Friendly Fire (27 page)

“Well, I can't believe it, Mrs. Mullen,” Larry said. “I don't know how to thank you.”

“Call me collect if you run into any snags,” she said and handed the phone back to Kathy, quietly gathered up her papers and left. She was asleep when Gene came home.

The next morning Peg received letters from Martin Culpepper and Abe Aikins in Vietnam. Peg had written them both after her trip to Washington. She opened Culpepper's first:

It was very interesting to read about your trip to D.C. with some ralliers who think the same about the war here. The army couldn't answer your questions or all of them anyhow. For them to do so is to quote “break your back.” The truth is they can only beat around the so long but I pray it's not too long or late for our sake.

Peg read the last sentence again: “The army couldn't answer your questions … for to do so is to ‘break your back.' The truth is they can only beat around the so long,” the
what
so long? Culpepper had omitted a word. “Beat around the
bush?”
“Around the
truth?”
Was he saying that if the Army told Peg the truth, it would break her back? Her spirit? Was Culpepper not telling Peg what had really happened? She wondered whether she was being overly suspicious, or had Culpepper been trying to hint at something? She recalled having told him some of the questions her CALCAV group had asked about the secret treaties, the border crossings, the secret operations and bombings. That line about the Army's being unable to answer her questions, was he referring to her questions about Michael or those asked at the Pentagon? It was infuriating not knowing what Culpepper really meant and frustrating, too, getting just one little nugget of information at a time. Culpepper's letter continued:

I knew Doc Aikins personally, he was and still is a good friend of mine. It's true what he said about Michael. If he said it, you can believe it! Peg had written Culpepper that according to Aikins, Michael had died in his sleep and had never known what hit him. She had never ceased worrying over whether or not Michael had suffered and Culpepper's confirmation gave her some relief.

Aikins' letter simply thanked Peg for her offer to help by sending him the procedure for enlisting out of combat, and he wrote her of his plans for going to school. He was just twenty-one credits short of his BA degree. “I will complete my education after I leave the Army,” Aikins said. His letter reminded Peg that Michael, too, had planned to return to school, that Michael had anticipated being home in June and, if everything had gone the way they had all expected, he would have been sitting across from her at the kitchen table right now. Peg got up and walked outside.

The lawn still showed the ravages of the hogs' escape nearly three weeks before. Great chunks of turf had been rooted up, rolled back like sod strips. In other places the lawn had been humped as if moles had broken through to the surface, then kept on going. Peg could not prevent herself from thinking how Michael would have been upset had he seen the lawn. She heard the well pump start. Gene was awake and running water. She took one last look around the lawn and barn. The farm was beginning to show Michael's absence. She went back inside the house.

“Hello, Mother,” Gene said cheerfully. “Been taking a morning constitutional?”

“What are you so happy about?”

“Why, it's a beautiful day!”

“You wouldn't think so if you saw the lawn,” Peg said sourly.

“Now, Mother,” Gene chided her, “let me have my coffee first.”

That evening when Larry Phelps telephoned from Oakland, he told Peg
no
personnel officer had met him,
no
hold had been put on him, and he had been processed for Vietnam. “It was a nice try, Mrs. Mullen,” he said. “You've opened my eyes to what goes on.”

“Don't give up, Larry. There are still things we can do.”

Peg immediately called Daniel Henkin at his home. It was about ten o'clock Washington time. Henkin assured Peg that everything would work out, that no one could ship Phelps to Vietnam without first contacting the Pentagon. A “hold” had been put on him. But Henkins then said, “Still, Mrs. Mullen, you must remember it is in the hands of the military.”

Peg's heart sank. She hung up convinced she'd been duped, that Henkin had no actual authority at all. She pictured that general from personnel blithely nodding up and down, agreeing with everything Henkin said without the slightest intention of helping Phelps at all. She was so discouraged she called one of Senator Hughes' aides. The aide explained there was nothing he or the Senator could do for Phelps unless Phelps himself asked for assistance.

