Kalokagathia--Why Schools Should Not Play Sports

The Greeks had a word for it -- kalokagathia, which descried a noble human being as one possessing the perfect union of body and soul.

The term was also used to celebrate the equality of all citizens and the ideal national unity that transcended any differences in class or wealth.

This concept was central to all that it was to be Greek and explains why gymnasiums were not simply exercise centers but also centers of advanced learning—the high schools and colleges of the ancient world. Indeed many of our terms used in academia, including academia itself, come from Greek gymnasium terms. The akademeia was the gym that Plato taught at!

Amateur sports were an important part of this concept but to be admired a person could not simply be a champion of one thing, he much be a master of many different and mutually balancing skills. A one trick pony, someone who could only run fast, or lift heavy weights, or box or any of a dozen other skills, was an object of mild contempt.

A well rounded athlete.
Most people today know that the Greeks gave us the Olympics and think that the modern games somehow resemble the ancient ones but the fact is that Ancient Greeks would have been horrified by such a gross and disgusting spectacle. For one thing sports were only one small part of the true Olympics, poetry and music were equally important events and the writer of the best poem or most accomplished armature musician was often far more highly honored than the person who only won a race or wrestling match.

The Greeks admired a strong body but they knew that mules and oxen were far stronger than the best athlete and yet lacked kalokagathia since they were only dumb animals who lacked poetry, music, art and philosophy. In other words they lacked souls.

The most highly respected athletes were all rounder, people who combined in themselves many different, and mutually balancing, abilities which is why the pentathlon (five competitions) was the quintessential Olympic event. These five events were the stadion (a short foot race) wrestling, long jump, javelin throw and discus throw and one had to do well in all or most of them to win. A hulking, muscle-bound freak may have been able to win the wrestling but might not have been as fast as a lean runner or as agile a jumper or as coordinated as the discus thrower and would have been merely a laughing stock. He would also have been a loser if he were out performed in the other events.

This emphasis on mental and physical “balance” is what was celebrated in the athletic sculpture of the Classic era. This was the golden age of the amateur, in the original French meaning of the word which can be translated as "lover of", reflecting the amateur's motivation to work as a result of a love or passion for a particular activity. To compete in an athletic or artistic competition for money was considered something contemptible and utterly lacking in kalokagathia.

All this changed, however when Greek culture was taken up by non-Greeks during the Hellenistic period following Alexander the Great’s conquest of Persia. These new “Hellenizes” were not quite clear on the concept and started viewing athletic competition as a form of entertainment instead of a way of developing a balanced mind and body in order to become a worthy citizen of a democratic state.

The results were predictable. Soon money grubbing athletes moved away from kalokagathia where winning was an honor to professionalism where winning was the only thing that counted. Instead of well rounded human beings these sports prostitutes (as the Greeks themselves called them) transformed themselves into single purpose freaks.

The 18th century Enlightenment, which gave us the American Revolution, was based on a revival of Classical ideals and among the values that were revived was amateur sports as a means to achieving kalokagathia and better citizens of the "New Athens" they dreamed of building. But the Classically trained gentlemen of the era knew what had happened to Greek culture once the taint of money touched sports and were determined to prevent this degradation at all costs. One of the chief arguments they made in their battle to have sports made part of the curriculum in high school and colleges was the belief that sports would help build character, that they would help build kalokagathia.

That is why there are rules designed to prevent professionalism in school sports, rules that are today routinely flouted. High School and College sports, or at least the high-stakes, high-profile sports, have become merely a method of training what the Greeks would consider “sports prostitutes.”

The modern professional (and to a very large degree Collegiate) athletes have become single purpose trained, drug enhanced, over specialized freaks who lack in true health or physical fitness and whose artificial lifestyles and training often lead to a post career life of pain, ill health and even early death.

The Classical Greeks considered watching a sport that they could not play or had not played in their youth, pathetic and it was not at all uncommon for a heckler from the audience to be invited to come out onto the field, strip down and show everyone how to do it better. If the person was not at least willing to try he was ejected from the game. Could you imagine that happening with today’s couch potatoes sports fans? The stands would be empty. The simple fact is that modern “athletes” play at a level far beyond the capabilities of all but fellow over specialized freaks.

It is time to admit that the noble experiment of the 19th century amateur sports boosters has failed beyond all hope of redemption. The only reason we have sports in schools at all is because these idealist believed that they would teach kalokagathia (all educated people of the day at least read Greek and Latin). They do not. If some people wish to play sports, or if the sports/entertainment industry wants its employees trained, then both parties should pay for them themselves and not siphon off much needed educational dollars for their own ends.

Although Robert Heinlein was not an Ancient Greek he did understand their concept of kalokagathia and summed it up memorably:

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.

Specialization is for insects.”

Who Cares?

Who we care about and why we care about them tells other people a lot about who we are and what kind of morals we have. I am not referring to personal family, lovers and friends. I mean, who does a person invest their moral and political passion in?

I was thinking about this today as my Army buddy Tom and I walked around the festivities in Golden Gate Park held in honor of the annual AIDS walk. Thousands of people had turned out, many carrying placards bearing pictures of a loved one they had lost to the disease and others bringing panels for the AIDS quilt, a section of which was displayed on “Hippie Hill” near the Haight street entrance to the park.

Tom seldom talks about his brother Michael, whom he lost to the disease, but today he did. In a voice thick with emotion he said “If Michael had come to live with me here in San Francisco back when he wanted to he would probably still be alive. Here in the city he would have had access to information on AIDS prevention and even if he had still gotten it there is a large network of medical and social services available that he could never have found at home. Saint Paul killed my brother.”

As Tom described his part of the Twin Cities the place was a sinkhole of prejudices and enforced ignorance back in the 1980’s with virtually no awareness programs and no medical support for the Gay community of any kind. “The way they see it,” Tom said, “is if you are Gay you can just go right ahead an die. It’s your fault even if you have never heard of AIDS in your life.”

Perhaps he is right, I don’t know, but I do know that my Aunt Kathryn was one of the nicest, most caring people I have ever known, a pillar of her church and a ready volunteer for any good cause that needed her help. She would be well into her 70’s by now but she died of AIDS in the early 1990’s contracted from a blood transfusion after a minor operation. The same governmental indifference and political infighting over what was considered the “Gay disease” killed her just as surely as it killed Michael.

To this day I still encounter people who consider themselves to be kind and moral people who remain indifferent to the plague because it “only kills those people,” as though one’s sexual orientation was sufficient cause for a person to die.

Each year 3.1 million people die from HIV related causes, 20,000 of them in this country alone and yet there are a lot of people to whom the deaths of an estimated two to three thousand damaged fetuses is a cause for deep concern and violent emotions while the deaths from AIDS are only a statistic.

Why should this be? Why is one group of more importance than another? I believe it is because, for some people at least, it isn’t about the lives of “real” people at all but rather it is about how they feel about themselves. For example there are many people who do not like the sort of women who break with their “traditional” roles and these people seek to punish those women for being different. For this sort of person the hypothetical life of a possibly deformed or mentally retarded fetus, who may not even survive birth in any event, is secondary to the chance to impose their values on the hated group.

That is why they so stridently ignore any evidence that the D&X procedure is necessary to the life or health of the woman. Who cares? They don’t know them or their “child” and will most likely never meet them. If someone hadn’t told them that these people even existed they would have no way of finding out but now that they do know about them they are able to feel smug and morally superior to someone else, a wonderful compensation for their normal feelings of inadequacy.

I met and worked with Eric Hoffer, the “longshoreman philosopher” when I was working the docks as a summer job back in high school. A totally self educated man he was considered by many intellectuals the best read and most learned man of his generation. Before he died many famous universities granted him advanced degrees based on his writings alone.

In his book “The True Believer” he dissects the sort of person who passionately advocates a cause and refuses to be swayed by facts or rational argument. As he put it “Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for lost faith in ourselves.”

Those sorts of people who passionately proclaim that nothing you can say and no facts that you can show them will change their mind have all but admitted that the question is not about truth at all but about what they WANT to believe. As Eric put it “Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know.”

How we see others is often only a reflection of how we see ourselves so when someone tells me “There are an awful lot of irresponsible, self centered, selfish women out there…” I get the distinct impression that they believe that they will see one of those women if they look in the mirror. That is not, by the way my opinion of them, I believe however that it is their opinion of themselves.

For others it is the sense of striking back at the world that they see as mocking and persecuting them that is the lure. “A dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority: what it abominates most is the dissent of the majority.”

This fills me with a great sadness. I have come to like some of these people very much and have seen their good and bad sides just as they have seen mine. They are, at heart, good and loving people who feel deep passions and who often hurt so much precisely because they care so much.

