5
James Conner is having a dream.
In that dream an entertainment news program is running. Two men are sitting next to each other on the sort of tall stools found in bars. One looks uncommonly like Ron Burgundy from Anchorman, and the other resembles a more artistic version of Dick Cheney, in a black turtleneck and a beret. The interviewer clears his throat, and begins.
-Thank you for joining me. Tonight we have a new guest, the esteemed producer and director of the Conner show, D____. Thank you for joining us.
-Thank you for having me.
-For those of you who dont follow it, the Conner show is the award winning reality based program following the life of James Conner, from inception to his current role, as a member of the US Military. The show has won multiple awards, and has some of the highest ratings in Cable Television, isnt that right?
-We did very well this season.
-Now, James Conner is the first person to ever be legally adopted by a corporation.
-Thats right. And within the reality of the program, there is a sort of inside joke to this, we shot a full length movie with Jim Carrey about a similiar situation, and let Conner see it.
-Did he enjoy it?
-He did. We monitor his (Conners) brain activity to see how his mood is going, and post the data on the internet. So we can say for certain that he did enjoy the movie.
-Now, this is the second season following Conner's deployment overseas.
-Thats right. What I want to establish is, this idea, that all wars have a common theme. A common sense of artistic purpose, that reflects the sentiments of whats going on in society at the time. We can trace this back to World War 2. If you look at the art, the fiction and literature that came out of that conflict, and what I'm talking about is the stuff done by the actual veterans of it, you get a real sense of realism and humanism.
-Can you define that?
- A sense of, appreciating the moment, what you have, and taking life at face value, more or less. And the Americans that went through that conflict took that attitude and brought it home with them.
-The greatest generation.
-I think that- I mean, I think that definition is a little stifling. That generation did a good job, but America came out of that conflict on top of the world, through its own actions, certainly, but also through the forces around it.
-What else?
-If you continue, with the metaphor, the theme of Vietnam is surrealism. Psychotropic drugs were introduced to the culture at about that time, and if you look at the art of the time-
-Like the movies, Apocalypse Now, or Platoon,
-Exactly. Two good examples that reflect that.
-So, the theme of Today?
- I believe the theme of our modern combats is postmodernism.
-Really!
-Yes.
-Can you elaborate?
-I can. Irony is one of the chief concerns of postmodernism, at this point in American society, irony permeates. Consider, the president declares a "war on terror". Now if we check the Oxford English Dictionary, we find the definition of terror as a state of extreme fear and panic. An emotion, in other words. A negative emotion. And we have sent American troops, real people, into harms way to battle against our own feelings.
-There does seem to be a disconnect.
-Thats another theme, disconnect. Consider that in this major conflict, we have not had a draft. An all volunteer force fights for us, representing only a slender percentage of the populace. Not only that, but we havent been asked to make any sort of sacrifice at all- taxes have gone down. If you choose to, you can live a normal life in America completely oblivious to any sort of war at all.
-Unless your a Marine.
-Thats right, exactly. or a private contractor such as Blackwater, who doesnt exist, who arent tallied or regulated in any shape or form.
-Will this be the final season?
-I cant answer that. I never have.
-We have some footage to show now, I do want to extend a word of caution to out audience, the following images are extremely graphic.
Mario spits the dip out the window and wonders how fucked up Darrel really is. All the guys done is drink and rant, about some bullshit reality show he appeared in. As if Mario gave a shit. Mario spent the last three years in Florida City working for the Miami-Dade police department and he doesnt give a shit if the guy was a SEAL, Mario is one hundred percent sure that Darrel is a meaty exterior protecting a core full of shit. It was fun work, but he had to get out. The bitch was on his ass for the money, was the reason she squirted out the kid, the department was up his ass about the missing blow, and it was in blinking red neon letters now, time to go. He knew the guy that knew the guy to get him here, and now that he was here, it wasnt going to stop he wasnt going to quit, he was going to get the paper together to get gone. Curucao. He would get a place on Curucao. It was perfect, it was Dutch Carribean with perfect white sand beaches and clear blue water with no American tourists and a really badass whorehouse, Campo Allegra, really fucking awesome, that girl had sucked a duck like it was about to blow chocolate flavored gold, and when he had fucked her he stared at his reflection in the full length mirror facing the bed just like that guy, whatshisname, that Batman guy from that Psycho movie. He would live and fuck and swim, maybe buy a boat and fish. That seemed like the thing to do.
The black SUV rolled out from the gate and burned out onto the main street of Fallujah. It was midday, the streets were crowded, and Mario drove hell for leather. The state department compound was on the other side of the city, the shortest distance between two points was a straight line, and that was the point Mario had chosen. Had he asked, he would not have been advised to do so. Why would he have asked? Like Darrel, Mario is assuring himself of his own certain place within a majestic tableaux. A meaningful end for him brought about by violent ends for others. This is the American Dream as they both understand it.
It is also the understanding of the crowd. Look at them! Listless, restless, feckless, thin! All of one uniform, of one color, thin and brown bearded and shaven, young and male, barefoot sandaled, appearing through doors, windows, not smiling. Ones and twos, fives and tens, do they stop? Do they acknowledge? There is no time to do either. A screaming comes upon the street. The shot was beautiful. A wonderful trail of smoke, arching, in the death howl of some horrible monkey bird the RPG fuwumph! Kerbleoy! Such beauty! Mans first friend! Fire! fire, arching, from the earth killer, the pertroleum guzzler, the black crumpled tin can, and in this moment at time, this wondrous moment, God, what we would do, to see it again and again, the shot, the fire, the beauty.
There is nothing but quick movements. Were the guns always there? Maybe. Cloaked like klingon warbirds, AK-47's in the hands of teenagers, a barrel tapping on the window casually. Blaat blaat the window is no more. The impacts are terrible but we do not see them. What we do see is the bodies, in three stages, one, the recognizable, with uniforms and gear, in this stage they appear to be listless. Darrel Eggers especially appears as if he would ask to the youth removing him, why are there pinholes on my face? Why do they bleed? Is this a new and severe acne? The camera follows, jostling to stage two, the burning. In the burning stage a machete is produced and an arm is severed. The severing is not shown but instead the arm appears, above the crowd, to instant applause, to an enourmous roar of approval. The camera follows behind the men, who have become suddenly aware of it and now tell the camera;
-God is Great!
-God is Great!
But what does the camera know of God? What does it care about his being great? And what are the choices? God is great in relation to him being otherwise small? God is great because he is theirs, a sort of sports game football god? But here we are, at stage three, the camera sees two blackened limbless naked burnt things, two torsos and heads, held by wire, hoisted up to tangle above a trestle bridge, and here the camera speaks, to tell us, in the language of pictures, that God is terrible.
6
The motorcycle was a means of self-punishment, in that it hurt to ride it. The seat was uncomfortable, and on cold days, the wind whipped right through his face and hands, sent them numb or tingling with pain. It was often cold in winters in Browning, even though it didnt snow.
He had bought the motorcycle on a whim. Or more of a sudden decision that had brewed for some time in his head. In much the same way that he had joined the military. He had been angry at Jo, for reasons he didnt fully remember. A fight about nothing. Driving away in rage to clear his head, he came to the strip bar.
It was a strange combination given to this part of Texas only, full female nudity and drinking in the same place. It was noon on a weekday. Most of the talented girls had left by now, or would only arrive at night on the weekends. There was one girl, a black girl, who had neon light shining off her dark skin and innermost hidden self that he had spent a hundred dollars on lap dances and drinks. The only part of it he could claim to enjoy, was when she came outside the club to smoke a cigarette with him in the nude. Knowing a woman like that was something he wished he did. But he emerged from the experience intoxicated by early afternoon and talking with an old biker in the parking lot.
"How would I buy a bike?" He said. "A Harley, I mean. I've got bad credit."
"Do you have a job?" The biker asked.
"Yeah." He said.
"I work for the government."
"Son." The biker said. "If you work for the government, in this economy, Harley-Davidson will finance your damn bike."
It was a short drive to the dealership, which was named Cowboy Motorcycles. He picked out a black model, all black, except for chrome pipes. It was called the Nightster. He signed the paperwork, and then realized that he didnt know how to drive it home.
When he brought the bike home, it was not an immediate fight with Jo. Rather she made the pretense that their relationship was now terminal, and she was preparing for its immediate dissolution. Meanwhile he learned to drive the thing through the parking lot of their apartment complex. He dropped it on the ground twice, and ended up with a few cuts and bruises, but no broken bones.
Now he rode the bike to work daily. He owned two vehicles, the Honda Accord and the Nightster. Through an agreement they had come to the motorcycle was his and he would drive it to work regardless of conditions. It was a thirty minute drive from the part of Browning where they lived and the border, where the detention center was kept. Before the economy had crashed Browning was known for its oil refineries. On the road directly before the center stood an old Oil tower from around the first turn of the century, the Spindletop, from the early Texas oild boom. Long dry now. There was desert to his left, and if he stretched his mind significantly, Conner could imagine himself back at Afghanistan.
The detention center complex had been intentionally constructed in the middle of nowhere. There was a guard shack with a warning sign, that read DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY and ALL VEHICLES SUBJECT TO SEARCH. But the guard shack was left empty. It cost too much money to keep it staffed with personell. There was a yellow speed bump right next to the shack which Conner deftly avoided. Here the road split into the multitude of buildings, that incorporated the complex. Conner turned right, toward the yellow. In the old days of the federal prison system, before it had gone extinct, inmate facilities had been classified as low, medium, or high. Now detainees were classified by colors, green, yellow, or red.
The greens worked out of what would have been a camp if it were a prison. They ran the grounds and drove vehicles, cleaned buildings. These were the undocumented illegals that were considered low risk to escape. Perhaps they had spent years in the US, and hoped to have their cases overturned. All of this was mostly fiction. No one that entered detentions had their cases overturned. There were only two ways out, a bus ride to the mexican border, or a noose in your cell. Anything else would have jeopardized Homeland Security.
The red was the opposite. The detainees that were classified red were hardened criminals, that had done violence. Some were convicted of terrorism. The red facility was ringed by a series of gun towers, and multiple rows of electrified fencing topped with razor wire. There were often fights at the red facility, own group of mexican nationals against another group, hacking each other to pieces with homemade knives on the recreation yard. People died there.
The yellow, where Conner worked, was somewhere in between. Some violence, but not as much. A fence to keep detainees in, but no gun towers. He screened in through the metal detector. His co-workers greeted him with a dour look. That look permeated most of the employees he had worked with so far. No one enjoyed working detentions. It was the bottom of the barrel, as far as federal law enforcement was concerned. And most everyone had ambitions, to move up to Border Patrol, or ICE. If they did work as a low level Dententions Officer, like Conner, they had ambition to move up into one of the higher paying GS-11 positions. The GS-11's wore suits, and had weekends and holidays off.
