Friendly Fire (23 page)

By midday the air rose thick and wet from the blacktop road, shimmered like gauze over the marchers' heads. The Boy Scouts teasing of the Girl Scouts grew more ill-tempered, severe. Black Angus, grazing like Japanese “Go” pebbles on lime-green pastureland gaming boards, would drift down to the fence lines and gaze curiously at the passersby. “Stars and Stripes forever!” the drum major ordered. “Pass it back!” The first blast of his silver whistle landed like lightning in the cattle's midst, and the steers had stampeded in panic beyond the next hillside before the drummers had even agreed on the beat.

If anyone at the Eagle Center cemetery noticed the little American flag had been removed from Michael Mullen's grave, no one mentioned it to his parents. Neither Peg nor Gene was present to hear “Taps” bugled. Gene was in his cornfields; Peg was typing a fresh stencil. Her letter, this time, was to be sent registered mail, return receipt requested, to each of the 100 United States Senators:

To:

Senator____

From:

Mr. and Mrs. Gene Mullen, La Porte City, Ia., parents of Sgt. Michael E. Mullen, killed in Vietnam Feb. 18, 1970.

Subject:

Conduct of military concerning disposition of one soldier's death, burial and personal property.

Purpose: If 10% of you read this, we feel that we have not failed our son.

Feb. 21, 1970. Received message of son's death. Asked military to hold news from public until we had time to notify our family. Service officer said he was unable to do so. We pleaded with him, but he said he could not tell the army what to do.

Service officer told us we could request escort for our son. We did this and learned 24 hours later that Pentagon had chosen to ignore our request, making their own choice of escort. We demanded they honor our request, and through services of Senator Hughes' office the Pentagon was persuaded to grant our request.

Family asked for complete medical report on son's death. To date this has not been received.

Army Finance Dept. asked that family sign blank pay voucher for son's final 18 days of pay. Family refused and asked for audit.

Box of personal property returned from Vietnam, minus anything of value. Service office thinks family is the “exception” because they expected to have watches and $200.00 camera returned.

NOW WILL YOU PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING … IT MIGHT HELP YOU TO UNDERSTAND WHY THE BITTERNESS GROWS AND GROWS IN THE HEARTS OF BEREAVED FATHERS AND MOTHERS.

“Your son accumulated 44 days leave from 4 Sept. 1969 through 18 Feb. 1970. A review of his military pay record shows he used 53 days leave or an excess of 9 days leave. Members on excess leave are not entitled to pay and allowances; therefore, pay and allowances were collected for the period 23–31 August, 1969, the period of excess leave.”

Michael was given a 21-day overseas furlough in August 1969. He only lived 5½ months in Vietnam, thus consuming 12 days leave. The computer indicates he should not have died before July, 1970.

Our son had two school loans which were cancelled because he died in the service of his country … but the organization that forced him into an immoral war … punched his card to Vietnam and his death, demands that he repay NINE OF his last 21 days of FREEDOM on earth. They are withholding the following: Base pay, $67.92; food rations, $11.18; clothing allow., $1.28; FICA adj. $12.19. We are wondering if there is some way Michael in his death could bill the AMERICAL DIVISION for the days in the jungle when they failed to resupply him with clothes, food, water and medication.

THROUGH YOUR OFFICE YOU HAVE BEEN ALLOWING THE MILITARY TO SPEND 36 MILLION DOLLARS A DAY. NOW WE LEARN THEY HAVE ANOTHER SLUSH FUND … REFUNDS FROM THE DEAD.

By four that afternoon Peg had had the stencil run off, the envelopes stuffed and addressed, and needed only to pack her suitcase for Washington.

Early in May the same week American troops were ordered into Cambodia, the Des Moines
Register
reported a group of Iowa clergy and laymen planned to travel to the Capitol to lobby in support of the Hatfield-McGovern amendment (609) which called for setting a definite time limit on American aid to the war. The group called themselves CALCAV, an acronym for Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam. A couple of days after the
Register
article, a man telephoned Peg that if she were willing to join the CALCAV group, he would pay her expenses to Washington. Peg did not know the man and declined, saying she did not think she was “the type clergymen would want along.”

The man persisted, mentioning her involvement with the 609 group which had traveled by lightplane all over Iowa only six weeks before. Peg was just the sort of person the CALCAV group
would
want, he told her, since she had already demonstrated her effectiveness in protesting the war.

“Why don't you yourself go?” Peg asked.