The world has not always been kind to these people and has bruised them with its rough edges. Being passionate and intelligent people they have perhaps felt these bruises more deeply than less passionate or intelligent people might have and this has shaken their faith in the world and in themselves. I don't know who said it but is true. "A cynic is a disappointed optimist.

A lot of their anger at the world and at the people who they see as wicked and immoral is really them projecting their feelings for themselves onto others.

How we see others is a very good indication of how we see ourselves.

The Year of the Cat

The airport public address speakers crackled to life. The cultured woman’s voice first gave the message in German and then switched to English.

“Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please. Lufthansa flight one-six-three from Frankfort to New York is now boarding at gate twenty-seven. Please have your boarding passes ready.”

Sergeant Michael Wilson turned to the woman beside him.

“That’s our flight honey, let’s go.”

The woman looked at Michael and smiled.

“Ready when you are dear.”

---------------

Michael awoke to the gray light of dawn and the sound of smoky saxophones floating through the silent building. Normally he didn’t sleep in the barracks but he had drawn fire-guard, two hours on and two off throughout the watches of the night and he had been catching some rack time. Following the sound he came to the source, a young Private sitting on his foot-locker polishing his boots and listening to a gigantic boom-box. The private told him the name of the song and that morning, after he got off duty Michael went to the P.X. and bought Al Stewart’s “Year of the Cat” tape. He smiled as he popped the tape into his stereo at home. Settling back in his chair he listened as Stewart sang;

“On a morning from a Bogart movie…”

---------------

In a country where they had turned back time, two strangers walked together through crooked cobblestone streets and narrow alleyways. It had been a golden day. Michael and the woman he had met on the bus had shopped for souvenirs in the blue-tiled stalls of the open-air bazaars and sampled olives and fresh strawberries in the farmer’s market of the tiny medieval walled city of Tossa de Mare.

As evening approached, they had kicked off their sandals on the beach and let the warm waters of the Mediterranean caress their bare legs. Then they had chosen a little patio café, shaded by trellises of fragrant flowering vines, where they could watch the light of sunset burnish the yellow stones of the old castle and turn them to gold in the fading light.

The cobalt sky was dusted with the first stars of dusk as Spanish fishermen, hiking up from their garishly painted boats on the beach, offered their choicest catch to the restaurant’s diners from which to choose for their paella. The couple talked as they waited for their dinner and shared a pitcher of iced Sangria. It was the earnest conversation of two strangers who meet on vacation and are drawn to one another. They tell each other everything--and nothing at all.

Later that evening they walked on the battlements talking, and listening to the surf pounding on the rocks far below. Somewhere nearby someone played a guitar and the flamenco music echoed through the maze of ancient streets. A full moon hung low over the tiled roofs like a gold doubloon carelessly tossed onto black velvet.

They stood for a while listening to the music and the surf. The bustling streets of the ancient city had been abandoned by their human inhabitants and replaced by a population of cats. Dozens of cats, of every size and shape, the nighttime citizens of the town, sauntered the moonlit cobblestones on their secret errands.

The couple continued their stroll and followed a winding stairway from the castle’s walls up to the ruins of a medieval church perched high on a rocky promontory overlooking the sea. Although the evening was balmy, Michael put his arm around his companion’s shoulder to keep her warm. She snuggled against his side and looked up at him with moonlight in her eyes. His knees grew weak; his blood throbbed loudly in his ears.

Leaning down to within inches of her lips, Michael waited to see if she would respond. She did, and they melted together in a deep, lingering kiss. The night air was filled with the sounds of surf and Spanish guitars.

She was small, warm, and curvaceous; Michael was tall, with a body hardened by years of soldiering. Sweeping her up in his arms he carried her to the broad marble altar of the ruined church and gently laid her on it. The roof of the ancient building had fallen in centuries ago, so they made love under the blazing stars of the Spanish night.

---------------

Taking his seat on the airplane, Michael sat gazing hungrily out the window, clinging to his final moments in Europe. He had loved the continent and had traveled it as widely and often as his military duties and finances had allowed. He would have stayed if he could have, but that was impossible--his time in the Army was ending and he had waited too long to apply for a European out.

His throat thickened and his eyes grew moist as the plane left the ground. With his face pressed to the window, Michael watched Frankfort disappear into the clouds below him. Shutting the window shade, he leaned back in his seat, closed his eyes and thought of Europe.

---------------

Dawn smiled across her desk at Michael. Since moving to Crailsheim, Germany and taking the job of base councilor with the U.S. Army she had been almost out of her mind. It was nice to finally have someone of her own intellectual caliber to talk to.

The man on the other side of the desk was near her age, late twenties, and just under six feet tall. He had the lean muscular body of a soldier and intelligent dark brown eyes that crinkled with good humor and met hers with open admiration and honesty.

From where he was sitting, Michael saw a tall, shapely woman, dressed with style and sophistication in the latest European fashions. Long blond hair framed a delicately chiseled face and cerulean eyes.

They had spent the afternoon discussing art, books, and music and were sharing a laugh over some witticism one of them had made when the door opened and a tall, gaunt, middle aged man with receding hair walked in. He leaned across Dawn’s desk and gave her a perfunctory kiss on the cheek. Pulling up a spare chair he joined them around the desk.

“So what are you two giggling about?” he inquired with mild interest.

“We were just discussing that special exhibit of paintings by Gustav Klimt we saw in Munich last Saturday,” Dawn replied.

Michael smiled at the older man. “Too bad you couldn’t have joined us, Howard. It was the biggest collection of Klimt’s paintings outside Vienna.”

“Sounds hilarious,” said Howard looking bored. “Sorry I missed it but I was snowed under getting the books ready for the yearly visit of the Inspector General.

“That was a great movie,” said Michael.

“Danny Kay was a genius,” Dawn agreed, and they both dissolved into shared laughter again.

Howard looked annoyed.

“I have no clue what you two are snickering about. This was the real U.S. Army Inspector General, and his visits are no laughing matter. The rest of the accounting staff and I were up ’till all hours the week before he arrived making sure every last bean and bullet on the Kaserne was properly accounted for.”

Howard glanced at his gold Rolex.

“You guys about done? I have made reservations for five-thirty at the Jaegerhaus for dinner and we had better get going if we hope to get there on time. You are welcome to join us Michael if you like.”

Dawn crinkled her nose in disgust but Howard missed it. Michael knew she hated that place.

He smiled at Howard and shook his head.

“Thanks but it is almost time for retreat and I have to make formation around the flagpole before they will release me for the night. Then I would have to change into civvies. I would make you guys late.”

They all got up and moved to the front porch of the World War 2 vintage building while Dawn locked up her office.

“Have a great time. Dawn, I will drop by tomorrow unless I get caught for some detail. Good night you two.”

Michael watched Dawn and her husband walk towards where Howard had parked their car and smiled.

“You may have her body, Howard,” he thought, “but I have her mind.”

Still smiling he sauntered off towards the flagpole.

---------------

When the stewardess came by with the drinks cart Michael ordered himself a Chartreuse. Opening the tiny airline bottle he poured the sticky green liqueur into a glass and savored the aroma of pine needles. A faint smile creased his lips as his mind went racing back.

---------------

The September weeks danced by in a warm sensuous haze of wine, moonlight, and romance. The two lovers took water taxies to Barcelona for Bullfights or for long walks down Las Ramblas, the city’s broad, elegant street of sidewalk vendors. They would stroll hand in hand from the harbor all the way to Placa de Catalunya or would lose themselves in the warren of ancient buildings and winding streets just off the great boulevard, hunting for exotic, out of the way restaurants. At times they would find little cafes with tile patios and fountains where they would drink fino sherry by candle-light and gaze into each other’s eyes.

Once, in a festive mood, they ordered the house’s ’special Sangria,’ fortified with brandy. Recklessly they followed that with tall-stemmed glasses of Chartreuse that they joked were big enough to act as birdbaths. Inhibitions pleasantly melting into a green fog they whiled away a blissful hour kissing, the aroma of pine needles from the powerful liqueur scenting their breath.

Walking in an opulent, pine scented, haze to the beach, they would have made love on the sand but for the intervention of a pair of stern-faced Guardia Civil in their comical black bicorn hats who ordered them to get dressed and gravely warned them not do such things in broad daylight in a Catholic country.

Fighting to keep their faces straight, the lovers gave their promise to behave, and then glided off down the beach hand in hand, racked with laughter.

---------------

Emerging from the Neue Pinakothek, Michael and Dawn strolled down Barer Straße towards the Munich train station discussing the large collection of French Impressionist paintings they had just seen. Taking a detour by way of Konigsplatz they stopped at their favorite Konditorei for coffee and the lightly sweet dry-cheesecake the shop made better than anyone.