Conner had worked every single weekend and holiday for the last two years. He didnt mind. When he was in Iraq, he never had a day off.
Today, like most every day, Conner worked a housing unit. The detainees in the yellow slept in metal bunks kept in concrete cubicles. It was not a cell, strictly speaking, due to the abscence of a door and roof. Conner had an arrangement with the detainees:
Leave me alone, I'll leave you alone.
The duties of an Officer were to keep order, stop fights, and respond to emergency situations. In the red, this alone would have been enough to keep him busy all day. At the yellow, this occupied his time maybe twice a month. Beyond that he was expected to conduct searches of the prisoners for contraband, and make rounds throughout the unit. Conner ignored both of these responsibilities. He was writing a book.
The book, which had gone through several revisions and drafts, was called War Memories. It was about what he went through in the Marines, more or less, and mostly about his Time in Chosin Company. A lot of it had to do with Ryan. He had started the book with nothing more than some idea that he wanted to write about the time the President made a speech in Fallujah, and after that the memories had come pouring right out from under him. Writing it down felt like trying to drink from a fire house, everything wanted to get out, and so fast. If there was a problem, it was that he was angry.
Conner had started to get angry months after getting out of the Marines. Jo wanted him to see the VA. Conner was worried about doing that. But lately, he was worried about what he might do. The other day Jo and him had been fighting, and he broke down a bedroom door, clean off the hinges. Was that normal? Every day he thought about Iraq.
Then there was sleep. Conner slept for three hours a night. No more, no less. If he thought about it he knew the reason. Three hours was the time between watches in the desert. When he awoke, it was bolt upright, breathing rapidly. This was conditioning. It was an asset, in case he had to react suddenly.
"When would you need to do that?" Jo would say. "Your not in the Marines anymore."
"I dont know." Conner said. "At work. I work at Law Enforcement."
She laughed. "But you dont sleep there." She said. "You need to see someone."
But maybe, Conner thought, all I have to do is get it out. Get the words down on paper, and banish it from the system. Maybe I dont need a doctor to tell me anything at all. If I can write this one book, and tell people how it was, maybe that will be enough.
And so he wrote, and ignored his work, and drove his motorcycle. At home his wife was pregnant and afraid.
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Old Stone House Reading
A great night at the Old Stone House with Brooklyn Reading Works, reading with Phil Klay, Matt Gallagher, Mariette Kalinowski, and Maurice Decaul. Thanks to Peter Catapano for setting it up, and thanks to everyone who came out!
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Contest
I mentioned a contest on the facebook page. Here I'll mention it again:
It's for shorts under 1000. Check it out.
It's for shorts under 1000. Check it out.
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Video Game Crusader-Chapter 3 and 4
The Marine Corps continued to impress him with its differences, both subtle and non, from his previously held expectations.
He had imagined bording the plane for his first deployment to Iraq to be a memorable occasion. He would enter the airport with his green sea bag in uniform, and people would shake his hand and congratulate him. Thank him for his service. The stewardess would give him free drinks the whole way, maybe even a handie-jay in the back bathroom if he was lucky. Finally he would launch himself off the plane, into a sort of waiting area with the rest of the members of his unit, who were all waiting for him. A timer would count down, and at the end it would be time to go to war, to seek out the terrorists and shoot them hopefully in the head. None of this turned out to be the case.
The airplane that took him overseas was a civilian model, a Boing 737 to be precisem but it did not leave from a civilian airport. It left from a Marine Corps air station, that happened to be just down the road from Camp Lejuene. One of the many disadvantages being, there were no baggage handlers around to load on the gear. That left a working party.
James Conner had entered the Marine Corps a Private First Class, which made him a non-NCO, otherwise known as a non-rate, otherwise known as a boot. Boots were often used for working parties. There seemed an endless amount of things to unload and load and clean in the Marine Corps, and Conner seemed to be heading into all of it. This working party was particularly painful, the packs were heavy, as well as some of the heavier gear, and hoisting it all into the plane was sweaty work.
After it was done Conner took his seat next to Ryan Sawyer. Sawyer was a boot who had started in the platoon one month before Conner. He was from Tampa, which sounded like somewhere exotic and fun to Conner, considering his years in Virginia. He wore floral print shirts a lot. His favorite euphamism was "Whatever, dude."
Sawyer was also a boot, but he was somehow more at ease with his boot status. He seemed more at ease with himself, with the military. He already had a name other than "boot", Jon Odle had christened him "Rush" While listening to Tom Sawyer as loud as the barracks stereo would play it. Odle had almost done the same thing for him, mumbling "Cum vith me if yoo vant to livv!" and called him Term, as in Terminator. That had changed to boot soon enough.
Jon Odle was a only a Lance Corporal, E-3, but he was a Salt Dog. He had been with the Platoon during its previous deployment to Iraq. This was a division Conner had never forseen, between Salt Dog and Boot. The Marine Corps was a branch of divisions, between Grunt and Pogue, or Fobbit, between one Battalion and the next, and then company, and platoon. All this seemed to foster something else Conner had not thought of, a general sense of ill will, and discontent. Marines seemed to hate being Marines.
All the Salt Dogs seemed to talk about was when they could get the fuck out. The date of the end of their active service, or EAS. They spoke about it in loud voices, at night in the barracks, over bottles of whiskey and cans of beer. They spoke about it in low murmers, in days in formation, as they waited to hear word about something or the other. That was a new reality- the waiting. There seemed to be much of it, more even than boot camp. Days were spent standing around wondering what would happen next.
The boots in Chosin Company talked much less frequently, and in lower tones than the Salt Dogs. Some of them shared stories of home, of earlier lives. Others talked about things they hoped to accomplish, during their time in the Marines. Even if the lack of morale was somewhat shocking, to Boots who had been used to Parris Island, where the Corps itself was an object of veneration, these Boots reasoned that the Salt Dogs were only a few bad apples. Maybe Chosin Company itself was a bad unit, and another one could be different, or change things around. The gear they wore looked cool enough, straight out of Call of Duty, even if a real ACOG sight did not always stay firmly attached to a real M16. Even if a real ballistic vest was over fifty pounds, with kevlar plates inserted. Even if a real helicopter was over fifty years old, not a sleek looking blackhawk or a mean looking osprey. This was still the actual Marine Corps.
But the third group of boots had decided that the Salt Dogs were right. They had made a horrible mistake, that day in the recruiters office, and that other day, boarding the bus or plane to boot camp. A number of this group had been drunk or stoned at the time, or reasoned that, their decision was so poor that they might as well have been under the influence or narcotics. Ryan Sawyer was firmly in that number. He hated the Marine Corps, hated rank and its privilege, hated working parties.
"How can you know?" Conner would argue. "You havent been deployed yet."
"What do you think deployment is?" Sawyer would say. "Its the same old dumb shit. Its working parties and fire watch and being cold and fucking miserable in the field, except people die."
"You get to kill people."
"Ask the Salt Dogs if they killed anybody." Sawyer laughed.
And that killed the conversation. The Salt Dogs would never talk about their previous deployment. The one time Conner had tried, a simple question to his squad leader, Sergeant Lazirko, what was Iraq like?
Lazirko had laughed. "Your going to die, you fucking boot!" He said. "Get ready!"
It was almost like waiting for an airplane to take off at an airport, except you knew everyone on board, and they were all carrying assault rifles. Or in Conner's case, a machine gun. The M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, which shot the same size bullets as an M16, but much faster and farther. the sight was covered by a black sock. Another detail the video games neglected. Everyone was sitting and waiting and laughing to each other. Sawyer had one of the new Ipods with a color screen.
"What are you listening too?" Conner asked.
"Bright Eyes."
"You like that emo crap."
"So do you."
"Bullshit."
"You like Green Day."
"Green Day is not emo."
"What are they?"
"Their punk- I mean, not really punk. More like alternative."
"Fine. So lets call Bright Eyes that then. Why dont you listen to your music?"
"All my music is on my PSP."
Sawyer laughed. "And Odles still got that shit?"
It had been nearly a month ago now. Jon Odle had asked to borrow Conner's Playstation Portable. Conner had been eager to please, and then the thing had never been returned. If the subject was broached, the response had always been "I'm almost at the next level." or "Your such a fucking boot". Either way, Conner did not know what to do.
"Hey look." Sawyer pointed. "He's playing it right now."
Conner cocked his head to see up the rows of seats. Odle was playing the PSP, showing off a level where Kratos fought an enourmous bare-tittied female monster. Sawyer laughed.
"Fuck dude." He said. "Dont be such a pussy about it. Just go up there and tell him to hand you back your shit."
"I cant."
"Why not? Its your stuff. Get it back."
Conner looked down, in defeat.
"I'll tell you why not." Sawyer said. "Its because Odle is friends with Lazirko, your squad leader, and Zerko will tell you to get back in your seat. Odle will say something about giving it back later, which is total bullshit. The Marine Corps has stolen your PSP and given it to a crackhead."
It was true. Jon Odle had freebased cocaine twice that year with Cory Hunter. Everyone knew about it. The rumor was that Odle had a friend to Co-Ordinate the Piss Test, and to arrange for him not to pop. The Salt Dogs looked out for each other. Conner stared at him, at the back of his head, which was much fuller of hair than Conner's own. There was another division, in the hidden Marine Corps Salt Dog/Boot split, having a lower regulation haircut. Conner missed his hair.
The flight started when Conner was dozing off, in and out of looking at old pictures on his cell phone. Him and Lila, him and his mother. Some friends from school. Finally a pic of him in dress blues after boot camp, at his mothers church. Standing straight and proud. The dress blues were not issued to him after boot camp, as he had imagined. They had cost him three hundred dollars. The only place he could think to wear them without feeling rediculous was at the church. Putting it out of his mind, Conner turned his attention back to the flight.He had gotten a window seat, out of pure luck. He remembered flying to visit his aunt in California, a long time ago. How excited he was.
The flight went on and on. It was no small thing to fly across the Atlantic ocean. There were two in flight movies, a romantic comedy with Hugh Grant, and a computer animated movie that managed to bastardize a beloved Dr. Suess fable. Conner watched movies on Sawyer's laptop instead, Sin City, and Revenge of the Sith. Sawyer had a carefully kept binder of DVD's which he never lent out. A pretty flight attendant with an english accent asked him if he wanted something to eat. He instantly felt sorry for her. Bouncing from Marine to Marine, one bad pick-up line after another. None of them standing a chance. Him especially not. A game of ratio, 1:200 being decidedly out of favor for Conner. He wondered how many guys were in Lila's college. University of Richmond.
