route the capabilities of the Mohawk, had just now turned him over to General Bellmon, and planned, while General Devlin was having lunch with General Bellmon, to prepare the aircraft for the return flight to Fort Hood.
“Major Calhoun will take him back to Hood, Darrell. At 1300 you will present yourself to the office of the chief of staff.”
“Sir?”
“The chief of staff telephoned me and said, ‘Have Captain Smythe report to me at 1300.’ I told him you were doing a dog-and -pony show for General Devlin, and he replied, ‘Have Captain Smythe report to me at 1300.’ What’s this all about, Darrell?”
“Sir, I have no idea. You don’t?”
“Thirteen hundred. Chief of staff’s office.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m sending Major Calhoun over there now, in case you want to take a shower and put on a nice uniform or anything before 1300.”
“Yes, sir.”
As Captain Smythe looked down the narrow flight of stairs that led from the commanding general’s office to the main floor of the headquarters building, the two Green Berets were coming up them, and, deferring to the Green Beret major’s seniority, Captain Smythe waited for him to come up before starting down himself.
“Hey, bro,” the Green Beret major said, “people are going to talk if we keep meeting like this.”
Captain Smythe smiled with an effort. He hated the term “bro.” He did not consider himself to be a brother of every other Negro/colored/black man/whatever in the world.
“So, Eddie,” Major General Bellmon said to Brigadier General Devlin, “what do you think of the Mohawk?”
“It’s an amazing aircraft,” Devlin said honestly, as he nodded his head in reply to Bellmon’s gesture of offering a cup of coffee. “That side-looking radar capability has enormous potential.”
“You have to see it work before you really believe it,” Bellmon said. “And the Signal Corps is working on an infrared version. The prototype I saw shows little images, tanks, trucks, people . . .”
“We’re really a long way from directing artillery fire from the side window of a Piper Cub, aren’t we?” General Devlin mused. “And what I thought on the way up here was that the pilot of that sophisticated airplane was really a professional pilot, not an artilleryman, or whatever, who also knew how to fly.”
“That’s one of our problems,” Bellmon said. “It’s asking a hell of a lot of a pilot like Smythe to be a pilot, and, in his case, armor, keeping up with all he has to know to command a tank company.”
Devlin grunted.
“What did you think of him?” Bellmon asked.
“Truth to tell?” Devlin asked. “He impressed me from the moment I saw him, and I wondered what the hell he was doing driving an airplane, when I really need bright young officers to command tank companies.”
“That was before your first Mohawk ride?” Bellmon asked, smiling.
“Yeah,” Devlin said.
“Well, Captain Smythe is about to get command of a platoon,” Bellmon said.
“A platoon?”
“We’re forming a Mohawk platoon, for Vietnam. We chose from among ten of the best and the brightest captains we could find; Smythe was the final choice.”
“Captains commanding platoons . . .”
“We’re accused, of course, of inflating, or diluting, the rank structure, of course,” Bellmon said. “But it’s just not that way. When III Corps gets a Mohawk platoon—”
“Will that be before or after Bob Grisham gets his Corps Commander’s L-23?”
Bellmon ignored the dig.
“—it will consist of six Mohawks. Each aircraft requires two aviators, and of course you need spares. The draft TO and E calls for ten aviators, all commissioned officers, because we are not yet at the point where we can train warrant officer pilots to fly them. There’s also a maintenance officer, commissioned, and a deputy, warrant, and an avionics officer, commissioned, and a warrant deputy. And a supply officer, commissioned. From that perspective, you wonder if a captain isn’t a little junior to command.”
“And all of the officers have to stay current in their branch?”
“The brightest of us,” Bellmon said jokingly, “can do both. Command a tank unit and fly. Me, for example,” he paused. “Craig Lowell.”
Devlin shook his head.
“Where is he now?”
“McDill,” Bellmon replied. “Aviation officer for STRIKE command.”
“I heard he’s a Green Beret,” Devlin said.
“Unfortunately,” Bellmon said.
“I was in Task Force Lowell, you know,” Devlin said. “I thought Lowell was what you find when you look up ‘combat commander’ in the dictionary.”
“He’s a fine combat commander,” Bellmon agreed. “And I have to keep telling myself that what he’s doing as a Green Beret is important. But I find myself wondering if he shouldn’t be commanding an aviation