"With South Vietnam's National Liberation Front and regular Vietcong forces active simultaneously, we could not trust anyone. The man with a plow behind a water buffalo could be a farmer in the daytime and a People's Liberation Army squad leader at night. Children, no older than ten or eleven, were recruited by advisors to the National Liberation Front from Hanoi and given explosives to attack us. It seemed that every other day there was a suicide attack on Americans by people not even in uniform. Every man, woman, child, dog, pig, cat, and cockroach in the village were wiped completely out of existence." Stan went on. "When fighting was heaviest there was always one stoned-out moron who forgot which side he was on and fired on our own allies in the South Vietnamese Army. Think about guys in our choppers. You can not tell who is who when you are airborne, Mister Hurst. Everything on the ground looks so unreal, so damned abstract. Men pulling back, out of hot defensive positions, tend to instantaneously assume anything under them still moving is a potential enemy. There is always one dimwit who fires at friendlies by mistake or on purpose; either he became stoned, did not listen to cease fire orders, or saw a buddy hit, and then fired at what he thought were enemy soldiers for reprisal against an invisible enemy in the bushes somewhere. Every noncombatant was a potential enemy. The People's Liberation Army, composed of members of the National Liberation Front, did not wear uniforms. Aside from carrying Soviet made weapons and supplies shipped from Hanoi, they looked just like any other South Vietnamese civilians."
Bradley paused for a moment, and Hurst maintained a patient silence. "Miss Trang kept me thrilled in bed," Stan continued, "and old club Mama-san kept me drunk. I never kept anything that lovely girl gave me but a pendant. I still remember the angular perfection of Miss Trang's elegant amber eyes. Stan grinned self-consciously and then went on. "Living in a room behind a bar, waiting out an overnight pass, hiding on a day off, comprised the most nefarious escapades of my life. She called the necklace Summer Sun. According to the girl it belonged to gangsters in France who controlled much of the gambling and opium trade in Saigon."
Bradley was a bit winded. He relaxed as Hurst went over his notes covering the interview. There was no doubt about Bradley's being a rugged son of a bitch, John felt inwardly. To stimulate conversation Mister Hurst decided to interject a bit of historical observation and learn what he could about the iron will of the troubled ex-sergeant.
"You know, Stan," the analyst interceded, "there is always a single individual who will follow any cause, no matter how ignominious that cause might be. He will be part of it simply out of a longing to fraternize. The most malignant rulers throughout human history have taken advantage of this fact. They find a common enemy they can hold before their public's eye and point to that enemy's destruction as solution to all of society's problems. A gullible individual will follow that sort of blindness as the quickest means of channeling hatred and frustrations toward humanity in general. You need to face this, my friend. When this idea of scapegoating is applied by one ethnic subculture to another, there arises potential for insurrection within that culture. The usual result of this revolution is some form of genocide directed toward a subculture of that same society.
"Most commonly," Hurst went on, "the mistake people make is in directing hatred toward other groups of people rather than the man who is pointing his finger and urging them toward such irrational behavior. You are dealing with bigotry toward an ethnic group, or single branch of people, adhering to dogmatic policy that separates them from a greater body. A good example of this sectionalism shows up in officers in your chain of command. Biased judgment can be religious, racist, sexist, legal, or political. One great frailty that pervades religions is their devotees' inability to adhere to the details of each other's beliefs. In any group there inevitably arises dispute when dogmatic interpretations of one part of the group collide with those of the other parts. This dispute most commonly manifests itself in a war, as the one you became involved with in Southeast Asia. While reasons for your own involvement in that war were political, the cause of America's unwillingness to resolve the conflict was ethical. Demographically you were defeated before you ever started into the war." Hurst paused for a moment, and then said pointedly, "That war is over for you, Stan! You must face this! You have to tone down now and readjust your life. Do you understand anything I am saying? You should redirect your anger. My God, you must have seen a lot of anguish during those two wars!"
"You are right, Mister Hurst," Bradley agreed. "You know, massive buildup of manpower the Communist Chinese and North Korean governments are capable of mustering is frightening. While they still lack the technology that we Americans have, it is staggering to think what a body of humanity so numerically superior to our own could accomplish if that enormity were effectively put into motion." Stan frowned momentarily, as though he was trying to define his own thoughts for himself as he continued. "Ideology is what motivates an army. Ideology is cohesiveness that holds mankind together and gives it common motive. A gifted leader is a man who can infuse comradeship inside a political body. Once a commonly desired goal is defined, this leader does not have to depend on a system of rewards to get his job done.
"Large bodies of humanity do not need leaders if they have a common objective. Emancipation from tyranny is something that ultimately cannot be bought with any kind of gratuity. Give a hundred men a thousand dollars in return for their holding a key terrain feature for you. In the face of overwhelming odds and at a great risk of life and limb, do you genuinely think they would represent any kind of serious opposition to an attacker, simply because of the money they were given?" "Well, there are mercenaries who will fight solely out of desire for monetary gain," Mister Hurst argued.
"I do not think so," Bradley responded. "If ideology does not provide a sufficient incentve for defending the country, money will have no appreciable effect in winning a war."