Eight hours in and he saw that Odle was in a dead sleep. He got up and carefully picked the PSP out of his lap. Lazirko saw him and gave him a broad wink.
4
Camp Fallujah was uglier than he expected.
The buildings consisted of those connex containers that were towed across the country by tractor trailers. They had been decorated by roofing of sandbags. Sandbags were applied liberally to almost everywhere Conner could see.
There were several perimeters of large wire containers filled with rocks, called hesco barriers. These were stacked sometimes two stories high. Everywhere was constant activity, tan humvee's, AMRAP's, and even tan tanks moving around.
The civilian plane had taken Conner and Chosin company as far as Saudi. From there a C-130 had taken them across the border into Iraq. It was much less comfortable on the C-130. Conner was in full battle gear for the flight, ballistic vest and helmet. The cargo aircraft roared on lazily, and was cold at full altitude. Conner felt like a sardine, trapped next to everyone else in the platoon. Anonymous. He took a picture with his phone, for lack of anything better to do. After a nap he awoke with a pounding headache, and the need to empty his bladder, but found he could not move. Instead he jerked an empty water bottle from his daypack and filled it with piss.
Once off the flightline in Camp Fallujah, he had seen his first explosion. A mortar had landed with a WHUMP, not two hundred feet away in the sand, sending up a cloud of dust. Odle yanked his arm, hard, and Conner fell down. "Put your hands under your body." Odle said. "And keep your mouth open, so the pressure doesnt shatter your teeth. Conner did as he was told. Someone called out all clear, and Odle helped him up, grinning and calling him a fucking boot. When he looked in his cargo pocket Conner could see that the PSP was missing.
The first trip was to the main building in the center of the Camp, where rounds were handed out. Conner received Six hundred rounds for his SAW, two drum boxes and one belt strip. Staff Sergeant glared at everyone. "I want to see plenty of weapons maintenance, squad leaders." He said. "And no negligent discharges. If anyone shoots off a round at anything other than a haaji, he's getting a page eleven."
Conner loaded the drum, and checked his sight. Another detail, the way you could see the front sight post even while looking through the ACOG. His arms and shoulders hurt. Why did they hurt already? He tried to calculate the weight he was carrying. Fifty pounds for the body armor, twenty-five for the weapon, fifty for the pack...in video games he saw Marines holding their weapons up and pointed outward, in first person view. He could tell that that much was impossible. Maybe for a much stronger man. Why had he thought he was strong enough, to be a Marine?
The platoon dropped its packs and gear off in the conex trailer, and left for its first patrol.
****
There was a way to walk on patrol that was different from walking normally. It consisted of turning and watching where you were going, what was around you, and the man behind you. You never bunched up on a patrol formation, always kept dispersion. That way a grenade or IED could only kill one person, supposedly. All of this Conner knew in a purely academic chest, and it caused his heart to beat near out of his chest.
Fallujah was an ugly city. City was being generous describing it, an ugly town. Trash littered the streets. Empty plastic bags blew freely in the wind, stopping only when caught on a corner, or a pile of garbage. The smell of refuse and excrement filled Conner's nostrils. As if the city was wearing a diaper that had not been changed. Between them the Striker quietly rolled. "Radio check." The lieutenant said, across Conner's headset, to no one in particular. "Lima- charlie." Conner said into the mic. The command came from up front, a raised fist. Freeze.
There was little to look at. The Marines in front of him and behind, the vehicle between. There had been no people on the road. Fewer still in the buildings, sometimes the barest hints of a face, behind an open window. The sun was very bright overhead. It made him squint. Looking ahead he could see Odle wearing his Oakleys. Sunglasses. Why hadnt he thought of that? Marines in the pictures were always wearing sunglasses. Why hadnt they told him anything.
Anger filled him, flooding into his gut. They wanted him to fail. He was set up to be a boot, not a warrior. Sergeant Lazirko was in on it with Staff Sergeant Kurre and even Lieutenant Easter. They wanted him to do poorly. Their hate for the Corps had spread out until they hated everyone that was coming into it.
"Its a dead dog." The radio said. "In the middle of the road. Somethings stuck under it."
"Its an IED." Staff Sergeant said. "Nobody touch the fucking thing."
A lone child came out of a doorway. It was barefoot in a blue shirt the color of clear sky and green shorts like thick grass. It waved at Conner and he could see the gap between its missing baby teeth.
"American." The child said. "Biscuit. Biscuit."
The shot hit the wall next to the door. It was a clear snap, of the bullet passing within inches of where Conner knelt. "CONTACT LEFT!" Someone shouted. Conner jerked around and his foot became entangled in the SAW sling. He fell on his stomach. another shot snapped pass, and he heard the child make a wet, meaty sound.
It was all happening in slow motion. he was in the prone position, somehow, the bipod legs had come forward and out when he fell with the SAW. When his foot had gotten caught in the sling the clasp had failed entirely. He was behind his weapon, staring out the optics. It was tight against his shoulder. Their was someone in the building he was looking at.
He fired a long burst. The SAW howled braaaaap and the rounds crunched along the bottom wall, underneath the man at the window. He seemed to see it all clearly, the way the clay or concrete or whatever material the building was composed of splintered under fire. He looked back, out from under his sights. The rest of the platoon was doing the same thing, firing. at the building. Every Marine seemed to want to get a piece of it now, firing up at the building. This continued for a minute or so, than the call rang out, "CEASE FIRE! CEASE FUCKING FIRE!" It was Staff Sergeant Kurre. "First squad, get in there and clear that building!"
First squad, Conner comprehended a moment later, that means me.
He was up and running full tilt for the buildings door. The rest of his squad was there, Jon Odle, Lazirko, Sawyer, East, and Lopez. The sling was dangling loose, and he wrapped it around his arm while they stacked at the door. A random thought; how much did a new SAW sling cost? And then Odle was demonstrating the art of how to kick in a door, not in front, while standing in the fatal funnel of fire, but from the side, kicking back and through like a mule. From there Lazirko was the first man through, clearing the corner expertly. Conner noticed the carpet at the front door was suprisingly nice, seemingly woven from a rainbows worth of colors. He was midway through the stack, and the rest of the squad was peeling right and left, entering the room.
When it was his turn he was agressive about it, relying on what limited MOUT and CQB training Chosin Company had saw fit to bless him with before deployment. He was lifting his SAW in the ready position, staring through the ACOG, and noticed for the first time that it seemed light and efortless. His gear no longer seemed heavy. Everything was exciting and new, as if it were Christmas morning, and he had justed unwrapped a box marked War.
The first floor cleared, the squad moved their way up to the second. It was here in the middle that they found the shooter. He was wearing the black pajama tops that marked him as a haaji. There was no weapon in his hand, but an AK magazine spilling out its rounds. The blood around him was very red, almost neon, giving the entire scene the unreal drama of a cartoon.
"Find the weapon." Lazirko said.
Conner searched around the room. There seemed to be no real place to hide anything. The floor was bare concrete with no furniture, save a lone chair lacking a seat, unlike the furnished lower area. The rooms were equally barren. Cockroaches skittered in the corner, bringing up a twinge of memory for Conner, growing up their old dishwasher had been infested by a nest of cockroaches. They spent an in ordinate amount of time at the task. Finally the radio broke with Staff Sergeant Kurre's voice. "Pull out." He said. "Were going to use the Striker."
The devestation was a beautiful thing. The striker cried poom-poom-poom out the barrel of its gun, not as heavy as a tank, but glorious still. Conner watched the whole thing play out. Then noticed a side drama. Someone was down on the ground, clutching a bloody hand to his eye. Devening. Doc Finley was working on him frantically.
"I cant see." Devening was saying. "I cant see."
"Hold on." Doc was saying. He was wrapping a white bandage over his head.
"Easy, son." Kurre was saying. "What was it?"
"Looks like shrapnel."
"Did it get through the eyepro?"
"Where's your glasses?" Sergeant Lazirko asked.
"I dont have any glasses." Devening said. "Can I have something for the pain, doc? Its starting to hurt."
Kurre grew tight lipped. "After patrol I want to see the squad leaders in my hooch." He said. Lets finish up here."
But the patrol was finished up. Further progress down the street was blocked by the dogs-body IED. They stayed until the EOD arrived, to blow it, which turned out to by a dud. Afterwards they left, and night was starting to fall.
****
Back at the Camp the platoon had missed chow. The adrenaline had worn off and Conner was tired and hungry. He tore ravenously through his MRE. Jon Odle came up to him.
"Has anyone shown you how to make mac and cheese?"
"No." Conner said.
"Take the cheese spread and heat it up next to the butter noodles, and mix it together. Its not that bad."
"Sounds good."
"Save the tabasco for when you have to stand a long post, and dab a little bit in your eye."
"That sounds gross."
"I'm just trying to look out for you, boot. I was worried about you today."
"Yeah."
"I saw you fall when the sniper shot that kid."
Conner's gut turned. "The kid was shot?"
"Yeah. It was nasty. We covered the body up with a poncho. I thought they were aimed at you and I thought, fuck, man. The boots gone."
"Yeah."
"But instead it turned out to be a dead kid."
"Yeah."
"Let me tell you, I was fucking relieved. Dead kids are easy to forget about. Dead boots haunt you."
"Yeah."
"I mean, your never going to forget what happened to Devening."
"I'm not."
"What did you learn today?"
"With Devening? He got hurt."
"Devening took shrapnel to his eye. Why wasnt he wearing his eyepro?"
"What's eyepro?"
Odle snapped his fingers. "Thank you." He said. "We have learned that boots are boots, and boots are too dumb to know what eyepro is. So when eyepro is put on the packing list, boots ignore it, instead of thinking, dur dur dur, go to commisary and buy a pair of glasses. And we have learned that, when these boots go out on patrol in Iraq, they lose their eyeballs."
The entire patrol played itself through Conner's mind. His eyes exposed. His unrealized fuck-up.
"Anyway." Odle said. "I have these Oakleys. And I have another set, if your interested."
"Yeah."
"Yes, yeah. But its going to cost you."
"What?"
"Your PSP."
Conner's heart sank. "Fine."
Odle reached into his seabag and pulled out a pair of black sunglasses. "These are real." He said. "Not fakeleys. Thats important. Real Oakleys are rated for much more of an impact than fakeleys. Try them on."
Conner did as he was told.
Odle gave him a thumbs up.
When the squad leaders returned from their ass-chewing with Staff Sergeant, clear eyepro glasses were passed out to the platoon, free of charge.
