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Authors: W. E. B. Griffin
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Square in Greenwich Village. Andre had suggested that he spend the night at Broadlawns on Long Island, the rambling estate that Craig had inherited from his father, and that he now rented to the Pretiers, because Andre refused to live there without paying. But Lowell wanted to go home to the town house that Ilse had decorated, to sleep in their bed, to be at least that close to her.
There was no one home at 11 Washington Mews. Their servants had been given the time off while he and P.P. and Ilse were in Europe, and he had to go through the complex procedure of first unlocking the door and then racing up the stairs and down the corridor to his bedroom to put another key into the burglar alarm, to deactivate it before it rang both Pinkertonâs and the police precinct. Otherwise a platoon of police cars with howling sirens would descend on Washington Mews.
He turned off the burglar alarm and then went back downstairs to get the one suitcase he had with him and which he had dropped at the door. He remembered seeing some mail on the floor, too.
There were five or six letters, which he tossed unread onto the hall table, and the yellow envelope of a telegram. He almost tossed that with the unopened letters, but then decided it might be a cablegram, rather than a telegram, some just remembered bit of information his father-in-law thought he should have in order to better handle his affairs in New York.
He opened it. It wasnât a cablegram. It was a telegram.
Â
WASH DC (GOVT RATE) JUL 7 1950
CAPTAIN CRAIG W. LOWELL 0-495302
11 WASHINGTON MEWS
NEW YORK CITY
FONE & DELIVER
Â
BY DIRECTION OF THE PRESIDENT, YOU ARE ORDERED TO REPORT TO FORT GEORGE G. MEADE, MARYLAND, NOT LATER THAN 2400 HOURS 12 JULY 1950 TO ENTER UPON AN INDEFINITE PERIOD OF ACTIVE DUTY IN CONNECTION WITH THE KOREAN PEACE ACTION .
EDWARD F. WITSELL
MAJOR GENERAL, US ARMY
THE ADJUTANT GENERAL
(Two)
Pusan, Korea
12 July 1950
The third platoon of Tank Company, 24th Infantry Regiment, debarked from the USNS Private Albert Ford at Pusan four days after the rest of the company had arrived.
Lieutenant Parker had a premonition that he was going to be very much alone in this police action, this show of force, or whatever it was. He was worried, even frightened by the prospect. He had never heard a shot fired in anger, had never issued an order involving life and death. Parker was quite as innocentâas virginalâat war as most of the troops in his platoon.
On the other hand, he had heard a good deal about war, about the unpredictability of human reaction to it. He had often heard that sometimes it was the apparently strong who turned out to be unable to handle their fear; who, if they didnât actually collapse under fire, were unable to think clearly, who couldnât make rational decisions. He wondered if that would happen to him.
There was no question in his mind that so far as junior armor officers were concerned, he was as well trained as any. He was, like his father before him, a graduate of Norwich University, a small institution little known outside Vermont and the army. Norwich had been providing the army with regular cavalry officers for more than a century. Norwich second lieutenants âcoincidentallyâ were given regular army commissions on the same day West Point graduates got theirs; âcoincidentallyâ it had as its president a retired West Pointer general officer of cavalry; and âcoincidentallyâ it had a faculty for the military arts and sciences provided by the army to the same criteria as the faculty to West Point.
There was a gentlemanâs agreement going back to the time that Sylvanus Thayer had become Commandant of West Point. The cavalry establishment, in and out of uniform (and in and out of uniform, cavalry has been, since the first warrior mounted a horse, the service of the wealthy and powerful), would not fight the Corps of Engineers and the infantry and Sylvanus Thayer and West
There was no one home at 11 Washington Mews. Their servants had been given the time off while he and P.P. and Ilse were in Europe, and he had to go through the complex procedure of first unlocking the door and then racing up the stairs and down the corridor to his bedroom to put another key into the burglar alarm, to deactivate it before it rang both Pinkertonâs and the police precinct. Otherwise a platoon of police cars with howling sirens would descend on Washington Mews.
He turned off the burglar alarm and then went back downstairs to get the one suitcase he had with him and which he had dropped at the door. He remembered seeing some mail on the floor, too.
There were five or six letters, which he tossed unread onto the hall table, and the yellow envelope of a telegram. He almost tossed that with the unopened letters, but then decided it might be a cablegram, rather than a telegram, some just remembered bit of information his father-in-law thought he should have in order to better handle his affairs in New York.
He opened it. It wasnât a cablegram. It was a telegram.
Â
WASH DC (GOVT RATE) JUL 7 1950
CAPTAIN CRAIG W. LOWELL 0-495302
11 WASHINGTON MEWS
NEW YORK CITY
FONE & DELIVER
Â
BY DIRECTION OF THE PRESIDENT, YOU ARE ORDERED TO REPORT TO FORT GEORGE G. MEADE, MARYLAND, NOT LATER THAN 2400 HOURS 12 JULY 1950 TO ENTER UPON AN INDEFINITE PERIOD OF ACTIVE DUTY IN CONNECTION WITH THE KOREAN PEACE ACTION .
EDWARD F. WITSELL
MAJOR GENERAL, US ARMY
THE ADJUTANT GENERAL
(Two)
Pusan, Korea
12 July 1950
The third platoon of Tank Company, 24th Infantry Regiment, debarked from the USNS Private Albert Ford at Pusan four days after the rest of the company had arrived.
Lieutenant Parker had a premonition that he was going to be very much alone in this police action, this show of force, or whatever it was. He was worried, even frightened by the prospect. He had never heard a shot fired in anger, had never issued an order involving life and death. Parker was quite as innocentâas virginalâat war as most of the troops in his platoon.
On the other hand, he had heard a good deal about war, about the unpredictability of human reaction to it. He had often heard that sometimes it was the apparently strong who turned out to be unable to handle their fear; who, if they didnât actually collapse under fire, were unable to think clearly, who couldnât make rational decisions. He wondered if that would happen to him.
There was no question in his mind that so far as junior armor officers were concerned, he was as well trained as any. He was, like his father before him, a graduate of Norwich University, a small institution little known outside Vermont and the army. Norwich had been providing the army with regular cavalry officers for more than a century. Norwich second lieutenants âcoincidentallyâ were given regular army commissions on the same day West Point graduates got theirs; âcoincidentallyâ it had as its president a retired West Pointer general officer of cavalry; and âcoincidentallyâ it had a faculty for the military arts and sciences provided by the army to the same criteria as the faculty to West Point.
There was a gentlemanâs agreement going back to the time that Sylvanus Thayer had become Commandant of West Point. The cavalry establishment, in and out of uniform (and in and out of uniform, cavalry has been, since the first warrior mounted a horse, the service of the wealthy and powerful), would not fight the Corps of Engineers and the infantry and Sylvanus Thayer and West
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