“I can't. I'd
like
to,” the man said. “But I can't stay away from my office that long. I wanted to do something, though. And I thought of you. I know you don't have a whole lot of money, Mrs. Mullen, and well, I thought I'd gladly pay your airfare from Waterloo to Washington and back if you'll say you'll go.”

“No,” Peg said. “I really appreciate your offer, but I can't go. I hate to fly.”

The man urged Peg to reconsider, but when she seemed adamant, he told her, “If you should change your mind, my offer still stands.”

During the next weeks, nothing whatsoever occurred to diminish Peg's suspicion that the military was deliberately falsifying the casualty counts. And when letters from soldiers spoke of deceptions and censorship and urged her to continue to “stand up for us boys in Vietnam,” Peg knew she had to go to Washington, that she could not avoid going. It was her responsibility to go. She telephoned the CALCAV group's organizers in Iowa City and asked if she might join them. The group eagerly begged Peg to come. They had been worried that there would be too many college-age participants and that the seriousness of their purpose would be diminished if their image was that of just another college protest group. “To tell you the truth, Mrs. Mullen,” the spokesman told her, “we want all the middle-aged people we can get.”

Peg laughed. “Well, thanks. I guess.”

She telephoned the man who had volunteered to pay her fare and said she would accept his offer, but she wouldn't fly. She would travel to Washington by bus. “God bless you, Peg,” the man said. He sent her $50.

Peg was still packing when Gene returned from feeding the hogs. He stood watching her until Peg looked up from her suitcase and asked, “You don't mind my going, do you?”

“Peg, you have to go.”

“Johnny's all packed, and we'll meet Patricia in Iowa City. You'll be all right, won't you?”

“Of course I will,” Gene said. “What time do you have to leave?”

“Midnight. From Iowa City.” Peg was folding some handkerchiefs. “You'll mail those letters for me?”

“You know I will.”

Even in the midst of her preparations Peg could not forget her correspondence. Repeatedly she would interrupt her packing, her discussion of the trip to remind Gene that the letters were to be sent registered mail and not to forget to request a receipt. Almost as often as she mentioned the letters she expressed concern that Gene should take care of himself. “I've put some meat loaf in the freezer for you. Take it out before you leave for Deere's.”

And Gene, proud of Peg as well as anxious about her, urged her to take care of herself.

“Oh, I will.” She smiled. “Patricia and John will see to that.”

Finally, as Peg was about to leave, Gene hugged her and told her, “Give 'em hell.”

Chapter Fourteen

Peg Mullen, her children John and Patricia, and Alan Hulting, Patricia's fiancé, boarded the first of the two buses chartered by the Iowa CALCAV group. Their bus left Iowa City a little past midnight, swung onto Interstate 80 and headed east toward the Mississippi River crossing at Davenport. Peg could not sleep. She stared out her window at the scattered farm lights until the broad, empty, darkened Illinois plains gave way to the glow of distant cities. Beyond Joliet, the swirl of Chicago's tollways, skyways, expressway interchanges appeared.

Peg's bus skirted Chicago, Hammond, the beaded lights of railway marshaling yards, Gary, East Bend, the fires of far-off steel mills lighting the sky. The high-tension lines swooped overhead to towers girdered like giant headless Amazons guarding the boundaries between factory towns. East of South Bend the sun rose and steamed the mist from Indiana. Peg watched the shadows shorten, saw the interstate begin to fill with campers as she passed through the Central Time Zone and into Monday's morning. Little children waved, flashed shy peace signs from the backs of station wagons.

And then her bus entered Ohio, flat, endless Ohio. Peg's restless mind broke loose, spun free, gave way to rages, daydreams. Unable to sleep, she sat staring out at silent, unprotesting, National Guard-drunk Ohio. By noon her bus reached western Pennsylvania. Peg did not sleep all the way through the Alleghanies, down to Maryland, east along the Potomac to Hagerstown and south again until the bus' headlights reflected against approaches marked “Washington.” At Silver Spring the bus entered Alaska Avenue, and Peg reached across to tap her son. “Wake up, John. We're almost there.”

At 11
P.M.
her bus stopped outside the Episcopal Church of St. Stephen and the Incarnation, where Peg and the CALCAV group were to spend the night. Peg had sat up for twenty-two hours. She felt chalky, irritable, dirty. All she wanted now was sleep.

Early in the antiwar movement St. Stephen's began providing “sanctuary” for protesters by permitting them to set up sleeping bags within the church and gymnasium. Its priest had concelebrated a mass in front of the Pentagon the fall before, and his senior warden had been among those arrested.

