David had heard all about it, laughed about it, and determined it wouldn’t get him down.
As he’d stepped off the bus in the darkness, David could smell the last of the purple oleander blossoms from the trees that had flashed past the Greyhound as it made its way over the long causeway to the island. In the dim glow of the bus’s cabin lights he could see a DI, peaked scout hat, strap at the back, khaki shirt and pants pressed with knife-edge precision, and could hear the sound of insects from the tidal flats — then a voice. Demented.
“Shut your fucking mouths! All your shit off the bus into the barracks. Now!” David got such a fright that, rushing back into the bus to get his kit bag, he stumbled on the bottom step.
“What’s your fucking name?” screamed the DI.
“Me, sir?”
“Yes, you. You’re the only goddamned stumble-ass around here. What’s your fucking name?”
“Brentwood, sir.”
The DI leaned forward. “I can’t hear you.”
“Brentwood, sir.”
“I can’t hear you.”
“Brentwood. Sir.”
“Fucking who?”
“Brentwood. Sir!”
“Wrong. Your name’s Stumble-ass. What’s your name?”
“Stumble-ass, sir.”
“What?”
“Stumble-ass, sir.”
“What?”
“Stumble-ass, sir!”
“Right. Now get your kit and run!”
David wished he’d joined the navy.
Inside the white building there was a sparse barrack room, an antiseptic smell, a line of double bunks down both sides, the same DI standing, hands on hips, waiting for David, the last recruit in after the delay at the bus. It meant he got the only bunk left — right by the door. There was a whisper.
“Who spoke?” shouted the DI. It was the first thing about a DI that David noticed. They didn’t “roar” like lions, they shouted, a tad below hysteria.
A black recruit stepped forward, putting his hand up.
“Put your goddamned fucking hand down until I tell it to move.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes what?”
“Yes, sir!”
“You talk again, string bean, and I will personally cut your balls off. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes what?”
“Yes, sir!”
There was a long silence, at least five minutes. No one moved. Someone broke wind. The silence continued, then the DI, his voice rolling over the already tired and demoralized recruits, recited the litany of reception in a deliberately unemotional monotone, which made it even more foreboding for the recruits, though it consisted of telling them the obvious: where they were, Parris Island — though some thought it was a nightmare they’d woken up in. Most wanted to get back on the bus, but the bus had gone. The DI informed them that because of the small numbers of the peacetime standing army, training would have to be completed in a much shorter time than usual. If he had his way, he would work the miserable maggots eighteen hours a day, but insofar as Congress in its wisdom had decreed that a maggot had to receive seven and one-half hours of “uninterrupted sleep,” the maggots would have to work much harder than was usual for maggots in order that they might qualify as members of the “world’s finest fighting organization,” the “United States Marine Corps,” and that they were to do exactly as they were told to do, would not speak unless spoken to, and always end a sentence with “sir.”
Strange insects buzzed and flapped against the gauze, reincarnated recruits, though David, trying to remember from his zoology course whether it was the female mosquito that made the zinging noise or the male. Anyway, it was like the DI: the one you didn’t hear was the one that got you, the one you’d like to kill. One of the fluorescent lights had started flickering. They were still at attention.
“Stumble-ass!”
“Yes, sir!”
“What’s in that plastic bag?”
David was so rattled, he couldn’t think. The sweat was pouring down his back. “Ah — candy, I—” It was some candy Melissa had given him when he’d left.
“Candy!” bellowed the DI. “Candy, shit! You’re not going to have fucking time to chew fucking candy, are you, Stumble-ass?”
“No, sir.”
“Now what?”
“No, sir. “ David couldn’t believe the obscenity. The only person he’d ever heard talk like this was an Australian.
“Take off your fucking pants!” the DI bellowed at the recruits, and began walking down the rows. “Oh — lookit this!” A recruit quickly risked a glance to see what the DI was looking at.
“Keep your fucking head up, turd.” The recruit’s head shot back up and stared ahead, eyes glazed by fear.
“Oh, look,” said the DI, his bellow daring anyone to look. “What have we got here, limp dink? Valentine shorts.” David could see far enough up the line without moving his head to see the recruit, a Puerto Rican, his boxer shorts covered with valentine hearts. The DI walked around the man once, reversed direction, and walked around the other way. David had never seen a more miserable-looking soul on God’s earth than the hapless Puerto Rican. The DI stood up to his full height, his nose almost touching the recruit, whose head was straining back while at the same time trying to remain at attention without tipping.
“Who gave you these, Thelma?”
“Name is Thelman—”
“Shut your fucking mouth. Your name’s Thelma. Who gave them to you, Thelma?”
“My mother, sir.”
“Mommy. Long as you’re here, you’ll wear standard issue, Thelma. If you’re good enough to be a marine, which I fucking doubt, you will continue to wear standard issue. Do you read me?”
“Yes, sir.”
The DI turned. “Get your fucking plastic bag up here, Stumble-ass. On the double! Dump it on the floor.” David did so. There was a card from Melissa that fell out with the candy. David was beet-red from embarrassment and anger. He knew what the DI was trying to do. Everyone knew. It didn’t make it easier that you knew. The DI handed him the card.
