“Because like I said, this has got to be really big. We’d like to get another five hundred brothers and sisters to come over from Korat, NKP, Udorn, Takhli. Make it an even thousand. Callin’ it People’s Independence Day II, so you gotta be in on it, sucker. Remember that Army lieutenant, Barry Romo, who spoke at your little get-together back in San Bernardino? He was one of the main men at Dewey Canyon III in Washington back in April.”
“So I heard.”
“Head of the California delegation. Got some serious attention from Walter Cronkite. Maybe they didn’t change the world, but it wasn’t another piss-assed protest by a bunch of spoiled college kids. And maybe this ain’t gonna change the world. Maybe we ain’t gonna change jack. But we sho’ nuff gonna ruffle the Air Force’s tail feathers, and sleepy l’il Ubon’s gonna wake up and take notice.
“I’ve got Washington and Blackwell doing lots of photography, so that when we get the story to CBS, they’ll have plenty of pictures of active-duty GIs raising hell in theater. We could really use your help. We’ve got to print five thousand flyers without a soul knowing about it. And I need a speechwriter. Why reinvent the wheel, Leary? This is your thing. sNorton Bird revisited. And that rag you helped turn out back in D.C. Didn’t think anybody knew it was you? It’s in your master file, bro—the one only we officers get to look at. You were born to turn out this trash. A regular twentieth-century Thomas Paine. You’re part of history, man. Can’t fight history, so go with the flow. You know in your heart of hearts and soul of souls this is why you were called into the Air Force. This is your gift, your talent. It’s in your Irish blood. It’s your true Air Force Specialty. It’s right up your alley, Brendan, and you know it.”
“Maybe it used to be up my alley. But damn, Rick, I’ve got to cool it right now. I’ve finally got my discharge hearing next week. I might be going home. Why do you have to show up here of all places now and try to mess it up?” I took a deep breath and wished for once that I smoked cigarettes. I needed a hit of nicotine. A shot of Mekong would have helped. “Alright,” I said, “this is the deal. I happen to know a fellow-traveler pacifist named Greg Quam who happens to be working the night shift in the base printing plant. Sort of a quasi-legal way of putting him in solitary. He’s been turning out some mildly disrespectful underground GI stationery on his coffee breaks. He’s your man. I’ll make arrangements for you to meet him, and then I go back into retirement, sir. Got it?”
“You’re hooked, sucker, and you know it.”
“I’m hooked on cheap dope and Mekhong whiskey. Maybe you didn’t hear me a moment ago: I’ve got my discharge hearing coming up next week. Martyrdom is all yours, Rick. Sorry.”
The next night Shahbazian dropped us off in the shadows behind the print shop. I led Moonbeam in through the back door to meet Quam, a new friend because by some kind of mysterious hunch he had figured out I was a fellow conscientious objector when we chatted in the chow hall on a rainy night at the start of monsoon season. Quam had been a sergeant back in San Antonio, Texas. The day before he was scheduled to ship out for Thailand, he went downtown to check with his lawyer on the status of their request for a restraining order. The base commander trumped it up to make it look like he had gone AWOL and busted him back to airman first class. I hated to imagine what Quam’s commander would have done to me for leading People’s Independence Day.
Lieutenant Liscomb showed Quam a mock-up of the flyer he wanted printed. “Can do,” Quam said simply. “But isn’t September a little late for an Independence Day march?”
I saw Liscomb pause for the first time since he arrived in Ubon. “You’ve got a point.”
“How about March against Racism—March for the Dream?” I piped in.
Rick’s face lit back up. “Thomas Paine has come through again!”
“It’s your lucky night, Lieutenant. It’s a little slow. Can you come back around two?”
“I’ll be in the Rat Pack pickup with the funny-looking mouse on the door,” Liscomb answered enthusiastically and strode out to rendezvous with Shahbazian.
I hung back, needing to catch up on some unfinished business of my own. “Did your lawyer ever send you copies of his filings?” Quam asked, still smarting from his own experience. “You’ll need them if you don’t get a favorable ruling and need to resubmit your claim later. It also lets you keep an eye on the quality of his work.”
“I haven’t heard from him. But his office manager keeps sending out billings every month.”
“Hate to say this, but he might not be doing a thing. You’re low priority now that they’ve already won a few of these.”
“And he’s billing me?”
“He’s a lawyer, isn’t he? He might just figure you’re a spoiled rich kid.”
“And maybe he’s right,” I winced. “What do you think of Liscomb’s peace march, by the way?”
“What peace march? I’m printing the fliers on local Thai newsprint with Thai printer’s ink that Lieutenant Moonbeam takes with him. And then I disappear back into the woodwork while my case is on appeal.”
“My sentiments exactly.”
31 August 1971
Hearing in Wonderland
Edward Poser, Esquire, had advised me to waive my hearing, telling me it would only delay my request for discharge as a conscientious objector. But since this was the same guy who bungled my case in federal court and left me with seventy-two hours to pack up my life at Norton and ship out for Southeast Asia, I decided to see if ignoring his advice wouldn’t work better. The catch was that Air Force Regulation 35-24 was full of booby traps that made it easy for the Air Force to keep its troops around for their full enlistment—unless the Air Force decided to get rid of them. Unlike a civilian applying for CO status, I had to prove my beliefs “crystallized” in a specific period after I had joined the military but that they had roots in my civilian life. The other trap facing all conscientious objectors was having to prove you were opposed to all wars. That was where I felt uncomfortable. Playing by their rules, I couldn’t admit I was glad Lincoln ended slavery or that the Allies brought down fascism.
It didn’t matter. I wanted out, period. It started with the Tet Offensive and the My Lai Massacre. The invasion of Cambodia and the killing of American college students while I was on active duty had “crystallized” it for me. When I first enlisted I thought I could ride out the war in silence, but the war kept butting in. I may have been keeping my head down and my mouth shut at Ubon, but the devastation I saw every day in the editing room at ComDoc only deepened my aversion and reminded me how aerial warfare throughout the twentieth century had either strengthened an enemy’s will to resist or led to nuclear annihilation. The crash of the Spectre gunship showed me how powerful the desire for revenge could be and how easily two avenging armies could fight a war without end. I had come to see the Vietnam War—and by extension, all war—as futile. The time had come for me when the end—getting out—justified the means, and if I had to contort the truth, so be it.
The hearing room was typical Air Force: new, clean, modern and sterile, capable of being packed up and shipped to the next war faster than I had packed for Thailand. Colonel Della Rippa, Harley’s commander at the 16th Special Operations Squadron, was the lead hearing officer. It didn’t take me long to discover why they called him “Grouchy Bear.” He had the sandpaper voice and leathery skin of someone who smoked too much and drank his whiskey neat and would rather be out fighting a war than sitting at a long table in a meeting room with wall-to-wall carpet discoursing on philosophy. Oh yes, that was another complication. Halfway through college I had lost my faith in Catholicism and was using existentialism as the basis of