W E B Griffin - BoW 04 - The Colonels Page 10

  "To which your predecessor responded by ordering his men into the authorized headgear." "So I understand," Hanrahan said.

  "What did they do, Paul, have them on when you arrived? So you would think that's the way things were?" "No," Hanrahan said, "they were wearing regular headgear, and I asked about the berets. I'd heard about them. So my sergeant major showed me Howard's letter."

  "And?" "I directed their wear," Hanrahan said.

  "So it is true," Foster said.

  "Yeah," Hanrahan said.

  "Oh, I knew you'd authorized them," Foster said. "I meant about your having friends highly placed enough so you can thumb your nose at Howard."

  "So far as I know, I don't have any highly placed friends," Hanrahan said. "Although everybody seems to think I do."

  "Paul, I'm probably the oldest friend you have in the army. Don't tell me that."

  "OK. Between friends, I've been trying to figure it out. I have no idea why the DP was on my orders. For that matter, I was genuinely surprised at the promotion. I wasn't even on the bird colonel's list."

  "And you don't have any idea who's been laying hands on you?"

  "No, but I guess someone has. My last efficiency report had the phrase, "for someone of his limited experience, this officer has performed adequately." That didn't get me an eagle, nor the command of the school." "No," Foster said, shocked at the language, "it didn't."

  "You want a straight answer about the berets?" Hanrahan asked. Foster nodded. "I got a welcome speech from Howard when I reported in. He made it clear he thinks the Special Warfare School belongs to airborne.

  He used the phrase "the airborne family."

  "And you don't think it does?"

  "No, I don't. It's just what it says, "special." Airborne is conventional."

  "You could find an argument about that, Paul," Foster said. "From me, among others."

  "You establish a position by superior firepower, invest the terrain with troops, and hold it. That's conventional," Hanrahan said. "It doesn't make any difference if you invest the position with a skirmish line, or by parachute, or by landing barge."

  "And "special'?"

  "Guerrillas," Hanrahan said. "Irregulars. Hit and run."

  "That doesn't work," Foster said.

  "I know better," Hanrahan said. "It worked in Greece during the second war. You do know how many divisions the Germans had there, don't you?

  If those divisions hadn't been tied up fighting guerrillas, they could have made the difference, possibly, in Russia. Or Italy. Or France."

  "That was World War II," Foster said.

  "Vietminh guerrillas defeated French paratroops at Dien Bien Phu," Hanrahan said.

  "A couple of American divisions, probably the 82nd Airborne alone, with an artillery regiment and a combat command of tanks, would have been able to send those people back to their rice paddies."

  "Oh, God," Hanrahan said, laughing sadly. "You're dreaming, buddy.

  Dreaming."

  "I'm not going to fight with you the first time I've seen you in fifteen years," Foster said. "We'll put that aside for the moment." "Good," Hanrahan said, and then: "Can I have another one of these?"

  Foster made him the drink.

  "Get back to the berets," he said.

  "Do you know the status of the school?" Hanrahan asked.

  "I don't quite understand the question," Foster said.

  "It's a class-two activity of DC SOPS Hanrahan said. "It's not under Bragg."

  "It's on Bragg. You're a colonel. The general has three stars. It's under Bragg."

  "Fort Bragg has been directed to support me logistically..

  "Me'?" Foster interrupted. "My, aren't we drunk with power?"

  "Which means Howard has to feed us, and pay us, and let us use his physical assets, but does not mean he commands us."

  "Who does?"

  DC SOPS Hanrahan said.

  "And how long do you think it will take them to find a new commandant after Howard calls the DC SOPS and tells him "your colonel here is annoying me'?"

  "I don't know. I'm going to find out, I suppose, pretty quickly. To tell you the truth, Jerry, I feel a little silly in the green beret.

  That "girl scout hat' line occurred to me, too. But I either jump when Howard says "jump," or I run the school. He's ordered my troops to do something that I don't think he has the authority to do, wear what kind of hats he thinks they should wear. If I give in to him on this, I give in all the way."

  "In other words, you don't want to be a general," Foster said. "Or for that matter, commandant of the Special Warfare School. You ever read any Mao Tse-tung?" "Yes, indeed," Hanrahan said.

  "The reed bends with the wind, and then snaps up again," Foster quoted.

  "When the enemy is strong, withdraw," "Hanrahan quoted back. "

  "When he is weak, attack."

  "You don't think he's strong?"

  "I don't think he picked Paul Hanrahan to command the Special Warfare School," Hanrahan said. "On the contrary. I'll bet he spent a lot of effort trying to pick a commandant who thinks Special Forces are "part of the airborne family."

  "And besides, you have friends in high places, right?" "I told you, Jerry do you want my word of honor? I don't know any more about the DP business than you do. Probably less."

  "But you're willing to use it, right?" "Within reason," Hanrahan said. "Why not?"

  "I think we had better change the subject, before we start saying things we'll regret later."