He had imagined bording the plane for his first deployment to Iraq to be a memorable occasion. He would enter the airport with his green sea bag in uniform, and people would shake his hand and congratulate him. Thank him for his service. The stewardess would give him free drinks the whole way, maybe even a handie-jay in the back bathroom if he was lucky. Finally he would launch himself off the plane, into a sort of waiting area with the rest of the members of his unit, who were all waiting for him. A timer would count down, and at the end it would be time to go to war, to seek out the terrorists and shoot them hopefully in the head. None of this turned out to be the case.
The airplane that took him overseas was a civilian model, a Boing 737 to be precisem but it did not leave from a civilian airport. It left from a Marine Corps air station, that happened to be just down the road from Camp Lejuene. One of the many disadvantages being, there were no baggage handlers around to load on the gear. That left a working party.
James Conner had entered the Marine Corps a Private First Class, which made him a non-NCO, otherwise known as a non-rate, otherwise known as a boot. Boots were often used for working parties. There seemed an endless amount of things to unload and load and clean in the Marine Corps, and Conner seemed to be heading into all of it. This working party was particularly painful, the packs were heavy, as well as some of the heavier gear, and hoisting it all into the plane was sweaty work.
After it was done Conner took his seat next to Ryan Sawyer. Sawyer was a boot who had started in the platoon one month before Conner. He was from Tampa, which sounded like somewhere exotic and fun to Conner, considering his years in Virginia. He wore floral print shirts a lot. His favorite euphamism was "Whatever, dude."
Sawyer was also a boot, but he was somehow more at ease with his boot status. He seemed more at ease with himself, with the military. He already had a name other than "boot", Jon Odle had christened him "Rush" While listening to Tom Sawyer as loud as the barracks stereo would play it. Odle had almost done the same thing for him, mumbling "Cum vith me if yoo vant to livv!" and called him Term, as in Terminator. That had changed to boot soon enough.
Jon Odle was a only a Lance Corporal, E-3, but he was a Salt Dog. He had been with the Platoon during its previous deployment to Iraq. This was a division Conner had never forseen, between Salt Dog and Boot. The Marine Corps was a branch of divisions, between Grunt and Pogue, or Fobbit, between one Battalion and the next, and then company, and platoon. All this seemed to foster something else Conner had not thought of, a general sense of ill will, and discontent. Marines seemed to hate being Marines.
All the Salt Dogs seemed to talk about was when they could get the fuck out. The date of the end of their active service, or EAS. They spoke about it in loud voices, at night in the barracks, over bottles of whiskey and cans of beer. They spoke about it in low murmers, in days in formation, as they waited to hear word about something or the other. That was a new reality- the waiting. There seemed to be much of it, more even than boot camp. Days were spent standing around wondering what would happen next.
The boots in Chosin Company talked much less frequently, and in lower tones than the Salt Dogs. Some of them shared stories of home, of earlier lives. Others talked about things they hoped to accomplish, during their time in the Marines. Even if the lack of morale was somewhat shocking, to Boots who had been used to Parris Island, where the Corps itself was an object of veneration, these Boots reasoned that the Salt Dogs were only a few bad apples. Maybe Chosin Company itself was a bad unit, and another one could be different, or change things around. The gear they wore looked cool enough, straight out of Call of Duty, even if a real ACOG sight did not always stay firmly attached to a real M16. Even if a real ballistic vest was over fifty pounds, with kevlar plates inserted. Even if a real helicopter was over fifty years old, not a sleek looking blackhawk or a mean looking osprey. This was still the actual Marine Corps.
But the third group of boots had decided that the Salt Dogs were right. They had made a horrible mistake, that day in the recruiters office, and that other day, boarding the bus or plane to boot camp. A number of this group had been drunk or stoned at the time, or reasoned that, their decision was so poor that they might as well have been under the influence or narcotics. Ryan Sawyer was firmly in that number. He hated the Marine Corps, hated rank and its privilege, hated working parties.
"How can you know?" Conner would argue. "You havent been deployed yet."
"What do you think deployment is?" Sawyer would say. "Its the same old dumb shit. Its working parties and fire watch and being cold and fucking miserable in the field, except people die."
"You get to kill people."
"Ask the Salt Dogs if they killed anybody." Sawyer laughed.
And that killed the conversation. The Salt Dogs would never talk about their previous deployment. The one time Conner had tried, a simple question to his squad leader, Sergeant Lazirko, what was Iraq like?
Lazirko had laughed. "Your going to die, you fucking boot!" He said. "Get ready!"
It was almost like waiting for an airplane to take off at an airport, except you knew everyone on board, and they were all carrying assault rifles. Or in Conner's case, a machine gun. The M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, which shot the same size bullets as an M16, but much faster and farther. the sight was covered by a black sock. Another detail the video games neglected. Everyone was sitting and waiting and laughing to each other. Sawyer had one of the new Ipods with a color screen.
"What are you listening too?" Conner asked.
"Bright Eyes."
"You like that emo crap."
"So do you."
"Bullshit."
"You like Green Day."
"Green Day is not emo."
"What are they?"
"Their punk- I mean, not really punk. More like alternative."
"Fine. So lets call Bright Eyes that then. Why dont you listen to your music?"
"All my music is on my PSP."
Sawyer laughed. "And Odles still got that shit?"
It had been nearly a month ago now. Jon Odle had asked to borrow Conner's Playstation Portable. Conner had been eager to please, and then the thing had never been returned. If the subject was broached, the response had always been "I'm almost at the next level." or "Your such a fucking boot". Either way, Conner did not know what to do.
"Hey look." Sawyer pointed. "He's playing it right now."
Conner cocked his head to see up the rows of seats. Odle was playing the PSP, showing off a level where Kratos fought an enourmous bare-tittied female monster. Sawyer laughed.
"Fuck dude." He said. "Dont be such a pussy about it. Just go up there and tell him to hand you back your shit."
"I cant."
"Why not? Its your stuff. Get it back."
Conner looked down, in defeat.
"I'll tell you why not." Sawyer said. "Its because Odle is friends with Lazirko, your squad leader, and Zerko will tell you to get back in your seat. Odle will say something about giving it back later, which is total bullshit. The Marine Corps has stolen your PSP and given it to a crackhead."
It was true. Jon Odle had freebased cocaine twice that year with Cory Hunter. Everyone knew about it. The rumor was that Odle had a friend to Co-Ordinate the Piss Test, and to arrange for him not to pop. The Salt Dogs looked out for each other. Conner stared at him, at the back of his head, which was much fuller of hair than Conner's own. There was another division, in the hidden Marine Corps Salt Dog/Boot split, having a lower regulation haircut. Conner missed his hair.
The flight started when Conner was dozing off, in and out of looking at old pictures on his cell phone. Him and Lila, him and his mother. Some friends from school. Finally a pic of him in dress blues after boot camp, at his mothers church. Standing straight and proud. The dress blues were not issued to him after boot camp, as he had imagined. They had cost him three hundred dollars. The only place he could think to wear them without feeling rediculous was at the church. Putting it out of his mind, Conner turned his attention back to the flight.He had gotten a window seat, out of pure luck. He remembered flying to visit his aunt in California, a long time ago. How excited he was.
The flight went on and on. It was no small thing to fly across the Atlantic ocean. There were two in flight movies, a romantic comedy with Hugh Grant, and a computer animated movie that managed to bastardize a beloved Dr. Suess fable. Conner watched movies on Sawyer's laptop instead, Sin City, and Revenge of the Sith. Sawyer had a carefully kept binder of DVD's which he never lent out. A pretty flight attendant with an english accent asked him if he wanted something to eat. He instantly felt sorry for her. Bouncing from Marine to Marine, one bad pick-up line after another. None of them standing a chance. Him especially not. A game of ratio, 1:200 being decidedly out of favor for Conner. He wondered how many guys were in Lila's college. University of Richmond.
Eight hours in and he saw that Odle was in a dead sleep. He got up and carefully picked the PSP out of his lap. Lazirko saw him and gave him a broad wink.
4
Camp Fallujah was uglier than he expected.
The buildings consisted of those connex containers that were towed across the country by tractor trailers. They had been decorated by roofing of sandbags. Sandbags were applied liberally to almost everywhere Conner could see.
There were several perimeters of large wire containers filled with rocks, called hesco barriers. These were stacked sometimes two stories high. Everywhere was constant activity, tan humvee's, AMRAP's, and even tan tanks moving around.
The civilian plane had taken Conner and Chosin company as far as Saudi. From there a C-130 had taken them across the border into Iraq. It was much less comfortable on the C-130. Conner was in full battle gear for the flight, ballistic vest and helmet. The cargo aircraft roared on lazily, and was cold at full altitude. Conner felt like a sardine, trapped next to everyone else in the platoon. Anonymous. He took a picture with his phone, for lack of anything better to do. After a nap he awoke with a pounding headache, and the need to empty his bladder, but found he could not move. Instead he jerked an empty water bottle from his daypack and filled it with piss.
Once off the flightline in Camp Fallujah, he had seen his first explosion. A mortar had landed with a WHUMP, not two hundred feet away in the sand, sending up a cloud of dust. Odle yanked his arm, hard, and Conner fell down. "Put your hands under your body." Odle said. "And keep your mouth open, so the pressure doesnt shatter your teeth. Conner did as he was told. Someone called out all clear, and Odle helped him up, grinning and calling him a fucking boot. When he looked in his cargo pocket Conner could see that the PSP was missing.
The first trip was to the main building in the center of the Camp, where rounds were handed out. Conner received Six hundred rounds for his SAW, two drum boxes and one belt strip. Staff Sergeant glared at everyone. "I want to see plenty of weapons maintenance, squad leaders." He said. "And no negligent discharges. If anyone shoots off a round at anything other than a haaji, he's getting a page eleven."
Conner loaded the drum, and checked his sight. Another detail, the way you could see the front sight post even while looking through the ACOG. His arms and shoulders hurt. Why did they hurt already? He tried to calculate the weight he was carrying. Fifty pounds for the body armor, twenty-five for the weapon, fifty for the pack...in video games he saw Marines holding their weapons up and pointed outward, in first person view. He could tell that that much was impossible. Maybe for a much stronger man. Why had he thought he was strong enough, to be a Marine?
The platoon dropped its packs and gear off in the conex trailer, and left for its first patrol.
****
There was a way to walk on patrol that was different from walking normally. It consisted of turning and watching where you were going, what was around you, and the man behind you. You never bunched up on a patrol formation, always kept dispersion. That way a grenade or IED could only kill one person, supposedly. All of this Conner knew in a purely academic chest, and it caused his heart to beat near out of his chest.
Fallujah was an ugly city. City was being generous describing it, an ugly town. Trash littered the streets. Empty plastic bags blew freely in the wind, stopping only when caught on a corner, or a pile of garbage. The smell of refuse and excrement filled Conner's nostrils. As if the city was wearing a diaper that had not been changed. Between them the Striker quietly rolled. "Radio check." The lieutenant said, across Conner's headset, to no one in particular. "Lima- charlie." Conner said into the mic. The command came from up front, a raised fist. Freeze.
