But at about 2:30 a.m., he told his men he was going to check on something up ahead. At first he stuck to his routine, taking command of a dawn patrol near the DMZ.
5, 1965, having downed 10 cans of beer a few hours earlier, Jenkins, then 24, made his move. He could confess his cowardice to superiors and accept the consequences or attempt somehow to flee. “I did not want to be responsible for the lives of other soldiers under me,” he said during his court-martial trial last month. Jenkins’ unit, he had learned, was scheduled to ship out soon to the live war in Vietnam, a prospect that terrified him.
He had doubts about his ability to lead men into battle, and he slid into bouts of depression and heavy drinking. A seventh-grade dropout from Rich Square, N.C., Jenkins possessed an intelligence that military aptitude tests determined was far below average.
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