1973-77;
Homecomings
The most striking thing, Thorkelsen scribbled on his notepad, as the former prisoners descended from the transport- and it is the same every time I come out here-is not their gauntness, nor their confusion about the changes that have taken place in their absence, nor even the mechanical way they greet their families and respond to our questions. It is something I cannot quite put my finger on.
He wrote all his notes longhand, laboriously. His handwriting was so bad even he had trouble reading it if he hurried.
He turned to Cameron, who had been sent down by the Sacramento Union. "They're all the same. You see it?"
The second reporter grunted. "Hunh? Nope. What do you mean?" But he wasn't listening when Thorkelsen tried to explain. He was wondering if he would have time to slip into Frisco and catch a hooker before he had to go home to a wife he detested. The girl named Fay knew exactly how to get the damned thing up, and had the patience to do it right.
"Big ones, little ones, black, white, commissioned or enlisted, they all look like the same guy designed them."
Thorkelsen knew only the air was listening. But he persisted. He could order his thoughts by talking, and might get through just enough to stimulate some sort of insight.
This was his fourth planeload met. He was now certain he lingered on the edge of a story. But the damned puzzle pieces wouldn't fall into place.
"It's not looks, though. They look pretty much alike because they've got to meet the same physical requirements and go through the same training. The pilots, anyway. No, it's something else. Something inside."
There were enlisted men on this flight. Just a handful, but only the second group he had seen.
They were the same too.
"Hey, Bob, I'll catch you later." He had noticed a tech sergeant who didn 't have the nameless air.
"Yeah. Sure." Cameron resumed pursuit of his interrupted fantasy. What Fay could do with her dark little hands smothered in soap lather was a certifiable miracle. She ought to be canonized.
The sergeant's nametag read cantrell, A.O.
"Excuse me, Sergeant Cantrell. Nils Thorkelsen, Fresno Bee. Got a minutel"
The man stopped, but did not reply. He stared through Thorkelsen, did not bother dropping his travel bag.
Thorkelsen tried to explain the feeling he had gotten about the returning prisoners of war, and that he had sensed something unique about Cantrell. "Could you tell me why that is?"
"I'm uneducable."
"Eh? Could you try again?"
"I can't be programmed."
Debatable. The man's a zombie, Thorkelsen thought. He stood as still as death, the weight of his bag unnoticed.
"And the others can be?"
"Yes."
"Have they been?"
"Yes."
A fountain of information here. "How? For what? Would you explain?"
"Brainwashing. The best ever. Their mission is to resume positions in the imperialist armed forces and society, assuming positions of control as available, and await orders. Some will enter business or politics. Most are unaware of their status. They will be activated by a post-hypnotic key at the proper time. One thousand Trojan horses."
Cantrell spoke without emotion or inflexion, as if repeating a message he had often rehearsed for this one telling.
"Not that many prisoners are being returned."
"Some must be retained for other employment."
"How can you tell me this? If the others can't?" There had never been a hint of such a thing, though it was clear the Pentagon was covering something. That, it was pretty clear, was simply a prohibition on discussing maltreatment while interned.
"I couldn't be programmed. They couldn't break me."
Debatable, Thorkelsen thought again. Not much of a man remained here.
He had his major story. A story of the decade. A sure prizewinner.
If it could be proven.
Prisoners of war returned as Communist agents… Nobody would believe it. "How come they let you go, if you're beyond control?"
A frown twisted Cantrell's face. "Bureaucratic error. The kind of screw-up that happens whenever people saddle themselves with the idiocy of a government. I didn't set them straight." He began to show a little animation delivering that remark.
"What do you plan to do with this knowledge?"
"Nothing. I've done it." He seemed puzzled by the question. "You ask. I have to tell. They succeeded that much. I talk. I talk. I talk."
"Shouldn't somebody be warned?"
"Why?"
"I don't understand. Why not?"
"Because I don't give a fuck. The Chinese did this to me. But you put me where they could get their hands on me."
The Chinese? "A pox on both our houses?"
"Yes."
Certain he was interviewing a madman, Thorkelsen shifted his questioning to the mundane. "What're your plans now? What're you going to do with all that back pay?"
"Buy me a guitar."
"Eh?"
"Buy me a guitar. They wouldn't let me have a guitar."
"That's all? That's your only ambition?"
"Yes. It's been six years. I'll have to learn all over again."
Thorkelsen was convinced. This pot wasn't just cracked, it was shattered. Maybe the VA could put the man's head back together again.
"Thanks for your time, Sergeant. And good luck." He was so sure it would draw belly laughs he promptly forgot the whole thing.
It didn't come back to him till, three years later, while working for a Los Angeles paper, he noted an AP wire-service story about a navy captain, ex-POW, who was resigning his commission to run for Congress.
"Hey, Mack," he called to his editor. "You see this about this ex-POW running for Congress in the Florida primary?"
"Yeah. Need more like him. 'Bout thirty of those men in the House, we might start getting this country back to what it's supposed to be."
"I don't know…"
"What do you mean? A few real patriots up there…"