The entire affair was made easier since the captain had waited until the very last minute, just as the female officers were coming on board, to make his opinion known. That he chose to do so on a Friday, putting the coup de grace on an already doomed weekend, allowed Dixon to actually enjoy writing cutting comments on the captain's evaluation report.
Two months before, Dixon had planned to take a long weekend in conjunction with the 4th of July and go down to South Padre Island with his two boys and Jan Fields, the woman he had been living with for the past three years. The military coup in Mexico, however, had caused Jan to drop out. The chance to be the World News Network senior correspondent in Mexico City was simply too tempting for Jan to pass up.
Dixon, though put out, didn't complain. After all, she had given up a better position with WNN to become, as she referred to herself, a camp follower. The loss of the project officer for EFCO had finished the weekend.
Instead of sitting on the beach on South Padre Island with his two sons, Dixon had sat in his office at Fort Hood with the division personnel officer looking for a suitable officer to become the new stuckee for EFCO.
After looking at dozens of officers' records, they both agreed upon a new officer just coming into the division, a young captain by the name of Harold Cerro.
Waiting to go in and be interviewed by the division G3, Captain Harold Cerro sipped at the coffee he had been offered and watched the comings and goings of the people around him. He was already pissed off by the fact that his assignment to a brigade staff had been changed, removing him still farther from 'real' soldiers. At least at brigade level, Cerro thought, he would have had an opportunity, every now and then, to smell the horseshit and gunpowder. On division staff, all he'd get to smell was the horseshit.
Already in what could be described as a deep funk due to his sudden reassignment, Cerro could find nothing impressive about the division staff that morning. Everyone, officer and enlisted, seemed to move at a half speed, lackadaisical pace. In most of the line units he had been in, there had always been a high degree of crispness in everything they had done, including their conversations. Here, everyone just sort of moseyed about, lost in their own little world as they drank coffee, shuffled paper, and became annoyed anytime a telephone rudely interrupted their sedate pace and required them to answer it. This, Cerro thought to himself, was going to take some getting used to.
As he pondered his fate, a sergeant major came up to him, a smile on his face and his right hand stretched out. 'Captain Cerro, I'm Sergeant Major Aiken. Welcome to the G3.'
Caught off guard, Cerro shifted his coffee cup from his right hand to his left, stood up as he did so, grasped the sergeant major's hand, and lied. 'It's a pleasure to be here, Sergeant Major.'
Aiken looked into the captain's eyes for a moment as they shook hands and smiled a shy, knowing smile. 'I'm sure it is, sir. I'm sure it is.'
The smile and comment did not escape Cerro's notice, and the look of concern on his face did not escape Aiken. 'Sir, the G3 will see you now.'' Without waiting, Aiken turned and stepped off to lead Cerro to the G3's office. After quickly putting his half-empty cup down on the floor next to the seat where he had been sitting, Cerro turned and scurried after the sergeant major.
By the time Cerro caught up to the sergeant major, he was standing outside the G3's door. Without a word, Aiken motioned that Cerro was to enter. As Cerro passed him, Aiken mumbled, 'Vaya con Dios.' Although he didn't respond to the remark, Cerro wondered why in the hell the sergeant major had said that.
The G3's office was, relatively speaking, small. At one end was a simple and functional wooden desk facing the door. In front of the desk, a long wooden table with five chairs around it was set perpendicular to, and butted up against, the wooden desk. To Cerro's left was an overstuffed chair and an end table with an old unit history of the 16th Armored Division on it. Farther along the wall to his left was a wooden bookcase filled with a combination of field manuals, military history books, and loose-leaf binders of assorted colors and sizes. On the wall where the bookcase sat were two small-scale maps, one showing Germany and Eastern Europe and the second showing the Persian Gulf region.
A third map, on the wall behind the desk, was a special overprinted map of Fort Hood that showed all the ranges and training areas on post. Behind the desk, seated in a large executive-style chair, with his feet propped on the windowsill, sipping coffee as he watched a parade rehearsal, was the G3.
