Friendly Fire (25 page)

“How do you know we were?” Henkin asked.

“Because every mother who had a son there was written by her boy that he was in Cambodia. I found out because when something like this happens, these people will write or call me. It seems to be a way of life now. I heard from mothers whose sons”—Peg shuffled through some papers in her lap—“whose sons were with the 198th Brigade of the Americal, the 25th Infantry, the Marines—”

“Ma'am?” Henkin interrupted.

“The 5th Infantry, the 47th, the 1st Air Cav, the 11th Armored—”

“Yes, ma'am,” Henkin said, “and what is your question?”

“My question, Mr. Henkin, is do you
deny
that American boys were in Cambodia for weeks or months before the President said they were?”

“No, you're right,” Henkin said. “American troops were there.”

“I don't know why we're even talking about Cambodia at all,” Peg continued. “My son lived and died in ‘Eye' Corps, First Corps. You people have been fighting a war there for almost ten years now and you haven't accomplished a thing! You still can't go a mile from the beach without getting your head blown off! So what are you worrying about Cambodia for? Why don't you clean up ‘Eye' Corps first?”

“You seem to be quite well informed about the war,” Henkin said. “Next question, please.”

The CALCAV group began asking about secret operations in neighboring countries. All secret operations were categorically denied. Persistent questioning led to the questioner being cut off. One young man had photographs of unmarked American aircraft bombing Laos during 1969 and asked General James about it.

“Never happened,” James said. “I was there, and it never happened.”

“Of course it didn't happen to you, General,” the young man said. “You're a general. You wouldn't have gone.”

“Well, I can tell you this,” James said angrily, “any reports of our bombing Laos are a lie!”

American bombing of the Laotian countryside had, in fact, begun in 1964. This bombing was confined at first to that part of Laos sharing a border with North Vietnam and later expanded so that by 1969, the time the young man's photographs were taken, Laos had become the most heavily bombed country in the world—ever.

For about two hours the Iowans questioned the Pentagon briefers. Each member of the group had some special area of interest, some aspect of the Southeast Asian war which he had studied. Peg leaned over to the Air Force lieutenant colonel by her side and asked him to supply her with that week's casualty list in Vietnam. “I haven't had a chance to read this morning's paper,” Peg said, “but I know the figures are released today.”

Lieutenant Colonel Giorgi leaned back and asked a man in civilian clothes sitting behind Peg if releasing that information would be all right. Peg was already suspicious of the civilian's function. Throughout the briefing he had been taking notes, and several times Peg had caught him pointing to one member of the CALCAV group or another so that Henkin would know who to let talk. When one of the Iowans would get out of hand, it had been the civilian who would signal Henkin to cut the questioner off. Peg turned to look at the man and their eyes met. He appraised Peg coolly, then nodded. Lieutenant Colonel Giorgi excused himself and left the room.

Several minutes later Giorgi returned and told Peg that the number of men killed that week in Vietnam was 125.

“Is that
all
who died, Colonel?” Peg asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I want the
total
casualty list of those who died this past week.”

“I still don't understand,” Giorgi said.

“All right,” Peg said impatiently, “this is what I mean: I want the total number of people who died there,
not
just the number that you publish.”

Lieutenant Colonel Giorgi again leaned back to the man in civilian clothes and a moment later left the room a second time. When he returned, he whispered to Peg that the figure would be twenty-five more. Peg's hand shot back up. “I have a question,” she said.

Henkin recognized her, saying, “May I ask
you
something first?”

“Sure,” Peg said. “What?”

“Are you a newspaperwoman?”

“A what?” Peg asked, surprised.

“Are you a newspaperwoman?”

“No, sir.” Peg laughed. “I'm only a simple farmer's wife. As a matter of fact, we finished planting the corn just before I came down here.”

Henkin looked embarrassed and asked what her question had been.

“There's something I want to know about these casualty lists,” Peg said. “Who isn't telling us the truth? Is it your office? Or is it the press who isn't telling us each week how many died in Vietnam?”

“I'm not sure I understand what you mean,” Henkin said.