There was little to look at. The Marines in front of him and behind, the vehicle between. There had been no people on the road. Fewer still in the buildings, sometimes the barest hints of a face, behind an open window. The sun was very bright overhead. It made him squint. Looking ahead he could see Odle wearing his Oakleys. Sunglasses. Why hadnt he thought of that? Marines in the pictures were always wearing sunglasses. Why hadnt they told him anything.
Anger filled him, flooding into his gut. They wanted him to fail. He was set up to be a boot, not a warrior. Sergeant Lazirko was in on it with Staff Sergeant Kurre and even Lieutenant Easter. They wanted him to do poorly. Their hate for the Corps had spread out until they hated everyone that was coming into it.
"Its a dead dog." The radio said. "In the middle of the road. Somethings stuck under it."
"Its an IED." Staff Sergeant said. "Nobody touch the fucking thing."
A lone child came out of a doorway. It was barefoot in a blue shirt the color of clear sky and green shorts like thick grass. It waved at Conner and he could see the gap between its missing baby teeth.
"American." The child said. "Biscuit. Biscuit."
The shot hit the wall next to the door. It was a clear snap, of the bullet passing within inches of where Conner knelt. "CONTACT LEFT!" Someone shouted. Conner jerked around and his foot became entangled in the SAW sling. He fell on his stomach. another shot snapped pass, and he heard the child make a wet, meaty sound.
It was all happening in slow motion. he was in the prone position, somehow, the bipod legs had come forward and out when he fell with the SAW. When his foot had gotten caught in the sling the clasp had failed entirely. He was behind his weapon, staring out the optics. It was tight against his shoulder. Their was someone in the building he was looking at.
He fired a long burst. The SAW howled braaaaap and the rounds crunched along the bottom wall, underneath the man at the window. He seemed to see it all clearly, the way the clay or concrete or whatever material the building was composed of splintered under fire. He looked back, out from under his sights. The rest of the platoon was doing the same thing, firing. at the building. Every Marine seemed to want to get a piece of it now, firing up at the building. This continued for a minute or so, than the call rang out, "CEASE FIRE! CEASE FUCKING FIRE!" It was Staff Sergeant Kurre. "First squad, get in there and clear that building!"
First squad, Conner comprehended a moment later, that means me.
He was up and running full tilt for the buildings door. The rest of his squad was there, Jon Odle, Lazirko, Sawyer, East, and Lopez. The sling was dangling loose, and he wrapped it around his arm while they stacked at the door. A random thought; how much did a new SAW sling cost? And then Odle was demonstrating the art of how to kick in a door, not in front, while standing in the fatal funnel of fire, but from the side, kicking back and through like a mule. From there Lazirko was the first man through, clearing the corner expertly. Conner noticed the carpet at the front door was suprisingly nice, seemingly woven from a rainbows worth of colors. He was midway through the stack, and the rest of the squad was peeling right and left, entering the room.
When it was his turn he was agressive about it, relying on what limited MOUT and CQB training Chosin Company had saw fit to bless him with before deployment. He was lifting his SAW in the ready position, staring through the ACOG, and noticed for the first time that it seemed light and efortless. His gear no longer seemed heavy. Everything was exciting and new, as if it were Christmas morning, and he had justed unwrapped a box marked War.
The first floor cleared, the squad moved their way up to the second. It was here in the middle that they found the shooter. He was wearing the black pajama tops that marked him as a haaji. There was no weapon in his hand, but an AK magazine spilling out its rounds. The blood around him was very red, almost neon, giving the entire scene the unreal drama of a cartoon.
"Find the weapon." Lazirko said.
Conner searched around the room. There seemed to be no real place to hide anything. The floor was bare concrete with no furniture, save a lone chair lacking a seat, unlike the furnished lower area. The rooms were equally barren. Cockroaches skittered in the corner, bringing up a twinge of memory for Conner, growing up their old dishwasher had been infested by a nest of cockroaches. They spent an in ordinate amount of time at the task. Finally the radio broke with Staff Sergeant Kurre's voice. "Pull out." He said. "Were going to use the Striker."
The devestation was a beautiful thing. The striker cried poom-poom-poom out the barrel of its gun, not as heavy as a tank, but glorious still. Conner watched the whole thing play out. Then noticed a side drama. Someone was down on the ground, clutching a bloody hand to his eye. Devening. Doc Finley was working on him frantically.
"I cant see." Devening was saying. "I cant see."
"Hold on." Doc was saying. He was wrapping a white bandage over his head.
"Easy, son." Kurre was saying. "What was it?"
"Looks like shrapnel."
"Did it get through the eyepro?"
"Where's your glasses?" Sergeant Lazirko asked.
"I dont have any glasses." Devening said. "Can I have something for the pain, doc? Its starting to hurt."
Kurre grew tight lipped. "After patrol I want to see the squad leaders in my hooch." He said. Lets finish up here."
But the patrol was finished up. Further progress down the street was blocked by the dogs-body IED. They stayed until the EOD arrived, to blow it, which turned out to by a dud. Afterwards they left, and night was starting to fall.
****
Back at the Camp the platoon had missed chow. The adrenaline had worn off and Conner was tired and hungry. He tore ravenously through his MRE. Jon Odle came up to him.
"Has anyone shown you how to make mac and cheese?"
"No." Conner said.
"Take the cheese spread and heat it up next to the butter noodles, and mix it together. Its not that bad."
"Sounds good."
"Save the tabasco for when you have to stand a long post, and dab a little bit in your eye."
"That sounds gross."
"I'm just trying to look out for you, boot. I was worried about you today."
"Yeah."
"I saw you fall when the sniper shot that kid."
Conner's gut turned. "The kid was shot?"
"Yeah. It was nasty. We covered the body up with a poncho. I thought they were aimed at you and I thought, fuck, man. The boots gone."
"Yeah."
"But instead it turned out to be a dead kid."
"Yeah."
"Let me tell you, I was fucking relieved. Dead kids are easy to forget about. Dead boots haunt you."
"Yeah."
"I mean, your never going to forget what happened to Devening."
"I'm not."
"What did you learn today?"
"With Devening? He got hurt."
"Devening took shrapnel to his eye. Why wasnt he wearing his eyepro?"
"What's eyepro?"
Odle snapped his fingers. "Thank you." He said. "We have learned that boots are boots, and boots are too dumb to know what eyepro is. So when eyepro is put on the packing list, boots ignore it, instead of thinking, dur dur dur, go to commisary and buy a pair of glasses. And we have learned that, when these boots go out on patrol in Iraq, they lose their eyeballs."
The entire patrol played itself through Conner's mind. His eyes exposed. His unrealized fuck-up.
"Anyway." Odle said. "I have these Oakleys. And I have another set, if your interested."
"Yeah."
"Yes, yeah. But its going to cost you."
"What?"
"Your PSP."
Conner's heart sank. "Fine."
Odle reached into his seabag and pulled out a pair of black sunglasses. "These are real." He said. "Not fakeleys. Thats important. Real Oakleys are rated for much more of an impact than fakeleys. Try them on."
Conner did as he was told.
Odle gave him a thumbs up.
When the squad leaders returned from their ass-chewing with Staff Sergeant, clear eyepro glasses were passed out to the platoon, free of charge.
Monday, December 10, 2012
Video Game Crusader- Chapters 1 and 2
Video Game Crusader
0
this is a novel about the children that fight our wars.
1
The boy is sixteen. In one month he will be seventeen and eligible. There are clues to his destiny all throughout his bedroom.
The Marine from Battlefield 3 stands proudly in one corner. Next to it is Halle Berry, in the Orange bathing suit she wore in her James Bond movie. Beyond that is the heart shaped hand grenade of Green Day's American Idiot album. Scattered on the floor is various detritus of the day. The boys laptop on a table in the corner. The keys to his five year old Mercury Sable next to that. The car used to belong to a tobacco company for the sole purpose of picking up clientele from the airport. Now it belongs to him. There is a narrow bed, piled high with too many comforters from a mother worrying about the boy catching cold. Underneath the sheets are stained with the usual body fluids teenage males leave in the wake of their sleeping areas.
The boy is playing a brand new Playstation 3 along with his girlfriend. The paint on the console is piano black, and it bears the sharp font used in the most recent Spider-Man movie. He is playing the newest first person shooter game. The boy is something of an expert at first person shooters, from Goldeneye on Nintendo 64, to the current day. This one is very good. This is the first one the boy can remember to have actual modern day Marines in it. The boy can feel his desire rising in him, to be a Marine, to go to war. To have purpose. The boy can look down the sights in the video game and aim in on an enemy, and know for certainty that the enemy will die.
The girl is sixteen. She will not be seventeen for practically another year. She is cute but she feels her curves, a little bigger than she would like in ass and hips. She has her heritage to thank for that. She is half caucasian and half african american, mixed. She is deeply in love with the boy, with bits and pieces of the boys figure. She can feel the doom hanging over him like a guillotine waiting to drop.
The girl first felt this way over the boy when she saw him on his skateboard. He was doing a trick called a kickflip, and there was power and grace to him. To the subtle movements of his body. It took her no time to ask what his name was, and get him talking about himself. That was what boys wanted, to talk about themselves, and have you listen. The girl had been with six different boys, two of them grown men, and had lost her virginity at fourteen. Her mother worries about her in a vague way, between two jobs that take every speck of time and energy. The mother worries about her own guilt, bringing a child into the world that she cannot afford. The girl absorbs this worry and seeks solace through the boy.
Together they are playing Call of Duty on split screen. The boy is hanging back to teach the girl what to do. She is chiefly bored, but playing it because the boy is.
"He didnt die." She says.
"They dont always die right away."
"Oh. That sucks."
"You take damage and you heal back up, if you get behind cover. Its not right away. Unless you play hardcore mode."
"We should play hardcore mode."
"We cant."
"Why not?"
"You would die too fast."
The girl purses her lips. "I like Sims better." She says.
The game is over and the boy has a kill-death ratio of 1.5. He has almost made the next rank. The girl is leaning close to him and asking, "What time does your mom get back?" In that special way, that means only one thing.
The boy uses the magnum brand condoms, which are actually the same size as ordinary condoms, but a different shape. They have been having sex for over a month now and are trying new things. The boy will give her oral, which is something new and good but only if he takes his time. The actual event is strange to her, she doesnt want it at all, and then she wants it fast. She is frightened by her need. The boy feels grateful and sheepish afterward, and this is the time she likes him best.
"Are you going to join up still?" She asks, running a hand through his hair. It is light brown and somewhat greasy. Her own head is cover in long black mullato kinks.
