Chapter 3: Writing and representing the body
3.9 Intersecting discourses and representations
Five years later
Fort Bragg
After the selection process, the day was luminous over the base and the sky was blue: the storm was over, at last.
Leaves and broken branches were scattered everywhere.
That night, the guys received their first off duty hours since what seemed an eternity, to them.
Gates passed by the rooms to announce the news and a few minutes later – just the time to change their clothes – who could walk on his legs started to get ready to go out of the base.
The first to be ready at the entrance hall was Delmore Barry, but he stopped to wait the others, in order to get out all together.
The black coloured guy was smiling already. He almost looked excited.
Despite the fatigue and the pains, having been chosen for the Baker teams galvanized him.
He couldn't stand the wait to get out of the base.
After a while, Rambo joined him.
The two knew that they had been assigned to the same team already. Garner had read their names that morning, in front of a dormitory that looked more like a hospital than barracks.
Barry shook Rambo's hand, and immediately understood he was a couple of years older than Rambo.
Then the two were joined by Jorgenson and Messner.
Ortega and Coletta where still at the hospital, while Krakauer and Danforth didn't feel like going outside, which meant that the remaining four were ready to go. So, after exchanging the usual courtesies, the four went out together.
They were outside Fort Bragg, at last.
Once outside that kind of concentration camp, the guys found that even the air seemed to have a different smell.
It seemed them to have lived not just one, but two whole lives in there.
Barry was the more smiley of all. While everyone used to walked with a limp or slowly, he was the only one that looked like he wasn't suffering any pain at all, even if the marks on his face told a different story.
The four guys went on board of the bus that was going to the town.
As it started moving, Barry gave a pat on Rambo's shoulder, as if just getting on board of that bus had been another very difficult task to achieve. Than he
laughed again, extracting a smile from Rambo.
Rambo was shorter and thinner than Barry at the time.
His face looked younger and cleaner than the others. Barely in his twenties – roughly two, three years younger than all of the others – he looked like he was a teenager still.
Rambo liked Barry's expansiveness immediately.
On the contrary Messner, after introducing himself, stayed on his own, and now looked outside the window with a fixed expression, as if he was watching a television screen.
The only one who looked unhappy was Jorgenson.
He stood up, one hand on one of the the bus standing bars, and looked beyond the window screens as if the landscape was slipping away from him.
It was then that Messner sat up and went to him.
“Man” he said.
Jorgenson did not reply.
“I know what you are thinking about, but you shouldn't worry about Ortega.
Trust me, 'cause I am the Doc, am not I? He will be as new and very soon. It was a good one that I was there when it happened”
Jorgenson didn't reply.
“It's nothing, man. Really. You did nothing beyond repair to this guy ”
At the end of the bus, Rambo was looking at the two guys talking each other. At a certain point, he started to stand up to talk to Jorgenson too, but Barry put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him.
“Leave him alone for a while” he said.
Rambo looked Barry with a puzzled face.
“He will have his chance to sort it out with Ortega personally, if that's what he want. He just need to spend some time on his own”
The bus stopped, the four guys got out.
When he put his feet on the ground, Messner said:
“Jesus Christ, I can't even do the steps”
*
Fort Bragg was no big city at all, and the guys went in the first bar with some busy people.
When the beers were served, Rambo looked to the one in front of him as if it was a dead muse.
On the contrary, his mates picked them up and started drinking as if it was the most natural thing to do in the whole world to do.
And when they had consumed half of them already, Rambo had still to touch his one.
But then, on the contrary, Rambo suddenly lost any fear, and finally joined them.
That night, the four drunk beers together, asked each other where they came from, what was their jobs before joining the army, and if they were married or single.
They talked, drank and talked again.
It was the first time that Rambo hanged around with guys of his age, and he understood that for them, drinking, joking and saying stupid things was completely natural.
Raising the tones of their voices, drink some more... All of these looked like good things for them, and natural.
To Rambo it was nothing like that, but he liked being there anyway, and together with them.
He liked it very much.
And after the selection he had just passed, everything looked just awesome.
But Rambo was not used to drink so much beer and that mix of vicious daze and light euphoria made him feel uncomfortable.
He had to be careful, very careful.
Obviously, the others were living the moment in a different way.
To them, that sensation was ultra-cool. Before of that day, Rambo have never even imagined that there could exist a good way of being drunk.
He looked to the three guys in front of him, and he asked himself why none of them had already become as evil as his father usually was when drunk.
Maybe it was due to the beer (his father used to just drink whiskey).
Or maybe, those guys were just different.
Rambo then asked himself how much time it would have taken them to become like his father if he had he drank the way he used to, and given the fact that all in all... He was his father's son.
He was just like him, inside himself. He knew it, he felt it up to inside his bones.
And yet, that night, nothing happened.
