Trial By Fire (19 page)

Regardless of how many times he saw it, Dixon loved the show. Like most officers, he was conservative, finding security and comfort in the traditions, order, and regulations that governed military life. The horse platoon and artillery section were a link to the past, a salute to the simpler days when soldiers did soldier things and everyone understood what being a soldier was all about. How wonderful, Dixon thought, life in the Army would be if all we needed to worry about was being a good horseman, a decent shot, and a capable leader.

Leaning back in his chair with his feet propped up on the windowsill, Dixon was sipping coffee and watching a battalion of the 2nd Brigade prepare for a rehearsal when his sergeant major walked into his office.

With a booming voice that could wake the dead and a cheerfulness that Dixon could never muster that early in the morning the sergeant major announced his presence. “Ain’t it a great day to be in the Army, sir?”

Without moving from his position or turning toward the sergeant major, Dixon responded with a touch of sarcasm in his voice. “Sergeant Major Aiken, every day is a great day to be in this man’s Army.”

“This person’s Army, sir. Remember, the Sweet 16th is on the cutting edge of social and cultural advancement.”

Although Aiken couldn’t see it, he knew Dixon had winced. Dixon winced every time someone referred to the 16th Armored Division as the Sweet 16th, a nickname applied to the division in private conversations ever since it had been selected to be the unit to conduct the Evaluation of Female Combat Officers,
EFCO
for short.

“Yeah, right, Sergeant Major. How foolish of me to forget.” Not that Dixon could forget. It was easier to forget how to breathe than to be a member of the 16th Armored Division and forget that they were about to become the test-bed unit for the introduction of females into combat arms units. Everyone in the division, male and female, officer and enlisted, had an opinion. Even the wives had an opinion. For three months the division, in particular the three battalions that would be receiving the first female officers, had been preparing for the evaluation. It had not been easy.

Though most of the officers and men in the targeted units were prepared to accept the inevitable, there were a few holdouts. Some combat arms officers had voiced their objections, and a few had threatened their resignations, including the commander of one of the battalions selected to participate in the evaluation. All of that ended, however, when Major General Alvin M. Malin, the commander of the 16th Armored Division, was “adviced” of the situation. Nicknamed “Big Al” because he was so short, Malin was a man who neither tolerated dissent when an order had been given nor believed in half measures when action was called for.

Within minutes of hearing of the battalion commander’s threat, Big Al personally marched down to the commander’s office, walking in unannounced.

Taking a seat across from the surprised commander, Big Al, in a very friendly voice, told the lieutenant colonel that he was there to personally pick up his resignation and approve it on the spot. Flabbergasted, the battalion commander tried to explain, but Big Al cut him short, telling him to shut up and support the program or hand over his resignation.

The commander of the 2nd Battalion, 13th Infantry, backed down, apologizing for running off at the mouth and promising to support the program, one hundred ten percent.

Big Al’s surprise attack had, for the most part, the desired effect.

Unquestioning cooperation and team playing became the order of the day.

Still, there were whispered comments and dissent in the ranks. Even in Dixon’s own section, there were doubts about the wisdom of putting women in combat units. On the previous Friday, to Dixon’s surprise, the captain in his section charged with coordination of the overall program for the division came in and asked Dixon to reassign him to other duties on the grounds that he could not support the program. While Dixon admired the man’s honesty, he could not allow an officer who did not support Army policy and the Army equal-opportunity program to walk away without comment. After all, Dixon knew that officers could not be allowed to pick and choose what they did and did not want to support.

To Dixon, a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute with twenty-one years of active duty and two wars behind him, it was an all-or-nothing proposition for an officer. Within a matter of hours, the officer was reassigned and Dixon had prepared an adverse evaluation that, in a peacetime Army, would effectively be a show-stopper to the captain’s career.

The entire affair was made easier since the captain had waited until the very last minute, just as the female officers were coming on board, to make his opinion known. That he chose to do so on a Friday, putting the coup de grace on an already doomed weekend, allowed Dixon to actually enjoy writing cutting comments on the captain’s evaluation report.

