This is a work of fiction. Names of characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously; any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locations is entirely coincidental.

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Farewell, Uncle Ho

by Dennis Milholland

questions and comments are welcome. www.milholland.eu / dennis@milholland.eu

Chapter 39 (Mon., Jan. 16)

The night went fast, and I awoke very well rested at 0400. Gerry was already waiting at the bottom of the stairs, looking a little sad. "What's wrong?" I wanted to know as we hit the door and broke into a jog.

"I'm scared," He spat at the side of the road. "of what they're going to do to you for being French."

I chuckled to cover up how touched I was. "I don't think that they're going to set up a firing squad."

He looked hurt. "Do you take what you mean to me seriously?"

I stopped jogging; he stopped. I knew that being flippant was the wrong thing. The kid was hurting and, as he'd admitted, scared. "I chuckled to keep from breaking down. I do take what we feel for each other seriously."

My hands started to reach up to hold his face. But then I thought better of it. "And I don't think that they'll do much other than tell me that I can't be an officer and can't hold a top-secret security clearance. But we'll just have to wait." I managed a smile. "But look on the bright side." I patted his shoulder. "Other than myself, you'll be the first to know."

All of a sudden, this twenty year-old kid, seemed world weary. "Last night, alone on my bunk, I had time to think about you and me as compared to Harriet and me."

"Harriet was your girlfriend?" Asking this question made me blatantly aware of the fact that we had only known each other less than a week. Apparently being in the military affected the perception of time.

He nodded. "And when she ditched me because I joined the Army, I felt a little sad, but it wasn't like it was with Evans. I didn't want to end it all."

Since we weren't running but leisurely walking, I pulled out a cigarette and lit it. "I don't think that Evans did either. What he did was a way of getting attention."

Then he stopped, clenched his jaw. "Don't know…" He wiped his nose on his field jacket. "Don't know what I'd do, if something happened to you." Then he lost it.

I grabbed my Gerry and held him tight against my body, not really giving a Fuck about who could see us. "We're going to do this right. We're going to be happy, and we're going to do this together."

He was hanging on me for dear life, and managed to say with a quivering whisper: "Whatever you say, Drill Private."

***

I'd just returned to my room from the showers still wrapped in a towel, as I saw through the window the red TR4 come around the corner and let Sean out. Couldn't tell for sure, but it looked as if Haruki had on civilian clothes. Apparently, he's extended his stay in South Jersey until he could take Sean back to New York. I still felt a tinge of hurt that neither of them had been mature enough to tell me what was going on. That Haruki had tried to wash himself clean of all responsibility by saying: 'I'm glad you understand.' still had an emotional bite to it.

My boxers were gaping at the front, as I was pulling on the fatigue pants to make myself presentable for the visit to Personnel. The door opened without a knock, and Sean stood there gawking at my dick hanging out of the boxers' front. "Whoops, sorry."

"It isn't anything you haven't seen before." I laughed at his sudden modesty.

"Yeah, I should have knocked." He blushed profusely. "Can I come in?"

"You're already in. Just close the door." I pulled on my white t-shirt and picked up my starched fatigue shirt off the bed. "Why do they put so much starch in these things?" I mumbled more or less to myself.

Sean grinned. "They think that starch makes them bulletproof."

For some reason, this hit my funny bone, and I had to sit on the bunk to finish laughing. "That's as good a reason as any, I guess."

And as suddenly as he'd arrived with a smile, he saddened. "Are you still mad at me?"

"I was never angry with you, Sean." I stood to put on my shirt and button it. "Just hurt. But I am pissed off at Haruki for not having the balls to talk to me."

"What was there to talk about?" Sean went defensive.

My voice became rough. "Like what the Fuck I'm supposed to use as my home of record, now." I glared at him, although I was angry with Haruki. "I solved your problem of homelessness and created my own."

"Oh, shit!" Sean looked as if I'd hit him in the gut. "I never thought of that. Let me talk to Har--"

"--no, don't. I don't want you guys getting the bad-news visit from the Department of the Army." I said truthfully. "Just let it go, and I'll find somewhere else."

***

To maintain that Personnel was an unfriendly place, would be like saying that the President was from Texas. We were not informed of anything, just ordered about, until we, and it was only 'we' because I demanded to be accompanied by a JAG officer and my witness of choice, Gerry, were interviewed by a gentleman just short of civilian retirement age.

Mr. Wilson was not friendly but, per definition, polite, and he worked by the book. "We took notice of your case, where your file says that you hold a PhD from the University of Paris. Is that correct?"

I answered that it was indeed correct. "In Cantonese and French." I saw that Major Horowitz was taking, if not a verbatim record, a very detailed summary in shorthand.

Mr. Wilson assumed a slight 'gotcha' smirk. "The Department of Defense checked your story with the Department of State." He smiled condescendingly. "And you have never been issued a passport."

Gerry chuckled, Major Horowitz raised his eyebrows. "You're right, I have never held an American passport."

