Weather’s good there in the fall;
I got some friends that I can go to workin’ for.
“WHERE’S ALBERTA?” Owen Meany had asked her.
“In Canada, you asshole,” Hester had said.
“THERE’S NO NEED TO BE CRUDE,” Owen had told her. “IT’S A PRETTY SONG. IT MUST BE SAD TO GO TO CANADA.”
It was 1966. He was about to become a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army.
“You think it’s ‘sad’ to go to Canada?” Hester screamed at him. “Where they’re going to send you is a lot sadder.”
“I DON’T WANT TO DIE WHERE IT’S COLD,” said Owen Meany.
What he meant was, he believed he knew that he would die where it was warm—very warm.
On Christmas Eve, 1964, two American servicemen were killed in Saigon when Viet Cong terrorists bombed the U.S. billets; one week later, on New Year’s Eve, Hester threw up—perhaps she upchucked with special verve, because Owen Meany was prompted to take the power of Hester’s puking as a sign.
“IT LOOKS LIKE IT’S GOING TO BE A BAD YEAR,” Owen observed, while we watched Hester’s spasms in the rose garden.
Indeed, it was the year the war began in earnest; at least, it was the year when the average unobservant American began to notice that we had a problem in Vietnam. In February, the U.S. Air Force conducted Operation Flaming Dart—a “tactical air reprisal.”
“What does that mean?” I asked Owen, who was doing so well in his studies of Military Science.
“THAT MEANS WE’RE BOMBING THE SHIT OUT OF TARGETS IN NORTH VIETNAM,” he said.
In March, the U.S. Air Force began Operation Rolling Thunder—“to interdict the flow of supplies to the south.”
“What does that mean?” I asked Owen.
“THAT MEANS WE’RE BOMBING THE SHIT OUT OF TARGETS IN NORTH VIETNAM,” said Owen Meany.
That was the month when the first American combat troops landed in Vietnam; in April, President Johnson authorized the use of U.S. ground troops—“for offensive operations in South Vietnam.”
“THAT MEANS, ‘SEARCH AND DESTROY, SEARCH AND DESTROY,’” Owen said.
In May, the U.S. Navy began Operation Market Time—“to detect and intercept surface traffic in South Vietnam coastal waters.” Harry Hoyt was there; Harry was very happy in the Navy, his mother said.
“But what are they doing there?” I asked Owen.
“THEY’RE SEIZING AND DESTROYING ENEMY CRAFT,” said Owen Meany. It was out of conversations he had been having with one of his professors of Military Science that he was prompted to observe: “THERE’S NO END TO THIS. WHAT WE’RE DEALING WITH IS GUERRILLA WARFARE. ARE WE PREPARED TO OBLITERATE THE WHOLE COUNTRY? YOU CAN CALL IT ‘SEARCH AND DESTROY’ OR ‘SEIZE AND DESTROY’—EITHER WAY, IT’S DESTROY AND DESTROY. THERE’S NO GOOD WAY TO END IT.”
I could not get over the idea of Harry Hoyt “seizing and destroying enemy craft”; he was such an idiot! He didn’t even know how to play Little League baseball! I simply couldn’t forgive him for the base on balls that led to Buzzy Thurston’s easy grounder … that led to Owen Meany coming to the plate. If Harry had only struck out or hit the ball, everything might have turned out differently. But he was a walker.
“How could Harry Hoyt possibly be involved in ‘seizing and destroying’ anything?” I asked Owen. “Harry isn’t smart enough to recognize an ‘enemy craft’ if one sailed right over his head!”
“HAS IT OCCURRED TO YOU THAT VIETNAM IS FULL OF HARRY HOYTS?” Owen asked.
The professor of Military Science who had impressed Owen, and given him a sen
se of catastrophe about the tactical and strategic management of the war, was some crusty and critical old colonel of infantry—a physical-fitness nut who thought Owen was too small for the combat branches of the Army. I believe that Owen excelled in his Military Science courses in an effort to persuade this old thug that he could more than compensate for his size; Owen spent much after-class time chatting up the old buzzard—it was Owen’s intention to be the honor graduate, the number-one graduate from his ROTC unit. With a number-one rating, Owen was sure, he would be assigned a “combat arms designator”—Infantry, Armor, or Artillery.
“I don’t understand why you want a combat branch,” I said to him.
“IF THERE’S A WAR AND I’M IN THE ARMY, I WANT TO BE IN THE WAR,” he said. “I DON’T WANT TO SPEND THE WAR AT A DESK. LOOK AT IT THIS WAY: WE AGREE THAT HARRY HOYT IS AN IDIOT. WHO’S GOING TO KEEP THE HARRY HOYTS FROM GETTING THEIR HEADS BLOWN OFF?”
“Oh, so you want to be a hero!” I told him. “If you were any smarter than Harry Hoyt, you’d be smart enough to spend the war at a desk!”