The Majors Read online

  1. THE DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF, USA, WILL PAY AN INFORMAL VISIT TO THE USA GROUND GEN SCH & FT RILEY KANS 24-25 FEB 1955.

  2. GENERAL E. Z. BLACK, USA, AND HIS PARTY, CONSISTING OF ONE VIP CIV, TWO OFF, AND TWO EM, WILL ARRIVE VIA PRIVATE CIV AIRCRAFT AT APPROX 1100 HOURS FT RILEY TIME 24 FEB 55 AND WILL DEPART FT RILEY BY PRIVATE CIV AIRCRAFT AT APPROX 0900 HOURS FT RILEY TIME 25 FEB 55.

  3. GENERAL BLACK DESIRES TO EMPHASIZE THAT HIS VISIT IS INFORMAL. THE V/CS USA DOES NOT, REPEAT NOT, DESIRE HONORS. HE DESIRES THAT ALL ACTIVITIES AT FT RILEY CONTINUE WITHOUT INTERRUPTION. HOWEVER, THE V/CS USA WILL, SHOULD THIS BE THE DESIRE OF THE CG USA GCS & FT RILEY, AND PROVIDING IT DOES NOT INTERFERE WITH PRESENT PLANS, PARTICIPATE IN GRADUATION CEREMONIES FOR WOCRW FLT TNG CLASS 54-4 ON 24 FEB 55.

  4. THE V/CS USA DESIRES THAT HE AND HIS PARTY BE PROVIDED TRANSIENT QUARTERS OVERNIGHT. FIELD GRADE TRANSIENT QUARTERS AND GROUND TRANSPORTATION ARE DESIRED FOR THE THREE (3) MAN CIV AIRCREW OF THE CIV ACFT.

  5. PROVISIONS OF PARA 3.(B)1 THROUGH PARA 3.(b)16 STANDING OPERATING PROCEDURE NO. 1.3 WILL BE COMPLIED WITH.

  BY COMMAND OF THE CHIEF OF STAFF:

  EDWIN W. BITTER, MAJOR GENERAL, USA

  SECRETARY, GEN STAFF, USA

  The TWX posed several questions to Major General Evan D. Virgil, USA, Commanding General of the U.S. Army Ground General School and Fort Riley, Kansas, first and foremost of which was, “Why the fuck is Black coming out here?”

  The Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, devotes most of his time to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, of which he is a member, and to the President of the United States, the President’s cabinet, and to the Congress. The Vice Chief of Staff, who is also a four-star general, devotes his time to the U.S. Army.

  And he has a role in the scheme of things should the balloon go up. If the balloon went up, it was entirely likely that there would be casualties not only in the executive branch of government, but in the Congress and in the Department of Defense as well. The line of succession to the man who has the authority to push the button descends through the Vice President to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, various other high elected officials, and only far down the line comes to the military.

  As a practical matter, it was tacitly recognized that if the seat of government should go up in a nuclear mushroom, the order to push the button, when received from a four-star general or admiral, would be enough to convince the bright young men in the classified ordnance dumps that they could forego Standing Operating Procedure for Issue of Classified Weaponry and pass out the Nuclears and the Chemical, Biological, and Radiologicals.

  It was agreed that the orders would come from the senior surviving four-star general or admiral. It was recognized that the order would be given by the first surviving four-star to be able to get through to the red phones connecting the brass to the men in the classified ordnance dumps.

  The first thing the commanding general did on receipt of the TWX was call in his signal officer and instruct him to have radio telephone links with scrambling devices instantly installed in two separate locations, the VIP guest house and a secret concrete bunker, and to insure that each separate link was capable of communication with each of the seven places on the list he was provided.

  Then he called in his aides and his sergeant major and put them to work. The junior aide was to see to transportation and quarters for the crew of a civilian airplane. The sergeant major was to make sure that the VIP guest house was made ready for the Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Army. The senior aide was placed in charge of having new programs printed for the graduation exercises of Warrant Officer Candidate Rotary Wing Flight Training Class 54–6, listing General E. Z. Black, Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Army as guest speaker. The Commanding General, USA Ground General School and Fort Riley, Kansas, would introduce the Vice Chief of Staff.