Surveying the formal elegance of the shop, with its stiff white tablecloths and sparkling chrome coffee pots, Michael smiled at his companion.

“They sure take pastry seriously in Bavaria. I’m sorry Howard couldn’t join us.”

Dawn smiled archly. “Are you indeed?”

They exchanged guilty glances and went back to discussing art.

----------

The two people boarded the bus that would carry them home to Germany still pretending. After three weeks of adventure and glorious romance Michael still did not know his lover’s last name. He knew her first name was Sabrina but he had no idea where she was stationed, and had not tried to find out. He assumed that she was in the military because she was on an Army Tour bus, but aside from that he knew nothing.

Oh he knew her favorite color and the name of her cat back when she had been in high school. He also knew that she loved raw oysters live on the half shell, and long massages and that being kissed on the back of the neck always made her smile.

They both seemed to know how to make each other happy in bed but each had carefully avoided other, more intimate, subjects.

Most importantly, Michael believed, each knew that what they had shared had been a delicious fling, one that both would cherish, probably for the rest of their lives, but nothing more. They continued to talk like lovers all the way across France, but their conversation became more stilted as the bus crossed into Germany. As they neared Crailsheim, his stop, Michael noticed that Sabrina began to fidget nervously. Finally she reached into her purse and slipped a gold ring on to the third finger of her left hand.

---------------

The lights in the passenger cabin had been dimmed. Michael got a blanket and pillow from the stewardess, covered the sleeping woman at his side and, easing her head off his shoulder, placed the pillow under it.

He then settled back and let his mind roam.

----------

Entering Dawn’s office Michael noticed immediately that she wore a stricken look on her face and he felt his blood run cold. Sitting down numbly, knowing what he was about to hear but dreading it just the same, he smiled bravely.

“Is it what we thought?”

“Yes.” She was ashen faced. “Howard has gotten his promotion and we will be moving to Stuttgart by the end of this week.

“Stuttgart is not so bad. Only ninety-eight kilometers. It says so on the sign just outside the front gate. We can still get together on weekends or you can come visit me.”

Dawn shook her head. “Howard thinks that we should not see so much of each other.”

Michael felt his face grow warm.

“Howard knows perfectly well that we are just friends. Furthermore, you and I both know that we have never done anything he could object to. He has no right to complain simply because we enjoy each other’s company.”

A pained look crossed Dawn’s face at this.

“Michael, he is my husband and I owe him so much. He was there for me during a very difficult time in my life and I don’t want to see him get hurt.”

Michael started to say something but Dawn shook her head. “No Michael, my mind is made up. Howard wants it this way so that is the way it is going to be. If our friendship means anything to you, you will not make this any harder than it has to be. Goodbye Michael. I will always treasure the wonderful times we have had together. Please don’t try to see me before I go.”

Their eyes met, and each could see the pain in the other. Finally, Michael simply said goodbye and walked out of the office. As the door closed behind him, Dawn put her head on her desk and cried.

Outside, Michael walked aimlessly. A passing sergeant started to say something to him but saw the look on his face and thought better of it.

----------

When the bus stopped, Michael hung back, fiddling with his luggage, and let Sabrina get off first. She was greeted by a stocky man in the uniform of a senior sergeant. From the badge on his cap Michael could tell the man was part of the artillery battalion that shared the Kaserne with the First-of-the-Fifty-First Infantry, his outfit.

Sabrina hugged the man and he helped her get her bag from the bus’s luggage bay. Michael took his time exiting the bus and had started to walk towards the front gate, heading for his highly unauthorized off base apartment, when he heard Sabrina’s voice calling his name. He turned in astonishment and saw Sabrina leading the sergeant towards him.

“Honey I want you to meet my friend Michael. We met on the bus to Spain.”

The big man offered his hand.

“Michael I would like you to meet my husband, Al.”

The two men shook hands.

“I would like to thank you for looking after Sabrina,” Al said. “I wish I could have gone on the trip but I just made Motor Pool Sergeant for my Battalion and was anxious to get things squared away. You know how it is.”

Michael agreed that he did indeed know how it was and the three stood chatting amiably for a few minuets before Al went to fetch the car. When he had gone Michael whispered urgently to Sabrina, “Are you out of your mind? What is he going to do if he finds out what we were up to in Spain? Oh and by the way it would have been nice if you had mentioned the tiny little fact that you were married!”

Sabrina gave Michael a strange look. “What difference would that have made? Neither of us thought we would ever see the other after we left Spain. Why spoil things?

Michael was too dumbfounded for words.

“There are people on the bus who may have seen us together in Spain and although I think it is unlikely that anyone will gossip to Al, it is better if we acknowledge that we were friends just in case. Don’t worry. Al trusts me.”

Michael was starting to feel sorry for Al when the sergeant pulled up in the family’s Mercedes. “So Michael where are you headed? Can I give you a lift?”

---------------

Michael hadn’t done any traveling for a long time after Dawn had left. The unit had gone to the field for two weeks, but even after he got back he simply went home to his apartment in the evenings and moped around Crailsheim on the weekends.

Finally, in late August his friend Claude had persuaded him to take three week’s leave and go with him to Spain. As things turned out Claude got left to his own devises after Michael met Sabrina, but since he was left with their room all to himself he didn’t complain.

---------------

Michael had found an empty table in the mess hall and was reading a book while eating lunch when he noticed someone sitting down opposite him and looked up to find Al with a tray of food smiling at him.

“Hi, I hope you don’t mind if I join you,” Al said. “What are you reading?”

Michael looked embarrassed, “Oh it’s just a book of poems,” he said dismissively. He had received endless ribbing from other soldiers for reading poetry, but Al looked interested.

“Find any you like?” he asked.

“There is one called Dover Beach…”

Before he could finish Al had closed his eyes and began quoting:

“Ah, love, let us be true to one another! for the world, which seems to lie before us like a land of dreams, so various, so beautiful, so new, hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; and we are here as on a darkling plain swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, where ignorant armies clash by night.”

He opened his eyes and smiled. “I love Matthew Arnold.”

In spite of himself Michael found the thickset motor pool sergeant fascinating. It turned out that he, like Michael, was something of an oddball by Army standards. Like Michael he had gotten his Bachelor’s degree before joining, but while Michael’s was in History, Al got his degree in English Literature.

The two men had been happily discussing poetry for a while when Al glanced at his watch and gave a low whistle. “Where did the time go? This has been fun but I have to get back to the motor pool.” As he left the table Al looked Michael in the eyes and smiled. “I will tell Sabrina you said hi.” he said and then left to turn in his tray.

---------------

Al and Michael started having lunch together on a fairly regular basis. Michael quickly grew to like the man he had unknowingly wronged, and it seemed to him that Sabrina’s husband returned the feelings. Michael felt terrible guilt, but Al didn’t seem to notice.

One day, however, Al sat down at the table and gave him an apprehensive look.

“Michael I would like to talk to you about Sabrina,” he said

Michael felt his stomach tighten.

Al forged ahead as though anxious to get it over with.

“Michael, I like you and think you are an honorable person so if you give me your word on something I will accept it, no questions asked. Do you understand?”

Michael nodded but said nothing.

“My unit is going to the field on Monday and we will be gone for two weeks. Sabrina and I rent a house in out near Lobenhausen, miles from any other Americans. She use to stay with her friend Regina but she and her husband have moved to Fort Hood.”

Al looked extremely uncomfortable. “The thing is that Sabrina has asked me if she could stay at your place. If it is all right with you that is,” he added hastily.

Michael was stunned.

“I did some checking and found out that you live within walking distance of base. She could see her friends during the day and maybe go to the movies in the evening.”

Al was starting to perspire heavily. “Look Michael I am no fool. I know Sabrina is a beautiful and desirable woman. I am sure that a lot of people wonder what she sees in me. But I really love her and want her to be happy. If you give me your word that nothing will happen I will believe you.”

Somewhere in the back of Michael’s mind the beast of desire, which had been too long banished to its kennel, raised its head and snuffled the air with interest.

Michael looked in Al’s worried eyes and felt ashamed. He told himself that he hadn’t known, but that didn’t help. He was silent for a few minutes but finally he looked Al square in the eye and said, “Nothing will happen Al. You have my word.”

In the deepest part of his soul he knew that this was the truth.

---------------

Sunday evening, when Al dropped Sabrina at Michael’s place things had felt very awkward. Finally, however, Al kissed Sabrina, shook Michael’s hand and, looking worried, left.

Michael showed Sabrina to the bedroom and, picking up a pile of blankets and pillows that he had ready, wished her a good night and turned to head back to the living room.

