In the Lake of the Woods (31 page)
Sorrow, it seems to me, may be the true absolute. John grieved for Kathy. She was his world. They could have been so happy together. He loved her and she was gone and he could not bear the horror.
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Winter came early that year. By late afternoon on October 26 a half foot of snow covered the islands and shores of Lake
of the Woods. The birds were gone, wildlife was in retreat, the pine forests stood silent in their wrap of white. To the horizon, in all directions, there was only the vast ongoing freeze, everything in correspondence, an icy latticework of valences and affinities. John Wade had lost himself in the tangle. He was alone. The throttle was at full power. He was declaiming to the windâher name, his love. He was heading north, weaving from island to island, skimming fast between water and sky.
Can we believe that he was not a monster but a man? That he was innocent of everything except his life?
Could the truth be so simple? So terrible?
T
IM
O'B
RIEN
received the 1979 National Book Award in fiction for
Going After Cacciato
. His novel The Things They Carried won France's prestigious Prix du Meilleur Livre Ãtranger and the Chicago Tribune's Heartland Prize, and was chosen as one of the best books of 1990 by the New York Times Book Review. In the Lake of the Woods was named the best work of fiction in 1994 by Time and selected by the New York Times Book Review as one of the best books of the year. It was also awarded the 1995 James Fenimore Cooper Prize for historical fiction.
1. Interview, December 4, 1989, St. Paul, Minnesota.
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2. Interview, July 12 and July 16, 1993, St. Paul, Minnesota.
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3. Missing Persons File Declaration, DS Form 20, Office of the Sheriff, Lake of the Woods County, Baudette, Minnesota. Kathleen Wade was reported missing on the morning of September 20, 1986. The search lasted eighteen days, covered more than 800 square miles, and involved elements of the Minnesota State Highway Patrol, the Lake of the Woods County Sheriff's Department, the United States Border Patrol, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (Lakes Division), and the Ontario Provincial Police.
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4. Interview, September 21, 1991, Edina, Minnesota.
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5. Interview, July 19, 1990, Fargo, North Dakota. Former PFC Thinbill, a Native American (Chippewa), served with John Wade as a member of the First Platoon, Company C, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, 11th Infantry Brigade, Task Force Barker, Americal Division, Republic of Vietnam.
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6.
Minneapolis Star-Tribune,
The Minnesota Poll, July 3, 1986, and August 17, 1986, p. 1.
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7. Interview, May 6, 1990, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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8. Interview, June 6, 1989, Angle Inlet, Minnesota.
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9. Interview, June 10, 1993, Angle Inlet, Minnesota.
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10. Interview, January 3, 1991, Baudette, Minnesota.
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11. Interview, June 9, 1993, Angle Inlet, Minnesota.
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12. Thomas Pynchon,
The Crying of Lot 49
(1965; reprint, New York: Perennial Library, 1990), pp. 21-22.
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13. Judith Herman,
Trauma and Recovery
(New York: Basic Books, 1992), p. 7.
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14. J. W. Appel and G. W. Beebe, "Preventive Psychiatry: An Epidemiological Approach,"
Journal of the American Medical Association
131 (1946), p. 1470.
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15. Robert Parrish,
The Magician's Handbook
(New York: Thomas Yoseloff, 1944), p. 10.
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16. Robert A. Caro,
The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power
(New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1982), p. 228.
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17. Woodrow Wilson, in Richard Hofstadter,
The American Political Tradition
(1948; reprint, New York: Vintage Books, 1989), p. 310.
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18. Herman,
Trauma and Recovery,
p. 35.
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19. Woodrow Wilson, in Hofstadter,
The American Political Tradition,
pp. 310-311.
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20. Richard M. Nixon,
The Memoirs of Richard Nixon
(New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1978), p. 1088.
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21. Yes, and I'm a theory man too. Biographer, historian, mediumâcall me what you wantâbut even after four years of hard labor I'm left with little more than supposition and possibility. John Wade was a magician; he did not give away many tricks. Moreover, there are certain mysteries that weave through life itself, human motive and human desire. Even much of what might appear to be fact in this narrativeâaction, word, thoughtâmust ultimately be viewed as a diligent but still imaginative reconstruction of events. I have tried, of course, to be faithful to the evidence. Yet evidence is not truth. It is only evident. In any case, Kathy Wade is forever missing, and if you require solutions, you will have to look beyond these pages. Or read a different book.
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22. Parrish,
The Magician's Handbook,
p. 15.
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23. Bernard C. Meyer,
Houdini: A Mind in Chains
(New York: E. P. Dutton, 1976), p. 136.
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24. Patience H. C. Mason,
Recovering from the War: A Woman's Guide to Helping Your Vietnam Vet, Your Family, and Yourself
(New York: Penguin, 1990), p. 12.
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25. Parrish,
The Magician's Handbook,
p. 16.
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26. Ibid., p. 122.
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27. Interview, St. Paul, Minnesota, December 16, 1991.
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28. Mason,
Recovering from the War: A Woman's Guide to Helping Your Vietnam Vet, Your Family, and Yourself,
p. 320.
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29. The Nuremberg Principles, 1946, Principle IV.
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30. Marvin Kaye,
The Stein and Day Handbook of Magic
(New York: Stein and Day, 1973), pp. 303, 305.
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31. Richard M. Nixon,
Six Crises
(New York: Doubleday & Co., 1962), pp. 120-121.
