West Point the only ambition—that had always been the measure and the goal. His father, Class of ’45, had been posted to Germany, had fought in Korea with distinction, and on the basis of his command in Korea had been selected to lead the first contingent of advisers in Vietnam.

“Maybe we could hit the beach,” Joe said that first visit after they moved.

“I’m not on furlough,” his father said. “I’m here for briefings.”

“I only hope you’re safe,” his mother said.

“No one’s safe in ’Nam. If you want to be safe, you don’t run recon patrols into the boonies.” To Joe he said, “What language are you studying?”

“French.”

“Good. They speak French over there. My men—the ones I’m training, the locals, Vietnamese—they need an interpreter. If we’re still there, you won’t need an interpreter.”

This meant that after Joe graduated from West Point and was an officer, assigned to lead a unit in Vietnam, he’d be able to give orders in French. His father was always certain of the boy’s future.

“Are your men tough?” Joe asked, wanting to hear that they were brave soldiers, because it was a way of determining his father’s safety.

“Some of my ARVN are good soldiers,” his father said, and smiled. “But you know what? When they want to have a whiz they squat on the ground. I say to them, ‘Get up! Piss like a man!’”

Joe did not mind that he was hard on him. The Colonel was hard on everyone.

In barking orders, seldom listening, his father took charge. But Joe saw him in his chair—mother cooking, mother cleaning, mother doing laundry—and it seemed that his father did not know how to do anything but give orders. He held himself apart from his family, and Joe guessed held himself apart from his men, the ARVN, he called them, who were not Americans.

He was always an officer at home, and sometimes a father. It seemed he did not know how to be a friend. But he said that fifteen years in the army had taught him that friendships were dangerous.

“You don’t take orders out of friendship, because you like your officer,” he said. “You take orders because you are required to obey. Your commanding officer is not your friend. It doesn’t matter whether you like him or not. He is your superior.”

Friendships are fatal to authority, he explained. People break the rules because of friendships. Discipline fails, and lives are lost when rules are broken or orders not obeyed. He said this snapping at Joe, puffing a cigarette, pausing to tap its ash into the saucer under his coffee cup.

“Your friends will let you down—they will fail you,” he said. “And they’ll expect to be forgiven, and why? Because they’re your friends.”