“Where are you going Michael.”

“You’re my guest so you get the bed. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“Don’t be silly, Michael, we shared a bed for three weeks in Spain,” Sabrina said petulantly.

Michael rounded on her with eyes blazing. “That was before I knew you were married!” he snapped. Good night.”

Before she could say anything he stormed off towards the living room.

“I gave my word to Al and I intend to keep it,” Michael thought as he flopped down on the couch. He gave his pillow a fierce punch, as though it had offended him by simply being. Then he closed his eyes and tried to will himself to sleep.

Silently Sabrina closed the bedroom door.

---------------

Over the next two weeks Sabrina waged a relentless campaign of seduction, wielding her uninhibited carnality like a weapon, but to no avail. Michael would arrive home in the evenings to find her beautifully dressed and made up, waiting for him with candle lit dinners.

Sabrina’s considerable charms could have tried the chastity of a saint and Michael was far from saintly. To make matters worse, memories of Spain filled Michael’s nights. He slept fitfully and awoke sweating from dreams of surf and guitars, but this was a question of honor and his resolve was adamant.

As the nights passed and Sabrina failed to detect any weakening of Michael’s resolve, dresses gave way to diaphanous negligees, and one evening he arrived home to find soft music, a candle-lit table, and incense perfuming the air. When Michael called her name Sabrina emerged from the kitchen carrying two glasses of wine, wearing a big smile and nothing else. Michael walked the five miles back to base to find a bunk in the barracks, but he couldn’t sleep.

One by one the sleepless nights ticked by.

---------------

When Al’s unit returned from the field Michael went over to the artillery motor pool to find him. Al emerged from under the hood of an armored personnel carrier covered in mud and grease but Michael walked up to him smiled and shook his hand.

A look of relief washed over Al and his grimy face split in a huge smile. He returned Michael’s handshake with warmth.

---------------

Over the next few months Al and Michael became good friends, often getting together after work for a beer and a game of chess at the local Ghasthaus. Sabrina occasionally tagged along but more often than not she got bored and went to the movies instead.

The next time Al’s unit went to the field Sabrina stayed at Michael’s again but she had apparently learned her lesson and this time she behaved herself.

When he got back from the field and dropped by to pick-up Sabrina Al noticed how sparse the furnishings of Michael’s apartment were and made it his business to scrounge up unwanted stuff from his married friends. Soon the place acquired a far more homey atmosphere.

---------------

One Saturday afternoon in early March Michael was home alone. The snow had turned to slush, but Al had taken Sabrina to Garmisch for some late season skiing in the Alps. There was a knock on the door and Michael opened it to find Dawn standing on his doorstep. Her stylish outfit was soaking wet and mud splattered her bare legs. She gave him a shy smile. “Hi, I was in the neighborhood and thought I would drop by.”

---------------

Dawn emerged from the bathroom showered and with her hair wrapped in a towel. She was dressed in one of Michael’s sweaters, a pair of his fatigue pants and sweat sox. Michael had scraped most of the mud off her cloths and had hung them near the radiator to dry. He went to the kitchen and returned with two steaming mugs of hot chocolate.

She sat on the couch with her feet tucked under her sipping the chocolate and smiling at Michael over her mug. “I missed you,” she said simply.

They talked until early evening without Michael finding out the reason for her visit. He had asked but when she gave an evasive answer he didn’t push. Instead, he let her tell him about Stuttgart, her new job and all the books she had read recently.

They laughed together as she recounted the saga of her drive to pay him a visit, filled with wrong turns, icy roads and the climax--a broken fan belt. When she told him how she had repaired it with her pantyhose they both laughed until their eyes sparkled with tears.

Dawn joined Michael in the kitchen as he fixed them a simple pasta dinner and they talked long after dark. Michael offered to make up the couch for himself if she would consent to stay the night and not risk the icy roads but she insisted that she needed to get home.

Dressed in her dry clothes Dawn said good-by to Michael at the door. “You are a really good friend Michael,” she said. “I just wanted to tell you that and thank you for…I want to thank you for being you.” Without warning she gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and then disappeared into the night.

---------------

Al seemed upset when he and Sabrina returned from skiing. He still greeted his friend with a big smile but Michael could tell something was on his mind. He didn’t seem to want to talk about it so Michael let it go.

---------------

In early June Michael was surprised to receive a letter from Dawn. He knew that she was an excellent writer and was surprised to find her letter rambling and formless, filled with vague pleasantries and humorous anecdotes about life in Stuttgart. It ended with a casual mention of the Rhine A’Flame cruise that they had so often talked about back when she was in Crailsheim.

Michael knew that it was a once a year event when castles and cities along the Rhine river between Bingen and Ruedesheim put on fireworks festivals. A fleet of cruise ships would sail down the river and provide their passengers with wine, gourmet dining, music and dancing under a pyrotechnic sky. He and Dawn had talked about going for months before the one last year only to have Michael get weekend duty at the last minute.

The letter ended almost shyly with a mention that she had taken the liberty of booking two rooms for them in a hotel in Bingen and passage on the Nibelungen, one of the better cruise ships.

Michael looked for a return address on the envelope but either by accident or design there was none. He had no way of letting Dawn know whether, or even if, he could be there. The trip was scheduled for the first weekend in July and without a moments hesitation Michael went to headquarters and used up a week of his dwindling supply of leave days just to be sure of having the date free.

Then, he waited.

---------------

The morning of the cruise Michael arrived at the Bahnhof almost an hour early for the train. Once aboard he tried to read but found that he couldn’t concentrate. He spent the trip gazing out the window at the passing scenery.

He found a room in his name waiting for him when he arrived in Bingen, but no sign of Dawn. After checking in he showered and dressed in a Blue blazer with gray slacks. At the last minute he decided to add a red necktie.

Boarding the ship, Michael spotted Dawn, coolly elegant in an off the shoulder white lace dress, standing by the railing gazing out over the river. Her normally straight blond hair was worn in a cascade of ringlets. A single cornflower, pinned in her hair, brought out the blue of her eyes. Her smile, when she saw him, was like a shaft of sunlight shot through the gloom of a cloudy sky.

---------------

Somewhere over the darkened Atlantic the stewardess with the drinks cart passed again. Michael ordered a bottle of Rhine wine. Opening it he was glad that he had chosen to fly on a German airline. This was a true Rhine wine, as light as a harpsichord concerto with a bouquet like strawberries and wildflowers. He closed his eyes and inhaled the fragrance, calling back the memories.

---------------

The Rhine gleamed like gold in the light of the setting sun as the Nibelungen sailed between steep banks rich with vineyards and crowned with castles. Amber wine twinkled in crystal goblets and the orchestra filled the evening air with Viennese waltzes.

The months of their separation melted away and their conversation was as light and sparkling as the wine and the music. After dinner Michael and Dawn went up on deck and danced under the gathering stars.

When the sky had grown completely dark a single scarlet rocket blazed across the blackness. It must have been a signal, for suddenly both banks of the river for as far as the eye could see in either direction erupted into a fountain of flame as thousands of fireworks soared into the heavens and exploded in an inferno of colored lights. Volley after volley thundered skyward until it seemed as though they were sailing down a tunnel of fire.

Michael and Dawn paused in the middle of their waltz to observe the spectacle, their arms innocently still around one another in the postures of the dance but, as the sky continued to burn, each turned to the other and gazed into love filled eyes. Wordlessly they melted together in a kiss.

---------------

The next morning Michael awoke to find Dawn asleep beside him, her warm body pressed against him, her head on his shoulder and her blond ringlets tumbled across his bare chest.

---------------

After breakfast they walked together through fields of red poppies, pausing now and again to kiss or simply gaze into one another’s eyes. Michael wanted to talk about what it all meant but when he tried Dawn withdrew inside herself. He let it pass, afraid to spoil the moment. There would be time later to make plans. For now it was sufficient to treasure the day.

The time passed all too quickly and before they were ready the moment had arrived for them to part. He had no phone so she promised to write him and let him know when they could see each other again. She also promised to send him an address where he could write her.

Although she had admitted that her marriage to Howard was a hollow, loveless sham, and that she would be filing for a divorce very soon she reminded Michael that her husband had always been kind to her and she owed him much. She didn’t want to hurt him any more than was necessary and asked Michael to give her time to let Howard down easily. Michael agreed and kissed her goodbye and then stood on the platform and watched her train disappear from sight.

---------------

Anger, pain and confusion warred in Michael’s soul. Anger won.

Dawn’s letter, when it arrived, was blotchy and wrinkled with dried tears. She swore that she did not regret one second of their time together but she felt that she had to put a stop to things before they got out of hand.