"You may be right about that," John concurred while Stan continued with his rhetoric.
"It was my own observation," stated Stan, "that officers, both good and bad, worm their way into commissions with the army. The poor officer is one who continually delegates his authority down a chain of command and sits back twiddling his thumbs while men under him sweat, bleed, and die because of his unwillingness to do a job he is trained and capable of performing."
"Is it carelessness," Hurst continued, now more inclined to talk than to listen, "and passive indifference to fate that allows us to be thrown into winds of a war Stan? Is it an actual desire to set sail upon seas of enmity that prompts men to recklessly abandon what they have striven to build, and turn in blind hatred of their fellow human beings?"
"I do not understand what it is you are driving at, Mister Hurst," continued Stan. "I know some history, but I am a soldier, not a historian. I do have my own experience, though."
"How do you explain death, Stan," asked Bradley's psychologist? "I know that this is a very absolute question, and I have wondered about it myself. Is mortality the result of some unforeseen circumstance? Is the length of a man's time on earth determined by some supreme creative force? There is no absolute guarantee to any of us that we will be alive in thirty years, or until the end of next week for that matter. You and I both know that. No one enjoys having to confront death. It seems to be an inevitable, natural result, the end that is, of living. We can turn our backs on the nether world, but only for so long. And I suppose we can ignore the possibility of some sort of counter-existence completely. We can postpone confronting the act of being launched into eternity until the very last instant. Inevitably, however, we must all be aware of that final compelling point in time. Would you agree with me that men who spent entire lifetimes in preparation for death, the monk who burned himself to death for example, were any more ready to accept death when it arrived than were the others who ignored death's inevitability altogether?"
Bradley did not seem to hear the question, and continued with his own independent thoughts. "Life of our sun, and planets that surround it, are so vast compared with our own! I am sure my dying will have little or no effect on it. In time, I suppose, it will all be heaped into some cosmic blender and remodeled into another shape."
"Do you ever feel necessity for some kind of last rights being exercised over a fallen comrade?" Mister Hurst asked Stan, who was becoming more resolute as the discussion continued.
"That is a priest's job, not mine," he replied. "I contend, in fact, the only thing which guides people into positions of authority is one based on avarice, greed, and selfish appeasement of their own personal fetishes and sexual desires."
"It is probable that you are partially correct," John mused. "Changing the subject for a moment, I think some form of self-denial is good for all of us. In your case you should start with liquor, and deny that to yourself. It does not really take much to sustain life in a healthy individual. We can usually get by on quite a bit less than we do on a day-to-day basis. Hierarchy of authority in present world society is a complex thing to deal with. Without authority we would have no free enterprise. There would have been no industrial revolution, no modern electronics. If men were not motivated by promotion or profit there would never have been patents, therefore, fewer inventions." Hurst began asking questions, directed as much to himself as to Bradley who listened patiently. "Who would you say wields more authority in what we refer to as the Free World? Do Popes then wield more authority than Presidents do? Certainly you could not see the Pope, in what Catholics view as the final authority in matters of faith and morals, suing that authority to appease his own personal sexual desires? Do you look upon all forms of authority as being an appeasement of personal fetishes? It is an interesting theory, and very possibly half true. If you were to come up with something innovative, which could be used as a food source or a weapon, for example, would you allow its use in taking human life?"
"Yes, I probably would, in certain instances," replied Stan. "The pacifist attitudes of the United States are what left the most colorful society and habitable climate on earth in the hands of communists. I am not a terribly religious person myself, but my wife and kids are. I would hate to see them fall into the hands of a fascist-atheist and watch them murdered because the new government did not share their views."
The psychologist glanced at his watch, and then begun to scan the street below his office window. It was four-thirty. He had become unable to get to the bottom of Stan's motive. Leaving his men behind, Stan untruthfully took emergency leave in the heat of battle. Guilt lingered in Bradley's memory over the fact. Traffic was getting heavy and it was about time to sum things up for that particular session. Skimming back through his notes, Hurst tried to summarize his own feelings. His drinking problem appeared to have manifested itself throughout most of his professional life. Bradley's problem, obviously, was not that he became inclined toward moderation or pacifist attitude. On the contrary, the stratocratic authorities accompanying his life in the military, along with his own intrinsic self-discipline, had taken its toll emotionally, angering him and depriving him of spontaneity and freethinking individuality. Stan Bradley had been witness to extensive death and human suffering, unable to comfort defenseless victims of war. Sensitivity to other people's personal problems had led to a collapse of bonds with his own family. What Bradley appeared to need was some harmless outlet to channel his pent-up hostility, a guide for that energy into something creative and useful.
"Well, Stan, our time is about up," Mister Hurst told his patient who stared at him, impatiently wishing to continue. "I hope you know that I am sincerely interested in your problems and your feelings. If there is anything at all I can do to straighten out your family difficulty, let me know."
"Sure thing, Mister Hurst," Stan replied. He got up from his chair and headed toward the door. "You know, I do love my wife? And God help anyone who hurts one of those kids! I have seen my children go down the tubes long enough; believe me it hurts more than watching my men die in combat.