Two months before, Dixon had planned to take a long weekend in conjunction with the 4th of July and go down to South Padre Island with his two boys and Jan Fields, the woman he had been living with for the past three years. The military coup in Mexico, however, had caused Jan to drop out. The chance to be the World News Network senior correspondent in Mexico City was simply too tempting for Jan to pass up.

Dixon, though put out, didn’t complain. After all, she had given up a better position with
WNN
to become, as she referred to herself, a camp follower. The loss of the project officer for
EFCO
had finished the weekend.

Instead of sitting on the beach on South Padre Island with his two sons, Dixon had sat in his office at Fort Hood with the division personnel officer looking for a suitable officer to become the new stuckee for
EFCO
.

After looking at dozens of officers’ records, they both agreed upon a new officer just coming into the division, a young captain by the name of Harold Cerro.

Waiting to go in and be interviewed by the division G3, Captain Harold Cerro sipped at the coffee he had been offered and watched the comings and goings of the people around him. He was already pissed off by the fact that his assignment to a brigade staff had been changed, removing him still farther from “real” soldiers. At least at brigade level, Cerro thought, he would have had an opportunity, every now and then, to smell the horseshit and gunpowder. On division staff, all he’d get to smell was the horseshit.

Already in what could be described as a deep funk due to his sudden reassignment, Cerro could find nothing impressive about the division staff that morning. Everyone, officer and enlisted, seemed to move at a half speed, lackadaisical pace. In most of the line units he had been in, there had always been a high degree of crispness in everything they had done, including their conversations. Here, everyone just sort of moseyed about, lost in their own little world as they drank coffee, shuffled paper, and became annoyed anytime a telephone rudely interrupted their sedate pace and required them to answer it. This, Cerro thought to himself, was going to take some getting used to.

As he pondered his fate, a sergeant major came up to him, a smile on his face and his right hand stretched out. “Captain Cerro, I’m Sergeant Major Aiken. Welcome to the G3.”

Caught off guard, Cerro shifted his coffee cup from his right hand to his left, stood up as he did so, grasped the sergeant major’s hand, and lied. “It’s a pleasure to be here, Sergeant Major.”

Aiken looked into the captain’s eyes for a moment as they shook hands and smiled a shy, knowing smile. “I’m sure it is, sir. I’m sure it is.”

The smile and comment did not escape Cerro’s notice, and the look of concern on his face did not escape Aiken. “Sir, the G3 will see you now.’’ Without waiting, Aiken turned and stepped off to lead Cerro to the G3’s office. After quickly putting his half-empty cup down on the floor next to the seat where he had been sitting, Cerro turned and scurried after the sergeant major.

By the time Cerro caught up to the sergeant major, he was standing outside the G3’s door. Without a word, Aiken motioned that Cerro was to enter. As Cerro passed him, Aiken mumbled, “Vaya con Dios.” Although he didn’t respond to the remark, Cerro wondered why in the hell the sergeant major had said that.

The G3’s office was, relatively speaking, small. At one end was a simple and functional wooden desk facing the door. In front of the desk, a long wooden table with five chairs around it was set perpendicular to, and butted up against, the wooden desk. To Cerro’s left was an overstuffed chair and an end table with an old unit history of the 16th Armored Division on it. Farther along the wall to his left was a wooden bookcase filled with a combination of field manuals, military history books, and loose-leaf binders of assorted colors and sizes. On the wall where the bookcase sat were two small-scale maps, one showing Germany and Eastern Europe and the second showing the Persian Gulf region.

A third map, on the wall behind the desk, was a special overprinted map of Fort Hood that showed all the ranges and training areas on post. Behind the desk, seated in a large executive-style chair, with his feet propped on the windowsill, sipping coffee as he watched a parade rehearsal, was the G3.

Coming up to the edge of the long table, Cerro stopped, came to the position of attention, saluted, and reported. “Sir, Captain Harold Cerro reporting for duty.”

Dixon had heard the captain enter his office. He had even heard the sergeant major’s snide comment. The booming voice of the young captain, artificially dropped a couple of octaves so that he sounded huskier, more masculine, did not surprise Dixon. In fact, Dixon half expected the captain to end with the traditional, “Airborne.”