Peg and John unrolled their sleeping bags near the altar. Peg had never used a sleeping bag before. She slid herself inside it, tried to get comfortable, peeked out and saw John with his long hair settling down next to her. She worried whether that disreputable-looking crowd would be permitted inside the Senate to lobby. Patricia knelt over her mother to ask if she was all right. Peg told Patricia it was “the worst-looking bunch” she had ever seen. Her daughter laughed. “Mother, they're worried about
you!
About how you're going to get yourself in shape to go.”

Just before Peg fell asleep, she wondered what all her conservative friends might say if they could see her now. As she drifted off, she smiled.

The next morning, Tuesday, June 2, Peg was the last to wake up. When she did, she couldn't believe what she saw. All the young men were wearing suits, white shirts, ties. Even their shoes were shined.

They met first that morning with the Moratorium Committee at the Mayflower Hotel, and Peg writhed while the Moratorium spokesman instructed the CALCAV group on how to lobby. Peg did not like anyone to tell her how to do anything. She was impatient to get inside those Senators' offices so she could tell them what she thought. After the meeting she hurried to the Senate Office Building ahead of the others. Their meeting with Senator Hughes was scheduled for one o'clock. Peg simply roamed the halls, killing time. She passed one open door and peered inside. The office was filled with Rath Ham advertisements and canned hams. Rath Hams was in Waterloo. Peg walked in and asked, “Whose office is this?”

A secretary looked up, “It's Senator Miller's of Iowa.”

“Well,” Peg said, “I should have known I guess.”

“Are you with the CALCAV group?” the secretary asked.

“I sure am.”

“May I ask who you are?”

“I'm Peg Mullen.”

There was an audible groan among the office staff which the secretary ignored. “Your organization asked for a meeting with the Senator, but at the time we were unable to make any definite plans. However, you can tell them now that we will be able to see you all at three.”

“That's fine,” Peg said. “We've a meeting a few minutes from now with Senator Hughes.”

“Oh, well, then, we'll arrange for the meeting to take place in the same hearing room.”

“That would be very nice of you,” Peg said, and she started to leave the office.”

“Oh, Mrs. Mullen?” the secretary said.

Peg paused and turned back, “Yes?”

The secretary smiled. “Welcome to Washington.”

The CALCAV's meeting with Senator Hughes lasted an hour and a half. Since the group knew that Hughes, as one of the sponsors, obviously favored what had come to be known as the Hatfield-McGovern (609) amendment, the discussion moved to other topics before the Senator excused himself saying he had to return to his work. Peg and the others had a few minutes to wait until Senator Miller was to join them. Before he arrived, his secretary entered and, walking directly to Peg, asked whether she would like to meet the Senator.

Peg, embarrassed to have been singled out, explained that she had met the Senator the year before. “If the Senator wants to meet anybody,” Peg said, “I think he should be introduced to the young man who arranged the trip. He's sitting right up over there.”

As the secretary went forward to meet the CALCAV organizer, an attractive middle-aged woman drifted into the hearing room and sat down beside Peg. They struck up a conversation, and the woman explained she was originally from Iowa but lived now in Virginia. They were still talking when Miller's secretary suddenly returned, took Peg by the arm and pulled her up to the front of the hearing room.

“Senator Miller?” the secretary said. “I want you to meet Peg Mullen.”

Both Peg and the Senator were embarrassed. His face turned red and Peg's even redder. When she shook his hand, he gave her a limp, dead-fish handshake before turning away.

Unlike the meeting with Senator Hughes, the meeting with Senator Miller was filled with challenges and accusations. An indication of Miller's and Hughes' political differences is provided by ratings given them by certain political interest groups. The Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), for example, awarded Hughes a rating of 97 (out of a possible 100 percent total support of the ADA's position) while giving Miller a 13. The ADA, synonymous with the liberalism of a Galbraith-Schlesinger-New Deal-Great Society sort of legislation, represented staunch opposition to defense spending and any encroachments upon civil liberties. The National Security Index (NSI), on the other hand, which typified the belief that America's best interests are served by increasing the amount spent on the support and maintenance of large weapons systems and the defense of anti-Communist nations throughout the world, rated Senator Miller 100 and Hughes 0. Several times Miller became so furious he threatened to order the group to leave. “I know all about Vietnam!” Miller protested. “You can't tell me a thing about Vietnam! I've been there.”