Dispatches

In the Special Forces A Camp at Me Phuc Tay there was a sign that read, “If you kill for money you’re a mercenary. If you kill for pleasure you’re a sadist. If you kill for both you’re a Green Beret.”

One day a letter came from a British publisher, asking him to do a book whose working title would be “Through with War” and whose purpose would be to once and for all “take the glamour out of war.” Page couldn’t get over it.
“Take the glamour out of war! I mean, how the bloody hell can you do that? Go and take the glamour out of a Huey, go take the glamour out of a Sheridan.… Can you take the glamour out of a Cobra or getting stoned at China Beach? It’s like taking the glamour out of an M-79, taking the glamour out of Flynn.” He pointed to a picture he’d taken, Flynn laughing maniacally (“We’re winning,” he’d said), triumphantly. “Nothing the matter with that boy, is there? Would you let your daughter marry that man? Ohhhh, war is good for you, you can’t take the glamour out of that. It’s like trying to take the glamour out of sex, trying to take the glamour out of the Rolling Stones.” He was really speechless, working his hands up and down to emphasize the sheer insanity of it.

On his twenty-fifth birthday there was a big party in the apartment near the hospital that he and Linda had found. Page wanted all of the people to be there who, he said, had bet him years ago in Saigon that he’d never make it past twenty-three. He wore a blue sweat suit with a Mike patch, black skull and bones, on his sleeve. You could have gotten stoned just by walking into the room that day, and Page was so happy to be here and alive and among friends that even the strangers who turned up then were touched by it. “There’s Evil afoot,” he kept saying, laughing and chasing after people in his wheelchair. “Do no Evil, think ye no Evil, smoke no Evil.… Yesh.”