P.D. 948
The Recruit
At Victorian Fleet Training Facility on Aberdeen
For Emily, the first two months of basic training was like watching a laboratory experiment in behavior modification, but from the rat’s point of view.
The space flight from Christchurch to Aberdeen had been uneventful. When they arrived, she and hundreds of other recruits had been kept waiting for hours until the buses came to take them to Camp Gettysburg, the sprawling military base that was the training center for some twenty thousand recruits each year.
The buses reached the camp in the middle of the night, causing one of the recruits- a teenager, really — to groan, “God, I’m looking forward to some sleep!” Emily had suppressed a smile. She had read enough books on military training to know that none of them would be allowed to sleep for some time yet. Sure enough, they were herded off the buses, run across a large parade field, and then pushed into a sloppy semblance of order by screaming drill sergeants. As tired as she was, Emily wanted to laugh. It was all so obvious. A quick glance at her fellow recruits, however, revealed the Fleet’s time-tested formula for basic training was working. To a person they looked scared, flustered and unsettled. Ready, in other words, to be broken down and then rebuilt to fit the needs of the Fleet.
The first weeks passed in a haze of fatigue and pain. Emily was assigned to Training Company Baker, run by Drill Sergeant Kaelin and ten Drill Instructors. She slept in a barracks with forty-nine other women, but all of the training was co-ed. The three weeks were occupied with nothing but physical strengthening and verbal intimidation from the Drill Instructors. No recruit could do anything right, and the Drill Instructors made sure they knew it. Every day each of them had one or more DIs screaming spittle in their face. Each night some of the women recruits cried themselves to sleep. One of the men lost his temper and when a Drill Instructor pushed him, he pushed back. A mistake. An instant later he was on the ground, his eye already swelling shut from the blow that put him there, and then he was yanked to his feet and dragged away. They didn’t see him again.
The verbal abuse and intimidation did not bother Emily. She knew what they were doing. She would play the game. She would run and sweat and scream ‘Sir, yes Sir!’ and do whatever they wanted her to do. She had a goal: she was going to be a Fleet Historian. If she had to get through basic training to accomplish that goal, she would, and she was not going to let some screaming DI rattle her.
But in the third week, Sergeant Kaelin found her out.
It was her own fault. Drill Instructor Johnson was giving hell to another recruit. The recruit — Jeffers — had gotten so nervous that he had hyperventilated and, quite suddenly, crumbled to the ground, out cold. DI Johnson had stepped back, a look of astonishment on his face. The astonishment was soon replaced by irritation.
“Get up, damn you!” he roared at the unconscious form on the ground. “I’m not finished with you yet!”
That was too much for Emily. Laughter spluttered from her lips before she could stop herself, then she realized that Sgt. Kaelin was staring right at her. Still fighting the giggles, she thought, What the hell…and winked at him. Kaelin continued to stare at her without any change of expression, then abruptly turned and walked away.
Later that afternoon, dragging in from a five mile run — her years in the library had not prepared her for this — Sgt. Kaelin was standing in front of the administration building, hands on his hips.
“Tuttle! My office. Now!” he bellowed. Sure she was in for it, Emily broke ranks and walked quickly to his office. By the time she got there, he was already behind his desk. She marched up to his desk, stood at attention and saluted.
“Recruit Tuttle, reporting as ordered, Sergeant!”
Kaelin looked at her in silence for a long minute. Finally, he leaned back in his chair. “Tuttle, you are a problem, do you know that?”
“Sir, no Sir! Emily shouted, wondering ruefully what had possessed her to wink at him earlier.
“What are you, Tuttle, twenty-seven?”
“Sir, yes Sir!”
“And you’ve studied some, got yourself a fancy degree.” He gestured idly to a personnel folder on his desk. “I’ve looked at your transcripts, Tuttle. You’ve studied a lot about military history and structure.” He tapped a file with one calloused finger. “A lot about military culture, too.” He pursed his lips together and nodded. “Yeah, and I looked at your intelligence tests, Tuttle. You are pretty bright, pretty damn bright.” He looked at her coldly. “In fact, I’ll bet you think you are better than anybody else here.”
This time, Emily did not shout her response as all recruits are supposed to. She looked right at Kaelin. “No, Sergeant,” she said softly, “I don’t. Older, maybe, but not better.”
Kaelin sighed, then, curiously, ran his finger over the corner of her personnel folder, as if touching something there. “Tuttle, the average age of the kids coming through here is nineteen. They’ve had almost no experience at anything other than high school. They are as green as green can be. They think they’re all grown up, but they’re still kids. Hell, most of them haven’t even been laid.” He looked up at her. “You know what we do here?”
Emily knew. The Fleet took raw, scared kids and taught them discipline and skills. It showed them that they didn’t know a damn thing, and then taught them what they needed to know to be soldiers. It taught them they could do things they never would have dreamed of a year earlier. It taught them pride. It taught them that failing your fellow soldiers was worse than death.
“Yes, Sergeant, I know.”
“And do you know why, Tuttle? Do you understand the purpose of the training?” He paused a moment, then answered the question himself. “Someday, Tuttle you may be at helm of a war ship going into harm’s way. Perhaps against bad odds. You are going to give an order to attack, and you have to be able to rely on the fact that your crew — some who will be only a little older than the kids we have here — will obey that order, will follow you and attack because you have told them to. That all starts right here, Tuttle, on these training fields.”
He stopped talking for a moment and turned away, staring out the window.
“I know that, Sergeant,” Emily said.
“You are a bit older, Tuttle. You know what we are really doing when we get into a recruit’s face and give em’ hell,” he continued, still looking out the window. “But they don’t.” He turned back to her and his eyes bored into hers. “Do not interfere with what we are doing here, Tuttle, or I will have your ass. Do you understand me?
Emily braced herself. “Sir, yes Sir!” she shouted.
Kaelin jerked his head at the door. “Out,” he ordered. She started for the door. “And Tuttle!” She turned back, questioning. “One more goddamed wink out of you and I most certainly will have your ass. Got that!”
She nodded, and then fled.