At some point during the night, they found that in that bar there were some other Fort Bragg's base guys that they didn't now, and yet they joined them.
A guy – that was no soldier – asked them if maybe it was someone's birthday, but the bartender replied before they could.
He said:
“This no birthday. Don't you see the bruises on their faces? These guys has just passed 'the' selection. They belong to the Fifth Special Forces... And the next one is on me”
The bartender was around his fifties, and had just talked using a very friendly tone, but with no smile on his face.
That said, his son vanished in the back to take some other beers.
At this point, the bartender's face darkened definitely, but the four Baker team's guys were too much on the top of the world to notice it.
Even if the blood between the army and the Special Forces was not exactly a a good one, the night the four Baker team members didn't notice it. It was nothing but some sort of party around the jukebox, while drinking beer in streams and talking.
The hate between the Special Forces and the other soldiers – that was rising right just during the Vietnam conflict – was not at his maximum yet, and the Baker team was going to realize about it's existence only much more later.
The guys danced, drank, sang and made some row all night long...
Even Rambo, after finally losing all of his shyness, joined them, just like anybody else.
***
Toward the end, the atmosphere finally chilled out.
At late night, when the last coin was inserted into the jukebox, the song 'Stand by Me' started up, a song a couple of years-old already, but talking about the
importance of having someone at your side, during the difficult periods of life.
When the night has come, and the land is dark,
and the moon is the only light we'll see
The four guys, that had become friends already by then, sat all around the same table.
At this point they were tired, sleepy and drunk, and that was the time for reflections by then.
The jukebox – between one scratch and another – continued.
No I won't be afraid, ooooh I won't, be afraid,.
Just as long as you stand by me...
At the end of the song, there was a long while of silence.
They were all sat around the same table, stunned by the plaster that was starting to make them feel sleepy by then.
The one of them who broke the silence was Jorgenson.
He turned his head to Messner, that was sat beside him, and asked him why did he join the Special Forces.
One at time, everyone told his reasons to the others, as if everyone had the duty of doing so with respect to the others.
And everyone lied.
Part I
The course
“ God didn't make Rambo I made him ”
Samuel Trautman, 1982
The following day, Trautman refused two calls for the Baker teams, turning them to other Fort Bragg's units.
The first was a special mission in Israel, that had just declared war against Egypt.
The second, was a clandestine mission in Bolivia, against the communist rebels lead by a Cuban guerrilla-fighter called Che Guevara.
Trautman refused those two calls because as he said to Garner the day before -he hadn't even started to deal with his teams yet.
It was 1967 and Trautman sincerely hoped that the Vietnam war would have stopped much before the two years of training required by the two Baker teams, but he didn't count on it.
In the colonel's mind, having just selected 'the best of the best' was not enough to think he had created an elite unit.
Trautman's objective was to make them become a brand new kind of soldiers, with equipment, training and an attitude of mind completely different from any other already existing unit.
And this meant that he had to train them personally – or almost entirely personally – for the next two years, before employing them.
With the rank of lieutenant colonel of the army special forces, Trautman headed about two hundred men divided in twenty teams, an half of which was employed in Vietnam already, under the command of the MacVsog.
He trained them in Fort Bragg, then the MacV generals used them, even if, technically, they belonged to him.
Adding the South Vietnamese soldiers engrossing their ranks, Trautman's forces went up to almost five hundred men, which were entirely commanded by general Loyd at the time, a general that put in simple words... Was a dickhead.
Because of Trautman's presence in Fort Bragg, maybe Garner and his men had a somewhat heavier hand than usual, during the selection program of those first sixteen men for the two Baker teams.
Maybe Garner, Gates and the others have been so heavy handed with the
rookies because of 'political' reasons.
Trautman's adversaries between the bigwigs were many, and they all hoped that Trautman's training program was doomed to give away no noticeable results at all, which was the reason why Trautman and Garner has been so heavy handed.
They couldn't just be two very good teams: they had to be the best.
Trautman was betting on that training program his entire career, because his enemies – and he had many – couldn't stand the wait to see any colonel's failure.
From the point of view of the military establishment, Trautman was just one of the many adversaries to defeat during the career race.
And an adversary of the worst kind, because he belonged to the faction of the 'rebels',which were the ones that never used to lie about the Vietnam War's failures.
Trautman was a 'pessimist', one of those who thought that the Vietnam War was doomed to be a long and bloody one, and that the final victory was no sure thing at all, and he never had any scruple in saying what he thought.
But since the divergence between the war-hawks and the rebels in the militay had become a proper and real feud by the time, any possible colonel's success was at risk of turning itself into a match-score in favour of his ideas about the Vietnam War.
And so, had the 'Baker team' program worked for good, it would have been a bad hit for the war-hawks to take.
Too bad.
