Court Martial (8 page)

“All right, gentlemen, you all know what you have to do.Let’s make sure it’s done right.” The lieutenant general stood up,
signaling that the meeting was over.
“But,
before we go...”

The men in the room stopped moving around and looked at the general.

“I know it
looks
bad for Specialist James. There is a lot of evidence against him and the charges are numerous…
but,
he is still a soldier in the United States Army and a citizen of this great country… He will be given all the rights due
him.
Am I understood?”

Every man in the room nodded in agreement.

Colonel Sinclair left his car in the front parking lot of the huge hospital complex and entered through the double doors.
He began doubting himself just about the time he felt the air-conditioned breeze rush past him. He wanted to turn around and
follow the cool air back outside but caught himself. He had opened his big mouth in front of the generals and now he was obligated
to at least try to talk to the young soldier. He had never met Corporal Barnett, but his son had spoken often about him and
Woods.

The pass was waiting for him at the main desk, with the room number for Barnett written in the left-hand corner. Sinclair
took the center corridor. The halls were crowded with doctors and patients. The Vietnam War had brought a lot of wounded to
the medical center and the surgeons were some of the best in the world.

Colonel Sinclair paused at the nurses’ station in the wing Barnett was in and noticed that all the signs stated that the area
was a security zone. Cyclone gates separated the wing from the rest of the hospital.

“Excuse me, nurse… could you direct me to room 131?”

A pretty, young nurse looked up from her chart and smiled. “First closed
door on your right.”

“Thanks.” Colonel Sinclair walked briskly down the hall. The creases in his pressed khakis snapped against the tops of his
spit-shined shoes. He took a deep breath, knocked on the closed door, then entered after hearing a muffled “Come in.”

He didn’t really know what to expect when he entered the room, but what confronted him caught him completely off guard.

Spencer had placed two chairs in front of the window; he lay across them, with his pajama bottoms rolled up as high on his
legs as he could. He lay with his hands folded behind his head in the direct rays of the bright sunlight coming through the
window. The young soldier didn’t open his eyes.

“Yes?”

Colonel Sinclair took a couple of seconds to study the soldier before answering. Spencer was well tanned and the colonel could
see that the young man was recovering well from his POW experience, at least physically. A few blue-red scars showed up on
his side and across his stomach, but the soldier’s muscle mass was returning.

Spencer turned his head in the direction of the colonel but kept his eyes closed. “Can I help you? I’m getting some rays right
now, and as you can see, it doesn’t last very long before the buildings block it out again.”

“I’ve come to draw some blood samples.”

“Fuck! Again!” Spencer shifted his position on the hard chairs.

“Sorry.” Sinclair smiled. He didn’t know why he had said that to the soldier.

“How much?”

“A couple of quarts.”

“What!” Spencer sat up and looked over at the smiling officer. “Who are you?”

“A friend.”

Immediately a suspicious look filled Spencer’s eyes. “Of who?”

“Actually, I’m a friend of some of your friends.”

“That fucking psychiatrist
isn’t
a friend of mine.”

Colonel Sinclair tilted his head slightly to one side. He found Barnett’s comment interesting. “Why? Don’t you like your doctor?”

“Not really. Are you a shrink?”

“Hardly… I’m an infantry officer.”

“I can handle that.... I’m recon out of the First Cay.” Spencer’s voice carried his pride in his unit.

“I know.”

The question appeared through Spencer’s eyes.

Colonel Sinclair saw the flicker of mischievous light in Spencer’s eyes and agreed with his son partially: Spencer did look
like a cocky bantam rooster, but the gleam in the young soldier’s eye reminded the old warrior more of a mischievous elf.
Spencer was small framed but layered with a strong set of muscles. The young man’s real strength, though, was
inside
the layer of skin, deep inside.

“My son was on your recon team.”

A light broke through Spencer’s eyes and the blue brightened as he read the colonel’s nametag. “Reggie?”

Sinclair nodded.

“He was just here with the kids!” The natural curl at the corners of his mouth enlarged as he smiled. “Why didn’t you tell
me right away who you were? I thought you were one of those damn head doctors… man, am I sick of them.”

“Why are you being kept in here?” Colonel Sinclair looked around the room and asked a blunt question: “Are you violent?”