She owed it to Howard, she wrote, to give their marriage one last chance and she couldn’t do that if she was thinking about Michael. Their friendship was too distracting and it would be better for all concerned if they didn’t see one another again. Tears had made the last line illegible.

Michael felt as though he had been gut shot. His body went cold and numb and he heard a ringing in his ears. Eventually the shock passed and tears of pain and rage filled his eyes.

He bellowed like a wounded animal. “Friendship! Friendship! She calls it friendship?” Sudden pain shot from his right hand up to his shoulder. He looked down in wonder at his bleeding hand and realized that he had just punched a hole in the wall.

---------------

. Michael’s hand was still in a cast a week later when Al came to see him about Sabrina staying at his place again. Ever since Al and Sabrina had returned from their ski trip it had seemed to Michael as though the big sergeant had been avoiding him. He was still friendly enough when they met but he seemed troubled. Michael had been troubled himself lately so he didn’t give the matter much thought. He gave his spare key to Al and told him to tell Sabrina to let herself in.

---------------

Sabrina had made dinner when Michael got home, but he wasn’t hungry. He seated himself in an overstuffed chair next to the stereo and simply sat there drinking white wine, playing waltz music and staring off into space. With real concern in her eyes Sabrina asked how he had injured his hand but all she could get out of him was that it had been a stupid accident. Reluctantly she gave up trying to make conversation and went to bed. After a few days of this Sabrina gave up even trying to talk to Michael and simply left him alone with whatever was bothering him.

---------------

The two weeks passed Michael by almost without him noticing them. His cast had come off but other than that not much had changed. He still walked around in silent misery and talked only as much as was necessary to get through the day.

On the day Al was due to return, Michael walked into his Company’s barracks on an errand. He barely noticed the burly, squashed nosed, soldier slouching against the wall in the entrance hall with his muscular arms folded across his broad chest. He recognized him as Mitch, the battalion boxing champion, and vaguely wondered what he was doing there since this was not his barracks. He was about to walk past him when the big man straightened up and said, “Al sends his regards.”

Then he punched Michael in the face with enough force to send him flying across the hallway and into the Coke machine which smashed when his body hit it. Michael looked up from the floor to see Mitch in a fighting stance with the Platoon sergeant and a few other soldiers watching from the stairs nearby. He expected the Sergeant to intervene but he apparently was in on the matter because he told Mitch to drag Michael into the latrine and finish him off.

Deep wells of rage burst in Michael and poured out their pent up anger. He came up off the floor like a wild beast and launched himself at the startled boxer. Mitch had the advantage of size, strength and training but none of that mattered. Michael had every intention of killing the man with his bare hands, or ripping his throat out with his teeth, he didn’t much care which. He also didn’t care if he lived or died in the process and that fact blazed in his eyes.

Mitch could see his own death in those eyes and his courage deserted him. His best punches had no effect on the madman before him. Michael’s face was a mask of blood and still he came on, snarling and snapping like a rabid dog. When the M.P.s arrived it took four of them to pull Michael off the boxer and hold him down until some semblance of his sanity returned.

There were enough witnesses to clear up the chain of events for the authorities and finally Michael was excused from duty for the rest of the day and told to report to the infirmary while Mitch and the Sergeant were led off in handcuffs. Michael didn’t bother with the infirmary but headed straight for home. Mitch had admitted to the M.P.s that Al had paid him to attack Michael but couldn’t say why.

When he got home Michael found his place a shambles, furniture overturned or broken and a lot of it missing. He found Sabrina in the bedroom crying. She looked up when Michael came in and he could see she had a black eye and swollen lip.

She told him that Al had shown up unexpectedly at the door with a group of other soldiers and an Army duce-and-a-half truck and had started moving out all the furniture that he had given to Michael. While the other soldiers moved furniture, Al had taken Sabrina into the bedroom and beaten her, calling her a whore and yelling that she could stay here with her lover, he had no further use for her. Then he had left.

---------------

Michael didn’t know what made him angrier, the fact that Al had done all this or the fact that neither he nor Sabrina had done anything since Spain to deserve it. He really didn’t care though, he was angry and he was going to have blood, no mater what it took to get it.

What he couldn’t get over was the fact that Al had come with an Army truck and a work detail. He knew that the Army was not in the habit of passing out trucks and soldiers to sergeants for the purposes of settling domestic disputes. There was only one person in the battalion with the power to do that, the Colonel. Al was an outstanding motor pool sergeant and was key to the smooth functioning of the battalion. Michael was certain that the Colonel had authorized the truck and work detail to keep his prize NCO happy. He couldn’t prove it, but for what he was considering it didn’t matter. The simple accusation would be enough.

Michael knew enough about how the Army functioned to know that taking his hunches to the proper military authorities was useless. The chain of command would simply sweep the whole thing under the carpet, which was exactly what Al and the Colonel were banking on.

However this was Germany. A sovereign country with its own laws. True, the German police didn’t have any jurisdiction on U.S. Army bases but this crime had taken place in his home, which was off base, making it their business.

Michael didn’t have a phone but several of his neighbors had heard the noise and seen the truck and he had little difficulty persuading one of them to call the police. When they arrived he swore out a complaint against Al and his Colonel and then sat back and waited for the fur to fly.

---------------

Al’s court-martial took place at an astonishing speed. Michael had been right in his belief that there was nothing quite like the prospect of an arrest warrant to help clarify a Colonel‘s priorities. Michael had agreed to drop the charges against the officer once the matter was resolved.

At the trial Al confessed that he had acted out of jealousy. He told the court that ever since she had returned from Spain Sabrina had been distant and withdrawn from him and the men of his unit had laughed at him for being stupid enough to leave his wife with another man.

Al, Mitch and the Platoon sergeant were all found guilty, reduced in rank and sentenced to be sent back to the states in chains. As Al was leaving the court Michael tried to tell him that he had been true to his word and not touched Sabrina, but either Al didn’t believe him or didn’t care because he simply walked by without even acknowledging Michael’s words.

Before Al left for the States however he had at least a little revenge. Although he had filed for divorce, that would take time and Sabrina would still be his wife until it was final, but he signed a certificate of abandonment, which meant that Sabrina lost all her privileges as a military dependant. She didn’t have a place to live, money for food or even air-fare back to the States. She was trapped.

Michael agreed to let her stay with him until she could sort things out. That night they made love for the first time since they had left Spain.

Afterwards Michael lay awake staring at the ceiling. Sabrina slept with her head on his shoulder, her warm body nestled against his side.

“After all,” he told himself, “love and lust aren’t all that far apart.”

----------

Something had broken inside Michael when he had gotten Dawn’s letter. Whatever it was it had been as delicate as a soap bubble, but it had left shards like razors that cut his heart out from the inside. Sunsets and poetry no longer had any meaning for him. Beauty, adventure, romance were all just ashes in his mouth. He decided that Mathew Arnold had been right and there really was no joy, nor love, nor light, nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain and since his love was not true to him what did it all matter?

There may be no love but at least there was sex. It didn’t solve anything but it made the pain go away, at least for a little while. Sabrina was a beautiful and sensuous woman and an inexhaustible well of solace. Perhaps he could drown his dreams in her arms.

He had been wrong about Spain. He may have thought that what he and Sabrina had shared had simply been a glorious fling, but she had fallen in love with him, deeply and hopelessly in love. It was tragic that he could not return even one tenth of the love she felt for him, but at least he could be kind. He knew all too well the pain of having one’s heart ripped, still alive and bleeding, from one’s chest and flung on the ground, and he vowed that he would never give Sabrina the sort of pain that Dawn had given him. The same sense of honor that had kept him from Sabrina’s bed all this time also assured that he would not fail in his duty to protect her.

Sabrina was a simple soul at heart. A creature of appetites, devotion and sensitivity. Unlike Dawn she was not an intellectual but she was by no means stupid. She possessed a sort of innate, cheerful wisdom that Michael found touching.

More-over she was absurdly easy to please. All she needed was a little attention, some tenderness and respect and she was blissfully happy, and that made Michael happy, or at least less unhappy, which was good enough.

He set himself to pleasing her in all sorts of little ways. He would bring her flowers unexpectedly or leave tender notes tucked into the pages of her favorite books. She loved massage, so he bought a book on the subject and studied it until he was expert in every technique. He bought a white Flokati rug, and at night he would fill the room with candles, incense and soft music and work on her for hours until she practically purred under his figures.

Once he secretly bought her a music box that played her favorite love song and left it playing beside the bed one morning just as he left for work so that she would wake to its melody. Her eyes shone like diamonds for days after whenever she looked at him.

