Passing Through

Sergeant Lennart The base camp’s CID Office was a one-room hooch on an unpaved road. Every time a jeep went by, red dust billowed in through the insect screen. Larry and I would cover our eyes and try not to breathe until the dust had settled. The tin roof had a hole in it the size of a mortar round. In the monsoon season, a gusher of water would pour through the hole and form a small lake in the sag of the plywood floor. I hadn’t been there long when Garrett strode through the door and without preliminaries said, “I have a sergeant who fucked up big time.” Garrett was not happy. “He lost his radio on ambush patrol.” Losing a radio to Charlie was at the top of the fuck-up list. Garrett continued, “He’s too good a soldier to court-martial but I have to set an example for the rest of the MPs. I’m going to relieve him of duties but I have to put him to work somewhere. How about here? Can you use some help?” The first thing that came to mind was the hole in the roof. “You bet I can.” Sergeant Lennart arrived within the hour. He walked in with his closely cropped head thrust forward, teeth clenched and jaw rigid. His eyes were smoky gray and hidden behind bushy eyebrows. At 6 feet, give or take an inch, he was not the sort to pick a fight with. I told him what I needed and without saying a word he left. Within an hour he was back, dragging a piece of corrugated tin the size of a ping-pong table. Before the sun went down, the hole in the roof was covered. My partner Larry, assured he would no longer get drenched, moved his field desk from a tight corner to a roomy spot under the covered hole. From the MP grapevine I learned that Lennart had received a Dear John from his wife and had gone from admired leader to sullen outsider. The ambush incident was an example. Lennart accepted the tasks I gave him and he replied only when necessary. As far as I was concerned he was one step away from an Article 15 for insubordination. On the other hand, he was an excellent “midnight liberator,” that is to say he managed to acquire things that we needed such as a full-size desk for Larry, a small refrigerator, and a super-large fan for cooling and blowing dust out of the hooch. A week before Christmas I told Lennart, “I’m going to the forward area and when I get back I want to see a little Christmas spirit around here.” His jaw shot upward and his eyes narrowed. He wasn’t crazy about the idea, but an order is an order. I returned on the day before Christmas and on top of my desk was a miniature Christmas tree made of wire hangers and tiny paper balls crayoned in different colors. The tree even had a star at the top. It’s beautiful,” I said. A tiny grin crept across Lennart’s face. I leaned close to the tree and saw writing on the colored balls. They said, “Kill, Murder, Stab, Rape, Pillage, Burn” and so forth. Anger rose in my throat. “Trash it,” I said. By the time I left Vietnam, Lennart’s attitude had not changed. He drove me to the departure depot without saying a word or giving me a good-bye. In mid-1968 I flew from Tokyo to Bragg to testify at a general court-martial. The trial was dragging along and I was spending most of my waiting time on the entrance steps of the Judge Advocate General’s building. I did a double-take when I saw Sergeant Lennart walking down the sidewalk toward me. The Ranger tab told me he had moved up in the sometimes strange world of the Army. He spotted me and called out, “Hey, Mr. Moran, what brings you to Bragg?” I told him, and he said, “You’ve got to come out to the house tonight. We’ll have some beer and shoot the bull.” I couldn’t believe it. Lennart was a transformed person. He picked me up at the Visiting Officers Quarters and we drove to a small but homey house in Fayetteville. Two adorable children, a boy and a girl, greeted Lennart with hugs and kisses. The mother, who was strikingly pretty, kissed him lightly on the lips. He and I sat on the patio drinking beer and eating commissary franks and burgers cooked on a Weber. The night air was cool, the moon shone brightly and the conversation roamed everywhere except to Vietnam. On the ride back to Bragg I said, “Sergeant Lennart, it sure is great to see you back with your wife.” “What wife?” “The woman back there, at your house.” “That’s not my wife.” I was stunned. “Well, who is she?” “She’s my buddy’s wife.” “Well…where’s your buddy?” “I don’t know. He’s on a special mission, maybe in Cambodia or Laos.” “Does he know what’s going on? Back here at Bragg.” “Naw. There’s no way.” “What are you going to do when he gets back?” “He probably won’t get back.” That told me something about the mission. “But if he does?” “Guess I’ll just have to kill him.” He was dead serious. I stared at his profile illuminated against the driver side window. Tight jaws, teeth clenched, head thrust forward. He hadn’t changed. He was the same Sergeant Lennart that had made the Christmas tree.