From the beginning, everything concerning this notification of the death of a lieutenant colonel and the crew of a UH-60 in the Middle East was wrong. The initial message was a FLASH-OVER RIDE message from the chief of the Office of Military Cooperation, or OMC, in the Sudan addressed directly to the office of the deputy chief of staff for operations, with an information copy to the chief of special operations. That alone was enough to arouse Dixon's interest. The content of the message was even more extraordinary. Classified top secret, it simply stated:
1. CARDINAL WITH AIR CREW DOWN RETURNING FROM BRIAR PATCH BASE.
2. ALL ON BOARD KIA.
3. TWILIGHT 33 07 DELIVERED.
4. NO COMPROMISE OF TWILIGHT OR TWILIGHT 33 07.
Never having heard of Twilight, Cardinal, or Briar Patch Base, Dixon flipped through his briefing book to make sure that he hadn't missed something. Finding nothing there, he quick-referenced his listing of contingency plans and their code names. He found nothing there, either. He was about to turn the message over to the full-colonel team chief when a second FLASH-OVER RIDE message, this one from the Office of Military Cooperation in Egypt, came in, referencing the message from OMC Sudan. The first paragraph of the message from OMC Egypt ordered that the initial message from OMC Sudan be disregarded and destroyed. The second paragraph announced that Lieutenant Colonel William V. Dedinger, 176-44-9238, and the crew of a U.S. Army UH-60, names currently unavailable, were killed in an accident at 1208 hours ZULU (1406 local) during a routine training flight. The third paragraph simply stated that the cause of the accident was unknown and currently under investigation.
Befuddled by the two messages, Dixon took both to Colonel James Anderson, the watch officer, his immediate superior. Anderson was seated at his desk, leaning back in his chair, talking on the phone. Waving the hard copies of the two messages, Dixon signaled that he had something hot. Anderson wedged the phone between his shoulder and his ear and continued to talk while reading the two messages. Where Dixon's reaction to the messages had been confused, Anderson's was electric. In a single movement he bolted upright in his chair, hung up the phone without so much as a goodbye, and was out of his seat, headed for a small cubicle where selected contingency and operational plans were stored.
Dixon was now totally confused. It was apparent that indeed there was something going on that he had not been made privy to — a suspicion that was reinforced when Colonel Anderson emerged from the cubicle with a sealed folder sandwiched between two yellow-and-white Top Secret cover sheets. Handing the package to Dixon, Anderson told him to get it to the chief ASAP. Dixon looked at the folder and at the simple handwritten note on a routing slip that addressed the folder to the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans. "PRIORITY — EYES ONLY," in bold letters, was the only message written on it. Looking at the folder, then at Anderson, Dixon asked, "Am I supposed to know something about this or provide anyone with additional information?"
Anderson's reply was about what Dixon expected. "Scotty, you're not to talk to anyone about this or leave this package out of sight until everyone who needs to see it has had an opportunity to do so. When they're done with it, bring it back to me. Clear?"
Scott gave him a crisp "Roger, out" and left without further delay, still befuddled, but confident that at least Anderson had a handle on whatever it was that had happened or was happening.
Thus began Dixon's odyssey through the halls of the Pentagon. First stop was the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans. From there, he was directed to carry the folder to the Deputy Chief of Staff for Special Operations. Next came the Vice Chief of Staff for the Army, followed, in turn, by the Chief of Staff of the Army, the Vice Chief of Staff of the Joint Chiefs, the office of International Security Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and finally, routing to the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
No doubt, Dixon thought as he moved along the corridors, there was something unique about this lieutenant colonel who had died. And odds were, based on the initial report from the OMC Sudan, that the accident had not taken place in Egypt, as the second message stated. He was even willing to bet that the "accident" hadn't been an accident. Beyond that, Dixon had nothing. Finally resigning himself to the fact that he would never be able to figure out what Dedinger had been up to, he let his mind move on to other, more mundane things as he wandered the halls of the Pentagon.
The first thought to cross his mind was more of an observation. For the better part of the morning Dixon had been playing errand boy. It never occurred to him to be indignant or feel any degradation that he, a promotable major, had been given such a menial task. He reflected on that thought for a moment. Had someone told him three years earlier to do what he had been doing all morning, Dixon probably would have told him where he could route his folder. Then Dixon corrected himself: there would've been no "probably" — he would have told the offending superior where to stick it.
But that was a long time ago, during a time when he was full of piss and vinegar, confident in himself as a soldier, his abilities to make things happen, and a career that was well charted and firm. Iran had changed all that. He had started that war — now commonly referred to as "the Iranian conflict" — as the S-3, or operations officer, of Task Force 3–4 Armor, a tank-heavy combined-arms maneuver task force stationed in Fort Hood, Texas. His task force had been with the first heavy maneuver brigade to arrive in Iran. Its arrival coincided with the first major crisis for U.S. forces in the war, allowing almost no time for the full acclimation of the men or proper organization of the brigade for combat. They had literally gone straight from the docks in Bandar Abbas into combat. Within seventy-two hours of arrival, the lead elements of his brigade were moving to establish defensive positions along the Soviet main axis of advance. Five days later, they were in contact with the lead Soviet combat units. The brigade, and Task Force 3–4, had remained in contact for another twenty-four days. On the twenty-fourth day, the task force again faced the main Soviet effort, the last Soviet offensive in Iran.
That battle was also the last for Task Force 3–4. Though the actual combat lasted less than forty-five minutes, when it was over, the task force had ceased to exist as a fighting force. Dixon, the senior officer alive and unwounded, had managed to halt the Soviets in his sector through a series of counterattacks. The initial defense and counterattacks that followed, however, had cost him two-thirds of the personnel in the task force and attached units. It was a month before the unit was ready to be committed again. Even then it was only a shell, with less than 75 percent of authorized personnel. Not that it mattered. The "conflict" had shifted into its "political" stage then, with an armistice separating the combatants. That lasted for six months — long enough for Dixon's psychological scars to begin to fester.
Traumatic as battle and its immediate aftermath had been, it wasn't until he was preparing to return his task force to the United States that Dixon realized that the real war, the war within him, was only beginning. Memories and thoughts that he had been able to push aside to a dark comer of his mind now came forth. While most of the men in the task force greeted the prospect of returning to "the world" with unbounded joy, Dixon found himself gripped by a formless and overpowering apprehension. In the beginning he didn't see it for what it was, for it crept upon him like a shadow. First he lost his ability to concentrate. By the time the unit closed into its final staging areas at its port of embarkation, Dixon was unable to deal with even the simplest problems. And along with his difficulty to deal with the problems of command came violent mood swings. Fits of depression were suddenly displaced by unexpected outbursts of rage.