As Michael’s time in the Army drew to a close she chatted brightly about him meeting her parents. Without it ever being said out loud it had somehow become understood that they would marry once her divorce was finalized and they got back to the States. He had once carelessly spoken about when he got out in such a way as to suggest going their separate ways, and her heartbroken sobs had torn him apart inside.

Well, he thought, why not? It wasn’t as though he could ever love again anyway. He refused to even consider the idea; it was just too painful to even think about.

Besides, it would make her happy.

---------------

The months passed, and if they didn’t exactly dance past in a warm sensuous haze, at least they didn’t crawl past at a funereal rate either. And there was wine, and moonlight and romance--well, sex, which was almost the same. It was enough.

The day to leave finally arrived. Sabrina was as excited as a child at Christmas and the sight of her happy face kindled a small fire in the icy chamber where Michael’s heart had once dwelt, warming the hollow space just a bit.

The new Platoon sergeant had offered to give Michael and Sabrina a ride to the Bahnhof. She and the sergeant were waiting by the car parked outside Battalion headquarters while Michael finished up some last minute paperwork. A clerk caught up with him in the hallway to tell him that there was a phone call for him.

This was such an unusual event that he was gripped by a sudden sense of dread. He feared that something was wrong with his parents; maybe they were sick--or dead. When he arrived at the phone he was breathless from running up a flight of stairs. He took the receiver with trembling hands prepared, he thought, for the worst. But he wasn’t prepared for this. A soft woman’s voice spoke his name.

“Michael. Michael, is that you? This is Dawn.”

Ice water flooded through Michael’s veins and he sat down heavily in a nearby chair.

“This is Michael. May I help you?” He sounded insane, even to himself.

“Michael, oh Michael please. This is Dawn. I have filed for divorce. I am free! Howard took a plane back to the states last night. I need you. Can you come to Stuttgart and stay with me? Michael, I love you.”

Michael felt numb. The noise of a busy military headquarters faded from his hearing, replaced by the pounding of his heart. Images of Dawn standing at the railing of the cruise ship assaulted him and he felt as though he should be crying. Tears should be streaming down his face but his eyes were as dry as flint. There was flint in his voice as well.

“I am sorry Dawn. I can’t make it. I am getting out of the Army today. I was just leaving for the airport when you called.”

Pain filled Dawn’s voice. “Please Michael, I need you. Michael, I love you.”

Visions of Dawn were replaced with those of Sabrina’s happy, trusting eyes. He could not, he would not, see those eyes filled with tears. He would not be the cause of her heart-broken sobs.

He knew he loved Sabrina. A little. Maybe. If he was even still capable of love.

All that didn’t matter. Dawn had had to give Howard one last chance. Michael knew that--now. He realized that, now, even as he realized that Dawn must have known, even then, that she didn’t love her husband. It was a question of honor. It was a question of character. You didn’t hurt those who had been kind to you. You didn’t return trust with pain.

It was what made her who she was just as Michael’s honor and sense of responsibility was what made him who he was. If either of them had changed, or wavered, on such a principal, they would not have been who they were. They would have been someone else, not the person that the other had fallen in love with. He knew that--now.

“I am sorry Dawn. I can’t tell you how sorry I am but when I got your letter I…”

Michael’s voice faltered.

“Dawn, there is someone else. I am sorry.”

He could hear her sobs as he put down the phone. He thanked the clerk and walked, mechanically, to the door. He was dry eyed and composed. When he got to the car he smiled at Sabrina.

“Time to go honey.” he said.

Her bright eyes filled with joy. The car left the front gate of the Kaserne and Sabrina turned towards the window to get a last look. Michael tenderly brushed her hair aside and kissed the back of her neck. She turned to him with a delighted smile and kissed him. All the way to the train station she snuggled against him.

This is enough, Michael told himself. Really, this is enough.

---------------

Michael looked down at the sleeping face of Sabrina, softly illuminated by the dim light of the aircraft cabin. He pulled the blanket up around her shoulders, protectively, and brushed a stray lock of raven hair from her face.

Then he reclined his seat, turned off the overhead light and, putting on the headphones of his Walkman, turned on what had been his favorite piece of music for the last year, Al Stewart’s “Year of the Cat.”

As the smoky saxophones of the last bars swelled towards the end of the song he turned his head into the shadows near the window and finally let the warm tears streak his face.

Traveling Soldier

The air thrumbed. If the unit chaplain had been here he would have said that Satan’s legions were marching up from Perdition to deliver a judgment upon all mankind. Sergeant Wright didn’t know about that. To him it sounded more like a squadron of Apache gunships warming up.

Sergeant Tom Wright had been up since “O’dark-hundred” getting the platoon ready, but he had a moment to himself now and he leaned against the UH-1H ‘Huey’ chopper and watched the sun rise in flames against the dust-filled sky.

A wicked black shape detached itself from the ground, rose some twenty feet into the air and then hovered there, silhouetted against the dawn. A moment later, five more insectoid shapes joined the first, and the whole unit hovered and bobbed for a few seconds in the crimson sky like a swarm of dragonflies from Hell before flying off into the sunrise.

Sergeant Wright, who was fond of reading Civil War histories, remembered his favorite quote from Robert E. Lee; “It is well that war is so terrible -- lest we should grow too fond of it.”

Reaching into the breast pocket on his flack vest he extracted a faded and cracked photo and looked at it. A pretty blonde high-school girl in butterfly braids smiled back at him.

The milling blades from the idling choppers blew dust into Tommy’s eyes causing them to tear up.

From three choppers away the outfit’s brand-spanking-new Lieutenant cupped his hands and bellowed:

“All right people, saddle up!”

------------------------------

The girl had been watching the boy for the best part of a half an hour. It wasn’t as though he was all that good looking. He was painfully young, and all rough edges and elbows in his baggy green Army Class A’s. He had a pair of ears like the handles on a 4-H trophy, but there was something about his eyes.

Tommy had been sitting out by the bus stop, watching her through the plate glass window of the diner, and pretending not to, for most of the same half hour. Finally he got up the nerve and walked in.

The head waitress, Mrs. Denny, who was old and fat and never saw anything at all, met the boy near the cash register and, taking a menu out of the hopper, led him straight back to the girl’s section. She seated him in a booth near the back. For just a second the girl could have sworn that Mrs. Denny had given her a quick wink, but that was impossible. She was old, and fat and never saw anything. There was no way she could know.

The girl busied herself rolling silverware into paper napkins until she saw that the boy had finish looking over his menu and laid it aside. Pulling her order book out of the pocket on her apron the girl approached the boy’s table with a bright smile.

“Hi! My name’s Donna-Sue. May I take your order?”

------------------------------------------

Sunlight glinted off the water in flooded rice paddies scattered here and there in isolated clearings as the company’s choppers flew low and fast over the jungle canopy. As far as he could see in every direction Sgt. Wright could make out boo-coo choppers, all racing in the same direction. Higher-higher had said that it was going to be an ‘eagle flight,’ a battalion-sized op and it looked it.

Leading the formation, a half dozen loaches were fanned out line-abreast, the tiny egg-shaped choppers jinking and bobbing, hoping to spot Charlie before Charlie spotted them. When Charlie was spotted the scout choppers popped smoke on his ass and a pair of Cobras would streak in to fire up the A.O.

Sgt. Wright, sitting in the door of the slick, wondered how things were back in the World.

-----------------------------------------

Donna-Sue was beginning to worry about the young soldier, afraid he was going to drown in coffee. She had topped off his cup five times, but every time she came to his table with the pot and offered him a refill he had looked at her with those puppy-dog eyes, smiled sweetly and bobbed his head in affirmation.

It wasn’t as though there was anyone else in the place at this hour, Donna-Sue thought as she strolled towards his booth again.

“I’m just going to see if he wants any more,” she told herself.

He looked up at her in bright anticipation as she approached with the pot for a sixth time. There was something about his eager smile that tore at her heart. He looked so damned lonely! She favored him with a big smile.

“Can I git you anything else Private?”

The Private thought she had the sweetest Southern drawl. His big ears burned red with embarrassment.

He returned her smile with a lopsided grin. “I am afraid that if I drink any more coffee I am going to float out of here.”

They both smiled awkwardly at each other for a moment and then the Private dropped his eyes to the table.

“I was wondering,” he mumbled, “if you would mind sitting down for a while and talking to me? I’m feeling a little low.”

The Private sat, eyes down, waiting for her to laugh at him but after a moment, when she didn’t laugh, he risked a glance in her direction and was greeted by a warm smile.

“I can’t sit with customers.” she said, “Its against the rules.”

The Private felt his heart sink into his stomach. His eyes fell back to the table in embarrassment, but then he felt a delicate touch on his shoulder and looked up again. He was greeted with a radiant smile.

