

May it help comfort you to know that the loss you bear is shared by many others. Our son is still missing in Vietnam. (s) The Family of Staff Sergeant Michael T_______.

We read in the paper of your son's death. We know you don't know us, but we wanted to extend to you our deepest sympathy. We know only too well the depth of your loss. We, too, have lost our son. Is there anything we can do to help you?

(s) Mr. and Mrs. Leroy P_______.

We're so sorry that you, too, have lost a precious son.

(s) Parents of Michael B_______.

Born Feb. 20th, 1947, Killed Dec. 20th, 1970, Vietnam

That same mail brought a letter from the former neighbor whose young wife had died of the aneurysm, the man who had smashed up his car at the dead end. Peg read it silently, then called her husband over.

“Gene, listen to this.” Peg told him who the letter was from. “It says, ‘Dear Peg and Gene: It isn't that I couldn't afford a card, but I couldn't find one that would express my feelings. I'm deeply sorry about Mike. He is probably the only one of your kids that I got to know. I know it is a shock to get a telegram like that. I heard the news Sunday. You people went through so much with my family and even me, that I don't know where to thank you.…' See!” Peg said holding up the letter. “Look at the blanks.”

She showed Gene the open space on the stationery about the size of an eight-line paragraph.

“See?” she asked. “He says, ‘I'm leaving it out to express my belief or maybe the reason.…'” Peg looked up at Gene again, “The blank space is for what he can't say. Can't express.” And then she read on: “‘For no one knows for sure what is beyond. But we are certain that it isn't worse than a lot of things we have to live with here. You were always the best neighbors we had and I don't intend to forget it.

“‘My paragraphing, my spelling, and my language is bad. But I think you will be able to read it. I don't know how to spell the words.

“‘Gene, if you need a pallbearer, I would be available if you call on me.…'” Peg refolded the letter and carefully slid it back into its envelope. “Isn't that nice, Gene?” she asked. “That's just so nice of him.”

At five minutes to four the Mullens received a telephone call from an employee of the Loomis Funeral Home in Waterloo, who said he had received notification that Michael's body would arrive at 7:45
P.M.
the following evening, February 25, “escorted by Sergeant First Class Ronald Fallon.”

“Fallon?
Who?” Peg asked, “We didn't ask for any Sergeant Fallon! Hold on a minute, will you?” She cupped the mouthpiece and called for Gene. “It's the funeral home. They say Michael's body will be here tomorrow night, escorted by a Sergeant Ronald Fallon.”

“Who's he?” Gene asked.

“Hello?” Peg said back into the telephone. “We don't know any Sergeant Fallon. We've never heard of him. He isn't the escort we asked for.”

Peg called Captain Pringle immediately. The survivors' assistance officer explained that he had telegraphed their request for the special escort to the Pentagon, but that it had either arrived too late in the day for anyone to act on it or been ignored because Monday had been an official holiday since Washington's Birthday had fallen on a Sunday.

“Captain Pringle,” Peg said—and she began to come down hard on her R's—“Captain Pringle, may I remind you that our son tramped through the mud and jungles of Vietnam for six months regardless of holidays, and we still want the escort we chose, not this Sergeant Fallon, who nobody's heard of. We were told that to have a deceased soldier's body returned accompanied by a special escort chosen by the next of kin was our right! A right accorded the families of
all
war victims. Isn't that so?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then that's what we'll have,” Peg said. “That's who we want. We don't want this Fallon, who Michael never met. We want either Tom Hurley or John Salvato; those are the boys we want. Now don't you tell me that the Pentagon can't even honor the dead by providing the services they need simply because it's a holiday.”

“All right, Mrs. Mullen,” Pringle said, “I'll call the Pentagon and see what I can do.”

“You do that,” she said, and hung up.

About twenty minutes later Captain Pringle called back. “Mrs. Mullen,” he said, “I'll give it to you straight. The man in the Pentagon in charge of special escorts, a Mr. McClain, when I told him you still wanted your escort, he said, ‘Tell that lady in La Porte City that she can have her escort in—take it or leave it—ten to fifteen more days.'”

“Fifteen more days!”
Peg stormed. “Captain Pringle, you can tell that sonuvabitch in the Pentagon that I'll wait fifteen years for my son to come back! My son's dead! We could put off having him come back in a casket forever! We don't care when he gets back. He's dead!”

Captain Pringle tried to explain why there would be such a long delay: that it would take a couple of days to cut the orders in Washington, another couple of days to get them to Vietnam, another couple of days to locate their escort, another day to get him on a plane and so on. Peg listened impatiently, then said, “I don't believe you! My boy was killed in the jungles of Vietnam, airlifted out of there, rammed through a mortuary in Saigon, put on a plane and was in Oakland in less than five days! So don't you tell me that you can't get a
live
boy out of there in less than two days!”

Captain Pringle thought for a moment. “I'll tell you what, Mrs. Mullen. I think you'd be better off if you called the Pentagon yourself and told them that. The man's name is McClain, and he's the one to talk to.” He gave her the telephone number.

“Well, I don't see why we have to make that call,” Peg said. “You're the man who's supposed to assist us.”

“I'm trying to, Mrs. Mullen,” Captain Pringle said, “but I think you should be aware that your insistence on the special escort will definitely be a delaying factor. A great many people prefer to cancel the special escort requests so that they can more quickly complete their funeral plans, but if you insist.… I feel certain you'll have more success if you call Mr. McClain at the Pentagon yourself.”

As soon as Captain Pringle hung up, Peg called Senator Harold Hughes' office in Washington. Peg had met Hughes, then governor of Iowa, through her activities with the Democratic Party.

Hughes had just received Patricia's letter telling him of Michael's death, and he told Peg how terribly sorry he was, especially since he knew his letter suggesting how Michael might get out of combat must have arrived after Michael died. Peg relayed Captain Pringle's remarks about Mr. McClain at the Pentagon, and said she felt the Senator was the only one she could turn to for help.