Like me, you’re may be wondering how in the world Cramden Cooper didn’t identify the growing threat that Oliver Bainbridge had become. The man stalked him for his muscle car and, perhaps less importantly, joined forces with Ira, the woman who claimed to be the Ancient Egyptian Goddess of War who swore to do everything in her power to destroy all of mankind, and that probably still included Cooper, as far as I know.
Some people suggest that Cooper kept Banebridge around to take the fall if the chop shop operation ever came crashing down around his head, and still others speculate that he was grooming Banebridge to take himself out, much in the vein of Colonel Kurtz viz-a-viz Captain Willard.
I don’t think there is a lot of truth to those two rumors, nor many of the others.
In my opinion, its elementary. Cramden just had a soft spot for the man. They had served together during the war, and much of that time he took Banebridge under his wing. At first, to protect the sanctity of war from his incompetence, but then later also to protect Bainbridge from himself.
He should have never been in theater to begin with. No one is really sure how he even made it through training, except that perhaps his superiors thought he was faking his condition. After all, hardly anybody frags themselves three times before they even get to their first duty station.
My guess is that since Cooper was left destitute thanks to an intractable case of war trauma ending with the court martial, it makes since that he looked around and figured that Banebridge was one of the few strands of his existence that was salvageable. We tend to rebuild our lives after the storm passes, and make sure to include all its imperfections. In hindsight, it seems like a pretty big mistake based on the nature of the backstabbing that ensued.
At any rate, Cooper and Banebridge served together in the 25th Infantry Division. An infamous unit that has been garrisoned at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii during most of its history. It sounded like a great duty station, until the Japs Bombed pearl harbor. After that, they found themselves at Guadalcanal, the Solomon Islands, and Luzon. Then, just a few years later names like Pusan and Inchon found their way into the unit’s lexicon. And if that weren’t enough, a short time later and a short drive down a dirt road to Vietnam they became familiar with the Iron Triangle, Tet, and the invasion of Cambodia. That is a crazy amount of representation in some of the nation’s most vicious battles, but it just goes to show you that before you buy a house, you should find out who your neighbors are.
The unit patch is sometimes referred to as the Electric Strawberry, which is a fitting nickname when you consider that Oliver Banebridge was a man who modeled his life after the Electric Kool-aid Acid Test. Yes, the experiments involving Ken Kesey that were chronicled in the book by the same name by Tom Wolfe.
Its been a long time, but those experiemnts are still lingering in the nation’s consciousness. There is a documentary Magic Trip: Ken Kesey’s Search for a Cool Place – Jigsaw Productions and a movie in the works: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test – IMDb. Hell, it’s almost as famous as the 25th Infantry Division for all the opposite reasons.
But, the 25th has more star power, which I will explore in Part Two.