Ortega saw Barry go and order another beer over the other side of the bar.
After picking it up, he was going to sit away, but Ortega stopped him with a gesture.
“Sit down Barry, drink with me. It's been a long time since we had our last chat, you and I”
Barry sat beside Manuel.
The two made a toast, then had a sip from their beers and stayed silent for a while
“Wouldn't you like to be a team leader, Barry?”
“No”
“Why's that?”
But instead of answering the question, Barry asked another one:
“Have you ever been to Vietnam?”
“Yes”
“What did you do over there?”
“I was on board a heli-ambulance, and I used to do a little of everything: a door-gunner in the air, an armed guardsman on the ground. I also did some first aid a couple of times, when the real doctor couldn't do everything.”
“So you saw some shit, didn’t you?”
“Sure I did”
Barry stayed silent for a while, as if he just wanted to keep it inside.
But then he spat it out.
“I was on the ground, you know... 'seek and destroy'. We were posted to this small CCS outpost and it was always full of SOG men coming in and out. I used to know some of them and sometimes I had a chat with them, but most of the time I used to mind my own business. Anyway I saw some shit... - Barry said shaking his head and then looking down – Sure I did. The hell I did.”
“What does this have to do with becoming a team leader?”
“Because sometimes things happen, you know... Things you don't want to feel responsible for. I mean, as long as you are a toy-soldier, you can come to terms with it. But when it's up to you to command your men, you simply can't. Not after what Trautman has taught us... What do you think about the things the man says?”
“That the man is a fucking living legend. I don't always agree with everything he says but fuck, the fact he knows his stuff is there for everyone to see. I think that the colonel saw more shit than us all put together. And fuck, the man is smart. I want to become like him. If everyone in Vietnam was just like him, everything would be different”
“Maybe... Maybe not. Sometimes in the army things just happens, because that's the real nature of war. But amongst the Special Forces things are different. When one of us dies, the man in charge will have to ask himself what he did wrong, and even when he did nothing wrong at all. If you become team leader, Trautman will never let you lie to yourself, not with the kind of ideas he has. So, if one day one of us should die, you would know the mistakes you’d made for sure, and even when you did nothing wrong. Do you understand what I mean?”
“Got it... Yes.”
“The kind of things that for all of the other soldiers are inevitabilities, in Trautman's mind are all avoidable”
Ortega nodded.
“I agree” he said.
“Can you see it when he talks? The kind of eyes he has? All of the lessons he is teaching us come from the blood of the men he lost while being in charge”
“That's true”
“I don't want that kind of burden, man. I just want to fight and kill, and if I really have to, die too. But I don't want to live the rest of my life thinking that one of my men died because I couldn't foresee this or calculate that. That's it”
“And your personal ambition? Don't you have any ambition, Barry?”
“...You neither, Ortega. I saw the way you used to help everyone during the selection. You think you did it because of your own ambition to become a team leader one day, but the truth is that you are the kind of man that wants to fix things. But trying to fix things in Vietnam is a very dangerous. You could be a very good team leader one day, and if you were ever appointed, I would follow you to the other side of the world. But the thing is that you are exactly like Trautman is: a man who wants to fix things. And in Vietnam – trust me – there's really nothing in Vietnam that can be fixed anymore.
And maybe.... there's never been.
That country has been at war for twenty years. In many ways, it's as if it has always been by now, and so will be even after the United States have gone.
And Trautman is wrong about another matter too: he always wants to understand everything... But understanding what's really happing there is impossible
Vietnam is another world... Trust me: that country lives in another space-dimension and the US have no role in that kind of world.
We are nothing more than another wave in the sea, maybe just a little higher than the other ones are, and that's all.
And we are almost at the rocks by now. And after we have smashed ourselves on the rocks, one day people in Vietnam won't even remember that we have been there. Our drop in the sea will probably last another three, five years at best, then we are going to win or lose that war and then Vietnam will go back to what it has always been: a really savage country and always at war. There will never be any real peace there, never ever. That's the way they live. That's the way the Vietnamese are, in many ways. It's in their blood.”