Major Conflict Read online

  I was the first in my family to graduate from college, and my grandmother was thrilled. For years afterward she bragged to everyone just how proud she was on my commencement day at Fordham and how much it would’ve meant to my grandfather had he been alive to see it. I was glad to make her proud.

  I was commissioned a few days after commencement in a ceremony that was subdued compared to the large graduation ceremony at Fordham. The detachment commander put us in formation and called each one of us up to pin the “butter bar,” the bar for second lieutenant, on our shoulders. After a few perfunctory remarks the formation was dismissed. Then, as the time-honored tradition dictates, each newly minted second lieutenant took his first salute, bearing a coin that tradition also dictates he give to the officer from whom he’s chosen to receive this first salute.

  The tradition of giving coins in the military is a fairly old one. It’s a form of reward and recognition that commanders at all levels use in place of medals. The coins are larger than regular currency, more like medallions, usually one and a half to two inches in diameter. Every unit has one that is unique to it, bearing the insignia or arms of the unit or some other symbol, like airborne wings or unit patches on either side. They’re used to encourage esprit de corps. For example, every member of a unit will be given one on the condition that they bear it all times as a symbol of pride and belonging. Sometimes they hold more practical value; for instance, a general will award one that, when presented to a commander, guarantees a three-day pass or some other incentive. Soldiers tend to collect them over the lifetime of their career.

  For those of us who trained under SMG Robert Carpenter, it was a no-brainer which officer we’d take our first salute from and present our coin to. And so we all lined up and stood patiently as, one by one, we filed by our mentor and hero, and he saluted and graciously received our coins of gratitude.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Steel on Target

  I was a soldier at last! And off to strange and distant lands! Well, Oklahoma, at least. Some people say New Yorkers are the most provincial people on earth, after Parisians, and I guess I was no exception. Like most New Yorkers, I tended to believe that the city of my birth was the center of the universe. Anything west of the Hudson River (with the exception, maybe, of Hoboken and Jersey City) was, in my mind, inspiration for TV shows like Little House on the Prairie. I knew that where I was going was different from where I’d been; what I didn’t realize was just how different. I remember getting off the plane and finding myself discombobulated by the people in the airport. For some reason, and to this day I don’t know why, there seemed to be a disproportionate number of disabled people: people missing hands, legs, hunchbacked people. Looking back on it now I don’t think Lawton, Oklahoma, had a higher number of people with birth defects or disabilities at that time, I think I was so freaked out by being in a new place that all I could see was difference. By the time I walked out of the airport things seemed to normalize, and I didn’t spot one person missing a limb. But still, what a different world I had entered. Oklahoma! Where the wind comes sweeping down the plain! Isn’t that how the song from the musical goes? I’d been to North Carolina, but that was still the East Coast, not that much different from New York, really. I think it’s a matter of scale. Everything seemed so much bigger, wider, more open, so much space that seemed to be unclaimed, unlike New York, where people buy even the rights to the sky. My concept of Oklahoma had come mostly from the movie version of the musical: pastures of velvet green gently swaying in the wind and carefree young girls in pigtails running around beneath a big clear blue sky, breathing in the freshest of air, delirious with joy. Sitting in the back of the cab on my way to Fort Sill, I was amazed at how perfectly the actual place seemed to match my romantic preconception of it. Looking out the window, I marveled at the fields as we drove along the highway. They seemed endless and so green, a shade of green I swear I’d never seen before, rolling out beneath a sky so big and so deeply blue that it almost seemed as if I’d arrived on a different planet. Large bales of hay dotted the flat landscape along with cows mindlessly chewing their cuds. I tried to joke with the driver by asking him what breed of large dogs they were, but he wasn’t amused. He simply grunted kind of grudgingly just like a New York cabbie, and I realized things weren’t completely different here in the Midwest; I was still on planet Earth.