"Yeah." he says.
"I wish you wouldnt."
"What would I do?"
"You could go to college."
"I hate school."
"College would be different."
"College would be harder. I hate the idea of school, of having learning forced down your throat. I mean, if I want to learn about something, I go out and find everything I can about it. I dont want to have someone tell me what they think about the thing. Or, if I want to learn what something is like, I just want to, you know, go out and do it, and not have someone tell me what it should be like."
"So thats why you want to join the Marines. To see what its like."
"Yeah. I dont know."
"What if you get hurt?"
"I wont get hurt."
"People are getting hurt." People are dying, she wants to say but doesnt.
"But its all played up. Like with the media. Thousands of people go over there, to Iraq, and maybe two or three get killed and thats all you hear about. What if they did the same thing with cars? Just showed pictures of car accidents all the time. Nobody would drive."
"Do you think its a good thing?"
"Do I think what?"
"Like, volunteering. After nine-eleven. Like its something you should do."
"I dont know. Its just something I want to do."
The girl wants to cry but doesnt. She gets up to pee instead, and then curls up with the boy in a spooning position. The boy feels slightly aroused again by the pressure of the girls ass against himself, but stays there quietly instead. They fall asleep that way, until his mother gets home, who cracks the door and catches them, together, but says nothing.
2
There is a rythym to Parris Island. A reason to its madness.
The way to survive it is simple, the boy has discovered. Think only as far ahead as you have to. If you have just awoke, think only to breakfast. If you are in the middle of the day, when your sweat pours down your shirt to attract sand fleas, think to lunch. If you have made it to dinner, think of bed. All these things are going to happen. They are events that are non-negotiable, and everything in between can be survived.
He was never on the football team, or any sports group. The boy has never had anyone, a man, scream at him. Tell him what to do. The drill instructors live up to their reputation. He is worthless, less than nothing. Shit. Fucking Shit. A motherfucking cock-sucker of a piece of fucking dogshit. The profanity is endless and endlessly creative. For the first week, at night, he cries in his bunk out of sheer panic.
His name is now Recruit.
All his life the boy has gone by James. Only his grandfather called him something different, before the cancer took him. Now he is recruit. He thinks of himself in the third person, not as A Recruit, but This Recruit. Which is the special and non-obvious way you ask to go to the bathroom. The procedure is a complex one. It starts by you standing at the position of attention and screaming, at the top of you lungs,
"SIR! RECRUIT CONNER REQUESTS PERMISSION TO SPEAK TO DRILL INSTRUCTOR STAFF SERGEANT MARTINEZ SIR!"
The two responses possible are,
"Shut your fucking dicksucker."
or
"Speak, freak."
Once given permission to speak,
"SIR! RECRUIT CONNER REQUESTS PERMISSION TO MAKE A HEAD CALL SIR!"
if permission is given
"Fly."
the response is
"AYE SIR!"
A naval terminology.
Next to the bathroom, in front of it, are pictures of the Commandant of the Marine Corps, the Secretary of Defense, and the President of the United States. In order to empty you bedroom, you must first turn your head in the direction of the smiling frozen face of George W. Bush, and scream,
"GOOD MORNING, GENTLEMEN!"
Or afternoon, or night.
If the Drill Instructor is feeling malevolent, he will count backwards from ten in order to ensure a properly fast-paced piss.
All of this is enough to crush the spirit of most any teenage boy, except one who has learned to only think of his next meal, or his next nights sleep. The next meal, process, in and of itself, is unique.
The platoon is organized into formation. Without going into too much detail about military drills and marching, this is four lines of men. Up front are the four squad leaders, sort of higher-ranking recruits, but not really. More like the scapegoats that are given more hell for the platoons imagined slights and deficits. At the very front is the guide holding the standard. A standard is a small flag, of a gold eagle globe and anchor on a red background, also bearing the platoons number, in this case 3070. The recruits are taught fanatical loyalty to this number. It will come to represent their very soul.
For lunch time, or "noon chow" as its properly known, the recruits march in formation over to the chow hall. Once at the facility the recruits peel off, while still standing in formation, to enter the chow hall. The recruits are arranged in order of height in the platoon. Conner is 5'11', and somehow he manages to make it to the very middle, no matter which squad is allowed to go first.
The recruits hold their trays in front of them, while still maintaining the position of attention. Drill Instructors are omnipresent. Like a rabid bear, eye contact must be avoided. If eye contact is made, this is known as "eyeballin", and chow may be in jeapourdy. Sometimes a drill instructor will pull a recruit out of line and thrash him for not giving the proper greeting of the day. These events are random and meaningless.
The chow hall is staffed with recruits. When in front of a recruit, clothed in white and armed with tongs or a serving ladel, you must sound off,
"MEAT RECRUIT!"
or
"STARCH RECRUIT!"
or
"VEGETABLES RECRUIT!"
but never
"PASTRY RECRUIT!"
and we will arrive at this later.
Once your tray is laden with its meager fare, you must go to the table next to your fellow bald headed space monkeys, and eat as rapidly as possible. You are only authorized to use your right hand, and one utensil, the fork. The reason for this speed is simple. There is nothing a drill instructor hates as much as chow. As the fact that you are ENTITLED to chow. In the Old Corps, that possibly only exists in the Drill Instructors snuff-and-whiskey soaked mind, recruits barely ate. They were often beaten and sometimes killed. All of this made things the way they should be, but when the Mothers Of America interfered, with their bleeding hearts and liberal ways, changes were made to this Holy and Valued institution. All of this is gross oversimplification of decades of change to basic training policy, yet it has been passed on from Drill Instructor to Drill Instructor until it takes the value of Holy Writ. Thus, every recruit is given the opprutinity to eat. The last recruit, that is, the guide, is followed closely by the Drill Instructor. And if the Drill Instructor wishes to exercise malevolence, he will simply wait until the guide places the tray on the table, clamps both ass-cheeks to the seat, and the Drill Instructor will say,
"Your finished, guide."
To which the guide will respond
"Aye sir. Get out, seventy!"
And platoon 3070 will all rise as one body, and throw out their trays together. The slow will go hungry. But what of the pastry?
One of the Drill Instructors will watch you get your food. There is a heirarchy to drill instructors, in the recruit training platoon. Deliniated by the color of their belts. There are three, and two wear green web belts with brass buckles. These DI's act as common brutes, for the most part, instruments of torture. But the Senior Drill Instructor wears a wide belt of highly glossed leather, with a gold buckle over his uniform. There is a mental game where this DI will sometimes pretend to be friendly to the recruits, as a sort of father figure. He will gently chide them, for lapses in behavior, such as using the first person "I" to describe themselves, or eating with the left hand or multiple pieces of silverware. The hungry recruit will ask for the offending item, and the Senior Drill Instructor will say,
"Ah! Thompson. We eat pastries now."
The recruit will stammer apology, and the Senior Drill Instructor will say, in the gentlest of tones,
"I know you are sorry. Go ahead and eat. You'll pay later."
And the murmer will go through the platoon, not said but more felt. Oh fuck. What will happen. Thompson got a pastry. Thompson, weak and needle nosed behind issued glasses. Thompson, who will have lost so much weight by the end of the three-month cycle that a fold of skin which used to be his belly will drape itself to his genitals, Thompson. After the guide has gone hungry and the platoon has marched back to its squadbay, the platoon will experience mass punishment.
There is a great sand pit like a sandbox outside of the squadbays. Platoon 3070 is racing for it, all forty members. The position of attention is held for a few seconds, while the drill instructor joins them. Then its "intense physical training" also known as "curcuit traning" but more commonly known as "thrashing" by the recruits. Push-Ups, jumping jacks, mountain climbers are performed. Within a few seconds of calling out one exercise another will be called out. The recruits will be soaked in an impossible sheen of sweat. Then a race up all three flights of stairs. Into the squadbay, where its more exercise, followed by forced hydration. A full canteen is brought to the lips, and the Drill Instructor counts backwards from ten for the thing to be drained. Followed by another race down the stairs, and a trip to the sand pit. Several recruits vomit at this point, but not Thompson, who is panting and out of breath, so the Senior Drill Instructor puts him in front of the platoon, calling out, "Do it for me!" As the hardier, more athletic recruits continue to suffer. At the very end, in the squadbay, standing at attention, Thompson finally spews chunks, and the Senior steps over and crows "There it is!" and "I told you I was going to get my god damn pastry!" While actually stepping IN the puke, as if this was the goal all along. And perhaps it was. And that is why we dont get pastries in the chow hall, but still look forward to eating as one of the highlights of the day.
The other highlight, is, of course, bedtime. There is a routine before bed, where the recruits strip down to towels and scream while standing at attention
"PORT SIDE BUFF EM OUT STARBOARD SIDE WASH EM OUT!"
The drill instructor snaps "Move!" And the recruits scream
"DISCIPLINE!"
Half the recruits on the right side of the squad bay hurry into the showers, and the other half on the left side apply a wire brush to their suede boots. This is a mostly unnecesary action, and a holdover to an older time, just a couple of years ago, when recruits were issued black boots that needed to be highly polished. America's wars have since moved on to the desert. The recruits are issued digital MARPAT camouflage now, that need no ironing, and suede tan boots that need to polishing. Another small death to the beloved Marine Corps of memory. But the recruits are teenagers and scarcely know this unless they are told.
After he has shaved the nothing on his baby face, washed his ass, and buffed his boots, Conner is standing and the position of attention. When the command is given for bed time, he leaps into bed, in the position of attention. The last command the Drill Instructor gives for the day is
"Adjust!"
the lights are turned off, and the recruits are given permission to move about freely in their beds as they sleep. But the day is not over yet. There is something called fire watch.
Fire watch continues throughout the night. One recruit awake every hour, wearing full uniform, web belt, and cover. Carrying a red lense flash light. Conner's is from 0100-0200. The witching hours, but he has a special treat. Lila sent him a book in the mail, a paperback WEB Griffin that has something to do with World War 2. Ordinarily such a thing would be confiscated, or even thrown away during mail call, but the Senior merely tossed it at him. Hidden inside was a Game Boy, with a copy of Metroid. Lila knows her stuff when it comes to the old retro games, Conner has to admit. And he's grown enthralled with his nights spent up playing Samus Aran in power armor. It seems to put things in a sort of perspective, despite the sleep he is losing. The game progresses, and so does he, little by little, each training day moving along. Until morning comes and the fire watch screams
"LIGHTS! LIGHTS! LIGHTS!"
And its bolt upright to the painted line and the position of attention, with another chow to look forward to.
0
this is a novel about the children that fight our wars.
1
The boy is sixteen. In one month he will be seventeen and eligible. There are clues to his destiny all throughout his bedroom.
