Friendly Fire (34 page)

We were told that it was the artillery people's fault. They told us that some officer and some sargent were being held responsible. There were rumors going round about the people firing the artillery being drunk and some sort of neglect was evident. Neglect isn't uncommon in Vietnam. This wasn't the last instance of it. There was much, much more to come in the following months.

I don't know if Hank Webb told you, but at one time we wrote a letter to you about the February 18 incident and some of the conditions afterward. It was signed by about 60 men in the company. That letter was never mailed because the Company Commander got word of it. We were threatened with reprisals and also he said that our mail could be censored. The letter was destroyed. When your in the army you don't have quite the freedom civilians have.

Mrs. Mullen, I think you are doing the right thing. If more people in the United States were as concerned as you are about the war, possibly something could be done.

s/Albert Gaynor

Gaynor's corroboration that censorship had been imposed on the men of Charlie Company infuriated the Mullens. Peg had now spoken or corresponded directly with four men present the night Michael had died; each of them had verified that American artillery had killed their son. They possessed, in addition, Lieutenant Colonel H. Norman Schwarzkopf's letter written March 2 stating that “during the testing Michael received a fatal missile wound when an artillery round fell short of its intended target and detonated near his position.”

Over and over again the Mullens had been told that Michael was killed because an artillery round had fallen short. Both Peg and Gene would have understood and might even have been able to accept that this was what had happened to their son were it not for the Army's unwillingness to provide them with the details as to why it had happened. It was obvious to the Mullens that it wasn't
what
had happened, but how it happened that the Army was so determined to hide.

The Mullens were now certain an American artillery unit had, for no apparent reason, suddenly and without warning, commenced firing over Charlie Company's night defensive perimeter at approximately three o'clock in the morning, taking Charlie Company by surprise. None of the men Peg had communicated with believed that the artillery had been requested by Rocamora, the company's forward observer. There was no reason for the artillery to have been fired at that hour; there were no signs of enemy activity around. One of the artillery shells fell short, detonated when it hit a tree above the company perimeter and killed Leroy Hamilton and Michael Mullen and wounded six others.

The Mullens were also now certain they knew why: the men back at the guns were drunk.

Peg was invited to be a guest speaker at the November 15 Black Hawk County Moratorium. She accepted and had her first brush with the FBI.

From the moment she stepped out of her car until she returned home Peg Mullen was photographed. No matter whom she stood next to or spoke with her picture was taken. At least eight men with cameras were among the protesters, and the thought of FBI agents photographing a peaceful gathering of American citizens was so repugnant, so absolutely
foreign
to Peg that when it was time for her to speak she was shaking with rage. She was outraged that she, Peg Mullen, whose own son had given his life in support of his government's war, should be considered a potential subversive by the very government which had killed him.

Peg rose before the protesters and related step by step what had happened to her son in Vietnam, how he had been “killed by some drunken officer shooting off an artillery gun.” She told how the Army's first reports had placed their son 400 miles from where he had actually died, how they had lied, led them to believe that Michael had been killed by South Vietnamese, not American, artillery. She explained how Michael was a “nonbattle casualty and, therefore, not counted,” how the young men he had served with had been threatened with court-martial and reprisals if they attempted to write. She described how callously and insensitively the Army and Congress had treated her family from the moment they were notified of their son's death and her outrage at the deduction of nine days' leave from his final pay. She expressed her utter contempt with the White House for having included the President's Vietnamization speeches at a time when the family still believed their son had been killed by the South Vietnamese. She told of the letters she had received from young men who admitted to being in Cambodia a month before the President announced they were, and looking directly into the closest upturned camera lens, she said, “We are tired of President Nixon's lies! We were good members of the Silent Majority, but we cannot remain silent any longer. We are determined to speak out, to expose the government's lies. And we are not alone. All across America there are mothers and fathers, young men and women,
good Americans
, who feel the same way we do about this immoral war! We have come here today, all of us, to make our opposition known. We are not afraid.” The photographer turned away and joined the others drifting through the crowd. Peg defied the government to draft her one remaining son, her son-in-law and any future son-in-law she might have. She vowed to continue her battle in behalf of the 44,000 killed in combat and the 9,000 nonbattle deaths like her son, so that “those dead shall not have died in vain,” she said, quoting, as she had in their second
Register
advertisement, the passage from Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, “that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government
of
the people,
by
the people,
for
the people, shall not perish from the earth!”

About one week after Peg addressed the Moratorium, John Mullen received his corrected 4-A draft classification in the mail.

Early in December Peg, returning from marketing in La Porte, crept slowly along the ice-glazed dirt road and paused at the mailbox in front of their farm. She found a letter from Larry Phelps that had been dropped off by his mother while Peg had been in town. Larry again wanted help in getting out of Vietnam. He asked Peg to contact the Red Cross to find out the procedure. He was certain that his request this time would be forwarded through the proper channels because he now had a sympathetic first sergeant who believed Larry could be sent home. It took two days for Kathy and her mother to assemble the necessary documents and affidavits. On December 29, Kathy Phelps called Peg to say that Larry had received all the papers and had had them properly processed in Vietnam. He was waiting only to hear from the Pentagon. Peg immediately telephoned Colonel Alan Thompson and reintroduced herself. Thompson said, “Yes, Mrs. Mullen, I remember you very well.” He promised to look into Larry Phelps' case right away and to let Peg know as soon as he had any news.

As 1970 ended, it was estimated that 4,727 American GIs had died in battle, 1,818 had died of “nonbattle” causes, and 34,774 had required hospitalization as a result of wounds suffered that year in Vietnam.

On January 4, 1971, Colonel Alan Thompson telephoned to say, “I have the best news in the world for you! Your young friend should be getting on a plane today in Vietnam and will be home tomorrow.”