“Here's what I mean,” Peg said coldly, “I just asked this gentleman sitting next to me, Colonel Giorgi, how many died this week and he gave me two different figures. First he said one hundred and twenty-five died. A few minutes later he came back and added twenty-five more. This is what I mean. As far as the public is concerned, one hundred twenty-five died, but,” Peg said, “one hundred and fifty mothers and fathers know their sons died! This is what I just … can't … stand! I happen to be the mother of one of those boys you didn't count!”

“I still don't think I understand,” Henkin said, but Lieutenant Colonel Giorgi did. He suggested Peg accompany him to his office and he would try to straighten her out.

“No,” Peg said. “I don't want to go to anybody's office. I want to know who's telling us these lies?”

“Won't you please come, Mrs. Mullen?” Giorgi asked. He was joined by another younger man in civilian clothes. “We can take you directly to the office where these casualty lists are compiled. Any question you might have, all the information will be right there on hand.”

Peg relented and was led down more Pentagon corridors until she was halted before a door which opened into a huge tan room, a room so large Peg believed her entire La Porte City farmhouse might have fitted inside.

Five silent secretaries worked at desks set against the windowed far side of the room, the steady
plick-plick-plick
of their electric typewriters interrupted only by the faint wind-chime
ting!
of their typewriter carriage return bells. The only other noise was the droning buzz of the fluorescent ceiling lights. Packed against each other along the other walls and pressed into any available space between the secretaries' desks were the filing cabinets—row upon row of identical slate-gray government-issue four-drawer filing cabinets. The open space in the middle of the room was filled by long oak tables, plain, sturdy office tables lined up end to end like flatcars spanning the entire length of the room. On the tops of these tables papers had been stacked so tightly that practically no wood showed. When Peg stepped closer to see what these papers might be, she suddenly realized to her horror that each paper was a casualty list, and she sagged back against the doorframe for support. She could not even count how many tables there were. She saw only that the room was filled with tables, the tables filled with casualty lists, the single-spaced casualty lists filled with dead boys' names. And still, on the far side of the room, the secretaries' typewriters were clacking away, each delicate
ting!
sounding the death knell, a new line, another dead boy's name.

Peg wished to God she had never let them bring her to this room. It was more terrible than she had believed it could be, more inhumane than anything her imagination thought existed. She turned in agony to Lieutenant Colonel Giorgi and cried, “What kind of man are you that this is your life? How can you work on these lists day after day after day?”

“Mrs. Mullen, I—”

“And you?” Peg said, turning to the secretaries, who, sensing a scene, had stopped their work to look. “What kind of women are you? Don't any of you have sons of your own?”

“Mrs. Mullen,” Lieutenant Colonel Giorgi said, “you can't believe we enjoy—”

“Colonel, please,” Peg said, holding up her hand to stop him. “Please, I don't want to hear or see any more.” She hurried past him out the door.

“Mrs. Mullen,” he called after her, and caught up with Peg in the corridor, “Mrs. Mullen? What did you really want to know?”

Peg leaned back against the corridor wall. She could hear the secretaries typing again. “I wanted to know.…” She paused, dreading that she would hear a faint
ting!
“I wanted to know why you lied to Senator Fulbright. Why you sent him half a list instead of a whole one?”

“Mrs. Mullen,” Giorgi said unhappily, “I still don't understand. I don't know what you want. What you mean.”

“All right, Colonel,” Peg said wearily, “I want you to send me the names of all the boys who died the week of February 15, 1970, in Vietnam. I want the names of both the battle and nonbattle casualties. I want all the names and that's all I want—except to get out of here.”

Later that night Peg Mullen, her children and Patricia's fiancé boarded their bus outside the Church of St. Stephen and the Incarnation for the twenty-two-hour drive to Iowa. She arrived back at her farm late Friday night.

