Out of the Ashes

“The country is becoming prosperous once again,” she said, attempting to change the subject.

“What’s the matter?” He grinned at her. “You worried about my blood pressure?”

“Somebody has to. You won’t.”

“After all the social blunders of the ’60s and ’70s… I’ll be goddamned if we’re not heading down the same old road. Just look at that new pack of liberals in Congress.”

“It’s the will of the people, Ed.”

“No.” He shook his head. “No, honey, that’s the shame of it—it isn’t. It’s the will of pressure groups, lobbyists, so-called Christians.” He poured a drink under the frowning gaze of his wife. He downed it neat, then sighed. “Something’s in the wind. And it stinks. I just don’t know what it is.” He sat down. “God, I’m tired. I’m seventy-five years old. I’m tired. I just want out.”

Ben Raines sat on the front porch of his home in Louisiana and for the first time in a long time thought about Vietnam and how, during the quiet moments after patrol, unwinding, but still too keyed up to sleep, he would sit with his buddies and talk of home, women, movies, and politics—as well as other topics.

Two decades had passed since that exercise in futility had ended for Ben. He didn’t think about it often. The nightmares had dimmed into occasional dreams, without substance, the blood in them no longer red and thick and real. The screaming faint night sounds now had no meaning, and the smoke from the burning villages was no longer acrid, did not burn his eyes or leave a bitter taste on his tongue.

It was just a fading memory. Nothing more.

He wondered, now that SALT 5 was two years old and the nuclear weapons around the world had been greatly reduced, at least for the major countries, if there would ever be another war.

He felt there would be, and he also wondered if Russia and America were living up to the terms of the agreement.

He doubted it. Both sides still had missiles tucked away, hidden, ready, and aimed. Each side knew the other too well. Only the doves in America truly believed in all the terms of SALT 5. Ben wondered if those missiles aimed at Russia and America were nuclear or bacteriological types. He thought probably the latter, for SALT didn’t cover germ-type warheads… that came under a different agreement.

“Come on, Ben,” he muttered. “Why are you thinking like this tonight?”

He tried to think about the new novel he was planning, but his thoughts would not jell. Then he suddenly recalled the words one of his long-dead buddies had spoken to him, so many years before, during one of those long bull sessions.

“How would you change our system of government, Ben? I mean, we all agree the system isn’t working. But how would you correct it? If you could?”

And that had sparked hours of debate and sometimes heated arguments that turned into fist fights. The debates had lasted for days.

He recalled the legendary Col. Bull Dean listening to his men argue and debate. The Bull had smiled. Then, when they were alone, Bull had said to Ben, “Keep your dreams, son. You have good thoughts for one so young. Keep them alive in your mind, for someday, probably sooner than you might think, you just might have a chance to see them spring to life. Hell, son! You might write a book!”

Ben had grinned, thinking the Bull was kidding.

On this soft night in Louisiana, Ben remembered Bull’s words as they had waited to lift off from Rocket City, heading into North Vietnam, to HALO in: high altitude, low opening. They would jump at twenty thousand feet, their chutes opening automatically when they got under radar.

“We’re losin’ this war, son,” Bull had said. “And there is nothing that guys like you and me can do about it —we can only prolong it. Back home, now, it’s gonna get worse—much worse. Patriotism is gonna take a nose dive, sinking to new depths of dishonor. There is no discipline in schools; the courts have seen to that. America is going to take a pasting for a decade, maybe longer, losing ground, losing face, losing faith. That’s when the military will be forced to step in and take over. And God help us all when they do that.”

“Why do you say that, sir?”

“Remember that line about absolute power?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The military leaders—those with enough sense to pour piss out of a boot, that is, and we do have a few of them in uniform—realize the truth in that line. They won’t want to take over the country—but they might be forced into doing it. For a time. It will be a bad time for you all.”

“For you all? Not including yourself in that, Colonel?”

The Bull had smiled.

“Sir? Why are you telling me all this… now?”

The Bull shook his head. “I haven’t told you as much as you might believe. But in the years ahead of you— two decades, more than likely—you’ll understand.”

Ben stirred uncomfortably on the porch. It had been two decades, almost. The strange visitor of several years back suddenly popped into his mind. He shook away those memories.

And just before that leap into the rushing night, so many years ago, as the Bull stood in the door of the plane, he screamed at Ben: “Bold Strike, son. Remember it. Bold Strike. Say it to no one.”

A few weeks later, Col. William “Bull” Dean was supposedly killed, his mutilated and unrecognizable body found days later by a team of LRRPs—Long Range Recon Patrols. Then Adams was reported missing. He was MIA’ed; then, finally, listed as KIA.

A month later, Ben had been wounded and sent home.

After he recovered from his wounds, he found he could not tolerate the attitudes in America toward her Vietnam vets. He was restless, and missed the action he had left behind. He had been sent home to a land of hairy, profane young men who sewed the American flag on the seats of their dirty jeans and marched up and down the street, shouting ugly words, all in the name of freedom—their concept of freedom.

Ben left the country and made his way to Africa, signing on as a mercenary with anyone who wanted and appreciated fighting men. For two years he fought in dozens of little no-name wars, just drifting, becoming hardened to death and blood and suffering.

One day he told a visiting American writer—whom he had met in a bar—he thought he might write a book. The writer questioned Ben closely, then told him to do just that, and when he was through with it, to send it to his agent. He’d tell the agent it was coming.

The more Ben thought about it, the more he liked the idea. He went home, back to Illinois, to his parents’ home, and wrote his book.

He’d been writing ever since and had lived in Louisiana for almost fifteen years.

He stirred from his misty memories and realized the phone was ringing in the den. He walked from the coolness of the front porch and picked up the phone. Two words were spoken, and they caused his heart to pound and a dizziness to spring into his head.

“Bold Strike.”

Then the line went dead.

Ben sat down hard in a chair. He had not heard those words in years. But what the hell did they mean? A warning? A cue for him to do something. What in the shit had the Bull meant by them?

Ben turned on the TV set and caught the last of the nightly news. Fresh outbreaks of race riots in Newark and Detroit. The government was worried about the resurgence of the KKK and the American Nazi Party—and the fact that they had joined hands, to jointly spew their hate. White robes and black uniforms.

“Bold Strike,” Ben muttered. “What’s going on? Bull Dean is dead. And so is Carl Adams. I saw the bodies.”

No, he corrected his thoughts. You saw a body. Someone said it was Colonel Dean. You later—much later—saw pictures that someone said was Adams.

Then the words of the news commentator numbed Ben. “Certain military units have been placed on low alert. No reason was given. But it’s nothing to be concerned about, the Pentagon says. Just testing security.”

“What units, you son of a bitch!” Ben shouted at the TV set.

A commercial for a female hygiene spray greeted his question.

Ben turned off the set.

Something dark and elusive darted around the shadowy corners of his mind. He fixed another drink and sat