Larry Kerr - The Magic of Maggie

 

In the early autumn of 1969, I was a hot mess. Not yet 26 years old, I was finishing up my second one-year tour in Vietnam. I had been at war altogether here and there for two and a half years at that point and had no idea what I was going to do in the future. I knew exactly what the problem was. There was a girl, Omi, who I should have married and didn't. And that was the whole story at that point. 

 

She was smart, meltingly lovely, strong and she had a fierce belief in the possibility of occasional magic. I could have married her and I didn't and that was it. I had no idea what to do. I'd come back on active duty to spend a second year in Vietnam, because I hadn't found a place for myself in a very changed America when I went back from the first. And here I was at the end of the second year and still didn't know what to do. 

 

Now, this sad tale is not just me. This is my mother as well. We raised one another. We practically grew up together. She was a girl when I was born, and then we raised my two younger brothers. This is a woman who supported me all my life. She heard that Omi had married another man and she said, "You stupid boy, you stupid, stupid boy." [audience laughter] And didn't talk to me for several weeks. [audience laughter] That's a pretty pathetic figure. But this hopelessness, I knew what the focus of it was, okay?

 

I just had to hold it in, because I couldn't show it to the world. I led the Kontum Mike Force, 600 mountain tribesmen and 17 Green Berets. And our job was to be the cavalry when Special Forces camps along the border areas came under siege. And so, they expected me to be steady, to be serious. I presented a steely and as hard face as I could to the world. 

 

Well, I guess I was probably off-putting enough that nobody in the gang noticed when I got a letter. A letter. Some of you may not know what a letter is. [audience laughter] It's what we did before Snapchat and Twitter and email and so forth. And it came on paper. [audience laughter] I got a letter from the girl, Omi. She said, "I'm divorced." Period. Bang. [audience laughter] She said, “I thought I would be traveling perhaps in Southeast Asia, probably at the end of August.” Well, that happened to be just when my tour, I'm sorry, the end of October. That's exactly when my tour ended. I knew later-- I mean, I sorted it out that she had been talking to my mother. [audience laughter] 

 

Well, I went into military precision mode. I started by getting a car and driver in Bangkok, where we were going to meet. I mean, the way she put it, "Let's just meet in Bangkok," as if, well, two people who knew each other vaguely would go to the Oriental Hotel and have tea. But I knew this was serious for her, and so I wanted to make everything just right. But the timing was the crucial element, because this is a woman who hadn't had, in the years I had known her, $10 in her purse. I mean, the same $10 at one time. [audience laughter] I knew if she managed somehow to buy this ticket to Bangkok, that she was going to arrive broke, and so I had to be there. 

 

And so my planning on time was meticulous, I figured out how long it would take, I added one day for every movement. Every time I had to change planes, every time I had to walk across the street, we had a day. I'm going to get there four days early, as my target is four days early, and then I threw in another three days. [audience laughter] Look, I'm playing for my life here. 

 

And then, very quickly, we're getting into the middle of October, and the fellow who's relieving me has reported for duty, and I've signed over the equipment and the weapons to him, we've shaken hands, it's essentially done. I don't get out the door quite fast enough when a message comes in and says, "One of our posts on the Laotian border has come under siege and we have to go do our part to save him.” I could have left, but in truth, none of my guys expected me to, because the new guy didn't even know everyone's name yet. You can't really expect him to march off to war when he's just, "Hey, you," relationships. So, I put down my packed bags and went back to the war. 

 

We went up to the camp. It was an ugly bit of business. They were being shelled by heavy mortars and artillery, and we pushed back the forward observers, the eyes and ears of the artillery and then went after the guns themselves. And eventually, it was all over. I had a day left, but I rushed to an airplane without being on the manifest, against the rules, and got down to Saigon. I had one day to find a way to Bangkok. I was five days until the next commercial flights went across and three days until the embassy courier flight went to Bangkok. 

 

At the end of a long and very frustrating day, arguably the darkest day of my life, a guy said, "Captain, you can't get there by the 28th even if you hijack an airplane." [audience laughter] I felt like I couldn't breathe. I felt like I had somehow been hit with something. And so, I went to the Special Forces Club. The bar there was open seven days a week, 24 hours a day for eight years, [audience laughter] all in all. I went there and I had a lot of money in my jeans. And so, I drank good scotch. 

 

After three scotches, generously poured, it came to me. I could fix this. I was going to drink myself to death in that bar. I told myself, you're not leaving here until they carry you out dead. Just as I had started into that mode, in through the door comes Martha Raye. Maggie Ray, the patron saint of the Green Berets. Now, some of you may not know who Martha Raye is, or was. She was born in 1916. By 1921, she was a headliner in vaudeville. She made her first movie in 1934, made 30 more of them, three times with Bob Hope. But my favorite movie, Monsieur Verdot, she played with Charlie Chaplin. She acted him right off the screen through the entire movie, and he was the director and the producer. 