“I can be.”

Sinclair glanced up and saw the mischievous smile again. “You like to jack people around, don’t you?”

“Some people more than others.”

“I like you.” The honest, open comment caught Spencer unprepared to answer. Sinclair walked over to the open window and reached
up to gently shake the Cyclone screen. “This place would
drive me
nuts.”

“Me too.” Spencer hopped up onto his bed and dangled his feet over the edge. “It was sure good seeing Jean-Paul and Trung
again. It was nice of you to take them in.”

“Not really...”

Spencer stared at the colonel, trying to figure out what he meant.

“They’ve brought more to my family than they’ve taken from us… much more.”

Spencer blinked. “Now I know why Reggie and Woods talked so much about you in Vietnam.”

“Yeah… I met Woods when I was visiting Reggie in the hospital. He was a really impressive soldier.”

Spencer smiled. “Woods is a pussy!”

“He sure likes you.”

“He’s queer.”

Sinclair laughed at the intimating comment. He knew exactly what Spencer was trying to do.

“I don’t know what for. You don’t seem to be good-looking enough to attract that kind of person.”

Spencer knew that the colonel wasn’t going to fall for his game.

“Woods was really worried about you back there. He felt that it was his fault that you were captured.”

“He’s overprotective.”

“He’s a damn good friend.”

“I know that!” Spencer snapped.

“Well, you’re going to let him down and Reggie too.”

“I’ll never let my recon buddies down… never!” Spencer stood up and faced the colonel.

“How do you think they’re going to feel if one of their
own
teammates turns down a Medal of Honor?”

“So
that’s
why you’re here!”

Colonel Sinclair nodded and stared directly into Spencer’s eyes.

“Well, go back and tell that fucking shrink that it isn’t going to work!” Spencer turned his back on the colonel to hide the
tears. He was starting to break and he knew it. That bastard was using his friends and their families to get to him.

“Lieutenant Colonel Martin isn’t the one who sent me here.... In fact, he was very upset when I told him that I was coming.”

Spencer spun around to check the colonel’s eyes to see if he was lying.

“I’m not lying to you, Spence.” The colonel used the name that his son used when referring to Barnett.

The young soldier stared at the colonel and searched his face for any sign that the officer was in league with the psychiatrist.
Spencer’s lower lip quivered.

“It’s all right, Spence....” Colonel Sinclair held out his arms and the seventeen-year-old warrior who had stood up to horrible
NVA torture, juvenile homes, and abuse from stepparents took a step forward and let the dam break.

Colonel Sinclair held the soldier and felt his own heart ache. Spencer cried quietly but the old warrior could feel him shaking.
The tears were soaking through his khaki shirt but the colonel didn’t care. What was taking place in the hospital room was
something that should have happened a long time ago, but Spencer needed to be near someone he trusted before he could allow
that to happen. Reggie Sinclair’s dad was that kind of person. He understood and didn’t judge.

A knock on the door interrupted the emotional scene.

“Give us a couple of minutes!” Colonel Sinclair yelled through the closed door and received a muffled reply.

Spencer went into the bathroom and washed his face while the colonel blotted his shirt with a clean napkin. Spencer stepped
out of the bathroom holding a towel. “I screwed up your shirt. Fuck… crying like a baby… I must be really fucked up.”

“There’s
nothing
wrong with you, Spence.... Don’t tell anyone, but I cried in Korea… in Vietnam… and in fact, I just cried last week when
they buried a good friend of mine in Arlington.” Sinclair smiled. “Warriors cry too.”

Spencer tried grinning. “Yeah… it did make me feel a little better.”

“Watch out, though—too much crying will make you queer.” It was the colonel’s turn to grin.

“Shit!” Spencer fell back into his old role. “This here white trash from South Carolina has had too much pussy to turn back
now!”

“Right! You and Reggie both!”

“I can’t speak for your son.” Spencer smiled a wide, honest smile. The tears had washed away a lot of his pain.

“What can I do for you, Spence?”

“Can you get me
out
of here?”

“Where do you want to go?”

“Sir, this place is driving me nuts!” Spencer’s voice lowered. “Anywhere… just a couple of weeks… maybe up in the Blue Ridge
Mountains. I know a nurse here who might let me use her family’s summer home.”