  “And I want the band there, all of them, not the ragged collection of clowns I saw the last time,” the post commander ordered. “And make sure we have a four-star flag for the platform. I don’t care where you get one, get one. Uniform for all hands will be Class “A” with medals. No ribbons. Medals. The general staff will attend, and tell them I expect to see their wives. I don’t know what flight training has laid on, but there will be a reception afterward. A cake. I want it done right, Scott.”

  “Yes, sir. I take the general’s meaning.”

  “And get with Whatsername, the officer’s wives’ club advisor…”

  “Mrs. Talley, sir.”

  “Tell Mrs. Talley what’s going on and get her to make sure the WOC wives look like officers’ ladies. No slacks. Hats and gloves, if that’s possible.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Get your show on the road, we don’t have much time.”

  At 1030 hours, the commanding general, the deputy commanding general, and their wives arrived at the Fort Riley airfield, driving past long lines of Cessna L-19s—used for training of fixed wing aviators—and long lines of Bell H-13 helicopters—used for training of rotary wing aviators. The commanding general’s junior aide-de-camp and the sergeant major were already on hand, shepherding a line of olive-drab Chevrolet staff cars. The junior aide-de-camp had also arranged for a jeep with a radio tuned to the tower frequency to be on hand.

  At 1050 hours, the radio in the jeep came to life.

  “Ah, Fort Riley, this is Martin Three Zero Seven. I am five minutes out. I have General Black and party aboard. Request approach and landing.”

  “What the hell is a Martin?” the commanding general asked his deputy. The deputy shrugged his shoulders.

  “Martin Three Zero Seven, Fort Riley,” the tower replied. “You are cleared as Number One to land on Runway Four Five. The winds are negligible. The altimeter is two niner niner. Report on final.”

  “Understand Number One on Four Five,” the aircraft replied.

  A glistening black Cadillac came up beside the line of staff cars. A tall, erect black man in a gray suit got out of the car.

  “See who the hell that is,” General Virgil ordered.

  “Sir, I believe that’s Colonel Parker, retired,” his aide told him.

  “Oh, yeah. I wonder what the hell he wants?”

  The tall, erect black man leaned on the fender of the gleaming black Cadillac and, shading his eyes, looked up into the sky.

  An airplane appeared, far off, fairly low, and approached the field at a surprisingly high speed. It passed a mile to the left, banked steeply, and started its descent.

  “Riley, Zero Seven on final,” the radio said.

  “Jesus, that’s a B-26,” the deputy commanding general said.

  The airplane, a Martin B-26, a two-engine World War II bomber, was now making its approach. The flaps and landing gear were down. There was a screech as the tires touched, and almost immediately a deafening roar as the props were reversed and the throttles opened. The B-26 slowed very abruptly and started to turn around.

  “Riley, Zero Seven on the ground at one minute to the hour. Taxi instructions, please.”

  “Zero Seven, a FOLLOW ME is en route to meet you.”

  A jeep with a huge FOLLOW ME sign mounted on its back seat raced out to the B-26, turned around in front of it, and then led the glistening ex-bomber to the line of staff cars. They could see what was painted on the vertical stabilizer now. There was a representation of an oil rig and the words: THE NEWBURGH CORPORATION.

  The pilot taxied the airplane nose in to them and shut down the engines. General Virgil led the small procession over to the door, which unfolded from the side of the fuselage. He had a moment’s glance at the paneled interior before the door was filled with the body of a huge black master sergeant. He came down the stairs with surprising grace for his bulk, casually saluted the two general officers, said, “Good morning, gentlemen,” and then opened a cargo door to the rear of the passenger door and started to take out luggage. His tunic was pulled up as he stretched, and General Virgil saw that he had a .45 automatic in the small of his back.
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  And then General E. Z. Black got off the plane. He wore an overseas cap, rather than the leather-brimmed headgear normally worn by senior officers, and he wore it cocked to the left, in the armor tradition.

  General Virgil saluted crisply. Black returned it idly.

  “Good to see you, Virgil,” he said. “But you didn’t have to come out to meet me.” He smiled and nodded at the wives. “Ladies,” he said.

  A full colonel and lieutenant colonel followed him off the airplane, then a tall, gray-mustached civilian, and finally a younger master sergeant, carrying a briefcase. The unmistakable bulk of a .45 in a shoulder holster was visible under his tunic.