  "In other words, you think I'm being devious?" Foster did not reply to the question.

  "I heard about the flowers," he said, chuckling, and obviously to change the subject. "They really sent Howard up the wall, from what I hear." "Jesus," Hanrahan said, also chuckling. "If I'd have had that bastard here, I'd have killed him."

  "An old friend?"

  "Right after War II, in 1947, I was in Greece. I had two young lieutenants, a guy named Lowell, and a guy named Felter."

  Foster's eyebrows went up.

  "This is a pretty good story, Jerry," Hanrahan said. "Lowell's got more money than God. He was an eighteen-year-old draftee who knew how to play polo. So Porky Waterford arranged to have him commissioned so he could play polo against the French. And then Waterford dropped dead, so they got rid of Second Lieutenant Lowell by sending him to Greece, and they got rid of him in Athens by sending him to me."

  "He's the guy who sent the flowers?"

  "Yeah. Truth being stranger than fiction, he's still in the army..

  "Tell me about the other one," Foster said. "What was his name, "Felter'?" "Yeah," Hanrahan said. "He's a West Pointer, smarter than a whip, and was in Greece because he wanted to learn about counter guerrilla operations..

  "And he sent you the flowers, too?"

  "No, Lowell sent the flowers, and signed Felter's name to the card."

  "But they're both friends of yours, right?"

  "Yeah, they are. Both of them turned out to be pretty damned good warriors. Lowell made a battlefield promotion to major in Korea, and..

  "And you don't have a friend in the White House, right? Your word of honor. With the single small exception of Major Sanford T. Felter, GSC, who just happens to be... this is supposed to be classified, but it's certainly not a well-kept secret... standing at the right hand of God. With rank as Counselor to the President." "Jesus H. Christ!" Hanrahan said, genuinely surprised. It all fell in place now. And he felt like a fool. He'd heard about the Special Warfare School from Felter in the first place. He and Felter had agreed that it was high time the army stopped planning to fight the next war with the tactics of the last, and started training guerrilla and counter guerrilla forces. The mysterious, instantaneous switching of his telephone call to Felter, from Washington to Fort Rutcur, now made sense. Felter had access to the White House switchboard, the world's most sophisticated telephone communications system.

  "You didn't know, Paul, did you?" Foster said, after a moment.

  "No," Hanrahan said
.

  This puts me on a bit of a spot," Foster said. Hanrahan looked confused for a moment, and then he understood.

  "You were sent to see me, right?" he asked.

  "If I had known, I wouldn't have had to be sent," Foster said. "But, yes, Paul, I was sent. My general had a call from Howard, who thought that you might listen to a few words of advice, about the berets and other things, from your roommate."

  "And you will go back reporting that not only am I intransigent, but that.1 have in fact a patron in the White House?"

  "I'll have to report that you're going to prove difficult," Foster said. "But if you don't want me to say anything about your knowing Felter, I won't." "Don't," Hanrahan said.

  "Who?" Foster asked.

  "Thank you, Jerry," Hanrahan said.

  "You want another drink, Paul?" "No. I'd better be getting back," Hanrahan said. "Patricia'll be getting back from the movies about now."

  "We'll see you at the New Year's Eve party, then?" ""Not I, said Cock Robin." Red Hanrahan will be sound asleep long before midnight." "For your general information," Foster said, "General Howard feels very strongly about his New Year's Day reception. He expects all unit commanders, battalion and up, to be there."

  "I'll be there," Hanrahan said. "With my bells on. And my beret."

  Hangar 104 Laird Army Airfield Fort Rucker, Alabama 1745 Hours, 31 December 19S8

  Major Craig W. Lowell had just settled himself back in his office, after rescuing General Bellmon from the Fulton County Airport in Atlanta. His desk was littered with technical manuals, field manuals, Department of the Army pamphlets, tables of organization and equipment, and a foot-high stack of army regulations, plus-neatly stacked the ten pages he had written so far on the IBM electric typewriter of SECRET (Draft) TOE l-XXX Helicopter Company (Rocket Armed) (Tank Destroyer). The document provided in precise detail for the personnel and all the equipment of a tank-killing chopper company.

  He was sorry he hadn't drafted this months before when he was in Washington. He had not written it then because he hadn't realized that he would find himself in a position where he would officially have to "write" it, that is, get it into the system. He had thought then that his only contributions would be made after the first draft had been written by someone else and was being circulated among the concerned agencies for comment. At some point, he would have been asked for his comments. He would have made a few, officially, because that would have been a waste of effort. He was a major, and majors at the Department of the Army level were expected to be seen but not heard, like small children.

  Instead (for he had very positive ideas how the company should be organized and with what it should be equipped) he would have made extensive unofficial comments which he'd have sent to Major General Paul T. Jiggs. Jiggs would then have made some minor changes of his own, and submitted the comments over his signature. The comments of major generals especially those of the major general commanding the Army Aviation Center would be very carefully weighed by the major generals in DC SOPS and the three-star who was the DC SOPS These comments would probably be accepted and incorporated into the final draft sent to the Chief of Staff for his approval.