“Call her in here.” Colonel Sinclair knew that he was sticking his neck out, but he also knew that if Spencer broke, a great
deal would be lost, and that included the young soldier himself.

Colonel Sinclair waited in the stuffed chair while Spencer ran out the door and over to the nurses’ station. He returned a
couple of minutes later pulling the same cute nurse Sinclair had seen when he arrived.

“Sir... this is Mary.” Spencer almost stuttered in his excitement.

“Mary?” Sinclair smiled. “Enlisted men now call lieutenants by their first names?”

Spencer and Mary blushed. “Come on, sir... give us a break.”

“This
one
time.” Colonel Sinclair kept smiling. “I can see why Spence likes you.” She blushed even more. “Spence tells me that you
have a place in the mountains that he might be able to use for a couple of weeks.”

“Yes, we have a place up in the Shenandoah Valley, but—” “But what?” Sinclair had already guessed what was coming next.

“But… we’ve made a rule that when someone is up there a member of the family has to be there also. I have a couple of weeks’
leave coming to me.” Mary smiled shyly at Spencer.

“Sounds like a bribe to me.” Sinclair kept smiling.

“It is.” Mary touched Spencer’s hand.

“Let me make a couple of telephone calls.” Colonel Sinclair turned to leave. “Would you give me the address, please?”

“Sure. Let me walk you out to the desk and I’ll get a pad and pen.” Mary squeezed Spencer’s hand and let go.

“Spence, pack up your things. I’m going to try to get you released from here today.”

“Today?”

“Within the hour, I hope.”

“Colonel.”

Sinclair paused in the doorway.

“You’re right about the medal. If I don’t take it, guys like Billy-Bob, Lee San Ko, Kirkpatrick, and Clancy Brown will never
be remembered. I owe it to my team.”

Sinclair nodded in agreement. “As long as you live and have a mouth, they’ll never be forgotten.”

Spencer nodded and turned to look out the window. He felt like crying again, but that would be too much. Once in a lifetime
was enough for white trash out of South Carolina.

Mary looked up from the note she had written for the colonel with the address of their summer home on it. “Colonel, I don’t
know why you’re doing this for Spencer, but it’s the best thing that could happen to him right now. Thank you.”

Colonel Sinclair smiled. “No thanks necessary. Spencer Barnett doesn’t know it, but he saved my son’s life.”

Heat seemed to radiate off everything in the jungle in the form of steam. The rain had just stopped and as soon as the clouds
disappeared the tropical sun beat down on the wet vegetation.

Sergeant Woods stopped and turned around to face back down the trail. He was acting as the recon team’s rear guard. He listened
for a good minute and then moved on. Warner was acting as the point man. The Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, soldier’s mother
would literally have had a heart attack if she had known that her son was performing such dangerous duty and especially on
a reconnaissance team. She thought he was serving in Saigon under a general officer whose family lived near their Georgetown
townhouse in Washington, D.C.

Sergeant Arnason clicked his tongue and the patrol came to an instant halt. Only Woods moved along the trail until he caught
up to the team, and then he stopped. Arnason listened to the jungle. The whole team knew that they were in Laos, a neutral
country, and their capture or exposure would embarrass the United States government, especially since President Nixon had
told the whole world that there were no American troops in Cambodia or Laos.

Arnason signaled with his hand for the team to circle around him. Woods slipped next to the team leader and waited until Warner
had joined them off the point. Koski, the big Polish man, kept his back to the team and watched the jungle to the north, while
Sanchez watched to the south. RT BAD NEWS was the best recon team in the First Cavalry Division and their reputation was legendary.
The black-dyed Marine fatigue caps they wore brought free drinks in any bar in I Corps, and that included free drinks from
Marines and Navy types alike. Once, a couple of Marines tried taking the caps away from the Army team and a riot nearly broke
out until a Marine who recognized the silver skulls on the caps pulled the other Marines aside and whispered into their ears.
A series of apologies followed, along with a half-dozen drinks. RT Bad News had bailed out a couple of Marine Force Recon
Teams from a very bad situation along the border a couple of months earlier and a great deal of respect was held for that
team.