story if I didn’t point out that the gun hit right where I’d been standing.
T HE THIRD CLOSE CALL happened just before Christmas. I didn’t mention it to anyone afterward, unlike the other two, which I talked about every chance I got. This one didn’t really sound all that dangerous and it wouldn’t have made a satisfactory story. Still, I brooded on it more than on the others.
We were on an operation. Sergeant Benet stayed with the battalion while I pulled duty at the fire-direction center. On the second day, one of our infantry companies walked into an ambush. I was hanging around the headquarters tent at the time, idly listening to situation reports come in over the radio, and I heard the battle begin and the Vietnamese commander cry through the static for help.
General Ngoc took over from the radio operator. His staff officers crowded around to listen. There was plenty to hear. Screams. Gunfire. The voices of men in terror and pain. Colonel Lance, the ranking American adviser, came over to the radio, puffing fiercely on his pipe as he watched General Ngoc bark into the transmitter at the frightened commander in the field.Colonel Lance didn’t speak Vietnamese but he narrowed his eyes and nodded from time to time as if he knew what was passing between the two men. And as he stood there listening he absently laid one hand on the shoulder of the officer standing next to him, a first lieutenant named Keith Young. He didn’t look to see who it was; he just rested his hand on him the way a football coach will rest his hand on the player he happens to be standing next to on the sidelines. It was one of those paternal gestures that excited my scorn except when they fell on me, and then I always felt a flood of puppyish gratitude.
Anyway, Colonel Lance didn’t look to see who was there when he parked his hand. It could have been anyone. It could have been me. It could very easily have been me, as I was standing beside Keith Young at the time, and if Colonel Lance had taken a place between us instead of to Keith’s right it would have been me who got the manly sign of favor. He stood there with his hand on Keith’s shoulder, and when General Ngoc got up from the radio and explained the situation, which was that the company was pinned down and taking casualties, and needed an American adviser to go in with the reinforcements to call in medevacs and air support, Colonel Lance turned to the man he had his hand on and looked him in the face for the first time. He took his pipe out of his mouth. “Well, Keith,” he said, “what do you think?” His voice was kind, his expression solicitous. If you didn’t know better you’d have thought he was asking an opinion, not giving an order, but Keith did know better. “I’ll get my stuff,” he said. His voice was flat. He looked at me as he walked past.
Colonel Lance nodded at General Ngoc and reached for the transmitter. While he was calling for helicopters to insert the reserve company into the field I faded back and left the tent. Colonel Lance had taken no notice of me, and it seemed wise to keep it that way.
Keith got killed later that afternoon. I never heard what the circumstances were, only that he was shot in the stomach. That meant he’d been standing up, maybe to carry one end of a stretcher, or with his arm raised to give the textbook signal for attack—“Follow me!”
His death affected me strangely. It didn’t cause me pain so much as a kind of wonder at the way it had happened. I couldn’t stop playing it out: Colonel Lance hearing the fuss at the radio and walking over to see what was wrong, intent on the terrible sounds filling the air, heedless of either Keith or me except as big American bodies among the Vietnamese gathered around the table. Then his arbitrary decision to stand to Keith’s right, no nearer the radio than if he’d stood between us. This was the decision from which everything else followed: the hand on Keith’s shoulder, the
T HE THIRD CLOSE CALL happened just before Christmas. I didn’t mention it to anyone afterward, unlike the other two, which I talked about every chance I got. This one didn’t really sound all that dangerous and it wouldn’t have made a satisfactory story. Still, I brooded on it more than on the others.
We were on an operation. Sergeant Benet stayed with the battalion while I pulled duty at the fire-direction center. On the second day, one of our infantry companies walked into an ambush. I was hanging around the headquarters tent at the time, idly listening to situation reports come in over the radio, and I heard the battle begin and the Vietnamese commander cry through the static for help.
General Ngoc took over from the radio operator. His staff officers crowded around to listen. There was plenty to hear. Screams. Gunfire. The voices of men in terror and pain. Colonel Lance, the ranking American adviser, came over to the radio, puffing fiercely on his pipe as he watched General Ngoc bark into the transmitter at the frightened commander in the field.Colonel Lance didn’t speak Vietnamese but he narrowed his eyes and nodded from time to time as if he knew what was passing between the two men. And as he stood there listening he absently laid one hand on the shoulder of the officer standing next to him, a first lieutenant named Keith Young. He didn’t look to see who it was; he just rested his hand on him the way a football coach will rest his hand on the player he happens to be standing next to on the sidelines. It was one of those paternal gestures that excited my scorn except when they fell on me, and then I always felt a flood of puppyish gratitude.
Anyway, Colonel Lance didn’t look to see who was there when he parked his hand. It could have been anyone. It could have been me. It could very easily have been me, as I was standing beside Keith Young at the time, and if Colonel Lance had taken a place between us instead of to Keith’s right it would have been me who got the manly sign of favor. He stood there with his hand on Keith’s shoulder, and when General Ngoc got up from the radio and explained the situation, which was that the company was pinned down and taking casualties, and needed an American adviser to go in with the reinforcements to call in medevacs and air support, Colonel Lance turned to the man he had his hand on and looked him in the face for the first time. He took his pipe out of his mouth. “Well, Keith,” he said, “what do you think?” His voice was kind, his expression solicitous. If you didn’t know better you’d have thought he was asking an opinion, not giving an order, but Keith did know better. “I’ll get my stuff,” he said. His voice was flat. He looked at me as he walked past.
Colonel Lance nodded at General Ngoc and reached for the transmitter. While he was calling for helicopters to insert the reserve company into the field I faded back and left the tent. Colonel Lance had taken no notice of me, and it seemed wise to keep it that way.
Keith got killed later that afternoon. I never heard what the circumstances were, only that he was shot in the stomach. That meant he’d been standing up, maybe to carry one end of a stretcher, or with his arm raised to give the textbook signal for attack—“Follow me!”
His death affected me strangely. It didn’t cause me pain so much as a kind of wonder at the way it had happened. I couldn’t stop playing it out: Colonel Lance hearing the fuss at the radio and walking over to see what was wrong, intent on the terrible sounds filling the air, heedless of either Keith or me except as big American bodies among the Vietnamese gathered around the table. Then his arbitrary decision to stand to Keith’s right, no nearer the radio than if he’d stood between us. This was the decision from which everything else followed: the hand on Keith’s shoulder, the
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