“You’re the worst fucking lot I’ve seen yet. War brings out the best and worst in men. And you are the fucking worst. Empty your pockets and kits of all shit. Now. Understand?”
“Yes, sir!” reverberated the barrack.
“Shit for you stupid assholes is any substance contrary to regulation. Aspirin is shit, narcotics are shit, vitamins are shit, prescription drugs are shit, candy is shit. Booze is shit. Anything I don’t like is shit. Understand?”
“Yes sir!”
“Only wedding rings are permitted. What’s that?”
“A radio, sir. Transistor.”
“That’s shit.”
The pile of drugs, combs, neck chains, condoms, gum, cigarettes, filled the plastic bag. But this was the easy part. Next day, beginning with the usual breakfast by numbers at 0430, David saw his hair, the last vestige of his individuality, falling from him in great gobs unceremoniously pushed away by an enormous broom into a garbage bag. Then there were the obsessive “forming” rituals of induction week, the humiliating “asshole inspection,” the endless grueling day of DI abuse, the numbingly repetitious use of every weapon from M-16s to the laser-guided TOW, the “Alfa Bravo Charlie Delta…” alphabet so that messages might never be misunderstood, the stifling, nauseating forced run through the gas hut, the issue of standard condoms along with other standard equipment, the bare dining room with the words “TACT, LOYALTY, GUNG-HO, COURAGE, TEAMWORK, HONESTY, KNOWLEDGE, MORALE” stenciled on the support posts above the painted footprints where you had to stand.
What David remembered most was the kind of small incident that for some reason stays with you for life. It was one night just after lights out, the moon cold comfort over the Carolina low country, when the Puerto Rican called Thelma turned to David and said, “I came here to be a marine — to fight for my country— not this kind of crap.”
From near the “mouse house,” the DI’s small room with basin at the end of the hut, a silhouette appeared, its peaked hat sharp against the halo of the moon. The DI’s voice, for the first time that David could remember, was not shouting. “We dish out shit, son, because you’re going to get shit. The Russians and their helpers aren’t going to throw flowers at you.”
The recruit said nothing. The DI turned to walk away to his billet, stopped, and looked over his shoulder. “One more thing, you scumbags. If this thing doesn’t get sorted out over there, the Red bastards will end up in your backyard. I want a marine next to me. I love this country. I love the Corps.”
By the time David Brentwood, Thelma, and the others had gone through basic training, their platoon of seventy-five had only purple streamers attached to their platoon’s standard. This meant that, unlike the “superiors,” they were merely run-of-the-mill marines and had not distinguished themselves above the other marines in platoon marksmanship and other battlefield skills. But they were marines and were told they would be among the first used to plug “the gaps in the dike.”
“Questions?” asked the DI, his voice now approaching normal, not friendly but not as sarcastic as usual.
“What dike’s that, sir?”
“The dikes are everywhere, marine. You just remember everything you’ve been taught and you might just stand a chance.”
Another recruit put up his hand. “Sir, can you tell us how it’s going in Korea?”
“Chongju fell last night.”
After chow, with graduation next morning, they began the difficult informal good-byes, laced with false bravado lest they be thought too sentimental.
It made no sense to David. He’d hated the place, but now that he’d qualified — in fact, he thought his shooting had been pretty good, though the final marks were not in on that yet — there was a feeling of belonging. In the relatively short time they’d known one another, the men who had made it formed a bond that they instinctively knew would last a lifetime and which marine tradition told them would. And each of them as they packed his kit, knowing he would soon be called to war, to face the fear and all the dangers of the unknown, felt ready, toughened, and in each man’s thoughts the honor rolls from Montezuma to Iwo Jima to the fighting retreat from Chosin Reservoir all rang with glory, for as yet none of them had known the smell of it, the feel of it, or the horror. They knew it only in the abstract, and for all they’d been told of what to expect, each of them held the young man’s eternal secret: it would not be him, and in that he found his bravery, his willingness to go forth.
On the last day the DI read out the numbers of assignation to the marine platoon of seventy-five. “Devane… zero three zero zero. Least you can fire a fucking rifle.” There was subdued laughter — training over, the future before them. “Brentwood… zero three zero zero — looks like you and Devane are for MAGTAF.”
“What’s that, sir?”
“Sounds like a disease,” said someone else.
“Marine air-ground task force, idiot. Out of Camp Lejeune. Means they think the fuckers can shoot, scratch ass, and jump from a plane at the same time.”
“Whose ass?” someone put in.
For the first time the DI did not bawl out at the goofing off. It was as close as a DI would come to showing affection. “Thel-man, zero three zero zero — MAGTAF.” The DI ticked him off the list. “Do I train ‘em or what?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Webster, one eight zero zero. Engineers — means you might be fixing toilets.”