 

So, Maggie came in, and she and I had known each other since the beginning of that second tour of mine. We had a good relationship. We had shared common interest. We like good coffee and vodka and movies. We spent a lot of time talking about that. Well, she walked in, surveyed her domain there. Maggie had been there six months a year for seven years. It wasn't to do shows and it wasn't to promote herself or her career or anything, she just came and largely just hung around with the guys, the Green Berets. She was our cheerleader. She was our confidante. 

 

Well, she walked in, as I say, she surveyed her domain and then she looked at me, and she sat down, ordered a drink and gave me a huge stage frown, tapped my hand and said, "Larry, what's wrong?" I said, "Maggie, I just screwed up my whole life. There's one girl, she's going to be in Bangkok. I'm not going to be able to get there. I don't know what I'm going to do. I've just ruined everything. I've just completely fouled this whole thing up." I said, "She's going to arrive in Bangkok, she's going to be broke, she's going to wait a day, maybe two and then she's going to have to go home." 

 

Maggie thought about it for a minute. She said, "Larry, are you sure that this girl is that important? Because there are an awful lot of ways to have fun in this world without-- Just invent it yourself all over again." I said, "No, Maggie, she's absolutely the girl I want, the girl I need, the girl I want to marry. This is everything. She's it." She gave me another pause and then she said, "We'll fix this. We're going to go tomorrow and see the head of the 7th Air Force,” that's a four-star general, “and we're going to fix this. We'll get you a ride to get in Bangkok on time." 

 

And so, I went to my room and woke up. And 10 minutes later, the adrenaline in me had burned off all the hangover and I was ready for the day. I marched out to meet Maggie, and off we went to see the head of the 7th Air Force. We walked into the building at Tan Son Nhut airfield that said Headquarters 7th Air Force, through the door, and there are signs that say, Executive Suites this direction. Maggie understood that the real head of the 7th Air Force was not the four-star general who got in the pictures. It was the senior non-commissioned officer who really ran the place, Command Master Sergeant Francis Patrick Mahoney. Not Mahoney, dear God, no. Mahoney. [audience laughter] 

 

And so, Mahoney operates in a huge bay of people doing busy and important work in a plexiglass cube. That's his office, so he can see in every direction. I'm left to sit outside. Maggie is received like royalty inside. Her gesticulations get wilder and wilder. She's pointing over her shoulder at me. But Mahoney's head is slowly turning this way. And what was a smile has turned to a, "Oh, my God." [audience laughter] The issue is in real doubt. I can tell, because Maggie cries. Maggie only cried on cue. [audience laughter] She's pulled out all the stops. 

 

So, at any rate, this goes on for some time. I'm fidgeting, trying to look professional, fidgeting. I'm finally called in. He looks at me like I was something the dog drug in and said, "Captain, we'd be glad to give you a hand with this problem. Be at Chalk 102 at midnight tonight and we'll get you to Bangkok on time." Well, I must have given him-- Say, "Thank you very much" as I ran out to see Chalk 1. Chalk's just a circle underground with a number painted on it. It's a meeting place. I rushed back to my room, packed my bag, and with a flashlight I went onto a very dark, very dimly lit Tan Son Nhut Air Force Base. 

 

I was having some questions about which way to turn when I got to the headquarters to get there. But then, I saw there was a light shining, and that seemed to be in about the right direction. So, I walked to the light. That light was right over Chalk 102. It's in a war zone. We're on an air base. It's dark everywhere, except where I'm standing. I felt like Bogart in Casablanca. [audience laughter] But along comes a major right at the crack of midnight, grabs my arm, he says, "You're Kerr?" I said, "Yes, sir." And we went to the general's Learjet.

 

There's a lieutenant colonel flying, general's personal pilot. This major is a co-pilot. There's a senior enlisted guy in the back who's a crew chief and occasional steward. And moments later, we're moving towards altitude in the general's plane. I'm leaning back, drinking some of the general's booze. [audience laughter] Now, the surreal is part of the actual fabric of war. You see it everywhere. I was at the end of any ability to generate any disbelief about anything. But this was strange, even for Vietnam, and Maggie's mojo was sensational. 

 

So I got my way to Bangkok. I had enough time for a few hours' sleep to get nice and clean and spiffy, and go to the airport to meet this woman. It was a big green room, hospital green, cement blocks. It's a palace now, that airport. But then, it was very basic. The gates emptied into the hall from a distance, and all of us waiting to see people were kept behind the lines at some distance off. So, I'm peering very carefully to see her. And for reasons that she's never been able to justify, she's about the last person off the train. [audience laughter] 

 

At any rate, I look for her and I look for her, and finally there she is. She can't see me yet, but I can see her. Her eyes are shining, her face is shining, she's ready for adventure, she's thrilled to be there, she's thrilled about making a new life with me. Well, a year later, I married the woman. [audience cheers and applause] 

 

Not as dumb as I look. [audience laughter] And 46 years later, when I see her, when I go to pick her up at a ferry stop or a train or an airport, I run through a mental catalog of my visions of her. It always stops bang on that picture of her back in Bangkok in 1969. And the face I look for and the face I find is that same 1969 face, dark eyes glistening, face shining, ready for an adventure. Thank you.