Coming up to the edge of the long table, Cerro stopped, came to the position of attention, saluted, and reported. 'Sir, Captain Harold Cerro reporting for duty.'
Dixon had heard the captain enter his office. He had even heard the sergeant major's snide comment. The booming voice of the young captain, artificially dropped a couple of octaves so that he sounded huskier, more masculine, did not surprise Dixon. In fact, Dixon half expected the captain to end with the traditional, 'Airborne.'
Without facing the captain, Dixon took another sip of coffee before moving the cup from his right hand to his left and returning the captain's salute rather casually. 'Take a seat, Captain Cerro.'
For a moment, Cerro was taken aback by the casual, almost slovenly attitude of the G3. No wonder, Cerro thought, the G3 staff moves around half-stepping. They get it from the top. Heaving a sigh, Cerro dropped his salute, and took a seat at the head of the long table, waiting for the G3 to speak. The G3, however, didn't pay any further attention to Cerro. Instead, he continued to watch the parade rehearsal outside his window.
With nothing better to do, Cerro turned in his seat and also watched.
Down on the parade ground, the marching unit was just completing its final turn before passing the reviewing stand. The battalion commander, followed by his four staff principals, was in front of the reviewing stand, saluting the reviewing officer. As this was only a rehearsal, a major from the G3 shop was acting as the reviewing officer, returning salutes and taking notes on deficiencies as elements of the marching unit went by.
Following the battalion staff came the companies, led by their captains and guidons. Cerro watched as the commander of each company gave his orders. First came the exaggerated preparatory command, ' 'Eyes,'' which alerted the company to what command was about to be issued. At the same instant the commander gave the preparatory command, the guidon bearer hoisted the guidon as high as he could. This was an old tradition, done in the days when commanders used the guidon to signal their commands to subordinates who could not hear them over the sounds of battle.
After a pause, the commander shouted a crisp, curt 'Right,' the command of execution. In unison, the commander's head turned to the right as his right hand shot up to salute the reviewing officer. The guidon came down with an audible snap to signal the command of execution had been given. In the ranks of the company, the right-hand file continued to look straight ahead while every head in the two files to the left snapped to the right. The company held this position until its commander had passed the reviewing stand and reached a marker that told him the trail element of his unit had cleared the reviewing stand. At that point, he gave the order,
'Ready,' pause, 'Front.'
Company after company marched by, with the national and regimental colors between the second and third company. As they passed the reviewing stand, the regimental colors dipped to a forty-five-degree angle in salute to the reviewing officer, but the national colors remained aloft, dipping for no man. This was the only time the reviewing officer initiated the salute, honoring the national colors.
Cerro had seen all of this before and didn't really understand the G3's fascination with the parade — since, no doubt, the G3 had seen it far more often. Cerro was becoming quite uncharitable in his thoughts concerning his new superior until the horse platoon came by. Though the sequence was the same, there was more flair and drama, a flair and drama that Cerro found himself caught up in, as the horse platoon leader brought his drawn saber up before his face as he gave the preparatory order. Bellowing 'Eyes' for all he was worth, the horse platoon leader snapped his saber down, catching a glint of sunlight on the polished blade as he did so. He held it there, with a stiff extended arm, as he issued the execution order, 'Right.' The horsemen and their mounts, passing two by two before the reviewing officer, did so with a precision and a casual ease that Cerro marveled at. No doubt, he thought, the horses, their heads held high, required as much drill as the troopers did. Following the horse platoon came the field guns. Each gun, pulled by four horses, had a crew of four, two men riding the trace horses, the ones on the right, and two men riding on the caisson.
While their passing in review in itself had been interesting, the maneuvering and mock battle, followed by a mounted charge afterward, was, for want of a better word, exhilarating. As Cerro watched in fascination, he could feel his pulse rate increase. This, he thought, this was a ceremony worthy of the United States Army.
As the horse platoon leader rallied his troopers, Dixon spun around in his chair and faced Cerro for the first time. 'Ever see a cavalry charge before?'