“How can he do that?” Peg asked impatiently. “He's in the Army! He's all the way across the country in California. They're getting ready to ship him to Vietnam! You know he's going to get killed!”

“Peg, I'm sorry. Unless Phelps gets in touch with the Senator personally, there's nothing we can do.”

“You're no different from the goddamn Army!” Peg swore. “None of you care one bit what happens to your people. The only thing you care about are yourselves!” She hung up on him.

The following morning, Friday, June 26, Phelps called with good news. A hold had been put on him, and he had been assigned a job. Best of all, he had an appointment Monday morning with the personnel officer to file his reassignment papers. “A Lieutenant Steven Davies interviewed me,” Phelps told Peg, “and he said my chances for a reassignment were about ninety-nine percent!”

“Is he the officer who was supposed to meet you yesterday?”

“He was supposed to, but yesterday was his day off.”

“So in the meantime you were processed for Vietnam?”

“Yeah,” Phelps said, “but he had about three pages of papers from the Pentagon on me stuck away in his desk.”

“A lot of good they would have done you there,” Peg said bitterly.

“Well, they're doing me good now.” Phelps paused for a moment, and then he added, “You know? I'm beginning to think for the first time you may really be able to keep me from going to Vietnam.”

Monday morning, when Larry Phelps was interviewed by the personnel officer, he filed his compassionate reassignment papers and was turned down cold. He telephoned Peg. “They said it's not an emergency case. I'm scheduled to leave for Vietnam either tomorrow or the day after.”

“We'll see about that,” Peg replied.

She immediately placed a person-to-person telephone call to Lieutenant Steven G. Davies, the personnel officer Phelps had dealt with at the Oakland Army Terminal. She asked him what he had done with the orders from Daniel Henkin's office and those from the Pentagon general with whom Henkin had spoken. Lieutenant Davies very courteously explained that their orders did not mean a thing to him; he had his own orders to follow. If the general wanted to rewrite them, he could. Until then, however, he had to follow “the book.” And Larry Phelps' problem, as defined by “the book,” was “not of an emergency nature” since it had existed for a long time in advance. Nor did Phelps' problem “meet the minimum criteria established by the Department of the Army for a compassionate reassignment.” Larry Phelps was therefore processed for Vietnam.

Peg then contacted Daniel Henkin's office at the Pentagon, and a Lieutenant Colonel William Taylor there insisted Phelps could not leave Oakland until his papers had reached Washington. Not satisfied, Peg alerted Senator Hughes' aide about what was going on. He again told Peg there was nothing the Senator could do unless Phelps contacted Hughes himself.

Later that afternoon in Oakland, Lieutenant Davies sent for Phelps. Davies, visibly disturbed, told Phelps that he had spoken with both 6th Army Headquarters and Peg, but nothing could be changed. Phelps felt Davies simply wanted to talk, to try to defend his position. When Phelps reported this conversation to Peg, she was so convinced she had lost her battle to save Phelps that she drove into Waterloo to see a lawyer there. She hoped he might know of an attorney in Oakland who could help. Peg's friend mentioned an attorney in San Francisco who, he had heard, for $1,000 might be able to get Phelps out of Oakland. She decided to borrow $1,000 and worry about paying it back later.

When by two o'clock that morning she had still been unable to reach the San Francisco attorney, Peg gave up and drove back to the farm. Her final act was to send a night letter to President Nixon, pleading with him to save Larry Phelps' life.

Tuesday morning Larry Phelps telephoned Peg to say good-bye. He said that he had been able to get through to Senator Hughes' office and that the Senator had promised to help. He also told Peg that Lieutenant Davies had given him a typed statement confirming that his request for compassionate reassignment did not qualify as an emergency situation since it was not, in fact, of an emergency nature. The statement, typed up in triplicate, was signed by Davies and Phelps.

“All right, Larry,” Peg said, “send me a copy, and make sure you guard your own copies carefully.”

“I will. And Mrs. Mullen?… Peg? Thanks for your help.”

“I wasn't much help, I'm afraid.”

