The Generals (14 page)

“What you saw is what you got. I thought Lowell could help. If he has, fine. That’s all there is to it.”

“He work for you? I saw the Aviation Center patch.”

“He’s assigned to the Aviation Board.”

“Can I take him with me? Or have you got something else for him to do?”

“You think he would be useful?” Jiggs asked, and then went on without waiting for a reply: “If you want him, Stu, he’s yours.”

“Thank you.”

“What are you going to do with him?”

“Just what he’s doing now,” Lemper said.

There was a pause, and then Paul Jiggs said: “Stu, if you should come to need a battalion commander, or, for that matter, a combat command commander, Lowell is one hell of a combat commander.”

“So I understand,” General Lemper said. “You had the 73rd Tank.”

“It was his show, and he really did it right. He was twenty-four.”

“I played Task Force Lowell on the sand tables at Leavenworth,” Lemper said. “How did somebody with that behind him wind up driving an airplane?”

“It’s a long and sad story,” Jiggs said. “He can fuck up spectacularly in a moment’s time. Not when it counts—don’t misunderstand me—but when the mongrels nipping at his heels can get at him. I’ve often thought Craig should be kept in a deep freeze, and thawed only when there’s a war.”

Lemper didn’t respond to that.

“Is this just between you and me, or can I have him officially?” he asked.

“I’ll have orders cut this morning, putting him on TDY, if that’s what you want.”

“Please, Paul.”

“You got it. I’ll see you in a couple of days, I expect.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Paul.”

General Lemper hung up the telephone and then raised his voice.

“Lieutenant Cole!”

The general’s aide-de-camp promptly appeared at the office door.

“Bill,” General Lemper said, “Colonel Lowell is probably still swimming around in hydraulic fluid in the QM warehouse area.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Lieutenant, you will present my compliments to Colonel Lowell, and inform him that he is now on temporary duty with this division for an indefinite period. You will inform him that he is now occupying the position of special assistant to the commanding general, and you will inform him that the commanding general wishes him to understand that the order restricting personnel to twelve hours’ duty per day applies to him.”

The young officer smiled.

“He’s really been lighting some fires under people, hasn’t he, sir?”

“And then you will tell Colonel Lowell that the commanding general would be pleased if Colonel Lowell could take dinner with the commanding general at his quarters at 1800.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Mrs. Lemper, I’m sure, would be pleased if you and Mrs. Cole could join us. And I hope you’re free. I think that you might find it educational.”

“Yes, sir. We’re free, sir. Thank you, sir.”

“Set it up with my wife, Bill, please, and tell her, please, no Indonesian buffet or anything else exotic. I don’t want Lowell to think I’m trying to poison him.”

“Yes, sir.”

(One)
Brookley Air Force Base
Mobile, Alabama
1430 Hours, 28 October 1962

Brookley Air Force Base was considered by logisticians to be the most ideally situated military supply facility in the world. Its eastern border was Mobile Bay, thus Brookley had “on-station” piers and wharfs for deep-water shipping. Brookley was also connected to the rail yards half a mile away, which were the terminus of four major railroad lines. And when the National Defense Highway System (“The Interstate”)—fought through Congress by President Eisenhower—was completed, I-10 (East and West) would run past Brookley’s west fence, and I-65 (North) would begin two miles from Brookley. Brookley’s runways were capable of handling any existing or projected fighter, bomber, or transport aircraft. Its maintenance hangars and its thousands of employees could perform any maintenance required by any aircraft in the Air Force inventory. And its enormous warehouse facilities contained stores of supplies for just about every Air Force maintenance need.

As the Aero Commander approached Brookley from the west, it was overtaken by two Air Force fighters descending through ten thousand feet to Brookley. Lieutenant Colonel Craig W. Lowell heard the Brookley tower warn the flight leader that there were five aircraft in the vicinity; two C-130 transports at eight thousand, approaching Brookley from the west; two C-130s at five thousand, departing Brookley to the southeast; and one small civilian twin at four thousand, approaching Brookley from the west.

“Roger, Brookley, we have the civilian twin in sight.”

“Brookley clears Air Force Six Oh One and Six One Nine for simultaneous landing as Number One on Three Four. The winds are negligible, the altimeter is two niner niner niner.”

Lowell reached over his head, slid the curtain out of the way, and looked through the Plexiglas panel for the fighters descending on him. A minute or so later, they flashed over him, their flaps, wheels, and speed brakes extended to dirty them up and slow them down.

“Brookley, Air Force Six Oh One over the outer marker,” the Air Force flight leader reported.

Lowell saw the two gleaming fighters land side by side on one of Brookley’s major runways. There were few places in the world with runways wide enough to handle two supersonic fighters landing simultaneously. Brookley was one of them.
*

Lowell slid the curtain back in place.

“Brookley, Aero Commander One Five, at three thousand, two miles west, for landing.”

“Aero Commander One Five, Brookley. Brookley is a military facility, closed to civilian traffic at this time. Suggest you divert to Mobile Municipal, six miles northwest.”