There was silence, the DI’s clipboard in front now that he’d finished reading off the whole platoon. “All right now, here’s the score. You made it through boot camp. You’re marines. Don’t ever forget it. Wherever you go, you’ll be marines. Marines don’t give ground — they take it. I’m not gonna shit you— right now the gooks and the Russians have got us by the balls, our backs to the sea. I don’t know whether you’ll be going in, but you’re all going to end up in it somewhere. Korea or Europe—’less some dumb bastard pushes the button, which so far hasn’t been the case and which I personally don’t think they will — anyway, not so long as they haven’t blown their wad in conventional arms and got nothing left to throw at us. But wherever you go, you’ve got one big thing in your favor. You believe in what you’re fighting for. When they get tough, and they will, your belief in your country, in the Corps, is an extra shot up the spout. Good luck, God bless.”
On the final night, after the graduation, packing his kit for Camp Lejeune, David Brentwood was feeling down. Thelman’s stepmother had attended the graduation parade, but neither of David’s parents could make it. There’d been multiple bomb scares at JFK and La Guardia, and by the time the passing review rolled around, John and Catherine Brentwood were still on the ground in New York. It was one of the great disappointments of David’s life. He was quite surprised at how disappointing. No mail from Melissa either, but then, mail right across the country seemed to be in a shambles these days — more bomb threats and one big explosion in Chicago’s central post office, killing three inside workers and scores of others. They’d said it was sabotage. As David took Melissa’s photo down from the “hog” board in the barracks room and Thelman took down his girl, he asked Brentwood whether he believed all that crap the DI had said “ ‘bout us having an extra shot in the spout. I figure the Russians tell their guys the same thing.”
“Probably,” said David.
“Yeah, well,” said Thelman, “any Russian gets on my two hundred line, I’ll blow his head off.”
David said nothing. He was still thinking about his parents not being there to see him graduate. He knew it wasn’t their fault and they’d had a bad time of it just trying to cope with Ray, his Mom wanting to go over to California every time he had an operation. It became too expensive, and anyway, she’d promised Ray she wouldn’t come see him until he felt ready. Truth was, Ray was getting on David’s nerves a bit.
David didn’t want to admit it, but damn it, the only praise he’d received from anyone in the past ten weeks was during the days when the platoon had gone out for qualification to try for the requisite 190 out of 250 on the firing range. It was the one time when the DI stood back and a coach was assigned to every two recruits. Some were more sarcastic than the DIs, and a few, like the one that David and Devane got, Sergeant Osborne, really cared about the young recruits under them.
Osborne spoke quietly, and rather than push them, he led them into doing a good job. He even spent time with them on the Smith & Wesson.45 side arm practice, usually dismissed as “fun” or “fuckin’ useless for marines” except, the DI said, “if you let a fucking Gorby get that close to you — then you don’t deserve a side arm. Use your hands. Stiff arm with the left and grab the private’s privates.” But in an age besotted by automatic wonders, Osborne’s approach imbued them with a respect for the old-fashioned.45 side arm. He himself approached the weapon with the respect of a novice taking his first communion.
“Can be used for good or evil, boys,” he said. “No matter what the damned liberals say, Commies can come and take you away in the middle of the night. In this country you have to have a warrant. That’s a big difference. That’s a difference worth dying for.” What made him give them that little speech, neither Brentwood nor Devane had any idea — maybe he’d overheard Thelman’s cynicism on the night of the full moon. He was a little odd, they said, but whatever, he did teach them how to fire the.45: breathe in, hold, “No, no, son… squeeze, don’t jerk it. I’ve seen guys qualified with the M-16 couldn’t hit a DI’s butt with a.45 jammed up him. Way I figure it, there’s gonna be a lot of use for these little babies. You take good care of ‘em, hear?”
David had worked hard for Osborne because the man not only genuinely cared about what he was doing but reveled in their success. “Way to go, Private,” he called out to Brentwood when he made qualification with the.45. “Out fucking standing!”
As the 747 banked in preparation for landing at Camp Lejeune, both marines proudly wearing their marksman’s badges on their tunics, Thelman was thinking about Osborne and his love affair with the.45. “Why we going to need pistols?”
“I don’t know,” said Brentwood, looking down at the brownish-green scrub that was the training area for the marine air-ground task force. “But I’ve got a feeling we’re going to find out real soon. Lejeune’s pretty tough. Probably give us a can of beans, one mag each for the.45, and see how we do.”
“One can of beans?” laughed Thelman. “Man, I’m way ahead of you on this one. They don’t give you nothin’ in this outfit, is what I hear. They send you out and you have to live off the land for five days.”
“What the hell’s the use of that?” asked Brentwood. “We aren’t supposed to be runnin’ from anybody. Marines take, ground. Right?”
“It’s called tactical retreat. They drop you in a zone. Before your supplies are unloaded from the chopper, it’s all blown to hell. Then you gotta make do — live off the land till they can send a whirlybird in for you.”
As the 747 descended, they could see marines taking off in harness from the parachute towers, small khaki figures beneath them shaking their fists and seeming to be in apoplexy. DIs.
“Jesus,” said Brentwood, “I should have gone for deferment. Latrines.”
“Nah,” said Thelman. “You’re a mover, Stumble-ass. First time I saw you crash that bus step, I said to myself, ‘Now, there’s a mover.’ “
“Shut your face.”