Admissions
Sometime in 1942
Carter summoned up his courage and knocked upon Colonel Hogan's door. At Hogan's 'Come in', he entered and stood hesitantly just inside the threshold.
The colonel turned from the paper he was reading and looked hard at him. "Well, Carter?"
The young man gulped. "Colonel, could - could I ask you for some personal advice?"
Hogan groaned inwardly. He dreaded these 'personal' matters. Although he put up an omniscient front, he was not good at commiserating with his men. Never had been. Back 'home', he always distanced himself from his men. He had lived by the guideline dinned into him: "If you start feeling your men's pain, you can't send them into action." In the close confines of a prisoner-of-war camp, responsible for their welfare as their senior officer, that arm's length behaviour was now out of the question.
He would rather face a beating with a rubber hose than go through a heart- to-heart with one of his own men. Oh well, no job is perfect.
Taking a deep breath, he pasted a smile on his face that he hoped looked reassuring. "Sure, Carter. Sit on my bunk and tell me about it."
"Thank-you, sir." Carter sat and bowed his head.
"Poor guy looks like a sick calf," Hogan thought to himself as he waited for the young man to speak. With his sad, brown eyes and his mouth working, Carter did look like an injured barnyard animal. "You can take the boy out of the country." he mused.
Hogan was surprised to feel a sudden lurch of affection beneath his contempt. Obviously, Carter had struggled with this problem for a long time, afraid to bother anyone with it. He had come to his commanding officer as a last resort.
"I'm sorry to bother you with my problem, Colonel. I would have gone to Newkirk. I really would have; but with him grieving for his mom and all, I just couldn't. And I never know what to say around Sergeant Kinchloe. When he looks at me, everything comes out as gibberish."
Hogan sighed. The young man greatly admired his omni-competent fellow sergeant, but his admiration increased his nervousness, so he never could do anything right around him. Carter's incompetence made Kinch testy, and sometimes it spilled out in a tongue-lashing, but Kinch thought well of Carter. All of them did, because Carter tried so hard to do things right.
"Carter, Kinch does try to be patient with you, but he's worried that your slip ups could endanger our lives. If you'd only relax around him, you'll see he's in your corner."
"Yeah. I wish I could." Carter looked down, twisting his hands in his lap.
"I'm glad you came to me, but if you'd feel more comfortable talking to Group Captain Donovan, I could arrange a meeting. He's a great 'father confessor', if that's what you're after." He smiled. "I can vouch for it. He set me straight at least once since we've been holed up here."
Carter looked up. He gave the colonel a shy smile. "I'm sure the Group Captain's a fine man, sir; but he's - well, he's very large and loud. He reminds me of a big black bull my uncle Stan had, always bellowing whenever he saw a cow." He blushed. "Sorry, sir."
Hogan grinned broadly. "Don't be, Carter. It's a good description of him."
Carter's eyes grew even more fearful. "You won't tell him I said so, will you, Colonel?"
"I won't tell; but I think Group Captain Donovan would laugh if he heard it and say it was 'right apt'. Don't be scared of him, or of Kinch, and you'll do just fine with them. And don't be so scared of me. Relax. Take a deep breath. Now, what can I do for you?"
Carter hesitated. Then he blurted out. "It's my girl, Mary Jane."
Mary Jane. That's just the kind of country girl name you'd expect Carter's girl to have. "Yeah. Your girl, Mary Jane. What about her?"
"Well, Colonel. I - I guess you've heard it all before and I'm boring you. I shouldn't bother you with my troubles."
"Nonsense, Carter. Come on. Out with it."
"Well, sir. She hasn't written. Not since I came here. I don't know why."
Carter ducked his head again. Hogan looked at him in sympathy. He had not only heard it all before, from fellow officers, he had lived it all before. Poor Carter. Must be his first time. "You've been here three months. There's a war on, you know. The Luftwaffe's got to notify the Red Cross and the Protecting Power that you've been shot down and where you are. They notify the paperwork guys in our forces, who notify your parents, who will notify your girl."
"Yes, sir. I understand that."
"Her letter goes through the same channels back to here. And there's the censorship to go through, and the Krauts reading our mail. This enemy to neutral to enemy communication takes a lot of time."