“Brookley,” Lowell announced, somewhat pontifically, “Aero Commander One Five is in the military service of the United States. Request landing instructions.”

There was almost a minute’s delay before Brookley came back on the air.

“Aero Commander One Five, you are cleared as Number One on Three Four, after the C-141 on its takeoff roll. Beware of jet turbulence. The winds are negligible, the altimeter is two niner niner niner. On landing, take the first available taxiway and hold in place. A Follow Me will meet you.”

“I see the 141, thank you,” Lowell said, and reached for the throttle quadrant, and then for the flaps and the wheels.

He touched down just past the threshold, reversed his props, and slowed enough to make the first taxiway turnoff.

The Follow Me Chevrolet pickup, painted in a black-and-white checkerboard pattern and flying two huge checkerboard flags, raced down the taxiway to him, turned around, and then led him to a parking ramp. An Air Force ground crewman jumped out of the truck, as an AP—Air Police—pickup truck drove up, and directed him to a parking place beside a huge C-141.

When he opened the door and got out, one of the APs saw he was in uniform and almost visibly relaxed. He saluted.

“Would you come with me, please, Colonel? They’d like to talk to you in Base Ops.”

Just inside the double glass doors of Base Ops a gray-haired man in a flight suit, holding his helmet under his arms like a basketball, looked at Lowell in surprise. Lowell saluted. There were the silver stars of a brigadier general on the flight suit.

“Good afternoon, Colonel,” the Air Force brigadier said. “That was you in the Commander?”

“Yes, sir.”

“May I ask you a personal question, Colonel?”

“Yes, sir, of course.”

“What the hell have you been rolling around in? That uniform is the dirtiest one I can remember.”

“Well, first, sir, there was a flood of hydraulic fluid, and then I spent the last two days in the rail yards in New Orleans.”

“Steam cleaning the trains, no doubt?” the general asked. He seemed more amused than offended. “How can the Air Force assist the Army, Colonel? My question may be interpreted as official. I’m the deputy base commander. My name is Winston.”

“General, my name is Lowell. I’m with the 2nd Armored Division. We’re running trains by here.”

General Winston nodded.

“In about an hour, there will be two sections—two enormous sections—of a special train carrying tanks and other heavy equipment. I’ve been able to arrange for messes aboard the troop trains, but the troops accompanying the equipment have been living on sandwiches for three days, and I’d like to get them a hot meal. Especially the men guarding the ammo; they’ve had a rough time, all the way in boxcars.”

“You can stop the trains here?”

“I’ve arranged for each section to be stopped for an hour, sir. The second section is thirty minutes behind the first.”

“Your concern for your men is as commendable, Colonel,” General Winston said, “as your uniform is disgraceful. What I intend to do is get on the horn to my food service officer, and order up a meal—steak and eggs always seems to go well in this kind of situation—and then I will personally call the officer in charge of our dry cleaning plant and tell him he is about to get a priority job. We’ll get you a flight suit to wear, and I don’t suppose you would turn down a cold beer?”

“You’re very kind, sir.”

The best efforts of the Brookley Air Force dry cleaning facility, under the personal direction of the supervisor, could not do much with Lieutenant Colonel Lowell’s uniform. It was indelibly stained with hydraulic fluid and railroad grease. But they pressed it up neatly, and he was wearing it again when the first section of the train ground to a halt at the west fence of Brookley.

The Air Force was waiting for the troops of the 2nd Armored Division, not only with steak and eggs and french-fried potatoes and all the milk they could drink, but with lines of buses to take them to the Air Force barracks for a quick shower and a change of underwear.

The first section of the train had just pulled out when an Air Force staff car drove up. It provided a radio link to Base Commo, and Base Commo was of course tied in to the military around the world.

Major General Paul T. Jiggs, J-3, Joint Assault Force, MacDill Air Force Base, was on the horn.

Khrushchev had blinked. The Russians would take their missiles out of Cuba. Aerial surveillance from Big Black Birds already had photographs showing that the disassembly process had begun. So the invasion was off. Second Armored was ordered to return to Fort Hood and stand down.

Lieutenant Colonel Lowell privately and professionally believed it would have been far better for 2nd Armored to route itself home via Havana. Castro was still in place, and there was no question in his mind how the Russians regarded the situation. They would see this as only a temporary setback. Just as soon as they thought they could get away with it, they would sneak missiles back into Cuba. In the meantime they could turn the island into a logistics and submarine base ninety miles off the enemy’s shore.

As he watched the several hundred young men wolf down the steak and eggs, he had privately and personally been disturbed with his judgment that within a week one of five of them would likely be maimed or dead.

So he was of course pleased that that had been avoided. In a week, they would be back at Hood, all alive and in one piece. On the other hand, since they had not taken Castro out when the odds were in American favor, it was very likely that the confrontation had only been delayed, and that when it became necessary later to mount an invasion of Cuba, the casualties would be even higher.

