“YOU ARE HEREBY RELIEVED”
by OPOVV, ©2015
(Aug. 16, 2015) — ACT I
The curtain rises to the music of Wagner’s “Die Walkore: Ride of the Valkyries.” The stage is set as a Forward Observation Post, on a hilltop, surrounded by sandbags camouflaged with the natural fauna and rocks set in a semi-circle with the open side facing the audience. The men are dressed in the uniform of the U.S. Army in the field. The squad of 12 men are scruffy but not overly so.
PFC Nichols: “Look, Sarge, I’ve had the last week standing guard with Hicks and I don’t know if I can take much more of his ‘Let’s talk philosophy, guys.’ I know the score as much as anyone else here does and I don’t need to hear the same speech every night. Would it be okay if I accidentally shot him? I don’t mean kill him, just wing him, enough to get him out of here. Come on, Sarge, be a sport.”
Sergeant: “No, that’s not the best idea I’ve heard all day. You come up with a better plan, I’ll at least give it the due consideration it deserves. But Hicks complained about you, which is why I’m here. What did you say to tick him off?”
PFC Nichols: “Gee whiz, Sarge, give me a break. He was going on and on about Stonehenge and I threw my two cents in, is all.”
Sergeant: “That’s right. He told me you said it was nothing but the ‘World’s Biggest Flea Market.’ You knew it would set him off. Why’d you do it?”
PFC Washington: “Don’t mean to eavesdrop, but what’s the harm? What are we going to talk about besides women and food, and then the next night it’s food and women. It beats talking about the truth, so maybe you ought to lighten up on Hicks, PFC Nichols.”
PFC Nichols: “Traitor. I thought you were on my side.”
Sergeant: “Can it. Let Hicks run his mouth. Keeps you guys awake. And speaking of Hicks, here he comes. Welcome to guard duty, PFC Hicks.”
PFC Hicks: “Thank you, Sergeant, wouldn’t miss it for the world. Looks like rain, if we were in the Amazon basin, that is.”
Sergeant: “Look, we all know why we’re here so let’s get through another night, okay?”
PFC Hicks: “Why are we here, Sarge?”
PFC Nichols and Washington: “Come on, Sarge, tell us.”
Sergeant: “Look, guys, I’m just following orders, as you better if you know what’s good for you. So stop complaining and talk about Stonehenge and the Amazon River, for all I care.”
PFC Nichols: “But Sarge, why do they get to fire at us from that mosque over there and we can’t lob an 81mm mortar round down their throats?”
PFC Washington: “Why can’t I call a plane jockey and have a 500-lb. Bunker buster wake them up? Why not, Sarge?”
Sergeant: PFC Nichols and Washington recite with the Sarge “Because the ROE’s say so.”
PFC Nichols: “Look, I don’t want to sound like I don’t really like it here and wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, but what, really now, are we supposed to be doing here?”
PFC Washington: “Come on, Sarge, you know the score. Why, these people are heathens. They’re still living in the Dark Ages, and as soon as we leave they’ll kill everyone who had anything to do with us.”
PFC Nichols: “He’s right, Sarge. Just like when we turned tail and ran out of Vietnam, and look what happened in Cambodia. It was our fault; why, my uncle served in Vietnam and he told anyone who would listen what would happen, and he was right. Just too bad no one would listen.”
PFC Washington: “He’s right, you know. The first thing they’ll do is to kill every girl who went to one of the schools we built for them. You know what we’re really doing? We’re writing the death warrants for all those girls, is what we’re doing. That’s the truth.”
PFC Nichols: “And when the VC took over South Vietnam, there was a bloodbath on the prostitutes and bar owners and everyone who learned English. It was a massacre, right there in the streets. But the press didn’t report that, just like they’re not reporting that there’s not a chance in a googlePlex that these people will ever join the human race. NEVER!”
Sarge: “Okay, okay, okay, Nichols. Gosh, calm down a little, will you? Get it under control.”