“You did more than anyone else ever could.”

“When do you leave?”

“This afternoon.”

Peg closed her eyes. “I'll pray for you, Larry. Take care of yourself.”

“You, too, Peg. And I mean it, thanks again for everything. Keep an eye on Kathy for me, will you? I worry about her at times.”

“Don't, Larry. She'll be fine. The baby, too.”

“I sure hope so.… Well, I guess this is good-bye.”

“We'll get you home before long,” Peg said firmly.

Peg was in such despair that she didn't even bother to listen to the evening news on television. She didn't find out until the next day that the Cooper-Church amendment had passed the Senate after thirty-four days of debate. Nor did she listen to President Nixon's speech on how the Cambodian operation had been a success. She simply drove into Waterloo to “get lost.” Peg did not return to the farm until after 10
P.M.
On the kitchen table was a note left by Gene saying there had been “an urgent call from the Pentagon,” which she was to return “no later than nine.” She was too late.

Peg did not sleep that night. Instead, she waited up until the Pentagon was open. At 7
A.M.
Iowa time, she placed a call to the Pentagon number given her and discovered it belonged to Lieutenant Colonel William Taylor of Henkin's office. Taylor said the reason he had called was to explain why the Pentagon had been unable to help Larry Phelps.

“It's very simple,” he told Peg. “Phelps neither requested nor applied for reassignment.”

She rested her brow against a kitchen cabinet and squeezed the telephone receiver to her ear. “Would you say that again?” She could not believe what the Pentagon colonel had told her.

Taylor again said that Phelps had not requested or applied for reassignment, and Peg said, “I don't believe you.”

“Mrs. Mullen, I contacted Sixth Army Headquarters myself. They are forwarding me a statement signed by Larry Phelps indicating he did not want a reassignment.”

“You're now telling me Phelps did not want a reassignment?” Peg asked incredulously.

“That is correct.”

“Well, Colonel, I simply do not believe such a statement exists. I think this whole business I've had with you people in the Pentagon is a farce. You never did intend to reassign that boy! And I'll tell you something else: Larry Phelps is sending me a statement typed up and signed by Lieutenant Steven Davies, the Personnel Officer at Oakland, which will prove that Phelps did apply for compassionate reassignment and that Davies turned him down because his circumstances were ‘not of an emergency nature.'”

Lieutenant Colonel Taylor hesitated for a moment, then said, “Well, Mrs. Mullen, I'd be very interested in seeing a copy of that statement if, in fact, such a statement does exist.”

“Oh, it exists all right!”

“Then will you send me a copy?”

“I sure will!”

The statement signed by Lieutenant Davies and Larry Phelps arrived two days later, on July 3, 1970:

Larry G. Phelps    Personnel Officer    29 Jun 70

470–60–0059  ORS,  USAPERSCEN

1. AR 612–2, Para 4–8a, states that action will be taken to resolve emergency personnel problems of overseas replacements at the overseas replacement station.

2. After a thorough review of your case and a personal interview with Lt. Davies this station, it was found that your problem is not of an emergency nature, and has existed well over five months.

3. Should the situation become aggravated or should you accumulate any additional information you may submit your request for compassionate reassignment to your personnel officer at your permanent unit of assignment.

s/STEVEN G. DAVIES

1/Lt, AGC

Personnel Officer

I have read and I acknowledge receipt of a copy of this DF

s/Larry G. Phelps

The first thing Peg did was call Lieutenant Colonel Taylor at the Pentagon to tell him that the statement was in her hands. She then told him that in her opinion Lieutenant Davies “had simply cut off the top half of the sheet of paper and typed in a new statement from the Pentagon above Phelps' signature.” Her reaction is difficult to understand. Davies' statement clearly indicated the young lieutenant was covering himself because, according to “the book,” Phelps did not have grounds for a compassionate reassignment
at this time
. It is not clear what sort of “new” statement Peg believed the lieutenant might have typed over Phelps' signature, especially since it was Phelps himself and not Lieutenant Davies who forwarded her the statement.