Burly and bellicose verbal bombs are already falling in the Senate race between Republican incumbent George Allen and Democratic challenger James Webb.
Allen’s camp: “By announcing his opposition to the Flag Protection Amendment, James H. Webb, Jr. puts himself firmly on the side of John Kerry, Ted Kennedy and Charles Schumer.”
Webb’s camp: “People who live in glass dude ranches should not question the patriotism of real soldiers who fought and bled for this country on a real battlefield.”
Such manly bravado makes sense in a race between a former UVA quarterback (Allen) and a decorated Vietnam vet (Webb). But let’s turn down the battle cries and turn up the Barry White: Webb is also a novelist, and though his novels are mostly about American warriors in Vietnam and other Asian countries, here are softer, romantic excerpts from Webb’s Lost Soldiers.
“You were here before ’75? Maybe soldier, huh?” [asked Dzung].
“Six years, off and on,” [said Brandon Condley].
“Six years? Oh, very good, sir. I know you love Viet Nam. I know.”
“Thuong nhieu qua,” Condley had said. Too much love.
He had been suppressing it, but he could not hold it back any longer. It sat on him, pushing his head onto his chest: the memory of a hundred nights spent with Mai’s lithe golden body pressed against him and her legs entwined around him and his lips tasting her long soft neck and her black hair falling onto his face like a gossamer veil as he kissed her and heard her whisper with delight and smelled the perfume she always wore in her hair and just below her ears.
…
“This is why I didn’t want to make love to you. I like you too much,” [said Condley].
“You like me too much? Then why don’t you want to love me?” [asked Van].
“You’re too young.”
“No, Cong Ly! In Viet Nam, I am almost too old!”
She was right about that. In Viet Nam, women were usually married by their early twenties. “Okay, I said that wrong. You haven’t seen enough. You’ve been through a great deal with Francois, and you need to calm down before you decide to be in love with anyone else.”
“Maybe we will be in love?”
“Maybe,” he said. “But not yet.”
“That was honest,” she said. “So I don’t feel bad.”
