America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction (42 page)

Several points need to be kept in mind while reading these accounts. First, Steinbeck hated communism, as is clear from all he wrote about the numbing effects of totalitarianism on the individual. After two decades of Cold War standoff, he shared with many Americans the belief that the engagement had shifted to the Third World, where “the great plan has been frustrated and staggered” by U.S. involvement. He was convinced that Peking and Moscow, selling arms to the North Vietnamese, were behind the North Vietnamese front; was certain that Asia could fall to the Communists; believed that the people of South Vietnam—like the Joads or “the people” in The Moon Is Down—needed to stand firm against the threat of political oppression. Second, Lyndon Johnson was a friend, Lady Bird one of Elaine's schoolmates at the University of Texas, and John himself fiercely loyal to friends and even more stalwart when it came to his President and to the ideal of American democracy. Third, his shrill words about war protesters in America came from a man who felt keenly a sense of individual responsibility and accountability—he drove himself to produce throughout his life, and he lacked tolerance for objectors who whined about peace, as he saw it, without offering some solution. More than fifteen years earlier, writing about James Dean, he noted in a 1958 interview that “any young man or any man who isn't angry at one time or another is a waste of time. No, no. Anger is a symbol of thought and evaluation and reaction.” But James Dean, he continued, “symbolizes the angry young man against, but not towards something. He's against things, but not for things” (Fench 66). That was precisely Steinbeck's position in the mid-1960s. Any conscientious objector to war could and should, in his mind, volunteer to help in hospitals—engage in humanitarian action. Fourth, these letters were written in 1966 and early 1967, before the antiwar movement gained momentum and attracted scores of students and intellectuals. In addition, Steinbeck waxed enthusiastic about war machinery because he had long been fascinated by weapons—odd weapons, the history of warfare, target practice with his sons. The belletristic prose is, in part, sheer enthusiasm for technological progress.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, John Steinbeck's reasons for witnessing the war were deeply personal. He'd seen war; he hated war; he had the highest respect both in 1943 and 1966 for the ordinary soldier—and at the time his son John IV was serving as an ordinary soldier in Vietnam. Patriotic, ideological, and familial bonds coalesced. Signing on in November 1965, John IV wrote to his father that he would send letters back recording “our (the soldiers') impression” to read and pass on, perhaps to publish, “to do with as you see fit.” In declaring his intention to write letters to his father that he wished to be made public, in selecting precisely his father's grassroots perspective on war, John IV wanted respect and recognition from the writer-father from whom he'd had nineteen stumbling years of love. If his words rang true, John IV wrote, “it will be true for an Era, a mileu [sic], a conscience, and America; a static one at best, but it is ours” (25 Nov. 1965). What father, burdened with guilt about his sons and his fatherhood, could resist the appeal made here? In going to Vietnam, Steinbeck made his final, and perhaps ineffective, effort to be a good and conscientious father. “And do you know the best thing,” he wrote in his introduction to the series. “We hope to see our boy in Vietnam. Wouldn't that be a joy?” (3 Dec. 1966).

In assessing Steinbeck's writing on the Vietnam War, it must be kept in mind that the writer did have reservations about war, most expressed privately. To Harry Guggenheim he wrote in August 1966 that it was America's “sloppy position” on the war—which was not then called a war, of course—that caused much of the “dissident uproar.” “How can a country negotiate for peace when by its own telling, it has never been at war?” (22 Aug. 1966). Coming out of Vietnam to Bangkok in January 1967, he wrote Guggenheim that he was disappointed in Johnson's State of the Union speech, for “a lack of clarity has made people wonder exactly what our policy is: ‘We want to defeat the North VN but not destroy their nation.' That's bloody nonsense. Unless we get rid of Ho Chi Minh, we have a war. If he makes peace, he's out of a job” (19 Jan. 1967). Later, he confided in Guggenheim that he was sure that a cease-fire would come soon, by summer he imagined. As Elaine Steinbeck has sadly noted, however, “John changed his mind totally about Vietnam while there, and he came home to write it and spent all the rest of the time dying. That's not just an apology for John. That is true.”