“I git off in an hour,” she whispered. “I know a place we can go.”

------------------------------------------------

Rainbows danced in the spray off the paddies, thrown up by the blades of a half dozen choppers. From the tree line on the right and a small village on the far side of the clearing white tracers stitched the air, crisscrossing in an L shaped ambush.

“Great!” thought Sgt. Wright. “Just what I need when I am so short. Another fucking hot L.Z..”

“Lock and load people,” he yelled to his squad.

He stood on the runners of the slick as the chopper hovered low over the paddy. When they were close enough to jump, Sgt. Wright yelled to his men, “Alright ladies, un-ass this chopper, didi mau!”

He jumped with his M79 held over his head to keep from smacking himself in the face with it when he landed..

Tommy came to rest knee deep in the paddy and immediately crouched down. Bullets hummed like angry hornets close overhead.

Sgt. Wright saw the El-T and his R.T.O. about ten feet away on his left and called to him.

“Sir! We need some air support A-SAP!”

The butter-bar smiled vacantly at him and bobbed his head.

---------------------------------------------

Donna-Sue had run home and changed into a pretty little pink and white gingham dress and dabbed perfume behind her ears before meeting Tommy in Princess Park. She had tied up her butterfly braids with matching pink bows and was carrying a wicker picnic basket.

She found him with his elbows on his knees and his head down sitting on a bench next to the Confederate Memorial. Donna-Sue called his name and his head popped up, a look of happiness and relief washing over his features.

“Hi there,” she said as she came up to where he was sitting. “Been waiting long?”

Tommy jumped to his feet.

“Oh no, not long at all.” He swallowed hard, “Actually I was afraid you weren’t coming.”

She gave a little laugh, “I said I was coming, silly.”

Tommy thought she had the sweetest laugh he had ever heard.

“Its just that I am stationed at Fort Polk and I have been up here to Shreveport a couple of times on leave and most of the nice girls in town cross to the other side of the street when they see me coming.”

He suddenly realized what he had said and shot her a worried glance. He felt all warm inside when he saw that she was still smiling at him.

“Maybe I am not a nice girl,” she said.

“Oh no!” said Tommy a little too emphatically. “You’re the nicest girl I have ever met.”

He looked down at his spit-shined shoes.

“I guess it’s the uniform and the haircut. I tried wearing civvies, but most folks would take one look at my haircut and know what I was.”

“And what are you?” asked Donna-Sue. She reached out and took his left hand and held it in both of hers.

“I’m a soldier,” Tommy stammered.

“Oh I think you are a whole lot more than that,” said Donna-Sue. “Why don’t we go for a walk and you can tell me about all the other things you are.”

Tommy looked in her china-blue eyes and wished he could drown in them.

---------------------------------------

Sgt. Wright felt as though he were drowning. Although the water was only knee deep, his unit was still crouched in the L.Z. with the paddy water up to their noses while they waited for air support to arrive. The choppers were gone and Charlie was keeping up a steady fire on their position.

Finally a couple of ‘Flying Dumptrucks’ arrived.

“Thank God it’s the Navy,” thought the Sergeant. He knew that the Air Force’s idea of close air support was to drop two 500 pound bombs and then fly home with a feeling of accomplishment, but the Squids came strapped, packing enough ordinance to fuck up Charlie’s whole day.

Tommy fed a 40mm smoke grenade into the chamber of his M79 launcher and fired. A plume of bright red smoke appeared right next to the Charlie M.G. that had them pinned down.

The Navy A-1 Skyraiders must have seen the smoke because one of them broke off and maneuvered to line up on the signal. The big single-prop plane lumbered in low over the treetops and let loose a cigar shaped canister which ruptured on impact, painting a swath of flaming napalm across the village. A half dozen hootchs burst into flames.

----------------------------------------

The boy and girl walked down Texas street to where it ended at the Red River. Turning right they strolled down to the rusty old Kansas City Southern Railroad bridge.

Donna-Sue led the way out onto the bridge, skipping from one cross tie to another as nimbly as a goat. Tommy followed along behind trying not to look down to where the Red River flowed thirty feet below them.

“Won’t we get into trouble being out here?” asked Tommy?

“Oh I come out here all the time,” said Donna-Sue happily. “Nobody cares. Trains haven’t used this bridge in years.”

Reaching the midway point she produced a terrycloth bath towel from her basket and spread it on the grimy railroad ties.

“Now we can sit down without getting soot on our clothes,” she announced. Taking off her shoes she sat on the towel with her slim legs dangling over the edge of the bridge.

Tommy sat beside her. The towel was barely big enough for two and he sat with his hands firmly in his lap afraid that an accidental touch might be misinterpreted. The two sat in silence for a few minutes, staring at the river until Tommy found his voice.

“Not many girls can tell Army ranks. Do you have any brothers or a…” he paused and started again. “Do you have any brothers in the Army?”

Donna-Sue looked at him sideways and smiled. “Why don’t you just ask me if I have a boyfriend.”

Tommy went scarlet and cleared his throat nervously. “A pretty girl like you? I’ll bet you got a boyfriend, but I don’t care. I am shipping out for California day after tomorrow for Advanced Infantry Training.”

He stopped talking and stared at the river for a while. Without turning his head or looking at her he said, “I got no one to send a letter to. Would you mind if I sent one back here to you?”

Without a word Donna-Sue took Tommy’s hand and the two sat in silence watching the sun set over the Red River.

---------------------------------------------

Sgt. Wright watched the sun rising behind the burning village. It seemed like an eternity but really it had only been about a half hour since his unit had hit the L.Z. The Navy had finished its bomb runs and the El-T gave the signal to advance.

The unit waded ashore and spread out in open order to search what was left of the village, which was not very much. The whole first row of buildings nearest the paddies had been leveled and a few grizzly corpses of indeterminate gender smoldered in the blackened remains of the burned out hootchs. Behind the ruins of one building the scorched remains of a pig lay, the smell of burning Barbeque filling the air.

------------------------------

Donna-Sue opened her basket and produced a roll of paper towels and a baggy filled with cold Barbeque ribs. Smiling, she passed the bag to Tommy.

“I swiped these from the fridge,” she said. “Don’t worry, momma don’t mind. They’re leftovers from the church social yesterday. I thought you might be hungry. You didn’t eat very much at the diner but you sure drank a lot of coffee.”

They both looked at each other and then burst out laughing.

“Well it was mighty good coffee,” said Tommy

They both laughed again and then Donna-Sue grew pensive.

“So Private. Tell me tell me all those other things you are that are not a soldier.”

---------------------------------------

Sgt. Wright was a very good soldier. He had made corporal just out of A.I.T. and had received a battlefield promotion to Sergeant after only six months in country. He was conscientious and careful, very careful.

The ten men of his squad were deployed into a pair of four-man fire-teams with the cherry Lieutenant and his radio-man diddy-bopping along in the rear. Twenty paces behind them the second squad followed along to police up the prisoners, should there be any. Weapons squad had set up in the rear to guard the back door.

Each fire-team advanced through the smoking ruins of the village in bounding over-watch, two men rushing forward a few yards while the other two stayed put, ready to provide covering fire, should it be needed. When the first pair had finished their bound they would freeze in place, ready to provide cover for the other two as they bounded past them a few yards.

Each time the leading pair of soldiers approached a hootch they would shout “Chieu Hoi, Chieu Hoi,” informing any possible residents that their surrender would be welcomed with “open arms.” If they got no reply they would toss a grenade through a door or window, wait for the blast, and then step through the door to see what was left.

From time to time an elderly man or woman, or a very young child, would creep out of a hootch waving their hands frantically in the air and shouting, ‘Chieu Hoi.’ The pair of soldiers in the lead would frisk them and then force them to sit on the ground with their hands on their heads until second squad could come up and take charge of them. Soon a small knot of prisoners began to collect at the edge of the village nearest the L.Z.

Sgt. Wright was beginning to think that there was no one left in the village except the very young or the very old. Just before the platoon finished its sweep of the village a lovely young Vietnamese girl calmly stepped out of the door of a hootch and advanced steadily towards him with her hands held at shoulder height, a sweet smile on her face, calmly declaring ‘Chieu Hoi.’

As she approached she slowly brought her hands down to the sash that held together the crossover front of her short black jacket. Removing the sash she opened the jacket to reveal delicate pale skin and lovely breasts.

Tommy thought, “she can’t be any older than Donna-Sue.”

In a sultry voice the young woman murmured, “Hey G.I. Go boom-boom?”

