Dawson's War (iv)

from novelist B.K. Marshall and the Studies and Observations Group

Having a week of casual company before jump school began, Dawson ventured down to the sparkling lights and plastic flags of the used car lots that dotted Victory Drive in Columbus. He bought a four year old Chevrolet Corvair. The car Ralph Nader had labeled 'Unsafe at any Speed.'

When you plan to jump out of perfectly good airplanes, who needs a seatbelt? Columbus is Georgia, 7 miles from Fort Benning, and Victory Drive is the strip near every base where usurers sell credit to soldiers. Sounds like our man paid cash for the car that was a dream for those a little older while a catchphrase for a death-trap to those a little younger. Hm.

The first thing 2Lt. Dawson learned in parachute school was that the training instructors, called black hats, logically, because they wore black baseball caps, took great joy in dropping the brand new 2nd lieutenants for push ups.

Instructors are sergeants which once meant servants in French, in this case pedagogues, in Greek the unemancipated adult who accompanies the minor boy to school. The soldiers' joy is carnival, misrule, the world turned upside down, because each lieutenant, French for placeholder, still a subaltern in British, holds a commission from the Executive of the United States of America, the sovereign.

‘Hey lieutenant.’ Dawson looked up to see a black hat, who had dropped him more than a few times. 'You from Philly?' the staff sergeant asked.

'Yes, sergeant. How'd you know?

'You say wader instead of water,' Sergeant Williams laughed.

I wonder if they say brudder in the City of Brotherly Love, what Philadelphia means. Note the sergeant's black hat and specific rank and unspecified skin. The two go on to talk of playing basketball with the brothers back home.

Is this relaxed banter between a black and white American, or among two white men about the experience of competing in the carnival of sport on a level court with black men?

We never learn. This is the Army, integrated since 1948 by Executive Order 9981. Williams volunteers that he is from Germantown, home of the abolitionist declaration of 1688, but after all both paratroopers are from our only pacifist colony.

During the middle of tower week Dawson and Williams were having a couple beers after training at an off post bar...

'Did they assault into the ambush?' Dawson had to ask even though he knew the answer.

'Fuck no. You can't assault an ambush. Well, you can. But only once. When you get ambushed they can see you. You can't see them. They're shooting at you. You are shooting at trees.'

Two men making friends doing their jobs. The lieutenant, the place holder, reads the orders from above, consulting the map issued and his training. The sergeant, the servant, stands on the ground and tells him what is what.

Quixote and Panza. These are both unusual men, one ducking college into the infantry at the very moment of escalation in the Republic of Viet Nam, and the other not fleeing the service from that commitment as the backbone of the Army did.

With his jump wings and an extra $110 a month parachutist pay Dawson drove his Corsair to Philadelphia for a two week leave. Arriving home, it didn't take long for his father to confront him.

Between parachute school and Special Forces training our man goes home. We don't hear about mom, I am guessing because she just did her job, raising a boy who became a pro-social man.

That is a matter of recognizing a person and reflecting back to him his feelings and thoughts. On the other hand we hear a lot about dad.

You may have heard about hippies giving soldiers a hard time back then. First, hippies were not politicals, who named them hippies.

If you didn't get along with hippie girls you probably don't like women. I can go on like this at length. The people who gave the young soldiers a hard time were their veteran dads.

This one points out to his son that you don't become Airborne or Ranger or Special Forces because you don't want to. He must be trying to break his mother's heart.

Yeesh. Maybe the actual war of generations of that day is better forgotten, but this story nails it.

So Dawson runs off to Fort Bragg early.

The goal of the course was to teach the officers how to command a Special Forces A Team. The backbone of the A Team are pairs of highly trained non-commissioned officers. A large part of the course was dedicated to familiarizing the officers with the capabilities of these sergeants.

What our man already has been doing with Sergeant Williams, not Special Forces but still a highly-trained servant. It's what the novel is about. The lieutenant, the placeholder, is simply drawn figure like Tin Tin moving through the detailed world of Captain Braddock, so we can all see what it is like out there at the edge of the empire.

Oh. I should tell you again. I am talking about recto, the page of text. At the left of the photo is the cover of another boys' novel about another Dawson, another war, and other commandos entirely.

This was the fourth Viet Nam letter of 8 so far addressed to Dawson’s War by B.K. Marshall. The first posted on February 12, 2022, the second on February 26, 2022, the third on March 16, 2022, then the fifth on May 16, 2022, the sixth on June 18, 2022, the seventh on February 25, 2023, and the eighth on June 28, 2023.

Other posts from the United States Special Forces include 3 on their Vietnamese Phrase Book. We have posted 4 on the work of Loyd Little and 3 on Nick Brokhausen and 2 on Alan Farrell and 1 on William P. Yarborough.

Viet Nam letters respects the property of others under paragraph 107 of United States Code Title 17. If we asked for permission it wouldn’t be criticism. We explain our fair use at length in the letter of September 12, 2022.

The colophon of these Viet Nam letters, directly above, shows the janitor speaking with poet David A. Willson on a Veterans Day.