"So, do you have a," He looked as if he were ready to deliver a punch line, "Red-Chinese passport?" and seemed pleased with himself.

"No," I returned his condescending smirk. "it's a dark-blue French passport."

"Do you have it with you?" There was a slight air of excitement about this question. Maybe he'd never seen a passport before.

I took it out of my field jacket's breast pocket, stood and handed it to him. He looked dismayed, holding his glasses up to his eyes, rather than putting them on, and scrutinizing my surname printed in the neat, handwritten, block letters of the French passport bureaucrat, which was displayed from the page below through a cutout, oblong window just below the embossed: RÉPUBLIQUE FRANÇAISE and above the hard-bound, cloth-covered, dark-blue booklet's function: Passeport.

He opened it cautiously and found the entries in flowing French handwriting . He wrinkled his nose, and uttered, almost in disgust: "This is in French."

At this, Gerry, Major Horowitz and I blurted out laughing. And this is where my tolerance of bureaucracy collapsed. I'd had it, so I didn't care if the old fucker was insulted or not. "If you would use your goddamned glasses for their prescribed purpose rather than as a prop for your asinine theatrics, you may well realize that under the French is an English translation." And at this Gerry and Major Horowitz gasped.

He followed my suggestion, no matter how reluctantly. He scrutinized my description. "What's 1m75?"

"One-meter-seventy five. My height. Just like it says."

Now he peered over his glasses. "I know that. I mean how many feet."

I stood up. "Here I am. You guess."

"I'd say about five feet eight or nine." Major Horowitz' patience was being taxed. "Now can we get on with this interview, instead of nitpicking the soldier's passport?"

Mr. Wilson cleared his throat, and displayed his disdain of the Major. He then looked back at me. I sat down without his having told me to, so, he cleared his throat again. "Why are there no stamps from the United States in this document?"

"O, quelle surprise," I wondered if he would pick up the irony from my voice. "because I have never used it to enter or exit the United States. Stands to reason, I'd think." The Major chuckled.

Mr. Wilson's patience snapped. "Then how the Hell do you get in and out of this country?"

"Via Canada." I snapped back. "There are abundant Canadian stamps, even in English, for your convenience."

He raised his volume a notch. "And how the Hell do you get from Canada into this country."

I raised mine another notch. "I use my god-damned birth certificate, just like you would."

Major Horowitz nudged me to be careful. Gerry, seated to my left, whispered: "Easy, Ben. Ain't worth it."

Wilson was taking time to cool by leafing through the pages. "And why do you leave and arrive through Montreal."

"To visit my dad's sister and her family." I smiled, feigning friendliness.

"Have you ever voted in French elections?" Mr. Wilson's politeness was strained.

"Yes," I took a deep breath. "I voted in the presidential elections in December of 1965." Of course, I kept it to myself that I'd voted for the Leftist, François Mitterrand.

"Have you ever voted in elections in this country?" He was now returning the fake smile.

"No."

"Why not?" His 'gotcha' grin was back.

"Because you haven't held any since I turned 21." Both Wilson and the good Major flinched when I referred to Americans as you and not we.

"Well, well, what do you think, Major?" Wilson's next comment made Gerry moan. "I think that Private Loughery may have forfeited his American citizenship."

Major Horowitz proved to be a good lawyer; he cunningly dodged his having to have an opinion. "That's for the State Department and Secretary of State Rusk to decide." Then he looked at my passport on Wilson's desk. "And would you please return the passport to Dr. Loughery?"

As he handed it back, I wanted to know: "So, what's the deal, Mr. Wilson, since the Army drafted me, and I'm not an American, do I get a discharge?"

Here's where his politeness failed altogether. "You fuckin' wish, Trooper. You volunteered for four. The obligation stands."

***

Major Horowitz took us back to his office, so we could talk in private. He contacted the Army Security Agency's recruiter, who'd sold me the four-year package tour, to come over to his office to make other arrangements.

"So, what else do you think you would like to do, since you won't be able to get your direct commission in the ASA?" Major Horowitz was taking notes again, and then chuckled. "Not to mention not even getting near the ASA unit's building."

I sighed, as if my dreams had just died. Gerry's right combat boot made contact with my left foot, as if to say that I should cut the melodrama. "Well, a guy I know, who's a reserve JAG officer, was trying to convince me to become a Legal Clerk."

The Major's face lighted up. "It's a brand new field and they're looking for good people. What's this guy's name?"

"Marv Brandstifter." I said as casually as I could.

"No shit?" The Major just became one of the guys. "Went to law school with Marv."

I chuckled. "So, you went to Brooklyn Law."

Luckily, Gerry saved us from drifting off into an embarrassed silence. "I think I have the same problem as Ben does, Sir."

"You a dual national, too?

Gerry nodded looking embarrassed. "Yeah, I was born in a displaced-persons camp in Germany, near a little town called Belsen."