Dawson's War (vi)

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

THE NEXT MORNING Peterson, Morrisey, and Dawson went to the TOC to receive an intelligence briefing on their upcoming mission.

Peterson is a staff sergeant, an E-for-enlisted 6 on a log scale 4 to 9 of non-commissioned officers. Sergeant is the ancient rank of servant, and staff sergeant is a modern catchall for many ways of serving. Here, Peterson serves as One-Zero, what in civil life we call MFWIC of the mission.

Morrisey is a Specialist 4. Since all enlisted Special Forces are non-commissioned officers, he must be the kind of E-4 who is a corporal. The title evokes both kapo, head, or the body, hoc est corpus: head of the men. Morrissey serves as One-One, assistant to the MFWIC.

Dawson is a lieutenant. Place-holder. A cipher. In comics you would draw him in bold cartoon without detail, like Tin Tin, while the sergeant and corporal would be dotted and hatched and stippled like Braddock. He serves as One-Two, carrying the radio.

The lieutenant’s function in this novel is to walk you around the world of the sergeants. That was his function in the Army and the war as well. His training as a Special Forces officer was to learn about these people.

After describing the target Captain Stevens turned him over to a staff sergeant, with his arm in a sling, for a detailed briefing.

The TOC is the Tactical Operations Center where the captain tells the servants and the cipher what to do, in general terms. Then another staff sergeant tells them he really thinks they will accomplish.

“My name is Fallon.”

No it isn’t. He is a representation of a friend of the author’s, of mine and many other readers of this book. Fallon is a fine Irish name starting with the same letter as his own. Also almost the Greek for prick.

“I got dinged up on hatchet force operation out of Kontum last month,”

A hatchet force attacked the enemy supply route on the ground. Worked just as well as you would expect. He refused evacuation then the helicopter he didn’t get on got shot down.

he said, motioning to his arm. “So, I haven’t been here long.

So, he is saying, I am not someone who knows reconnaissance in Laos from files and maps only.

But, I’ve been here long enough to know that you’re probably not going to get into this target,” Fallon stated bluntly.

Would you prefer a sharp phallus? Each yellow tab in the photograph below of a copy of the novel flags an appearance of the man who is not Fallon. You could say he plays Athena, wisdom speaking to the warrior?

Cassandra who can tell the truth but no one can believe her? I grasp at old stories because the man appearing in the guise of Fallon had the Illiad in his gear, and a master’s degree. Richard Nixon complimented him on his after-action reports.

In contrast, the lieutenant had been sent down not even halfway through his first semester of college on a sports scholarship. It’s a striking example of the fact that in their war these sergeants were the best-prepared officers.

The former lieutenant remarks as a novelist that you had to be his rank or higher not to notice that recon squads could do little about the supplies from the People’s Republic of China running in trucks

from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic to support the forward elements of the People’s Army of Viet Nam. The novelist remarked to me the other day that he held imaginary conversations with the man who speaks as Fallon, as he planned the book.

Many, many of them.

This was the sixth 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, the fourth on April 13, 2022, the fifth on May 16, 2022, then 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.