Shoofly Pie & Chop Shop (28 page)

“Is that all you’re getting out of this? Observations about the local insects?”

“Not at all,” he said calmly. “So far we have a lonely soldier eight thousand miles from home, uprooted on a no-notice call-out, adjusting to a strange and hostile desert environment, and living under the constant threat of enemy attack.”

“Two lonely soldiers,” Kathryn corrected.

“But only one with a loving wife waiting for him back home.”

The traffic began to slow and came almost to a standstill where the HOV lanes had been closed after the morning rush. With the windows rolled up and the breeze no longer forcing its way through the vents, the car became more and more unbearable.

Kathryn resisted the urge to wipe a bead of sweat rolling down her forehead.

“The next letter didn’t come for over a month.”

October 15, 1990

Dear Kath,

Sorry it’s taken so long to write—you know me. The first of the month we redeployed to a place called Ab Qaiq. It’s the home of a huge ARAMCO oil complex and we’re here to protect the pumping station from attack—a ton of Arab oil flows through here to the Gulf.

It’s about a hundred miles farther away from the enemy—bet you’re glad to hear that, but I can’t say I am. We were the first troops into Saudi Arabia and now it seems like we’re being told to move over and let the heavy forces do their stuff. I didn’t come here to squat and hold, Kath. I want a front-row seat when the show gets started. It looks like we could be at Ab Qaiq for a long time and nobody likes it.

The 4-325 is in an area called Camp Gold, nothing but a huge piece of desert surrounded by concertina wire. We’ve built a tent city there—it’s really something to see. Pretty rough—no lights, no mess facility, no wash basins, no laundry. We shower together outside—no stalls. It’s okay now but they say it gets cold in December! There’s no privacy at all. We each have a small corner we call our own and everybody’s starting to stockpile stuff sent from home. We stash it in our MRE boxes we keep under our
cots. That’s my whole world right now—one cot and the stash underneath.

Caught a glimpse of Pete yesterday. 2d Battalion is in Camp White, an old warehouse across the way behind the motor pool. I waved but I don’t think he saw me.

Three weeks ago we lost our first man—a truck overturned on a paratrooper from the 505. Somebody wasn’t paying attention. Last week some grunt gave himself the “million dollar wound”—shot himself in the foot just to get back to the States. The waiting and the crowding are starting to wear on all of us. I think the cracks are starting to show. I’m handling it okay but I think it’s driving Jim nuts. You know he likes to get alone sometimes, and there is no alone here—not anywhere. No alcohol either—that was one of the Saudi’s rules. I’d give a week’s pay to be able to take Jim out for a couple of brews. He looks like he could use it.

Write to him, Kath. The mail comes in every day on two or three forty-foot tractor trailers. Some of the guys get piles of letters and all Jim gets is some hen scratchings from that sister of his begging him not to get killed. He’s taken to reading the unopened “To Any Soldier” mail—stuff from some grade-school class from who-knows-where. I think it’s getting him down. I used to show him all the great stuff you send, but not anymore—it just makes him angry. Write to him.

I miss you.
Andy

“So did you?” Nick asked.

“Did I what?”

“Write to him.”

Kathryn shifted uneasily.

“Why not?”

“I did a couple of times, but I didn’t want to give him—you know—the wrong idea. So I kept writing, ‘Andy and I this,’ and ‘Andy and I that.’ But Andy said it only seemed to make things worse, so I just stopped.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes before Kathryn reached for the next letter.

“So we know that Jimmy’s getting discouraged,” she said.

“Yes,” Nick said under his breath, “and we know that he’s getting angry.”

“The next letter wasn’t until January. Andy called home at Christmas—both MCI and AT&T offered free three-minute phone calls to all the troops. It was wonderful to hear from him, except that an NCO was listening in the whole time to make sure we didn’t pass along anything confidential. I got a video from Andy too—every soldier got a free videotape and the chance to record a fifteen-minute message for the folks back home.”

“Did you bring it along?”

“Of course not.”

“Too bad. I guess it’s ESPN tonight.”

There was a long pause that followed.