  Still, I was quickly learning that New York is not, in fact, the center of the universe. And years of traveling around the country has made me realize that Lawton, Oklahoma, is far more like the rest of America than New York City is. Living well and simply and knowing how to enjoy the real things in life, that’s what people in the heartland seem to know best how to do, and I’ve come to appreciate that a great deal. Every romance has its moment of clarity, however, the moment when real life comes clamoring back in. As we entered the town I realized I wasn’t in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical after all. Every army town has a group of businesses that thrive with the proximity of the troops. These businesses reflect the makeup of those troops—most soldiers are young men. In many ways a federal installation is a kind of great piñata of cash waiting to be broken open. Lawton was no exception. It had a dreary strip of topless bars, pawn-shops, army-navy stores, Korean and Vietnamese restaurants, German bakeries, paintball suppliers, hunting shops, and, of course, a good many used-car dealerships.

  A young soldier doesn’t make much money. There is an impression around the country that if you join the service you’ll get great pay, excellent benefits, and a good pension. This is a half truth, at best. First, the pay isn’t outstanding. On average it’s roughly 6.5 percent lower than civilian salaries. Second, the benefits are pretty good and there is a pension, but they lag far behind what can be had in the private sector. As a single guy on his own I never had a problem, but raising a family on army pay is no easy task. It’s troubling to me, especially now, when we’re asking so much of the members of our armed services, to see young servicemen and -women struggling to support their families, even sometimes having to go on welfare. Though the pay gap between military and civilian workers has decreased slightly over the past few years, and the imminent-danger pay for soldiers in combat has increased, there’s still a long way to go. I think it’s shameful that the men and women we ask to defend our country sometimes have to struggle to meet the basic needs of their families.

  None of this was on my mind, however, when I arrived at Fort Sill on that hot afternoon at the end of June 1988. No, at that point everything was up. All the buckets were full. Fort Sill, Oklahoma, may not have looked like the setting for a Broadway musical, at least not one by Rodgers and Hammerstein, but I sure as hell felt as if I were in one. Everything was about possibility and hope. I’d yet to earn even an ounce of cynicism. Though the question of my sexuality had caused me some pain in college (and much more pain for Greg, though I was far too callow to be aware of the pain I’d caused him), I’d somehow managed to stuff the genie that Greg had nearly succeeded in freeing forcefully back into the proverbial bottle of my own denial. Not only did I get the genie bottled, it seemed as if the original seal had never been broken. I was a free man now, young, bursting with excitement, having realized a dream born so many years before in Jackson Heights. I was a soldier now. I was a lieutenant in the United States Army.

  Like any young person who has had a dream come true, I saw only good things ahead of me. I couldn’t wait to get up in the morning so I could put on my uniform and go off to work. Everything was new and interesting and worth learning more about. To top it off, I was now getting a decent paycheck every two weeks, something I’d never experienced, even when I worked full time in the summers as a bookseller for Doubleday. Being on my own and supporting myself for the first time was a great feeling. I’d never before felt so independent, that it was only me calling the shots. It wasn’t just the paycheck that was fueling this, of course. Along with the tremendous pride I took in being a lieutenant there was also a certain amount of validation
that came with it, the respectability that is automatically granted to soldiers. Everywhere I went, people acknowledged me because I wore the uniform, and this acknowledgment gave me a great sense of pride and power and responsibility. Though I had wanted to serve in the Airborne, I soon discovered that the Artillery has an illustrious history of its own and is, in fact, an excellent branch in which to serve. I’d done some research, but it wasn’t until we passed by Key Gate on the afternoon of my arrival in late June that I began truly to appreciate the unique role the Artillery has played and continues to play in the U.S. military. What remains of Key Gate are two sides of a large stone wall with an iron gate in the center. On the left side two large cannons are affixed to the wall, crisscrossing each other. To the left of the cannons are the words “Fort Sill, Oklahoma,” and to the right “Home of the Field Artillery.” A large, old cannon sits in front of the other side, beneath the words “Key Gate.” Within the fort itself the sides of the road are dotted with vintage artillery pieces, statues commemorating this war and that battle, and many generals and famous commanders, including Major General Philip H. Sheridan, who first staked the site of Fort Sill out of the Indian Territory in 1869, and the fort’s name-sake, Brigadier General Joshua W. Sill, who was killed in the Civil War. Everything was neatly manicured. It had the feel of a very old, very prestigious and historic country club. Passing by all of this history, as if I were touring a kind of outdoor military museum, it occurred to me at one point that I didn’t recognize quite a few of the cannons, rockets, and missiles on display. I wanted to get a closer look, so when the driver left me off in front of Snow Hall, where I was to sign in and get settled, I decided to take a walk around. Examining the artillery pieces more closely, I realized just how much the branch has changed over the centuries.