  That was all changed now. As Chief, Rocket Armed Helicopter Section, Aircraft Division, the U.S. Army Aviation Board, Lowell had become the minor underling expected to -prepare the first rough draft. As the draft TOE made its way upward through the layers of bureaucracy, this would be improved upon by his superiors.

  Now he would not have the services of professional Washington secretaries to type and refine the basic document. They were not nearly as attractive to look at as Jane Cassidy, but they had an expertise in bureaucratic finesse that the Cassidy woman could never be expected to have. He was going to have to somehow or other provide that expertise himself, as well as create the raw material.

  If he didn't do the thing just right, then as the draft TOE moved slowly upward, every other dumb sonofabitch and his brother was going to make changes to show their grasp of the big picture or for some other half-ass reason. In the process they'd really fuck it up.

  It was proving a very difficult TOE to write. The tank killing chopper company(s) he envisioned would be separate not part of a battalion or larger organization. To be effective, they would have to have the capability of being sent anyplace at any time to counter an armored advance. That meant they would not be able to draw their logistical support from a larger organization. That meant they had to be able to support themselves. And that meant the company would have to have its own mess sergeant and field ranges, its own ordnance ammunition detachment, its own ordnance artificer section, its own signal corps avionics maintenance section, and its own quartermaster aircraft fueling trucks. Everything a regiment had, in other words except perhaps a chaplain and a public relations officer.

  The task of writing such a TOE normally would be handed a major such as himself with the expectation that he'd make a progress report in maybe ninety days, with the first rough draft following ninety days after that. Major Craig W. Lowell intended to deliver within thirty days a final draft of the TOE that would be left ninety percent intact after it had gone through all the reviews.

  The rocket-armed helicopter was important. Without it, the next war might very well be lost. Although Lowell saw no war on the immediate horizon, the lead time-the time between the official acceptance of a rocket-armed helicopter company in the army, and the time the first company would join the field army was at least a year. Equipment would have to be procured, personnel trained, and a thousand bumps ironed out.

  When the knock came at his door, Major Lowell was dealing with a personnel problem. Since there was absolutely no question in his mind that if the army was going to arm its helicopters with tank-killing rockets, then choppers armed with machine guns would soon follow. The.30 caliber Browning machine gun had been invented in 1917. Its big brother, the.50 caliber, had come along in time for War II. Among the documents on Lowell's desk were Air Corps documents from War II reflecting their experience in maintaining.50 caliber machine guns in P-51 and P-47 fighter squadrons. It had taken a good many machine guns to insure that each time a P-5 1 or a P.47 took off, there were eight functioning machine guns on it. Lowell thought that there would no more than four and possibly as few as two. 50 caliber machine guns mounted on army helicopters. But even halving the Air Corps' spares and maintenance personnel, he was going to have to have a large detachment of ordnance weapons men in the armed chopper company. The people he needed were senior enlisted men. And this was going to cause problems, because with the exception of truck drivers and cooks, the enlisted men required for other logistic support (avionics, aircraft maintenance, and so on) also needed to be highly trained and thus with stripe-heavy sleeves.

  In other words, he was going to have far more sergeants and sergeants first class than privates and PFCs. And that was going to cause trouble when the draft TOE was sent for review to armor, infantry, and artillery. They were not going to go along happily with high-ranking enlisted men in some oddball candy-ass helicopter company when there were PFCs in tanks, at the cannon, and carrying rifles.

  There was another knock at his door. Major Lowell got up from his desk, went to the door, and pulled it open. He was very annoyed at the interruption.

  A civilian was standing there, a tall, good-looking guy with a silk kerchief knotted around his neck. He was wearing an open overcoat with a fur collar. Beneath it he wore a suede jacket. He looked, Major Lowell thought, European.

  "What can I do for you?" Lowell asked somewhat coldly.

  "Have I the honor of addressing Major C.W. Lowell?" European, all right. A frog, more than likely.

  "I'm Lowell," he said.

  "You are a difficult man to find, mon Major," the man said. He raised his hand, palm facing forward, in the French military salute.

  "Captain Jean-Philippe Jannier at your service, M'sieu le Major," the frog said.

  "What can I do for you, Captain?" Lowell asked. He m
ade a vague gesture with his right hand in the direction of his temple which could have been a return salute.

  "I have been asked to deliver this to you, mon Major." He handed Lowell a small, Northwest Orient Airlines envelope. It bore the address of the town house in Washington and the telephone number there.

  Lowell, still annoyed at the interruption, was now curious. He tore the envelope open and read the short handwritten note: Duke:

  NORTHWEST ORIENT AIRLINES

  Inflight Letter

  Captain Jannier is a friend of mine. All courtesies to him gratefully received by your friend and mentor, Paul T. Hanrahan Colonel, Infantry Commanding, USASWS* 1 got the word as we were refueling in Hawaii.