---------------

Donna-Sue shivered slightly. Her pretty pink dress was demure enough to wear to a church picnic but it had been designed for muggy Louisiana summer afternoons and so it featured an open back and bare shoulders. The couple had been talking for hours and the torrid heat of the day had given way to the chill of evening.

Tommy noticed the shiver and was immediately filled with remorse for so failing in the gallantry department. He had been so lost in their conversation that he had completely failed to notice the night growing cold. Removing his heavy wool Class A jacket he draped it solicitously over Donna-Sue’s shoulders.

With firm self-control Tommy declined to take the opportunity to drape his arm over her shoulder along with the jacket. Politely returning his hands to his lap he contemplated the galaxy of electric lights reflected in the smooth surface of the Red River. Donna-Sue quietly took Tommy’s hand and draped it over her shoulder. Resting her cheek on his shoulder she whispered, “Tommy, tell me about your dreams.”

---------------

“Dung lai, dung lai!” Sgt. Wright yelled, ordering the young woman to stop.

Smiling sweetly and exposing her beautiful body the young woman continued to advance.

In a voice like crimson and cinnamon she murmured, “Hey G.I. Go boom-boom?”

---------------

The glare of the squad car’s searchlight blinded the young couple. An amplified voice announced, “This is the police! You are trespassing on private property.”

Donna-Sue peeked out from behind Tommy’s back. “Is that you Carl?” she called.

To Tommy she whispered, “Its O.K. That’s Carl. He dates my sister Daisy.”

“Donna-Sue?” Carl’s amplified voice echoed across the water. “Girl what in the Sam-Hill are you doing out here on a school night? Yo momma and daddy are beside themselves with worry. Girl you better git on home!”

Holding her shoes in one hand and clutching the uniform jacket closed in front with the other, Donna-Sue followed Tommy off the bridge.

When they got to the squad car Carl turned out to be a nice looking young man in his early twenties. He was wearing a well fitting brown police uniform and looked like he had probably lettered in football.

Donna-Sue met Carl’s stern look with quite self-confidence. “Don’t worry Carl, we were just talking.”

Carl eyed Tommy suspiciously. “You want me to give you a ride home Donna-Sue?”

“That won’t be necessary officer,” said Tommy in a firm voice. “I will walk the young lady home.”

Carl shook his head. “Either you got a lot of guts soldier boy or your plum crazy. Donna-Sue’s daddy’s the football coach over to the high school. He played tackle in college and he will take you apart if you’ve laid a finger on his baby girl.”

---------------

“What’s going on sergeant?”

“Stay back sir,” called Sgt. Wright to the young lieutenant who was approaching from his rear. “I’ll handle this.”

Slipping a flechette round into his blooper he brought the weapon to his shoulder and sighted on the young woman.

“Dung lai!” he screamed.

The young woman stopped and stood motionless, still exposing herself.

---------------

There had been quite a scene when they got to Donna-Sue’s home. The young people had been escorted to the parlor and seated in separate chairs. Donna-Sue’s daddy turned out to be a large, balding man in dark trousers held up by a dark leather belt and flowered suspenders. His white shirt had the long sleeves rolled to the elbows, revealing ham-like hands attached to powerful forearms.

He conducted the interrogation in a voice like a sonic boom.

Donna-Sue’s mother brought hot-chocolate. Tommy could see where Donna-Sue got her looks from.

Finally, the ordeal was over and Tommy was escorted to the door. Donna-Sue’s mother had packed a small bag lunch “for the bus ride back to base.” Although he continued to eye him suspiciously, her daddy shook Tommy’s hand at the door.

Tommy had reached the foot of the porch when he heard Donna-Sue’s mother, in a voice that carried a warning to daddy not to interfere, say “Donna-Sue, you go tell your young man good night but I want you back in here in five minutes. Ya hear?”

“Yes momma.”

A moment later the front door opened and Donna-Sue appeared. With delicate grace she ran down the steps and stopped a foot away from Tommy looking at him with upturned, smiling face.

“Promise you will write me every week?” she said pressing a slip of paper into hand.

Tommy felt his throat grow thick but managed to say, “I promise.”

Looking down at her upturned face in the moonlight he thought he had never seen anything so lovely in his life.

Reaching up and wrapping her arms around his neck she pulled his face down to hers and gave him a long, slow, sweet, awkward, kiss. Tommy returned the kiss, awkwardly, but with all his soul. Neither had ever kissed before but both young lovers were prepared to swear than no kiss in the world could ever have been better.

---------------

“Sergeant lower your weapon!” the El-T commanded. Can’t you see you are frightening the young lady?”

“With all due respect sir,” said Sgt Wright with not the slightest trace of respect, “I think you had better let me handle this.” Out of the corner of his eye he could see the dumb butter-bar advancing on the woman with a big grin on his face and his hands out to his sides in a non-threatening manner.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said the El-T. “It is plain to see she is unarmed.”

---------------

Tommy had written Donna-Sue twice a week for the three months he had been in California before shipping out for Nam After that he always carried pen and paper in his butt-pack and had worked on letters to her every chance he got, pouring out his heart, his soul, his fears and his dreams to her.

Donna-Sue had been just as diligent. Every mail-call had brought Tommy a small pile of pink, scented envelopes, each one carrying the precious cargo of a young girl’s dreams. After about the third week in California she had sent him her high school yearbook picture and since then he had never been without it.

---------------

The young woman stood smiling, her open jacket revealing delicate flesh and lovely breasts, their dark nipples hardening slightly. She met the young lieutenant’s hungry stare with a bold, knowing stare of her own.

Cocking her head to one side she whispered, “Hey G.I. Go boom-boom?”

The El-T walked as though in a trance, his unblinking eyes never leaving her exquisite body.

“Sir!” roared Sgt. Wright, “Get your fucking ass back here.”

The El-T had just turned his head to admonish his N.C.O. when the woman drew a small pistol from the waistband of her trousers and shot him through the temple. She then turned to face the sergeant, pistol in hand and body bare to the waist. The smile never left her lips.

Tommy’s finger tightened on the trigger of his grenade launcher and forty-five steel needles slashed through creamy flesh and left ground meat where a lovely young woman had been only a moment before.

---------------

Donna-Sue could hardly contain her excitement. Tommy’s last letter had announced the end of his tour. He would be home in little more than a week.

--------------

Someone in the squad yelled for the medic but Tommy could see that it was pointless. The El-T’s West Point-trained brains lay scattered all over the ground.

“Dinky dau motherfucker.”

He waved the R.T.O. to his side. “I guess that leaves me in command,” he told the radioman. “We’re done here. Call for an evac.”

--------------

Donna-Sue had been carrying Tommy’s last letter around with her for weeks. In it he told her how much he loved her and how he couldn’t wait to see her again. He had warned her that he would be out of touch for a little while as he went through the mustering out procedure so she wasn’t worried, but she did miss his constant stream of letters.

Well it wouldn’t be long now, she told herself, and in the meantime there was the big game Friday night to look forward to.

--------------

The sun was setting behind the palm trees by the time the evac choppers arrived. The sergeant was overseeing the loading of the El-T’s body when Corporal Williams came up to him. “What should we do with the prisoners sarge?”

Sergeant Wright looked at the forlorn knot of old people and children. “Let them go,” he ordered. “This whole op has gone totally FUBAR. Get everyone aboard.”

Tommy climbed into the chopper and called up to the pilot. “Let’s un-ass this A.O.” He smiled at the pilot, “The next flight I am on will be a Freedom Bird carrying me back to the World!” he announced.

He took out Donna-Sue’s picture and sat smiling at it as the chopper left the ground.

A small girl, maybe nine or ten, ran up to the chopper and tossed something through the open door.

--------------

Everyone had told her she was pretty enough to be a cheerleader but Donna-Sue didn’t like the idea of dancing around in a short skirt in front of a bunch of strangers. Besides she liked playing the piccolo and was proud to march in the school band.

--------------

Tommy looked down at the object that had fallen at his feet.

--------------

Pastor Robertson had finished leading the audience in the Lord’s Prayer and the Band had finished playing the National Anthem. The teams were preparing to take the field when the announcer’s voice called for silence.

“Ladies and gentlemen, would you kindly bow your heads and join us in a prayer as I read this week’s list of our local Vietnam dead.”

--------------

A small green ball rolled past Tommy’s feet and his eyes went wide with terror when he saw what it was.

“Grenade!”

--------------

Donna-Sue’s mother went looking for her daughter the moment she heard the news. She found her under the bleachers holding Tommy’s letter and sobbing.

--------------

Twelve thousand miles away the cracked and faded picture of a pretty blonde girl in butterfly braids floated on the water of a rice paddy near the burnt out carcass of a Huey.

As the sun sat the waterlogged picture slowly sank out of sight.