"Yes, sir. I understand that too. But three months?"
"It took longer for Kinch and me. Ask him the date on his letter. It's the second one he got, and I bet it was sent before we were shot down."
"Yes, sir. I hope by now Mary Jane knows where I am, so that she'll write soon. She's my fiancée, Colonel, and I love her."
"I'm sure she knows that, Carter," Colonel Hogan said gently. "Why don't you write her, and tell her that?"
Carter blushed. "I - I can't, Colonel."
"Why not?"
"It's - It's what you just said. The censorship. All those people reading what I wrote."
"Saying that you love someone isn't classified information."
"Yeah. I'm sure Sergeant Kinchloe would tell me if it was." Carter sounded bitter.
Hogan's eyes narrowed. "Carter, it's Kinch's job as your barracks master to censor your mail. If he's called you down about something you wrote, you obey him and you live with that." He saw the young man flinch, and added more kindly. "Was Kinch mean about it?"
"No, he wasn't. But it's unfair. He was sore at Schultz for reading his sister's letter, and that was personal to him."
"I've read the letters he's written, and I've had to tell him to rewrite them. It's hurt him; but he does it. He doesn't like to read your letters, or those of anyone else in the barracks; but he must. If he doesn't, and the next person who reads it wears a swastika - his Jessie or your Mary Jane could get the letter no woman wants to receive. Understood?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good. Obey. Don't make your life here harder than the Krauts make it for you."
"Yes, sir. But I can't write all that mushy stuff, knowing that he'll read it, and then someone else, and then someone else again, before Mary Jane gets it. It's like the whole world is laughing at me."
Hogan sighed. Well, if he won't be helped. Then he saw Carter's woebegone face. "Why don't you give me the letter, after you write it?"
"You'd still be reading it, sir. I'd still be too afraid to say what I want to say. And I'm not sure I know what to say."
"You want Mary Jane to know you love her, and you want to know if she loves you, right? But you don't want her to know you're demanding an answer. I'll help you write it. This once. Then you'll have one censor fewer to worry about."
Carter's face lit up. "Will you really, Colonel? Thanks. You'll know just what to say."
Colonel Hogan held up his forefinger. "I won't help you unless you go to Kinch, and tell him you're sorry that you were sore at him for censoring your letters."
"But he doesn't know I was sore."
"Then I'll make it a direct order. Apologize to him."
Carter stared at him, alarmed. "But, why, Colonel?"
"If you have the guts to apologize to one of your comrades, you have the guts to remain on my team. If you don't, I don't want you."
+++
"Sergeant Kinchloe?"
Kinchloe looked at the young man shuffling from foot to foot before his bunk, his head bent so he couldn't see his face. "Carter? It's 'Kinch'. You know that."
Carter took a deep breath and tried to relax, but he couldn't do it. This was a formal apology, in obedience to a direct command from Colonel Hogan himself. He had to be formal.
"I - I've come to apologize to you, Sergeant Kinchloe. About the way I've been acting. I resented you reading my letters, and telling me they were all wrong. I should not have done that."
Kinchloe swung his legs off the bunk and sat up. "Sit down a moment, Carter. Let's talk."
Carter sat, his face still averted from him.
"You've been sore at me for a lot of things, haven't you?"
Carter swallowed, but said nothing. Kinchloe touched the lower edge of Carter's rank insignia.
"You've one more rocker on your sleeve than I have. Doesn't that mean something to you?"
"No. You're better than I am. I know that."
"A lot of people here wouldn't say that, Carter. They'd say, 'Why did Colonel Hogan choose a staff sergeant - a black staff sergeant - as his aide? There are a lot of better men. Why did he choose Kinchloe over Carter, or over one of the officers here?' Some say, 'Why was he chosen over me?'" Kinchloe lowered his voice, and said gently, "Some even say, 'Is there something twisted in the colonel for confiding in a sergeant, in a black man?'"
Carter jumped to his feet. "That's a lie! There's nothing wrong with Colonel Hogan!"