“I got a video from Peter too. I suppose you’d love to see that one.”

Another pause.

“It was nothing.” She shrugged. “Really. It was just about where he’d been and what he’d done and how he hoped he’d be home soon—that sort of thing.”

“What could be more harmless than that?” Nick intoned.

“Exactly.”

“So why did it make you feel uncomfortable?”

“Who said it made me feel uncomfortable?”

Nick slowly turned and looked at her.

At last they began to move again, slowly and relentlessly gathering speed as they approached the Capital Beltway. The traffic didn’t open up, it simply began to accelerate together in one vast, irresistible herd. Kathryn had visited Washington several times, and she always felt as she approached the city that there was a kind of suction, a vortex that seemed to draw her toward some mysterious end of its own.

January 25, 1991

Dear Kath,

I know you’ve been following the news so you know where things are going. Some UN bigwig went to Baghdad on the
fourteenth to try to get Iraq to pull out by the deadline the next day—no luck. Iraq’s got the fourth largest army in the world and they’re itching to try it out. For our part, the 82d is happy to oblige them.

Now the air war has started and that means more waiting—but at least we got our marching orders. The entire brigade has moved into attack position. I can’t say where, and you won’t hear about it on the news, but I’ll tell you this—I can see the border from here. At night I can hear the bombers pass overhead and when the strike zone is close enough I can hear the bombs. On the way back home they dump their excess ordnance in the desert not far from here, and I can feel the ground rumble. The Iraqis fired their first SCUD at us but a Patriot brought it down. We started taking our PB pills every eight hours—they’re supposed to stop anthrax and nerve gas, but nobody knows for sure. They make some of the boys sick.

Two soldiers from the 3rd ACR were wounded yesterday in a firefight across the border. The Iraqis are only six miles away. They know we’re here and they can reach us with artillery if they want to. The pressure’s building. Everybody knows we’re going in but nobody knows when. Not much time to talk to Jim—everybody’s busy digging in.

I plan to write again before G-Day. The mail caught up with us here so you can still write to me.

Andy

They took the exit for 495 North to Rockville, Maryland, where I-95 dumps into the Capital Beltway in a violent confluence of horns, engines, radios, and tires. Hulking gray rigs and flatbeds lumbered along belching puffs of smoke, while Porsches and BMWs honked and darted between them like angry mosquitoes. They all pushed, shoved, and jammed their way toward their destinations, some chatting on phones or dabbing at makeup as casually as if they were still parked at home.

The next envelope was a medium-sized manila padded mailer. Kathryn squeezed it open and peered deep within, as if she were searching for a bucket in the bottom of a well. She reached in with
two fingers and removed a folded letter on ordinary notebook paper, then carefully tipped the mailer over. A golden band rolled out into her left hand.

She sat silently staring at the ring for several minutes. The folded letter still lay on her lap.

“May I?” Nick said gently.

She barely nodded.

He propped the letter against the steering wheel and began to read.

February 17, 1991

Dear Kath,

I can write this now because by the time you get it everyone will know anyway. A few days from now the ground war begins. G-Day.

The 82d has been attached to the French 6th Light Armor Division. We’ll be under their command when the battle begins. Our job is to do what the Airborne always does—push in fast and deep, secure a foothold, and clear the way for the heavy forces behind us. Our objective is to seize Al Salman Airbase about 90 miles north of here. At Al Salman we’ll go up against the Iraqi 45th Division—three infantry brigades and two artillery battalions. They got a tank battalion, too, if there’s anything left of it. They’re not the Republican Guard, but they’re no pushovers.

The French will lead the way in AMX-10RCs—small, fast six-wheeled tanks with 105mm guns. Our boys will follow in fiveton trucks, stopping to clear enemy positions along the way. We’ll wear our NBC suits—they’re awkward, but nobody knows what to expect from the Iraqis. At Al Salman the real party begins.

The 4-325 was the first to deploy, the first in country, and now we have the honor of being the first into Iraq. I tell you the truth, Kath, I can’t wait. I’m sick and tired of being a target—I want to do what I came to do—what I joined the Airborne to do. Try not to worry—I won’t do anything stupid—but they don’t give battlefield promotions to the ones who sit on their hands. I plan to do the deed. I’ll make you proud.