  “General, do you know General Young?” General Virgil asked.

  “Yes, of course,” Black said. “How are you, Young?” Then something caught his eye, and he walked quickly toward the tall, erect, black man.

  “Look at this, Carson,” he called over his shoulder. “We’ve been met by the local undertaker.”

  Colonel Philip Sheridan Parker III, retired, offered his hand to the Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army. He got, instead, a bear hug.

  “Slats, God, it’s good to see you!” General Black said. The mustached civilian walked up and shook hands with Parker.

  “I’m awed by your airplane, Carson,” Colonel Parker said. “The last time I saw one of those, it dropped bombs on me. They said it was a mistake.”

  “I was right there with you, Phil,” Carson Newburgh said. “Outside Bizerte. Don’t be impressed with the plane. It belongs to the company.”

  General Virgil filed away for future reference the fact that the retired, outside-the-gate black colonel had friends in very high places.

  The colonel, who wore the insignia (lapel pins with four stars and a golden rope through his epaulets) of an aide-de-camp to a full general, walked up to General Virgil.

  “The general desires to attend the graduation ceremonies for WOCRW Class 54-6,” he said. “But he desires to arrive just as they begin.”

  “I’ve, uh, taken the liberty, Colonel, of arranging for the general to address the graduating class,” General Virgil said.

  “I don’t believe the general had that in mind,” the aide-de-camp said. He walked over to General Black.

  “You’re scheduled, sir, to address the graduating class.”

  Black frowned, and then shrugged.

  “Oh, what the hell,” he said. “You want to hear me give a speech, Slats?”

  “The general’s speeches are usually something to hear.”

  “Virgil, I don’t want to arrive until just before the graduation starts,” General Black said. “We have—” he looked at his watch—“fifty-odd minutes. Where can I hide? Better than that, where can we all get a quick drink?”

  “My quarters, sir. I’d be honored,” the post commander offered.

  “Let’s open the club,” General Black said. “I’ll ride with Colonel Parker in his limousine, and the rest of you can meet me there.”

  They were distracted by the sight of the enormous master sergeant heading their way, more precisely, marching their way. He marched up to Colonel Parker, raised his hand in a salute far more rigid than the one he rendered to the post commander, and barked: “Colonel Parker, sir! Does the colonel remember the sergeant, sir?”

  The tall, erect black man saluted, as if he knew he should not salute in civilian clothing, and then put out his hand.

  “Of course, I do, Tiny,” he said. “I’m just surprised they haven’t put you out to pasture.”

  “Oh, they’re trying to, Colonel,” he said. “But I got the Vice Chief of Staff on my side, and I’ll stay in for a little while longer.”

  “Come along with us, Wes,” General Black said. “You can have a little eye-opener with us.”

  “No, sir,” Master Sergeant Wesley said. “I’ll have one with you and the colonel later. I’m going to go see Greer.”

  “He’s not supposed to know we’re here,” General Black said.

  “Hell, General, you know better than that. If it’s going on here, Greer knows about it, and has already figured out how to make money on it.”

  “Indulge me, Sergeant,” General Black said. “Do what I tell you.”

  Master Sergeant Wesley got behind the wheel of the Cadillac.

  “You get in the back,” he said to Colonel Parker. “It’ll be like old times, me driving you someplace.”

  The master sergeant with the briefcase and the .45 in the shoulder holster got in beside Master Sergeant Wesley. General Black, Colonel Parker, and the mustached civilian, Carson Newburgh, got in the back. The Cadillac drove off.

  “Call the club,” General Virgil said. “Make damned sure it’s open when he gets there.”

  “I already have, sir,” his aide-de-camp replied.

  General Virgil impatiently waited for his wife to get in the staff car, and then he took off in pursuit of the Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Army.

  At ten minutes after nine the next morning, five minutes after he had watched the B-26 race down the runway, he put in a telephone call to a classmate at the United States Military Academy, presently assigned as Deputy to the Assistant Chief of Staff for Personnel.

  “Howard, I just had the most interesting visitor out here.”

  “I heard he was going out there. What the hell was it all about?”

  “Well, you ever hear of a Colonel Philip Sheridan Parker III, retired?”

  “Sure. You mean you don’t know him?”

