A God in Ruins - Leon Uris [73]
Brickhouse followed his cigarette smoke to the window, sat on the deep sill, and commented on the nasty weather of middle Europe. “We all reach a saturation point, all of us.”
“But there’s a difference. You know—and General Duncan knew—what to do with your saturation points. That’s why you’re a general.”
“You think so?”
“I know how Jeremiah Duncan was all but destroyed by Nam, but he had the guts to—to gut it out. The Corps is in my being, and I can take its spirit with me. I’m starting to get some idea where my future worth may lie,” Quinn said.
Brickhouse weighed the proposition of cajoling, arm twisting, sweetening the pot. Gunner O’Connell was one powerful man. Guts enough to cry. God, the times he’d wished he could weep. God, the times he’d turned away from his wife’s breast. Go till you fall, that’s what.
“It will be a great loss to the Corps,” the commandant said at last. “But we have some other business on the table.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Everything surrounding the formation of the RAM Company and the SCARAB was secret. The raid was of extraordinary importance in proving we could retaliate virtually within hours at any point in the world. It also proved the great stamina of that aircraft. Now then, Gunner, you are aware of the nature of the raid being a military operation and not a CIA operation, which would be under the surveillance of a congressional oversight committee.”
“General Duncan trained me very carefully.”
“How so?”
“He schooled me on the political ramifications of the military in a democracy. He drilled it into me that the Corps does not drop their pants and bend over before the other services or Congress. Democracy’s daisy chain, he called it.”
“You’ve heard of Senator Sol Lightner of North Carolina?”
“Mr. Powerhouse, undefeatable. Heads the intelligence oversight and is the hit man on armed services. Not friendly to the Corps,” Quinn replied.
“That’s him. He’s been in the Senate over twenty years. Well, he’s on the way to Frankfurt with one of his dobermans. Senator Sol is pissed off that hewasn’t advised of the raid in advance. Our position—the President’s, that is—is that it was not only a strictly military affair, but that the need for security overpowered the need to share. The inference is that the senator’s office leaks copiously.”
“But, General,” Quinn interrupted, “the President didn’t ask me if it was okay. He said raid; so we raided.”
Brickhouse smiled. “Just giving you the gist. What the senator is going to try to hit us with is twofold. One, the raid smacks of a massacre. It was overkill. Second, there’s a big no-no. Autopsies performed on our five dead show them all to be riddled with shrapnel from an American cluster bomb.”
“What the hell were we supposed to do, sir? Sit down and hammer out the rules of engagement with the Iranians?”
“Senator Lightner has the magic buzz word to create a media feeding frenzy, namely, our men were killed by friendly fire! TV goes apeshit interviewing the weeping loved ones of the deceased. The print people will unlimber their big verbs on the ‘We didn’t play fair’ theme by using cluster bombs, and the Marine Corps is going to get busted for our blood lust.”
“What the hell’s this all about?”
“It has its origins with the American people, who want to wage war without casualties. When the words friendly fire emblazon the headlines, halftruths will tarnish one of the great moments in our military history. But we had to advertise to the terrorists that we will hit them again and again.”
“The truth is, sir, our people were killed by one of our cluster bombs. That’s the truth.”
“We are not playing semper fi and buddy-buddy, Gunner. Remember that your hero, Jeremiah Duncan, as well as myself, has had to feed the Congress a little.”
Quinn wobbled to his feet. His head throbbed