Kinchloe looked up at him. "Of course there isn't. Thanks for saying it, though. They may not say it where he can hear it; but sometimes they whisper it where I can hear it. The point is, Carter, I've got to deal with the colonel choosing me to be his aide and confidant. I've got to deal with what comes out of it. With my responsibilities in the operation. With my relationship to the people around here.
"I'm not asking for your sympathy. He chose you too. You have to deal with where you stand with the other men, and the officers here, because of that choice he made. I'm asking you to understand that I'm a man, like you are, who's agreed to take on something beyond what others see as his place. I'm the man who must manage and co-ordinate the plans of an officer who demands the impossible become probable. You're one of the few men he relies on to carry out those plans. If I come down on you too hard, usually it's because so much is at stake and we can't afford slip-ups. The mission we must accomplish. Our lives. The lives of the other men here, and those of the people outside the wire. Everything rides on the job we do."
"I know that. I'm not as dumb as you think I am."
"Well then, you already know this. Sometimes the pressure is too great. We all let off steam. Newkirk plays his tricks and practical jokes on us. LeBeau shouts at Newkirk's remarks about the French. When one of your boners or remarks irritates me, I rate you."
He heaved a regretful sigh. "Maybe part of me thinks I am smarter than you. Maybe part of me resents that second rocker on your sleeve. Carter, you have the right to shout back at me. At least you have the right to demand, "Why, Kinch?" and to keep demanding "Why, Kinch?" until I break down and tell you. Just don't exercise that right where the Krauts can hear us and it's shut up or die. And don't bottle up your anger until something inside you goes sour and you resent the people you work with."
Carter swallowed, his eyes cast down. "Yes, sir."
"It's 'Kinch', remember? I'm not an officer."
"Yes, Kinch."
"Your apology's accepted, by the way."
"Thank you."
Carter turned and walked to his bunk. Then he walked back and stood before him.
"I'm not one of those people, Kinch. I think Colonel Hogan chose the best man when he chose you."
Kinch swallowed and looked down at his hands. "Thanks, Carter."
Then he looked up at Carter. "I'm beginning to think the colonel may be right when he chose you."
Others own the characters depicted in the television series "Hogan's Heroes".
c. 2002 Marilyn Lena Penner (marylinusca)
Sometime in 1942
Carter summoned up his courage and knocked upon Colonel Hogan's door. At Hogan's 'Come in', he entered and stood hesitantly just inside the threshold.
The colonel turned from the paper he was reading and looked hard at him. "Well, Carter?"
The young man gulped. "Colonel, could - could I ask you for some personal advice?"
Hogan groaned inwardly. He dreaded these 'personal' matters. Although he put up an omniscient front, he was not good at commiserating with his men. Never had been. Back 'home', he always distanced himself from his men. He had lived by the guideline dinned into him: "If you start feeling your men's pain, you can't send them into action." In the close confines of a prisoner-of-war camp, responsible for their welfare as their senior officer, that arm's length behaviour was now out of the question.
He would rather face a beating with a rubber hose than go through a heart- to-heart with one of his own men. Oh well, no job is perfect.
Taking a deep breath, he pasted a smile on his face that he hoped looked reassuring. "Sure, Carter. Sit on my bunk and tell me about it."
"Thank-you, sir." Carter sat and bowed his head.
"Poor guy looks like a sick calf," Hogan thought to himself as he waited for the young man to speak. With his sad, brown eyes and his mouth working, Carter did look like an injured barnyard animal. "You can take the boy out of the country." he mused.
Hogan was surprised to feel a sudden lurch of affection beneath his contempt. Obviously, Carter had struggled with this problem for a long time, afraid to bother anyone with it. He had come to his commanding officer as a last resort.
"I'm sorry to bother you with my problem, Colonel. I would have gone to Newkirk. I really would have; but with him grieving for his mom and all, I just couldn't. And I never know what to say around Sergeant Kinchloe. When he looks at me, everything comes out as gibberish."
Hogan sighed. The young man greatly admired his omni-competent fellow sergeant, but his admiration increased his nervousness, so he never could do anything right around him. Carter's incompetence made Kinch testy, and sometimes it spilled out in a tongue-lashing, but Kinch thought well of Carter. All of them did, because Carter tried so hard to do things right.