The two Baker teams had not placed foot in Vietnam, and yet they had some enemies already in US.
Luckily for them, Trautman and Garner were very well aware of it.
One day later, Fort Bragg
“Come in, Jorgenson”
Trautman closed the door behind him, and he did it trying to look the darker he could.
After sitting behind his desk, the colonel stayed silent for long and on purpose, just to make sure the guy got nervous, and for good.
He was planning to look the guy straight into the eyes while talking, but Jorgenson was faster then him, like he couldn't stand the wait to start talking.
And that was no good sign at all.
“Am I in trouble, Sir?”
“I don't know yet”
Jorgenson swallowed and Trautman added:
“I won't use no circumlocutions, private Jorgenson. It's simple to say: I have been asked to throw you out. And I would like to know from you why that happened”
Jorgenson lowered his eyes.
“A general asked you that, I think”
Trautman was surprised by the way Jorgenson was sure about it and resigned to it, as if he was just waiting for this to just happen one day.
And so, it suddenly became obvious that something was very wrong.
The order of getting rid of private Jorgenson came from the highest levels of power... Just like a matter a matter of national security, which it wasn't for sure.
But double crossing a simple marine was no matter for the big-wigs at all, for god's sake...
The big-wigs used to ruin the lives of journalists, politicians and men of power, not to simple marines ones which were no-one's sons, and had no role at all in the challenge for careers.
The smell of burning coming from Jorgenson's problem could be smell one mile away... Which was the reason Trautman had summoned him there that night; to just know the truth.
“Now talk, Jorgenson”
But he just continued staring at his own feet in silence, like a punished kid.
“Don't waste my time, son”
At that point, Jorgenson closed his eyes.
“The matter's name is Mary Williams, sir”
Williams... - Trautman thought.
Williams, just like the general who gave him the order - and using no
circumlocutions while saying it - of rejecting Jorgenson for no reason at all.
Hearing that, someone like Trautman needed no other explanations to understand everything, and he barely stopped himself from laughing in front of the kid's face.
A general's daughter, my god, Jorgenson... You are dating with a general's daughter, for Christ's sake.
Fuck... I mean, kid... I understand that it's the sixties with the hippies, the free love and so on, but for Christ's sake... Did you really needed to get into trouble with a general's daughter?
Trautman barely avoided the laughs and Jorgenson, who still had his eyes lowered to the floor, didn't noticed anything.
You must be crazy as a coyote and I mean for real, Carl Jorgenson – Trautman thought.
Then, overcoming a very great difficulty, he erased the barely noticeable smile on his face and went back into the shoes of the adamant colonel.
“Are you doing things seriously with her, boy?”
“We are going to live together as as soon as I am sure to be admitted inside the SOG”
It was something already, but not enough, for the colonel.
“Answer the question, boy”
“More than anything else, Sir. I care about her more than myself, my health and my life. I didn't even want to try this sick selection program for deranged people, if you let me speak freely, sir”
“No offence taken, recruit”
“... The point is that I had no other choice. We are going to live together very
soon, and her family won't give us a single dollar. We will be on our own. I need to move forward with my career. I need the secret services”
Trautman got speech-lees.
Was this guy really real?
No one goes through a selection program like the one Jorgenson had just passed... Just because of a girl. It wasn't just enough.
The need for money, the buying of a house... None of these things used to last more than just a couple of hours under Trautman's clutches during the selection process.
No...
If there was something that no one could stand without a real inner motivation pushing him forward, was Truatman's personal selection program.
What soldier had to do to get inside the SOG was a matter of faith, not a task, a duty, or a job neither.
And then, of course, Jorgenson had lost his self-control when he hit Ortega with a fist during the selection process.
That was the proof a full mental failure... But he wasn't the only recruit who made a mistakes like that during the selection process, and that was a fact.
Every single recruit had a single moment of proper and real delirium at least, near the end of his personal selection program. That was one of the reason it was so harsh: to see their behaviours after they were broken already.
Barry didn't even noticed the instructors patrols incoming to capture him, Danforth and Krakauer tried to fight against ten instructors instead of surrendering, Coletta risked a death by exposure and Rambo almost wept.
All in all, Jorgenson always proved himself an extraordinary guy, just like all of the others who passed the selection, and if he really had gone trough that kind of hell just for a girl's love... Jesus. His love must have been an exaggerated one.
But fuck, Jorgenson: the general Williams...
What a breed of an enemy you made yourself, for just being a marine?
But then, the recruit stopped his thoughts.
“If the problem is the sucker-punch to Ortega...” he said, but Trautman raised his hand and stopped him immediately.
“As far as I am concerned, you both passed the selection program, just like all of the others. And this is the only thing that really matters, for me”
“Sir, I...”
“Everything's fine”
“But the general....”