Waiting for her on the kitchen table was the mail in response to the 100 registered letters she had sent each United States Senator. Two Senators, Birch Bayh of Indiana and Ralph T. Smith of Illnois, had telephoned. Sixteen others had written. They were:

Senator Thomas J. Dodd of Connecticut

Senator Edward J. Gurney of Florida

Senator Frank Church of Idaho

Senator Vance Hartke of Indiana

Senator Harold E. Hughes of Iowa

Senator Charles McC. Mathias, Jr., of Maryland

Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts

Senator Walter F. Mondale of Minnesota

Senator Thomas F. Eagleton of Missouri

Senator Carl T. Curtis of Nebraska

Senator Stephen M. Young of Ohio

Senator Fred R. Harris of Oklahoma

Senator Mark O. Hatfield of Oregon

Senators George McGovern and Karl E. Mundt of South Dakota

Senator William B. Spong, Jr., of Virginia

Each Senator agreed that the deduction of unearned leave from a dead soldier's pay was a grievous wrong; not one of them, however, proposed legislation to change it.

Senator Hughes later told Peg his office telephone had rung continually with calls from other Senators who pointed out Peg was his constituent and they expected him to handle it.

When Gene returned that night from John Deere, Peg told him about her trip to Washington and Gene told her that Larry Phelps, his cousin's son-in-law, was home on leave. Gene had watched Larry's wife, Kathy, grow up with a mixture of sorrow and pride—sorrow because Kathy, at two, was severely crippled by polio and had had to suffer through countless agonizing and immobilizing operations, pride because of Kathy's determination to lead a normal life. Kathy and Larry Phelps now had an infant son, and Larry had just received his orders for Vietnam.

“If he goes, Peg,” Gene was saying, “you know he'll meet with Michael's end.”

“Then we'll simply have to prevent them from making Larry go,” she said.

“How? What can we do?”

“I don't know yet,” Peg said. “Kathy shouldn't have to live alone and take care of that baby all by herself.… Maybe he could qualify as a hardship case.”

There was a racket outside, and Gene sprang out of his chair. “Goddamn it!”

The hogs had broken through the wire-fence pigpen by the barn and were rooting about the lawn.

“John?” Gene called. “You awake?”

“Yeah, Dad,” John answered. “I'm getting up now.”

John and his father spent forty-five minutes rounding up the hogs and repairing the fence. John went back to bed, and Gene rejoined Peg at the kitchen table. She was still too tense from the bus trip to sleep. She was telling Gene about the casualty room in the Pentagon when Gene sprang to his feet again and began massaging his calf muscle.

“What's the matter?” Peg asked. “What've you got? A cramp?”

“Oh, yeah!” Gene winced. “Oh, Mary!”

“What can you do about it?”

“Nothing,” Gene said, shaking his head. He continued to massage his calf. “Just live with it, I guess.”

Peg smiled. “That's what you get for chasing after those hogs. You're just getting old.”

For the next week Peg worried over how she might best help Larry Phelps. Although she would never forgive herself for letting Michael go, Peg hoped she might alleviate, at least to some degree, the guilt she felt by preventing the loss of another young man's life in Vietnam. By helping Phelps, Peg was helping herself. Finally, on June 11, she wrote Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Daniel Z. Henkin himself. Before leaving Washington, Peg had looked up Hen-kin's home address in a telephone directory. Peg mailed her letter to his house, not the Pentagon.

She wrote she had come home “weary and very much concerned with the futility of mothers, like myself, thinking they can say or do anything to change the militaristic attitude of the administrative branch of the government today.” Peg explained that both she and Patricia had come away from the briefing “with the thought that we both liked you. We have been asking ourselves why you are in that position, and why did you stay on in the change of administration. You can't believe what you say.” She speculated that perhaps Henkin believed he might have “a leveling influence on the military monster which threatens to destroy this country” but added she had “no faith in Mr. Nixon at all.… It is his lack of intellect that really scares me.

“Because you were the only bright spot in the Pentagon,” Peg's letter continued, “I am going to ask you to do something.” She related Kathy's battle with polio, the birth six months ago of their “beautiful baby” and Larry's orders for Vietnam. “I'm sure he will walk the same path my son did, and you know the kill ratio among these young men.… How can a government close its eyes to a handicap such as this and send a young husband to Vietnam and possible death? Isn't there someone who can save this family from such a fate? You know the fighting is going to worsen there, and he'll have little chance of coming home.”