"Carter, Kinch does try to be patient with you, but he's worried that your slip ups could endanger our lives. If you'd only relax around him, you'll see he's in your corner."
"Yeah. I wish I could." Carter looked down, twisting his hands in his lap.
"I'm glad you came to me, but if you'd feel more comfortable talking to Group Captain Donovan, I could arrange a meeting. He's a great 'father confessor', if that's what you're after." He smiled. "I can vouch for it. He set me straight at least once since we've been holed up here."
Carter looked up. He gave the colonel a shy smile. "I'm sure the Group Captain's a fine man, sir; but he's - well, he's very large and loud. He reminds me of a big black bull my uncle Stan had, always bellowing whenever he saw a cow." He blushed. "Sorry, sir."
Hogan grinned broadly. "Don't be, Carter. It's a good description of him."
Carter's eyes grew even more fearful. "You won't tell him I said so, will you, Colonel?"
"I won't tell; but I think Group Captain Donovan would laugh if he heard it and say it was 'right apt'. Don't be scared of him, or of Kinch, and you'll do just fine with them. And don't be so scared of me. Relax. Take a deep breath. Now, what can I do for you?"
Carter hesitated. Then he blurted out. "It's my girl, Mary Jane."
Mary Jane. That's just the kind of country girl name you'd expect Carter's girl to have. "Yeah. Your girl, Mary Jane. What about her?"
"Well, Colonel. I - I guess you've heard it all before and I'm boring you. I shouldn't bother you with my troubles."
"Nonsense, Carter. Come on. Out with it."
"Well, sir. She hasn't written. Not since I came here. I don't know why."
Carter ducked his head again. Hogan looked at him in sympathy. He had not only heard it all before, from fellow officers, he had lived it all before. Poor Carter. Must be his first time. "You've been here three months. There's a war on, you know. The Luftwaffe's got to notify the Red Cross and the Protecting Power that you've been shot down and where you are. They notify the paperwork guys in our forces, who notify your parents, who will notify your girl."
"Yes, sir. I understand that."
"Her letter goes through the same channels back to here. And there's the censorship to go through, and the Krauts reading our mail. This enemy to neutral to enemy communication takes a lot of time."
"Yes, sir. I understand that too. But three months?"
"It took longer for Kinch and me. Ask him the date on his letter. It's the second one he got, and I bet it was sent before we were shot down."
"Yes, sir. I hope by now Mary Jane knows where I am, so that she'll write soon. She's my fiancée, Colonel, and I love her."
"I'm sure she knows that, Carter," Colonel Hogan said gently. "Why don't you write her, and tell her that?"
Carter blushed. "I - I can't, Colonel."
"Why not?"
"It's - It's what you just said. The censorship. All those people reading what I wrote."
"Saying that you love someone isn't classified information."
"Yeah. I'm sure Sergeant Kinchloe would tell me if it was." Carter sounded bitter.
Hogan's eyes narrowed. "Carter, it's Kinch's job as your barracks master to censor your mail. If he's called you down about something you wrote, you obey him and you live with that." He saw the young man flinch, and added more kindly. "Was Kinch mean about it?"
"No, he wasn't. But it's unfair. He was sore at Schultz for reading his sister's letter, and that was personal to him."
"I've read the letters he's written, and I've had to tell him to rewrite them. It's hurt him; but he does it. He doesn't like to read your letters, or those of anyone else in the barracks; but he must. If he doesn't, and the next person who reads it wears a swastika - his Jessie or your Mary Jane could get the letter no woman wants to receive. Understood?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good. Obey. Don't make your life here harder than the Krauts make it for you."
"Yes, sir. But I can't write all that mushy stuff, knowing that he'll read it, and then someone else, and then someone else again, before Mary Jane gets it. It's like the whole world is laughing at me."
Hogan sighed. Well, if he won't be helped. Then he saw Carter's woebegone face. "Why don't you give me the letter, after you write it?"
"You'd still be reading it, sir. I'd still be too afraid to say what I want to say. And I'm not sure I know what to say."
"You want Mary Jane to know you love her, and you want to know if she loves you, right? But you don't want her to know you're demanding an answer. I'll help you write it. This once. Then you'll have one censor fewer to worry about."