He had the somewhat cynical thought that the sacred tradition that military officers scrupulously avoid politics was in effect not because of the necessity of the separation—like that between church and state—between the state and the military, but rather because officers with any knowledge of history or geo-politics could not avoid holding politicians, of whatever persuasion, in deep contempt.

(Two)
The Officers’ Open Mess
Headquarters, Continental Army Command
Fortress Monroe, Virginia
1915 Hours, 12 November 1962

The post-operation critique of the aborted invasion lasted through four eight-hour sessions at Monroe. Mistakes had been made. The way to avoid a repetition of these mistakes was to get them out in the open and determine how they could be avoided in the future.

At 1630, when the final meeting broke up, there were several matters to be discussed, privately between Boone and the Chief of Staff. By the time that was over, and General Boone had driven the Chief of Staff to the airfield and seen him aboard his L-23 for the return flight to Washington, it was almost 1900. Boone then went to the Officers’ Club where he hoped to be able to have a word with Major General Stu Lemper. As they left the conference room, Boone had overheard Triple H Howard invite Lemper to have a beer. Though he wasn’t at all sure they would still be there—general officers usually do their drinking in their quarters, not in the O Club—he hoped they might.

There was an uncomfortable parallel for Boone between the critique and what Communists called “self-examination.” Lemper had been forced to get up and confess his sins, and had, in some detail, explained what had gone wrong.

Things had gone wrong, but that was not the same thing as saying that what had gone wrong was Lemper’s fault, and he suspected correctly that Triple H Howard was going to make this point, backed up by Paul Jiggs, over a beer in the O Club. Boone believed it his duty to make the same point. Lemper was a good man, and he had done all that could be expected of him.

He found Generals Howard, Lemper, and Jiggs sitting at a table in the bar. None of the adjacent tables was occupied. A covey of general officers sitting together over drinks had the same effect on their juniors as a trio of lepers.

The three of them stood up when he walked to the table.

“Is this a private gathering, or can any bull-thrower join in?” Boone asked.

“We’re glad to have you, sir,” Triple H Howard said.

A red-jacketed waiter—a moonlighting noncom—came up quickly.

“Since I’m buying,” General Boone said, “give them whatever they want, Sergeant, so long as it’s cheap. I’ll have a Scotch, no ice, and a glass of soda on the side.”

When the drinks had been delivered, and the waiter had gone (not too far, but out of hearing), General Boone said: “Before we start talking about women, Stu, and in case this hasn’t been made previously clear, I think you did a hell of a job. I want you to understand that I’m aware of the problems you had, and that I think you handled them splendidly.”

“That’s very kind of you, sir, to say so,” Lemper said. “But the bottom line is that it took me too long to get off the dime.”

“Don’t argue with me,” Boone said. “I’m a general.”

They laughed. A little too loud, Boone thought. They had been socking it away for an hour and a half. Whiskey, not beer.

“I have just been explaining to General Lemper, sir,” Triple H Howard said, “about the battle than can never be won.”

“Which one is that?”

“Against the mongrels that nip at your heels,” Howard said.

Boone thought he understood what Howard was talking about.

“You think calling a Harke a mongrel is appropriate?” he asked, just a little stiffly.

“I was talking about DCSPERS
*
, sir,” Howard said, undaunted. “What happened between General Harke and myself is between General Harke and myself. It was not under discussion.”

“The Chief of Staff discussed it with me,” Boone said. “He believes that you were a bit harsh dealing with the problem.” He paused a moment, and then went on: “I told him that I supported your decision, that I would have done the same thing, under the same regrettable circumstances.”

“Thank you, sir,” Howard said.

“What about DCSPERS?” Boone asked.

“I was explaining to Stu why he can’t have Colonel Lowell.”

“Regarding Colonel Lowell,” General Boone said. “I owe you an apology, Paul. When I sent him down to help Stu, I did so with great reservation.”

“Oh, ye, of little faith!” General Jiggs said. “How could any officer trained personally by me fail to be anything but superior in every respect?”

“He did one hell of a job for me,” General Lemper said. “That’s why I want him.”

“And you can’t have him?” Boone asked. “And Triple H Howard is blaming DCSPERS?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Never trust anyone who jumps out of airplanes, Stu,” General Boone said. “The landing jolt scrambles their brains. They need people like Lowell to read and write for them. DCSPERS probably has nothing to do with it.”

“Unfortunately, sir,” Howard said, seriously, “the general errs. DCSPERS has everything to do with this.”

“Tell me how ‘the general errs,’” Boone said.

“Well, just before this thing started, I received an extraordinary communication from DCSPERS. They had discovered, with great glee, I must add, Colonel Lowell’s shameful secret.”

“I’m afraid to ask what that is,” Boone said.

“Colonel Lowell was not graduated from an accredited college or university. Graduation from an accredited college or university is a prerequisite for a commission in the Regular Army. Therefore, the validity of Colonel Lowell’s commission is in question.”

“You’re serious,” Boone said. Howard nodded. “I thought you told me, Paul, that he had graduated from the Wharton School of Business?”