Somewhere in England, June 20, 1943—

 

THE TROOPS in their thousands sit on their equipment on the dock. It is evening, and the first of the dimout lights come on. The men wear their helmets, which made them all look alike, make them look like long rows of mushrooms. Their rifles are leaning against their knees. They have no identity, no personality. The men are units in an army. The numbers chalked on their helmets are almost like the license numbers on robots. Equipment is piled neatly—bedding rolls and half-shelters and barracks bags. Some of the men are armed with Springfield or Enfield rifles from the First World War, some with M-1S, or Garands, and some with the neat, light clever little carbines everyone wants to have after the war for hunting rifles.

Above the pier the troopship rears high and thick as an office building. You have to crane your neck upward to see where the portholes stop and the open decks begin. She is a nameless ship and will be while the war lasts. Her destination is known to very few men and her route to even fewer, and the burden of the men who command her must be almost unendurable, for the master who loses her and her cargo will never sleep comfortably again. He probably doesn't sleep at all now. The cargo holds are loaded and the ship waits to take on her tonnage of men.

On the dock the soldiers are quiet. There is little talking, no singing, and as dusk settles to dark you cannot tell one man from another. The heads bend forward with weariness. Some of these men have been all day, some many days, getting to this starting point.

There are several ways of wearing a hat or a cap. A man may express himself in the pitch or tilt of his hat, but not with a helmet. There is only one way to wear a helmet. It won't go on any other way. It sits level on the head, low over eyes and ears, low on the back of the neck. With your helmet on you are a mushroom in a bed of mushrooms.

Four gangways are open now and the units get wearily to their feet and shuffle along in line. The men lean forward against the weight of their equipment. Feet drag against the incline of the gangways. The soldiers disappear one by one into the great doors in the side of the troopship.

Inside the checkers tabulate them. The numbers chalked on the helmets are checked again against a list. Places have been assigned. Half of the men will sleep on the decks and the other half inside in ballrooms, in dining rooms where once a very different kind of people sat and found very important things that have disappeared. Some of the men will sleep in bunks, in hammocks, on the deck, in passages. Tomorrow they will shift. The men from the deck will come in to sleep and those from inside will go out. They will change every night until they land. They will not take off their clothes until they land. This is no cruise ship.

On the decks, dimmed to a faint blue dusk by the blackout lights, the men sink down and fall asleep. They are asleep almost as soon as they are settled. Many of them do not even take off their helmets. It has been a weary day. The rifles are beside them, held in their hands.

On the gangways the lines still feed into the troopship—a regiment of colored troops, a hundred Army nurses, neat in their helmets and field packs. The nurses at least will have staterooms, however crowded they may be in them. Up No. 1 Gangway comes the headquarters complement of a bombardment wing and a company of military police. All are equally tired. They find their places and go to sleep.

Embarkation is in progress. No smoking is allowed anywhere. Everyone entering the ship is triply checked, to make sure he belongs there, and the loading is very quiet. There is only the shuffle of tired feet on the stairways and quiet orders. The permanent crew of military police know every move. They have handled this problem of traffic before.

The tennis courts on the upper deck are a half-acre of sleeping men now—men, feet, and equipment. MPs are everywhere, on stairs and passages, directing and watching. This embarkation must go on smoothly, for one little block might well lose hours in the loading, just as one willful driver, making a wrong turn in traffic, may jam an avenue for a long time. But in spite of the shuffling gait, the embarkation is very rapid. About midnight the last man is aboard.

In the staff room the commanding officer sits behind a long table, with telephones in front of him. His adjutant, a tired blond major, makes his report and places his papers on the table. The CO nods and gives him an order.

Throughout the ship the loudspeakers howl. Embarkation is complete. The gangways slide down from the ship. The iron doors close. No one can enter or leave the ship now, except the pilot. On the bridge the captain of the ship paces slowly. It is his burden now. These thousands are in his care, and if there is an accident it will be his blame.