The Marine from Battlefield 3 stands proudly in one corner. Next to it is Halle Berry, in the Orange bathing suit she wore in her James Bond movie. Beyond that is the heart shaped hand grenade of Green Day's American Idiot album. Scattered on the floor is various detritus of the day. The boys laptop on a table in the corner. The keys to his five year old Mercury Sable next to that. The car used to belong to a tobacco company for the sole purpose of picking up clientele from the airport. Now it belongs to him. There is a narrow bed, piled high with too many comforters from a mother worrying about the boy catching cold. Underneath the sheets are stained with the usual body fluids teenage males leave in the wake of their sleeping areas.
The boy is playing a brand new Playstation 3 along with his girlfriend. The paint on the console is piano black, and it bears the sharp font used in the most recent Spider-Man movie. He is playing the newest first person shooter game. The boy is something of an expert at first person shooters, from Goldeneye on Nintendo 64, to the current day. This one is very good. This is the first one the boy can remember to have actual modern day Marines in it. The boy can feel his desire rising in him, to be a Marine, to go to war. To have purpose. The boy can look down the sights in the video game and aim in on an enemy, and know for certainty that the enemy will die.
The girl is sixteen. She will not be seventeen for practically another year. She is cute but she feels her curves, a little bigger than she would like in ass and hips. She has her heritage to thank for that. She is half caucasian and half african american, mixed. She is deeply in love with the boy, with bits and pieces of the boys figure. She can feel the doom hanging over him like a guillotine waiting to drop.
The girl first felt this way over the boy when she saw him on his skateboard. He was doing a trick called a kickflip, and there was power and grace to him. To the subtle movements of his body. It took her no time to ask what his name was, and get him talking about himself. That was what boys wanted, to talk about themselves, and have you listen. The girl had been with six different boys, two of them grown men, and had lost her virginity at fourteen. Her mother worries about her in a vague way, between two jobs that take every speck of time and energy. The mother worries about her own guilt, bringing a child into the world that she cannot afford. The girl absorbs this worry and seeks solace through the boy.
Together they are playing Call of Duty on split screen. The boy is hanging back to teach the girl what to do. She is chiefly bored, but playing it because the boy is.
"He didnt die." She says.
"They dont always die right away."
"Oh. That sucks."
"You take damage and you heal back up, if you get behind cover. Its not right away. Unless you play hardcore mode."
"We should play hardcore mode."
"We cant."
"Why not?"
"You would die too fast."
The girl purses her lips. "I like Sims better." She says.
The game is over and the boy has a kill-death ratio of 1.5. He has almost made the next rank. The girl is leaning close to him and asking, "What time does your mom get back?" In that special way, that means only one thing.
The boy uses the magnum brand condoms, which are actually the same size as ordinary condoms, but a different shape. They have been having sex for over a month now and are trying new things. The boy will give her oral, which is something new and good but only if he takes his time. The actual event is strange to her, she doesnt want it at all, and then she wants it fast. She is frightened by her need. The boy feels grateful and sheepish afterward, and this is the time she likes him best.
"Are you going to join up still?" She asks, running a hand through his hair. It is light brown and somewhat greasy. Her own head is cover in long black mullato kinks.
"Yeah." he says.
"I wish you wouldnt."
"What would I do?"
"You could go to college."
"I hate school."
"College would be different."
"College would be harder. I hate the idea of school, of having learning forced down your throat. I mean, if I want to learn about something, I go out and find everything I can about it. I dont want to have someone tell me what they think about the thing. Or, if I want to learn what something is like, I just want to, you know, go out and do it, and not have someone tell me what it should be like."
"So thats why you want to join the Marines. To see what its like."
"Yeah. I dont know."
"What if you get hurt?"
"I wont get hurt."
"People are getting hurt." People are dying, she wants to say but doesnt.
"But its all played up. Like with the media. Thousands of people go over there, to Iraq, and maybe two or three get killed and thats all you hear about. What if they did the same thing with cars? Just showed pictures of car accidents all the time. Nobody would drive."
"Do you think its a good thing?"
"Do I think what?"
"Like, volunteering. After nine-eleven. Like its something you should do."
"I dont know. Its just something I want to do."
The girl wants to cry but doesnt. She gets up to pee instead, and then curls up with the boy in a spooning position. The boy feels slightly aroused again by the pressure of the girls ass against himself, but stays there quietly instead. They fall asleep that way, until his mother gets home, who cracks the door and catches them, together, but says nothing.
2
There is a rythym to Parris Island. A reason to its madness.
The way to survive it is simple, the boy has discovered. Think only as far ahead as you have to. If you have just awoke, think only to breakfast. If you are in the middle of the day, when your sweat pours down your shirt to attract sand fleas, think to lunch. If you have made it to dinner, think of bed. All these things are going to happen. They are events that are non-negotiable, and everything in between can be survived.
He was never on the football team, or any sports group. The boy has never had anyone, a man, scream at him. Tell him what to do. The drill instructors live up to their reputation. He is worthless, less than nothing. Shit. Fucking Shit. A motherfucking cock-sucker of a piece of fucking dogshit. The profanity is endless and endlessly creative. For the first week, at night, he cries in his bunk out of sheer panic.
His name is now Recruit.
All his life the boy has gone by James. Only his grandfather called him something different, before the cancer took him. Now he is recruit. He thinks of himself in the third person, not as A Recruit, but This Recruit. Which is the special and non-obvious way you ask to go to the bathroom. The procedure is a complex one. It starts by you standing at the position of attention and screaming, at the top of you lungs,
"SIR! RECRUIT CONNER REQUESTS PERMISSION TO SPEAK TO DRILL INSTRUCTOR STAFF SERGEANT MARTINEZ SIR!"
The two responses possible are,
"Shut your fucking dicksucker."
or
"Speak, freak."
Once given permission to speak,
"SIR! RECRUIT CONNER REQUESTS PERMISSION TO MAKE A HEAD CALL SIR!"
if permission is given
"Fly."
the response is
"AYE SIR!"
A naval terminology.
Next to the bathroom, in front of it, are pictures of the Commandant of the Marine Corps, the Secretary of Defense, and the President of the United States. In order to empty you bedroom, you must first turn your head in the direction of the smiling frozen face of George W. Bush, and scream,
"GOOD MORNING, GENTLEMEN!"
Or afternoon, or night.
If the Drill Instructor is feeling malevolent, he will count backwards from ten in order to ensure a properly fast-paced piss.
All of this is enough to crush the spirit of most any teenage boy, except one who has learned to only think of his next meal, or his next nights sleep. The next meal, process, in and of itself, is unique.
The platoon is organized into formation. Without going into too much detail about military drills and marching, this is four lines of men. Up front are the four squad leaders, sort of higher-ranking recruits, but not really. More like the scapegoats that are given more hell for the platoons imagined slights and deficits. At the very front is the guide holding the standard. A standard is a small flag, of a gold eagle globe and anchor on a red background, also bearing the platoons number, in this case 3070. The recruits are taught fanatical loyalty to this number. It will come to represent their very soul.
For lunch time, or "noon chow" as its properly known, the recruits march in formation over to the chow hall. Once at the facility the recruits peel off, while still standing in formation, to enter the chow hall. The recruits are arranged in order of height in the platoon. Conner is 5'11', and somehow he manages to make it to the very middle, no matter which squad is allowed to go first.
The recruits hold their trays in front of them, while still maintaining the position of attention. Drill Instructors are omnipresent. Like a rabid bear, eye contact must be avoided. If eye contact is made, this is known as "eyeballin", and chow may be in jeapourdy. Sometimes a drill instructor will pull a recruit out of line and thrash him for not giving the proper greeting of the day. These events are random and meaningless.
The chow hall is staffed with recruits. When in front of a recruit, clothed in white and armed with tongs or a serving ladel, you must sound off,
"MEAT RECRUIT!"
or
"STARCH RECRUIT!"
or
"VEGETABLES RECRUIT!"
but never
"PASTRY RECRUIT!"
and we will arrive at this later.
Once your tray is laden with its meager fare, you must go to the table next to your fellow bald headed space monkeys, and eat as rapidly as possible. You are only authorized to use your right hand, and one utensil, the fork. The reason for this speed is simple. There is nothing a drill instructor hates as much as chow. As the fact that you are ENTITLED to chow. In the Old Corps, that possibly only exists in the Drill Instructors snuff-and-whiskey soaked mind, recruits barely ate. They were often beaten and sometimes killed. All of this made things the way they should be, but when the Mothers Of America interfered, with their bleeding hearts and liberal ways, changes were made to this Holy and Valued institution. All of this is gross oversimplification of decades of change to basic training policy, yet it has been passed on from Drill Instructor to Drill Instructor until it takes the value of Holy Writ. Thus, every recruit is given the opprutinity to eat. The last recruit, that is, the guide, is followed closely by the Drill Instructor. And if the Drill Instructor wishes to exercise malevolence, he will simply wait until the guide places the tray on the table, clamps both ass-cheeks to the seat, and the Drill Instructor will say,
"Your finished, guide."
To which the guide will respond
"Aye sir. Get out, seventy!"
And platoon 3070 will all rise as one body, and throw out their trays together. The slow will go hungry. But what of the pastry?
One of the Drill Instructors will watch you get your food. There is a heirarchy to drill instructors, in the recruit training platoon. Deliniated by the color of their belts. There are three, and two wear green web belts with brass buckles. These DI's act as common brutes, for the most part, instruments of torture. But the Senior Drill Instructor wears a wide belt of highly glossed leather, with a gold buckle over his uniform. There is a mental game where this DI will sometimes pretend to be friendly to the recruits, as a sort of father figure. He will gently chide them, for lapses in behavior, such as using the first person "I" to describe themselves, or eating with the left hand or multiple pieces of silverware. The hungry recruit will ask for the offending item, and the Senior Drill Instructor will say,
"Ah! Thompson. We eat pastries now."
The recruit will stammer apology, and the Senior Drill Instructor will say, in the gentlest of tones,
"I know you are sorry. Go ahead and eat. You'll pay later."
And the murmer will go through the platoon, not said but more felt. Oh fuck. What will happen. Thompson got a pastry. Thompson, weak and needle nosed behind issued glasses. Thompson, who will have lost so much weight by the end of the three-month cycle that a fold of skin which used to be his belly will drape itself to his genitals, Thompson. After the guide has gone hungry and the platoon has marched back to its squadbay, the platoon will experience mass punishment.