  The Artillery is considered the senior branch of the army since the first unit constituted by the colonies was an Artillery battery. What Artillery is, basically, is an amazingly lethal weapons system. Its mission is this: “To destroy, neutralize, or suppress the enemy by cannon, rocket, and missile fire, and to help integrate all fire support assets into combined arms operations.” The cannons are assigned to the divisions and provide the critical, all-weather capability to engage the enemy with a wide range of munition types. They can be dropped from planes, lifted by helicopter, or simply rumble along with the tanks. The missiles can engage targets up to one hundred kilometers away. And the MLRS (Multiple Launch Rocket System) can blanket a one-square-kilometer piece of terrain with a thick cloud of white-hot shrapnel. These three systems in combination provide the generals in charge with the unmatched ability to reach out and target the enemy long before the tanks and infantry even arrive. Artillery has been responsible for roughly a quarter of all casualties in the last several conflicts in which the United States has been involved. What role does the soldier play within this massive system of lethal weaponry? It is his role to make sure these machines work properly, of course. The artilleryman is trained to, above all, “put steel on target.” Artillery is in many ways a thinking man’s branch of the army. Gunnery, the science of computing ballistic firing data, is more involved than, say, shooting an M16A2 rifle. It also requires a much broader view of the battlefield. It often falls to Artillery to help integrate all the supporting pieces on the battlefield. For instance, the artilleryman assigned to a battalion of infantry will coordinate all tactical air support, the engineers, and naval gunfire.

  After walking around and checking out all the vintage artillery I finally entered Snow Hall to sign in and get myself settled. Fort Sill is a national historic landmark. It is also the only remaining active army installation of all the South Plains forts built during the Indian Wars. Any doubts I had as to why the place was considered worthy of historic landmark status were immediately put to rest when I walked into Snow Hall. The place has the feel and smell of a very old high school and isn’t very well lit. Newly minted lieutenants take classes here on everything from tactics to cannon gunnery. It was in these classrooms where I would learn everything I needed to know about being an artilleryman. It is also the place where new doctrine is developed and serves not only as the artillery training center for the United States but for the entire free world. Foreign militaries send their best officers to train alongside us, where they learn the staff-planning process at all levels and how to use equipment their own governments have, in many cases, purchased from ours. It exposes them to our values and helps to maintain friends and allies throughout the world. It works, though not everyone remains friendly. Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi took the signal officer course here, but he’s far more the exception than the rule.

  Most of the classes I took in Snow Hall weren’t that difficult. The most glaring exception to this was gunnery. It got so tough I began to question whether or not I was cut out to be in the “thinking man’s branch” of the army after all. Gunnery is a catch-all term that describes the procedures used to calculate the trajectory of a round of flight to ensure that it lands where it’s supposed to. In order to do this one has to use algorithms that account for things like wind speed, muzzle-velocity variations, and precise target locations. It’s the kind of stuff that sends the old geek meter into the red zone for people who are really into that sort of thing. My background was in liberal arts— political science, history. I could talk for days about, say, the nature of the Soviet nomenklatura system or the impact of foreign aid on developing nations, but I was no math whiz. As we moved through the curriculum I found myself becoming increasingly frustrated and lost. I always seemed to be the last one getting the material, if I got it at all. Finally, as the possibility of my failing the class became ever more likely, I ended up getting a tutor. I worked my ass off, and when the final came, I managed to pass, but just barely. My instructor, who happened to be a Marine, congratulated me but then joked that the hammer in his toolbox probably understood the material better. I didn’t think that was quite fair, but marines aren’t often known for their tact, so I just smiled and tried to laugh at his lame joke.