The ship remains against the pier and a light breathing sound comes from deep in her. The troops are cut off now and gone from home, although they are not a hundred steps from home. On the upper decks a few men lean over the rails and look down on the pier and away at the city behind. The oily water ripples with the changing tide. It is almost time to go. In the staff room, which used to be the ship's theater, the commanding officer sits behind his table. His tired, blond adjutant sits beside him. The phone rings, the CO picks it up, listens for a moment and hangs up the receiver. He turns to the adjutant.

“All ready,” he says.

Bomber station in England, July 4, 1943—

 

THE FIELD is deserted after the ships have left. The ground crew go into barracks to get some sleep, because they have been working most of the night. The flag hangs limply over the administration building. In the hangars repair crews are working over ships that have been injured. Bomb Boogie is brought in to be given another overhaul and Bomb Boogie's crew goes disgustedly back to bed.

The crews own a number of small dogs. These dogs, most of which are of uncertain or, at least, of ambiguous breed, belong to no one man. The ship usually owns each one, and the crew is very proud of him. Now these dogs wander disconsolately about the field. The life has gone out of the bomber station. The morning passes slowly. The squadron was due over the target at 9:52. It was due home at 12:43. As 9:50 comes and passes you have the ships in your mind. Now the flak has come up at them. Perhaps now a swarm of fighters has hurled itself at them. The thing happens in your mind. Now, if everything has gone well and there have been no accidents, the bomb bays are open and the ships are running over the target. Now they have turned and are making the run for home, keeping the formation tight, climbing, climbing to avoid the flak. It is 10 o'clock, they should be started back—10:20, they should be seeing the ocean by now.

The crew last night had told a story of the death of a Fortress, and it comes back to mind.

It was a beautiful day, they said, a picture day with big clouds and a very blue sky. The kind of day you see in advertisements for air travel back at home. The formation was flying toward St. Nazaire and the air was very clear. They could see the little towns on the ground, they said. Then the flak came up, they said, and some Messerschmitts parked off out of range and began to pot at them with their cannon. They didn't see where the Fortress up ahead was hit. Probably in the controls, because they did not see her break up at all.

They all agree that what happened seemed to happen very slowly. The Fortress slowly nosed up and up until she tried to climb vertically and, of course, she couldn't do that. Then she slipped in slow motion, backing like a falling leaf, and she balanced for a while and then her nose edged over and she started, nose down, for the ground.

The blue sky and the white clouds made a picture of it. The crew could see the gunner trying to get out and then he did, and his parachute fluffed open. And the ball-turret gunner—they could see him flopping about. The bombardier and navigator blossomed out of the nose and the waist gunners followed them. Mary Ruth's crew was yelling, “Get out, you pilots.” The ship was far down when the ball-turret gunner cleared. They thought the skipper and the copilot were lost. They stayed with the ship too long and then—the ship was so far down that they could hardly see it. It must have been almost to the ground when two little puffs of white, first one and then the second, shot out of her. And the crew yelled with relief. And then the ship hit the ground and exploded. Only the tail gunner and ball-turret man had seen the end. They explained it over the intercom.

Beside the No. 1 hangar there is a little mound of earth covered with short, heavy grass. At 12:15 the ground men begin to congregate on it and sweat out the homecoming. Rumor comes with the crew chief that they have reported, but it is rumor. A small dog, which might be a gray Scottie if his ears didn't hang down and his tail bend the wrong way, comes to sit on the little mound. He stretches out and puts his whiskery muzzle on his outstretched paws. He does not close his eyes and his ears twitch. All the ground crews are there now, waiting for their ships. It is the longest set of minutes imaginable.

Suddenly the little dog raises his head. His body begins to tremble all over. The crew chief has a pair of field glasses. He looks down at the dog and then aims his glasses to the south. “Can't see anything yet,” he says. The little dog continues to shudder and a high whine comes from him.