I’m enclosing a little something for you. What with the heat and sweat and all I was afraid I might lose it in the desert. It might be a good idea if you hung on to it for me. Don’t worry, I’ll tell all the Iraqi girls I’m married.

Went over to the 2-325 to see Pete today. Wanted to wish him luck—and I needed to talk to him about Jim. We had a big blowup the other day—can’t tell you about it now. I guess everybody’s been a little nuts lately. All I can say is, he better straighten himself out fast. We sure need to be on the same team in a few days.

I’m not going to say good-bye—by the time you read this it will all be over and I’ll be writing you another letter. But I want you to know how much I—

“Don’t,” Kathryn snatched the letter back again. “Don’t read that part.”

He looked down at her hand. “That’s the ring?”

“A lot of the boys mailed them home. The wives all panicked, of course. The Family Support Group at Fort Bragg had to call us in and assure us that this was perfectly normal and that we’d all be slipping them back on our husbands’ fingers in no time at all.”

She held up the ring and slowly examined it. “I’ve still got mine.”

Nick let several minutes go by before he spoke again. “Andy said he had a ‘big blowup with Jim’—something he didn’t want to talk about.”

“Something he didn’t want to write about. Until the ground war began, all the letters home were read by censors.”

“So you think that’s when your husband discovered Jim’s drug habit?”

She nodded. “He wouldn’t take a chance on putting that in print.”

“So—what happened on G-Day?”

Kathryn removed the last envelope, the only official-looking document among them. The letterhead bore the address of the United States General Accounting Office.

B-260898
April 7, 1995

The Honorable Jesse Helms
United States Senate
Dear Senator Helms:

In response to your request, this report presents the results of the GAO’s investigation of events leading to the apparent death of PFC Andrew Guilford of the 82d Airborne Division; and an assessment of the adequacy of U.S. Army investigations following the incident.

On the night of February 26, 1991, PFC Guilford’s unit, under OPCON of the French 6th LAD, encountered heavy resistance at the Al Salman Airbase. In pursuit of the enemy PFC Guilford became separated from his unit in a position exposed to both friendly and hostile fire. Hostilities ceased near daybreak, at which time a search was immediately conducted for PFC Guilford. Despite considerable effort, no identifiable trace of his body or equipment was discovered.

Two soldiers of the 6th LAD were killed in the same hostilities, and ten were wounded. It is assumed that PFC Guilford was the victim of indirect fire of either friendly or hostile origin. Within hours the 82d Airborne began an AR 15-6 fratricide investigation of the incident. No disciplinary action was recommended.

Supplemental investigations yielded no further evidence; all available diplomatic channels with the Iraqis were exhausted. The Forces Command Staff Judge Advocate recommended that PFC Guilford be officially listed as Killed in Action, Body Not Recovered. He was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star for his actions.

GAO has briefed U.S. Army representatives and the deceased serviceman’s immediate family on the content of this investigation.

Yours,

Richard C. Stiener

Director

Kathryn carefully returned the file of letters to the backseat, then rolled her window down again. She leaned her head back on the seat and let the wind engulf her, washing away the stinging words and the broken promises and the haunting memories—lifting her out of the past and setting her gently back in her own world again.

“What about Jim?” Nick said. “Did he have anything to add to the official account?”

“Jimmy said nothing. He could never bring himself to talk about Andy. I think it hurt him almost as much as it hurt me.”

She looked at Nick, who sat motionless behind the wheel. She knew by now that even when his body was at rest, his mind was in constant motion. “I’ll probably hate myself for asking this, but … what are you thinking?”

“Nothing you haven’t thought of before.”

“What does that mean?”

Nick glanced over at her. “Jim McAllister asked you to marry him. You not only turned him down but accepted another man’s proposal the same night. Think about it, Mrs. Guilford. How does that make a man feel?”

“I don’t know,” she mumbled. “Hurt, I suppose.”