  “I know he’s retired out here.”

  “His great-great-grandfather retired out there, when Riley was an Indian-fighting cavalry post. There have been Parkers around the army for a long, long time.”

  “He certainly seems pretty close to General Black.”

  “They go back a long way together. Parker had a tank destroyer battalion with Porky Waterford’s Hell’s Circus in Europe. Black had one of the combat commands. That’s all it was, war stories week?”

  “No. Black hinted strongly that he wanted to address WOCRW 56–4.”

  “What the hell is that?”

  “The sergeants we taught how to fly and made warrant officers out of.”

  “Is that so? Any particular reason?”

  “He showed a particular interest in one of them, a kid named Greer. Had him to dinner at the club, and then they partied all night in the VIP guest house with Black’s enlisted men, that great big orderly and the guy with the gun and the briefcase. Very intimate affair.”

  “Very interesting,” the Assistant DCSPERS said. “I’ll find out who he is.”

  “I thought you might be interested.”

  “Yeah, thanks, Evan.”

  “Scratch my back sometime.”

  The Assistant DCSPERS called for the service record of Warrant Officer Junior Grade Edward C. Greer. He found it interesting. He was only twenty years old. They had to waive the age requirement for him to go to flight school. He had been a technical sergeant when he applied for the Warrant Officer Candidate Program. There were not very many nineteen-year-old technical sergeants, either, which was also interesting. Nor were there very many technical sergeants of any age to whom the French government wished to award the Croix de guerre. The State Department had declined to give permission for him to accept it, but the request was in his record jacket.

  The Assistant DCSPERS saw that WOJG Greer had been assigned to a Transportation Corps helicopter company for an initial utilization tour.

  He called Colonel William Roberts at Camp Rucker, Alabama, and asked him if he could use a rather unusual warrant officer right from helicopter school. Roberts said that he could not. But he suggested that the Aviation Combat Developments Agency might be able to use him.

  That name struck a familiar chord in the mind of the Assistant DCSPERS. He had that file pulled. He saw why it had stuck in his memory. They had sent Lieutenant Colonel (Colonel-designate) Robert F. Bellmon down there, with a delay-en-route assignment to the Bell helicopter
plant, for a special senior officer’s course in helicopter flight.

  That was very unusual. But so was Bob Bellmon. He was Porky Waterford’s son-in-law. He’d been a POW in Germany. The connection was complete. The Assistant DCSPERS told his secretary to cancel WOJG Greer’s orders, and to have new orders cut assigning him to the Aviation Combat Developments Office, a Class II activity of DCSOPS, at Camp Rucker, Alabama.

  He was pleased; he was able to send General Black, the Vice Chief of Staff, a personal note saying that he thought General Black would be pleased to learn of WOJG Greer’s new assignment.

  General Black was pleased; one of those chair-warming assholes in personnel had finally done something right, had recognized the boy’s potential, probably because of the denied Croix de guerre, and had gotten him a decent assignment as a consolation prize.

  WOJG Greer was pleased; anything was better than an assignment to a Transportation Corps helicopter company.

  And Colonel William Roberts was pleased; if there was one thing Colonel (designate) Bob Bellmon, two weeks out of helicopter school himself, didn’t need, it was a chopper pilot not old enough to vote who had gone to flight school even more recently.

  There were, Colonel Roberts thought, a number of interesting things he could do for Bob Bellmon in the future. Sending an incompetent newcomer to work for an incompetent newcomer was only scratching the surface of possibilities.

  (Three)

  The first thing Barbara Bellmon said, in the lounge of the Hotel Dothan, when her husband met her there after she had surveyed the post and the available housing was, “I now know how Grandmother Sage must have felt when she arrived at Fort Dodge.”

  “Was it that bad?” Bellmon asked.

  “Everything but hostile Indians,” Barbara told her husband. Grandmother Sage had been her great-grandmother, a tall, wiry, leathery lady who had lived to ninety-seven. She had regaled her grandchildren with tales of what it had been like as a young officer’s wife living on cavalry posts during the Indian Wars. Some of what she had told them had been true.

  “Well, what are we going to do?” he asked. He meant, What have you decided that we’re going to do? for the division of responsïbilities between them gave her housing. She would arrange for it, and he would not complain.