'But,' said Trig, holding it in the air, 'even if I admire courage and commitment, I have to make a distinction.
Between a moral war and an immoral war. World War II: moral. Kill Hitler before he kills all the Jews. Kill Tojo before he turns all the Filipino women into whores. Korea? Maybe moral. I don't know. Stop the Chinese from turning Korea into a province. I guess that's moral. I would have fought in that one.'
'But Vietnam. Not moral?'
'I don't know. You tell me.'
Trig leaned forward. Another of his little, unsung gifts: listening. He really wanted to know what Donny thought and he refused to pigeonhole Donny as a baby killer and Zippo commando.
Donny could not resist this earnest attention.
'What I saw was good American kids trying to do a job they didn't quite understand. What I saw was kids who thought it was like a John Wayne movie and got their guts blown out. I was in a place once, a forest or a former forest. All the leaves were gone, but the trees still stood. Only, they shined. It was like they were covered in ice. It reminded me of Vermont. I've never been to Vermont, but it reminded me of it just the same.'
'I think I know where you're headed. I saw the same thing on the convoy out of Stanleyville.'
'Yeah, well, in this case we called in Hotel Echo, on a stand of trees because we saw movement and thought a unit of gooks was infiltrating through it. We got 'em, but good. Those were their guts. They were just pulverized, turned to shiny liquid, and it plastered the stumps and limbs. Man, I never saw anything like that. Of course it was a platoon of Army engineers. Twenty-two guys, gone, just like that. Hotel Echo. It wasn't very pretty.'
'Donny, I think you know. Underneath. I can feel you getting there. You're working on it.'
'My girl is already there. She's coming in in this Peace Caravan deal they got going.'
'Good for her. Do you talk about it with her?'
'She says she decided she'd do her part to stop the war when she visited me in the San Diego Naval Hospital.'
'Good for her again. But--are you there?'
Donny couldn't lie. He had no talent for it.
'No. Not yet. Maybe never. It just seems wrong. You have to do what your country tells you. You have to contribute.
It's duty.'
Trig was like a confessor: his eyes burned with empathy and drew Donny forward to reveal more.
'Donny, I know you'd never leave or quit or anything.
I wouldn't ask you to. But consider joining us after you get out. I think you'll feel much better. And I can't begin to tell you how much it would mean to us. I hate this idea we're all a bunch of chicken shits A guy who's been there, won a medal, fought, dedicating himself to ending it and bringing his buddies home. That's powerful stuff. I'd be proud to be a part of that.'
'I don't know.'
'Just think about it. Talk to me, keep in touch. That's all. Just think about it.'
'Donny, my God!' a voice called, and he looked up and saw a dream coming onto the porch to him. She was thin, blond, athletic, part tawny cowgirl, part perfect American sweetheart, and he felt helpless as he always did when he saw her.
It was Julie.
CHAPTER four.
'What's wrong?' she said.
'Why didn't you call me?'
'I did. And I wrote you, too.'
'Oh, shit.'
'Can we leave? Can we go someplace? Donny, I haven't seen you since Christmas.''I don't know. I'm here with this PFC from my squad and I sort of promised I'd, uh, look after him. I can't leave him.'
'Donny!'
'I can't explain it! It's very complicated.'
He kept looking off, back into the house as if he was trying to keep his eye on something.
'Look, let me go tell Crowe I'm leaving. I'll be right back. We'll go somewhere.'
He disappeared back inside the house.
Julie stood there in the Washington dark on a street above Georgetown as the traffic veered along Wisconsin.
Pretty soon Peter Fan-is came out. Peter was a tall, bearded graduate student in sociology at the University of Arizona, the head of the Southwest Regional People's Coalition for Peace and Justice and nominal honcho of the group of kids he and Julie had shepherded out by Peace Caravan from Tucson.
'Where's your friend?'
'He'll be back.'
'I knew that's what he'd be like. Big, handsome, square.'