Peg did not speak for a moment. Then she said, “Colonel, I find it very hard to believe. I don't think I'll tell Larry's family yet. I don't want to subject them to the same heartache I put them through seven months ago.”

“Do call them, Mrs. Mullen,” Colonel Thompson said. “Don't worry. Nothing this time can go wrong.”

Black Hawk County was wrapped in a heavy blizzard, and ice accumulation between the Mullens' farm and Eagle Center, where Kathy's family lived, had pulled the telephone wires down. Peg looked out of her kitchen window. The wind-driven snow had pushed deep drifts against the fences, barns and silo and had so glazed the road she was hesitant to drive. Peg decided to telephone Larry's mother, whom she'd never met, and perhaps Mrs. Phelps could relay the news.

“I have just spoken with Colonel Alan Thompson in the Pentagon,” Peg told her, “and he said that Larry's orders for reassignment reached Vietnam last week. Larry is supposed to leave Vietnam today and will be home tomorrow night.…” Peg paused, but when Mrs. Phelps did not say anything, Peg added, “So you can expect a phone call from Oakland some time tomorrow night.” Peg waited again, and when there was still no response, she asked, “Mrs. Phelps? Are you there? Are you all right?”

Larry's mother was crying. Peg realized that Mrs. Phelps was trying to speak, to thank her, but no words would come out. “Don't try to say anything, don't worry about it,” Peg told her. “Just try to call Kathy for me, would you?” And she hung up.

About thirty minutes later Larry's mother had regained her composure and called Peg back. She reported that she had been able to reach Kathy, that they all were very excited and grateful and couldn't wait for the following evening when Larry was to call.

Larry Phelps did not call the following evening, or the next, or the day after that. Four days after Peg had spoken with Mrs. Phelps Larry finally did call. And at ten thirty that night, Kathy telephoned Peg to say that Larry had arrived in Oakland and had booked himself out on the first flight east that night.

“Thank God,” Peg said. “I was so worried. I was sure some other second lieutenant had put the screws to him.”

Two days later, on Sunday, January 10, Larry Phelps drove over to the Mullens' farm. Peg was there to meet him. Some young Lieutenant, Phelps told her, had indeed sat upon his orders. The day his orders had arrived Phelps had been sent on a ten-day search and destroy mission. He had not even known about his orders until the seventh, three days after Colonel Thompson had telephoned Peg. A helicopter had picked him out of the field, and he was immediately placed on a plane for the United States.

“Peg,” Larry said, “I don't know how to thank you.”

She hugged the young man and said, “I'm just glad you could come home.”

The following spring Peg found herself with two flat tires on the road to Waterloo and limped into a gas station on the edge of town. The service attendant there, she discovered, was Larry Phelps' older brother. Peg introduced herself and explained how she had helped Larry out of Vietnam. “Isn't it great,” she asked, “that he could come home?”

“So what?” Phelps' brother said. “I was there for two years, and it didn't hurt me any.”

Chapter Nineteen

As the Mullens approached the first anniversary of their son's death, still disillusioned, angry, suspicious, wounded and confused by all they had suffered and learned, they did not believe the government had singled them out
specifically
for mistreatment. They accepted, instead, that the government was willing to treat any of its citizens in the same manner if given the chance. That is why the Mullens felt it their duty to alert their fellow Americans to what might befall them by holding themselves up as examples. Gene wanted to focus attention on what had happened not merely on that jungle hilltop in Vietnam and rolling farmland in Iowa but, by association, all over Southeast Asia and the United States as well. The Mullens were horrified that never before in the history of this nation they so loved had its government so rigorously dedicated itself to the accumulation of power at the expense of its citizenry. And what dismayed the Mullens so much was the ease with which Americans acquiesced and refused to speak out.

On February 20, at a press conference preceding a $50-a-plate Lincoln Day Dinner in Des Moines, Senator Robert Dole, of Kansas, chairman of the Republican National Committee, asserted that by May 80 percent of the U.S. ground troops would be out of Vietnam. Peg Mullen, watching him make that statement on the evening's television news, saw that not one of the reporters present had questioned Dole's remark. She couldn't stand it.

At a press conference in Sacramento several days before, Dole had said, “The issue with Muskie, McGovern and Bayh is deciding which was against the war first, and by then the war will be over.” Peg had written him then:

You are following the impression given by our President that the war can be over whenever the Republicans desire. It is this pattern of thinking that simply tears at the hearts of fathers and mothers whose sons have died since Mr. Nixon campaigned to end the war, whose sons today are going endlessly to Vietnam and into combat, whose sons will die there this week, next week, next month, next year.

“It is difficult for me to understand your reasoning on this issue,” Dole replied. “I am a veteran of World War II and am well acquainted with what involvement in war means to an individual. I strongly support President Nixon's program to bring the war in Southeast Asia to a successful conclusion with our national honor and integrity intact.”

What national honor? What national integrity was left? Peg discovered which Des Moines hotel Dole was staying at following his Lincoln Day Dinner and telephoned his room. It was eleven o'clock at night, and the Senator either wasn't in or wouldn't answer. At seven thirty the following morning Peg placed the call again. Dole answered the telephone, and Peg explained who she was. Dole said, “I don't have time to talk to you. I have to catch a plane.”

“They'll hold the plane for the Republican National Chairman,” Peg said. “You can wait. You can talk to me.”

“Only for a moment. What is it you wanted to say?”

“Last night you said eighty percent of the ground troops would be out of Vietnam by May,” Peg said. “That's a lie.”

“Don't call me a liar!”

“That's a lie, Senator,” Peg repeated.

“It isn't. I received that figure from the White House this week.”

“Well, I don't believe it,” Peg said. “How many ground troops are there now?”

“About two hundred and eighty thousand.”