  As it turned out, the instructor who had the greatest effect on me at Fort Sill was a woman. Her name was Captain Bridgeport, though she was often referred to behind her back as Captain Bridgebitch. I’m sure had she known she wouldn’t have cared, having developed a tough hide in her years in the service. I admired her. She was one of the first women to graduate from West Point and one of the few women to join the field artillery. I was drawn to her instantly, maybe because I, too, felt like something of a trailblazer, an outsider, though I didn’t consciously see myself this way at the time.

  Being something of a ballbuster, she wasn’t a particularly popular instructor. She was especially hard on the West Pointers. Unlike some of the other instructors, who saw teaching as a kind of vacation from the real army, she took her job seriously. And it was obvious from the very beginning that she really knew her stuff. You could tell that she had high standards for herself, and because of this she expected, and often got, the very best out of everyone. On top of this it was clear to me from the start that she had a big heart.

  Most of all, Captain Bridgeport had courage. When we listened to her talk about herself sometimes after class we learned just how difficult it had been for her breaking in as a woman. She was spit on, was verbally abused, and was, in a very real sense, forced to pay a far higher price than even the most average of men, simply for the privilege of serving her country. I often wondered where the kind of courage that Captain Bridgeport seemed to possess came from, and why, I sometimes asked myself, I didn’t have some of it.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Skunks and Golden Dragons

  My first roommate at Fort Sill was Tony Alvarez, another lieutenant. Originally from Fort Lauderdale, he was a great guy, laid-back but quick as a whip. We hit if off instantly, and I learned a lot from him. Since I graduated in June and went on active duty right after graduation, I had to attend the officer basic course with the West Point class. I found this a little intimidating
because there’s always been an intense rivalry between West Pointers and ROTC graduates. Luckily, Tony wasn’t your average academy graduate, so we got along fine. He’d been on active duty for four years at the academy, so he was familiar with the day-to-day routine of a post, and he basically took me under his wing.

  In many ways my first six months at Fort Sill felt a lot like college. We went to class and studied hard, and spent far too much time at night sitting in bars with sawdust floors, listening to country music, chasing whiskey shots with beer. Years later, when I saw the movie Road House, with Patrick Swayze, I was reminded of those days with Alvarez and the guys. The only difference between the bars in the movie and the ones we hung out in was that the bars we went to didn’t have chicken wire strung up to protect the band.

  We’d stay out until midnight, sometimes later if we went to the strip club afterward, and then get up promptly at six-thirty the next morning for PT (physical training). It was always about pushing yourself to the limit in the army, even when it came to having fun. And we were all so young and fit, our bodies seemed to be able to take just about anything. Later on, there were road trips to Oklahoma City and Dallas and Wichita Falls. It was usually Alvarez and I and a few guys from my unit—Dave Bartlett, Jay Squire, and Ron Citro, three West Pointers who really knew how to have fun but were serious about being soldiers as well. We had a great time together and we all got pretty close. We’d sit in the bar drinking and talking about school and women, mostly, and I really felt like a part of the group. I had dated girls in college after all. There’d been Eileen and a few others, so I never really felt like a total outsider. I was one of the guys, though there was always, in the back of my mind, some distant whisper, a phrase from Greg’s outburst in the rain, the memory of some freshly squashed desire (a glimpse of a soldier’s hairy legs; the clean-cut back of a neck; a strong, wide wrist banded with a watch) that kept me just slightly apart. Still, it was usually just a whisper, and it became clear to me early on that the truth was I was far more like these guys than I was different from them. Despite coming from completely different backgrounds, we all shared similar hopes and dreams about the future; we liked a lot of the same music, movies, and TV shows; and we all shared a sense of humor that kept things light and helped us get through courses like gunnery.