Carter's face lit up. "Will you really, Colonel? Thanks. You'll know just what to say."
Colonel Hogan held up his forefinger. "I won't help you unless you go to Kinch, and tell him you're sorry that you were sore at him for censoring your letters."
"But he doesn't know I was sore."
"Then I'll make it a direct order. Apologize to him."
Carter stared at him, alarmed. "But, why, Colonel?"
"If you have the guts to apologize to one of your comrades, you have the guts to remain on my team. If you don't, I don't want you."
+++
"Sergeant Kinchloe?"
Kinchloe looked at the young man shuffling from foot to foot before his bunk, his head bent so he couldn't see his face. "Carter? It's 'Kinch'. You know that."
Carter took a deep breath and tried to relax, but he couldn't do it. This was a formal apology, in obedience to a direct command from Colonel Hogan himself. He had to be formal.
"I - I've come to apologize to you, Sergeant Kinchloe. About the way I've been acting. I resented you reading my letters, and telling me they were all wrong. I should not have done that."
Kinchloe swung his legs off the bunk and sat up. "Sit down a moment, Carter. Let's talk."
Carter sat, his face still averted from him.
"You've been sore at me for a lot of things, haven't you?"
Carter swallowed, but said nothing. Kinchloe touched the lower edge of Carter's rank insignia.
"You've one more rocker on your sleeve than I have. Doesn't that mean something to you?"
"No. You're better than I am. I know that."
"A lot of people here wouldn't say that, Carter. They'd say, 'Why did Colonel Hogan choose a staff sergeant - a black staff sergeant - as his aide? There are a lot of better men. Why did he choose Kinchloe over Carter, or over one of the officers here?' Some say, 'Why was he chosen over me?'" Kinchloe lowered his voice, and said gently, "Some even say, 'Is there something twisted in the colonel for confiding in a sergeant, in a black man?'"
Carter jumped to his feet. "That's a lie! There's nothing wrong with Colonel Hogan!"
Kinchloe looked up at him. "Of course there isn't. Thanks for saying it, though. They may not say it where he can hear it; but sometimes they whisper it where I can hear it. The point is, Carter, I've got to deal with the colonel choosing me to be his aide and confidant. I've got to deal with what comes out of it. With my responsibilities in the operation. With my relationship to the people around here.
"I'm not asking for your sympathy. He chose you too. You have to deal with where you stand with the other men, and the officers here, because of that choice he made. I'm asking you to understand that I'm a man, like you are, who's agreed to take on something beyond what others see as his place. I'm the man who must manage and co-ordinate the plans of an officer who demands the impossible become probable. You're one of the few men he relies on to carry out those plans. If I come down on you too hard, usually it's because so much is at stake and we can't afford slip-ups. The mission we must accomplish. Our lives. The lives of the other men here, and those of the people outside the wire. Everything rides on the job we do."
"I know that. I'm not as dumb as you think I am."
"Well then, you already know this. Sometimes the pressure is too great. We all let off steam. Newkirk plays his tricks and practical jokes on us. LeBeau shouts at Newkirk's remarks about the French. When one of your boners or remarks irritates me, I rate you."
He heaved a regretful sigh. "Maybe part of me thinks I am smarter than you. Maybe part of me resents that second rocker on your sleeve. Carter, you have the right to shout back at me. At least you have the right to demand, "Why, Kinch?" and to keep demanding "Why, Kinch?" until I break down and tell you. Just don't exercise that right where the Krauts can hear us and it's shut up or die. And don't bottle up your anger until something inside you goes sour and you resent the people you work with."
Carter swallowed, his eyes cast down. "Yes, sir."
"It's 'Kinch', remember? I'm not an officer."
"Yes, Kinch."
"Your apology's accepted, by the way."
"Thank you."
Carter turned and walked to his bunk. Then he walked back and stood before him.
"I'm not one of those people, Kinch. I think Colonel Hogan chose the best man when he chose you."
Kinch swallowed and looked down at his hands. "Thanks, Carter."
Then he looked up at Carter. "I'm beginning to think the colonel may be right when he chose you."
Others own the characters depicted in the television series "Hogan's Heroes".
c. 2002 Marilyn Lena Penner (marylinusca)