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32. Caro,
The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power,
p. 740.
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33. See Exhibit Nine.
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34. Thomas E. Dewey, in Nixon,
Six Crises,
p. 423.
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35. Matthew and Hannah Josephson,
Al Smith: Hero of the Cities
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1969), p. 403.
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36. Aren't we all? John Wadeâhe's beyond knowing. He's an other. For all my years of struggle with this depressing record, for all the travel and interviews and musty libraries, the man's soul remains for me an absolute and impenetrable unknown, a nametag drifting willy-nilly on oceans of hapless fact. Twelve notebooks' worth, and more to come. What drives me on, I realize, is a craving to force entry into another heart, to trick the tumblers of natural law, to perform miracles of knowing. It's human nature. We are fascinated, all of us, by the implacable otherness of others. And we wish to penetrate by hypothesis, by daydream, by scientific investigation those leaden walls that encase the human spirit, that define it and guard it and hold it forever inaccessible. ("I love you," someone says, and instantly we begin to wonderâ"Well, how much?"âand when the answer comesâ"With my whole heart"âwe then wonder about the wholeness of a fickle heart.) Our lovers, our husbands, our wives, our fathers, our godsâthey are all beyond us.
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37. In Richard Hammer,
The Court-Martial of Lt. Calley
(New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1971), p. 272.
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38.Â
Report of the Department of the Army, Review of the Preliminary Investigations into the My Lai Incident,
Volume I, Department of the Army, March 14, 1970, p. 3-3. Hereafter referred to as The Peers Commission.
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39. In Hammer,
The Court-Martial of Lt. Galley,
pp. 161-162.
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40. CBS Evening News, Nov. 25, 1969, in Michael Bilton and Kevin Sim,
Four Hours in My Lai
(New York: Viking, 1992), p. 263.
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41. J. Glenn Gray,
The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle
(1959; reprint, Harper Torchbooks, 1970), p. 186.
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42. Colonel William V. Wilson,
American Heritage,
Feb. 1990, p. 53.
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43. In Hammer,
The Court-Martial of Lt. Calley,
p. 151.
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44. Ibid., p. 91.
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45. Ibid., p. 269.
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46. Ibid., p. 155.
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47. Herman,
Trauma and Recovery,
p. 1.
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48. In Hammer,
The Court-Martial of Lt. Calley,
p. 101.
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49. The Geneva Conventions on the Laws of War, 1949, article 3, section 1.
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50. In Hammer,
The Court-Martial of Lt. Calley,
p. 104.
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51. Ibid, p. 117.
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52. Ibid, p. 193.
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53. Ibid, p. 263.
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54. Gray,
The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle,
pp. 184-185.
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55. Herman,
Trauma and Recovery,
p. 54.
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56. In Hammer,
The Court-Martial of Lt. Calley,
p. 93.
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57. Ibid., p. 188.
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58. Evan S. Connell,
Son of the Morning Star
(San Francisco: North Point Press, 1984), p. 307. Connell writes that "John" was the name "ordinarily used by whites when addressing an Indian." At the Little Big Horn, on June 25, 1876, one terrified trooper "was heard sobbing this name, as though it might save his life.
John! John! Oh, John!
This plea echoes horribly down a hundred years."
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59. In Bilton and Sim,
Four Hours in My Lai,
p. 7.
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60. In Hammer,
The Court-Martial of Lt. Calley,
pp. 122-124.
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61. Connell,
Son of the Morning Star,
p. 309.
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62. In Hammer,
The Court-Martial of Lt. Calley,
p. 112.
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63. Ibid., p. 114.
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64. Ibid, p. 127.
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65. Fyodor Dostoyevsky,
Notes from Underground,
translated by Ralph E. Matlaw (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1960), p. 35.
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66. Mason,
Recovering from the War: A Woman's Guide to Helping Your Vietnam Vet, Your Family, and Yourself,
p. 181.
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67. Wilson,
American Heritage,
p. 53. The number of civilian casualties during operations in Son My village on March 16, 1968, is a matter of continuing dispute. The Peers Commission concluded that "at least 175-200 Vietnamese men, women and children" were killed in the course of the March 16th operation. The U.S. Army's Criminal Investigation Division (CID) estimated on the basis of census data that the casualties "may have exceeded 400." At the Son My Memorial, which I visited in the course of research for this book, the number is fixed at 504. An amazing experience, by the way. Thuan Yen is still a quiet little farming village, very poor, very remote, with dirt paths and cow dung and high bamboo hedgerows. Very friendly, all things considered: the old folks nod and smile; the children giggle at our white foreign faces. The ditch is still there. I found it easily. Just five or six feet deep, shallow and unimposing, yet it was as if I had been there before, in my dreams, or in some other life.
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68. Edith Wharton,
The Touchstone
(1900; reprint, New York: Harper Perennial, 1991), p. 102.
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69. Interview, Worthington, Minnesota, April 2, 1993.
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70. Parrish,
The Magician's Handbook,
p. 16.
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71. Obsessed? See footnote 88.
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72. Kaye,
The Stein and Day Handbook of Magic,
pp. 304-307.
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73. Anton Chekhov, "The Lady with the Dog," in
The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories,
translated by Constance Garnett (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1917), pp. 24-25.
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74. In Hammer,
The Court-Martial of Lt. Calley,
pp. 153-154.
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75. Miguel de Cervantes,
Don Quixote
(reprint, New York: Modern Library, 1955), p. 580.