Without facing the captain, Dixon took another sip of coffee before moving the cup from his right hand to his left and returning the captain’s salute rather casually. “Take a seat, Captain Cerro.”

For a moment, Cerro was taken aback by the casual, almost slovenly attitude of the G3. No wonder, Cerro thought, the G3 staff moves around half-stepping. They get it from the top. Heaving a sigh, Cerro dropped his salute, and took a seat at the head of the long table, waiting for the G3 to speak. The G3, however, didn’t pay any further attention to Cerro. Instead, he continued to watch the parade rehearsal outside his window.

With nothing better to do, Cerro turned in his seat and also watched.

Down on the parade ground, the marching unit was just completing its final turn before passing the reviewing stand. The battalion commander, followed by his four staff principals, was in front of the reviewing stand, saluting the reviewing officer. As this was only a rehearsal, a major from the G3 shop was acting as the reviewing officer, returning salutes and taking notes on deficiencies as elements of the marching unit went by.

Following the battalion staff came the companies, led by their captains and guidons. Cerro watched as the commander of each company gave his orders. First came the exaggerated preparatory command, ‘ ‘Eyes,’’ which alerted the company to what command was about to be issued. At the same instant the commander gave the preparatory command, the guidon bearer hoisted the guidon as high as he could. This was an old tradition, done in the days when commanders used the guidon to signal their commands to subordinates who could not hear them over the sounds of battle.

After a pause, the commander shouted a crisp, curt “Right,” the command of execution. In unison, the commander’s head turned to the right as his right hand shot up to salute the reviewing officer. The guidon came down with an audible snap to signal the command of execution had been given. In the ranks of the company, the right-hand file continued to look straight ahead while every head in the two files to the left snapped to the right. The company held this position until its commander had passed the reviewing stand and reached a marker that told him the trail element of his unit had cleared the reviewing stand. At that point, he gave the order,

“Ready,” pause, “Front.”

Company after company marched by, with the national and regimental colors between the second and third company. As they passed the reviewing stand, the regimental colors dipped to a forty-five-degree angle in salute to the reviewing officer, but the national colors remained aloft, dipping for no man. This was the only time the reviewing officer initiated the salute, honoring the national colors.

Cerro had seen all of this before and didn’t really understand the G3’s fascination with the parade—since, no doubt, the G3 had seen it far more often. Cerro was becoming quite uncharitable in his thoughts concerning his new superior until the horse platoon came by. Though the sequence was the same, there was more flair and drama, a flair and drama that Cerro found himself caught up in, as the horse platoon leader brought his drawn saber up before his face as he gave the preparatory order. Bellowing “Eyes” for all he was worth, the horse platoon leader snapped his saber down, catching a glint of sunlight on the polished blade as he did so. He held it there, with a stiff extended arm, as he issued the execution order, “Right.” The horsemen and their mounts, passing two by two before the reviewing officer, did so with a precision and a casual ease that Cerro marveled at. No doubt, he thought, the horses, their heads held high, required as much drill as the troopers did. Following the horse platoon came the field guns. Each gun, pulled by four horses, had a crew of four, two men riding the trace horses, the ones on the right, and two men riding on the caisson.

While their passing in review in itself had been interesting, the maneuvering and mock battle, followed by a mounted charge afterward, was, for want of a better word, exhilarating. As Cerro watched in fascination, he could feel his pulse rate increase. This, he thought, this was a ceremony worthy of the United States Army.

As the horse platoon leader rallied his troopers, Dixon spun around in his chair and faced Cerro for the first time. “Ever see a cavalry charge before?”

Cerro, surprised by the G3, shook his head. “No, sir, not really.”

Leaning back in his chair, Dixon spoke, studying the new captain as he did so. “Back when the Army did things like that for real, everything was simple, manageable, understood. The commander, riding a few paces in front of his troopers, would see and study the enemy, the land, and his objective. He could take it all in with a single glance. Using what he saw, along with his training, experience, and judgment, he’d issue a quick and simple order. He could do it on his own, since units were only as large as a commander’s voice could carry. And the maneuvers were simple drills, something that a good troop had practiced many times. When he, the commander, felt all was ready, he would raise his saber and give the order to charge. In a matter of minutes, it would be success, or failure.