By this time all of the men in the squad have gathered around and are listening intently. They make catcalls of ‘You tell him!’ and ‘You got it now!’, ‘Right on track! when Nichols says ‘NEVER!’
Sarge: “Enough! Look guys, I don’t like it any better than you.”
Just then PFC Ewert fires his sniper rifle. BANG!
Sergeant: “What the…? Ewert, you’re not supposed to fir without permission! Here, hand me those binoculars. Why, you shot a kid, you moron!”
PFC Ewert: “Oh, sorry. It just went off by accident. See that backpack a little to the right of him?”
The Sarge looks as PFC Ewert lets off another round. The backpack explodes with tremendous force, and as the shock wave passes and the sound echoes throughout the valley, there is a gaping hole, as big as a bus, where the boy and backpack once laid.
Sergeant: “Boy, are you ever in a heap of trouble now, Ewert.”
PFC Nichols: “For what, Sarge, for what? For saving our lives? Oh, I know, the little boy was digging a hole for flowers, for roadside flowers.”
PFC Washington: “For roadside beautification, just like Lady Bird Johnson did in Texas. So what if he couldn’t tell where the road ended and the side began?”
PFC Miller: “That’s the real reason why they don’t have any paved roads in this hellhole: so they can plant bombs.”
PFC Washington: “Flowers.”
PFC Miller: “Flowers.”
Sergeant: “Ewert, consider yourself under arrest. You know the Rules of Engagement: you just can’t shoot anybody digging a hole in the road, plus he was unarmed. Heck, he couldn’t have been more than 14.”
PFC Ewert: “More like 12, Sarge.”
Sergeant: “That does it. You are hereby relieved. Here, you two, Hicks and Nichols, escort Ewert out of here and tie him up behind the latrine.”
PFC Nichols: “Ah, Sarge, I don’t think anybody heard what you just said.”
Sergeant: “That was an order, soldier, a direct order.”
PFC Nichols: “I’m sorry, but this time it’s gone way too far. That’s the very road our supplies arrive on, and if Ewert didn’t do what he did, a lot of Americans would’ve been maimed and killed tomorrow morning. Maybe it would’ve been us.
“No, what I saw was an accident, or else the terrorist had a rifle that, after Ewert shot him, he fell on it and you just couldn’t see the rifle. That’s all. What’s it to be?”
All the men standing around start to mutter ‘I saw the rifle, didn’t you?’
Sergeant: “You’re in trouble, all of you. I’m giving a DIRECT ORDER: place Ewert under arrest and do what I tell you to do. Do I make myself clear?”
PFC Nichols: “Look, Sarge, either Ewert saved the lives of our replacements or he saved our lives; he did the right thing, ROE’s or no ROE’s, understand?
“Accidents happen, it’s all part of life, and I’d have to say more accidents happen on the field of battle than anywhere else in the world.”
Sergeant: “If you’re saying what I think you’re saying, I’ll make sure you spend the rest of your life in prison.”
Corporal Murphy: “No, you won’t, Sarge, because Ewert did the right thing: he acted as a soldier: he killed the enemy. Just because everyone above us is out to lunch doesn’t mean we have to go back home in a box or missing an arm or a leg. If you don’t like it, if you can’t get with the program, you’re just not going to make it off this hill alive.
“That’s right, we’ll frag you. Look, Sarge, for once in your life, think. Use your brain and think for yourself, for once, okay?
“Look, I think you’re a good Sergeant, and the men do too, so let’s not spoil it and go off half-cocked, okay?
“The ‘terrorist’ was carrying a rifle; he was going to plant one heck of a roadside bomb; Ewert saved some American lives and, if nothing else, he deserves the Bronze Star for being able to think for himself rather than be caught up in the insanity of the ROE’s.
“Now, are we all clear? Do we understand?”
Sergeant: “Fragging, huh? Hey, Nichols, your uncle tell you about that one, too?”
PFC Nichols: “That he did, Sarge, that he did.”
Curtain lowers as the sound of Grieg’s “Lyric Piece. Op. 54 No. 4: Nocturne” is heard.
FINI