Fort Bragg
The selection process had now been going on for three weeks and it was still raining.
The hut was wooden with a sheet roof.
Inside, Garner was gazing out the window hoping to catch sight of the recruits' shadows in the dark, as they knelt in the mud at the center of the square, in the rain.
That day they had just lost another five of them.
In a corner of the hut that was also Trautman's 'office', a stove slowly burned giving out very little heat.
“I don't understand, colonel. I don't understand at all. I mean, I am with you – I always am with you – but no one selects his men like that. You are only driving them crazy”
Trautman didn't even answer. He was writing something on the blackboard hanging from the wall and didn't give any sign he had even heard Garner speaking.
“Take the task of ordering them to do multiplications while they are doing push-ups: it's insane! Mathematics while working out... What a freak show. You are crazy. This will only make 'em freak out”
Trautman ignored him.
“And I have heard that you have already decided to make four of them take the pilot's license”
Again, Trautman didn't reply him, but this time Garner got annoyed with him.
“I am talking to you, colonel!”
“Garner – Trautman said without even turning to him -, I don't know what you believe but I'll tell you what I see. When this war began, we had a front line and some enemies to defeat. Now, the days of the military advisors are long gone and there are no more enemies or front line either. And yet, we are still fighting”
“Colonel... I am not asking your opinion about the war, but why you are torturing your men”
"You see... The television continues to shout this bullshit that for any single one of us that dies, we kill ten of them”
"And so? That's the truth”
“It is, but it doesn't mean shit. It's far more complicated than that. Do you know what this 'one for every ten' really means? It means that in order to win we need eight hundred thousand American casualties in ten years, which is twice what we had during the whole World War Two”
Garner swallowed.
Trautman continued:
“The United States will declare itself defeated long before wiping out all of the Vietcong living between Laos, Cambodia, North Vietnam and South Vietnam. In Washington they have no clue at all about what's really going on over there. We are really risking losing this fucking war.
In fact, it's already happening.
And do you know why?
I'll tell you.
Because we don't have any fucking idea about what's really going on over there.
Not at all.
And if we want something to really change, we can only hope that people like them will understand how to do it”
Trautman pointed his index to the window, meaning he was talking about the recruits.
Then he continued:
“Because it will be them out there on the field, seeing what's really happening over there, not us.
And if they don't understand what we have to do in order to win, no one ever will.
But if they are too stupid to do it, we will lose this war, Garner.
And losing means dying.
All of them out there are going to die.
And then it will be yours and my turn, Garner.
All of us are going to die if we lose this fucking war, because to lose a war many have to die.
But I won't let that happen.
My career, myself... Me and you... None of us really matters anymore.
The only thing that really matters, is to prevent losing this damn war”