There is a great sand pit like a sandbox outside of the squadbays. Platoon 3070 is racing for it, all forty members. The position of attention is held for a few seconds, while the drill instructor joins them. Then its "intense physical training" also known as "curcuit traning" but more commonly known as "thrashing" by the recruits. Push-Ups, jumping jacks, mountain climbers are performed. Within a few seconds of calling out one exercise another will be called out. The recruits will be soaked in an impossible sheen of sweat. Then a race up all three flights of stairs. Into the squadbay, where its more exercise, followed by forced hydration. A full canteen is brought to the lips, and the Drill Instructor counts backwards from ten for the thing to be drained. Followed by another race down the stairs, and a trip to the sand pit. Several recruits vomit at this point, but not Thompson, who is panting and out of breath, so the Senior Drill Instructor puts him in front of the platoon, calling out, "Do it for me!" As the hardier, more athletic recruits continue to suffer. At the very end, in the squadbay, standing at attention, Thompson finally spews chunks, and the Senior steps over and crows "There it is!" and "I told you I was going to get my god damn pastry!" While actually stepping IN the puke, as if this was the goal all along. And perhaps it was. And that is why we dont get pastries in the chow hall, but still look forward to eating as one of the highlights of the day.
The other highlight, is, of course, bedtime. There is a routine before bed, where the recruits strip down to towels and scream while standing at attention
"PORT SIDE BUFF EM OUT STARBOARD SIDE WASH EM OUT!"
The drill instructor snaps "Move!" And the recruits scream
"DISCIPLINE!"
Half the recruits on the right side of the squad bay hurry into the showers, and the other half on the left side apply a wire brush to their suede boots. This is a mostly unnecesary action, and a holdover to an older time, just a couple of years ago, when recruits were issued black boots that needed to be highly polished. America's wars have since moved on to the desert. The recruits are issued digital MARPAT camouflage now, that need no ironing, and suede tan boots that need to polishing. Another small death to the beloved Marine Corps of memory. But the recruits are teenagers and scarcely know this unless they are told.
After he has shaved the nothing on his baby face, washed his ass, and buffed his boots, Conner is standing and the position of attention. When the command is given for bed time, he leaps into bed, in the position of attention. The last command the Drill Instructor gives for the day is
"Adjust!"
the lights are turned off, and the recruits are given permission to move about freely in their beds as they sleep. But the day is not over yet. There is something called fire watch.
Fire watch continues throughout the night. One recruit awake every hour, wearing full uniform, web belt, and cover. Carrying a red lense flash light. Conner's is from 0100-0200. The witching hours, but he has a special treat. Lila sent him a book in the mail, a paperback WEB Griffin that has something to do with World War 2. Ordinarily such a thing would be confiscated, or even thrown away during mail call, but the Senior merely tossed it at him. Hidden inside was a Game Boy, with a copy of Metroid. Lila knows her stuff when it comes to the old retro games, Conner has to admit. And he's grown enthralled with his nights spent up playing Samus Aran in power armor. It seems to put things in a sort of perspective, despite the sleep he is losing. The game progresses, and so does he, little by little, each training day moving along. Until morning comes and the fire watch screams
"LIGHTS! LIGHTS! LIGHTS!"
And its bolt upright to the painted line and the position of attention, with another chow to look forward to.
Friday, December 7, 2012
the Dungeon Master of Weapons Platoon
(Please check out my blog for more writing!)
There were four of us back then, in those early sessions- me, Cory, Bill, and Teddy Freeman. We were all Lance Corporals. This was the first deployment for all of us, except for Teddy who had been to Marsoc and gotten busted down.
I had never played before, when the game started, which suprised everyone because I was already known as "Nerd." This nickname had stuck because of comic books and action figures discovered in the barracks during a wall locker inspection. While it was true that I enjoyed Comics and collectibles, I had never gotten around to playing Dungeons and Dragons, until just then.
Both Cory and later Bill admitted to having played before. They each had their own justifications, Cory said the people he smoked weed with in college were into it, Bill said he was trying to get with a nerdy girl in high school. Teddy offered no such explanation. All the books were his, thick hardcover tomes with price tags on them that looked like fifty bucks each. The map was his, hand drawn on gridded drafting paper, and the miniatures were his, each painted intricately, the result of an obvious hours worth of work.
It was the first week of deployment and we were not scheduled to relieve Chosin Company for another two days. We were Marines of D Company, Weapons Platoon, christened "Dogfight" Company by our not-overly-bright Company Commander. Most of our platoon was borded up inside the FOB in a series of steel cargo containers known as Connex boxes. Due to the overflow, we were fortunate enough through no fault of our own to recieve an actual trailer, with air conditioning and electricity. It could have held two people comfortably, and with four it was a hassle. But we were all friends, and used to living tightly on ship. Even with our ballistic vests and helmets, piled under the beds, and our rifles hanging off the posts by their slings, I would still describe it today in pleasant terms.
We were all from diferent sections. Cory and Bill were machine gunners. Teddy was a mortarman, and I was an assaultman. Or "rocketman" like they mockingly called me, from time to time. When we made up our characters, I can see now how that influenced things. Cory and Bill wanted to roll fighters, and I wanted a Wizard, for the firepower. Or fireballs, or whatever.
Looking at it now, with time gone, I have a lot more appreciation for the care Teddy put into that fantasy world. Or "campaign" as I guess its called. There were a lot of rules, some of which he had made up himself. We couldnt make our characters anything but human. We had to be the good guy, which sounds pretty common sense if you just hear it like that, but in D and D your allowed to make characters with "alignments" of good, evil or neutral. This turned into a small arguement, as apparently Cory and Bill had spent time playing as evil, and enjoyed it.
I'll give you a little background on Cory and Bill, so you can see how this would be weird for me: Cory Hunter was a giant of a man, from Tulsa Oklahoma. His email adress was SoonerLite34 which kind of shows you where his mind was, OU football and Miller Lite beer. He imbimbed other things, chemically when he could get them, including freebase cocaine with Jon Odle. That means smoking crack, in case you didnt know it. He had a fiancee back home and a girl on the side at the base. He fell out of runs but never humps. He had been promoted E-3 Lance Corporal out of infantry school and non-recommended for every promotion after that.
Bill Mcgovern was shorter and smaller, with the sort of permenant tan that only comes from having a Puerto Rican mother. He was in JROTC in high school and ran a near perfect score on the physical fitness test. He was immediatedly promoted to team leader. He liked Lite beer as much as Cory, but stayed away from the illicit stuff. Of course, everything was illicit for the both of them, being both twenty years old. Now that I think about it, most of the platoon was under twenty-one, or just over that.
Both of them wore preppy clothes when off duty, Abercrombie and Fitch instead of anything military related. Both of them grew their hair out as long and low as Marine Corps regulations would let them get away with, which wasnt that long and low at all, but was a far cry from Gunny Kurre's high and tight. If you had to pull them out of a line up for possible role-playing game enthusiast, it would be a long shot. But here we all were.
All we managed to do that first night was get our characters made, and have Teddy describe the where all of this was taking place. It was a ruined tower outside a forest. We didnt kill a dragon, which I was a little dissapointed in, but we got to hack apart a few goblins. I earned experience points.
In the morning I was sent out to a different unit on a Humvee patrol. This would prove to be a common enough event for all of us in Weapons, mostly the machine gunners, who were put atop the turrets of the AMRAP's and the Humvee's to man the heavy 50 caliber machine gun. But there just happened to be one Humvee which was outfitted with a TOW missile launcher, and I was put out bright and early, to stand the turret.
I should go into a little detail about my MOS-stands for Military Occupational Specialty- my job. I was trained at Infantry school to operate and fire the Shoulder Mounted Antitank Weapon, and the Javelin missile system. I only fired the SMAW, being that every Javelin missile costs about a million dollars, which is a little more than the Marines have to waste on training. There was a special school for the TOW, which I never went to. But it fell within my MOS, so I said roger that, and listened to the patrol briefing. I was a little nervous, it being my first deployment, and first time outside the wire.
"Okay." The Sergeant in charge said. "This is like any other day. Were making a circuit around Anbar and back."
"Are we going to stop around Motel Six?" A Marine asked.
"Fuck no." the Sgt. said. "If we get called up we'll respond. Other than that just drive straight on through."
"What if we take fire?" Someone said.
"Then we'll use the TOW." He said finally.
Inside the driver made me practice getting down fast in case the Humvee rolled. He offered me a dip of copenhagen, which I accepted. I never used tobacco before the Marines, and quit soon after, but at that time I dipped and smoked. The dip kept me awake. It calmed my nerves and gave me something to do.
I cant overestimate how important that was. The main thing I didnt know before signing up, I mean the one thing I wish I did have some clue about, was just how fucking boring everything was going to be. We sat for a good hour in the humvee's doing nothing. When we drove out the front gate, on the patrol, even that was really doing nothing, driving around in a truck with your head stuck out the top. Once you figure that out, and you start getting uncomfortable, because a fifty pound ballistic vest and helmet combination is really uncomfortable, you start looking for anything to do. Something to thing about, in your head, besides how much everything sucks. For me, right then, it was the dip in my mouth, and then a minute later, the TOW missile, and wondering if I could fire it if I had to. After that, I was thinking about D and D with the guys back in the trailer. I was trying to picture that fantasy world, which was mostly large forests with medieval architecture, overlaying itself on the trash ridden streets of Al Anbar. I was trying to think of myself in Wizard's robes and with a Magic Staff. It probably sounds stupid right now, but that helped out a lot. The whole time I was doing this, the unconscious part of my brain was swiveling around in the turret, trying to see if we were going to be attacked. All this went on until the radio in my helmet blared out "We've got some activity at the Motel Six."
"What's up?"
"Second platoon received fire. Calling for heavy support. There's no striker available."
"Roger that. Guess were it, then."
The whole time the humvee had been going pretty fast, but after that the driver really floored it. I had my hands tight around the TOW's controls, trying to remember the one class I had about the thing. In my mind I saw the missile firing out, and launching wide of its target, into the hazy blue sky. A million dollars wasted and a rough end to my first ever convoy mission. The passenger had his rifle out the window, ready to take a shot if he needed too. The traffic cleared up the closer we got, where I had my first experience getting shot at.
Its funny the things you dont know, until going to Iraq. For example, AK-47 and RPK tracer rounds are green, not red. The AK-47 makes a distinctive noise that's entirely different than a M4 or 16. And most memorable, bullets that are fired well over your head zing. But the ones that come close, they crack, and if you ever get close enough, you can pretty much gauge how much to the right or left you would have to be to die.
All of this happened when we got close enough to the building that had MOTEL nonsensically scrawled across the front, which otherwise would have been anonymous enough from its neighbors, clad in dirt and dirty yellow concrete. I made some kind of sound out my mouth that must have been "Awp." and I started to get back inside, to make myself small and less exposed in the turret. "Shoot!" The driver was saying. "Shoot the motherfucker!"
At this point the Humvee next to us in the convoy was lighting up the building with the 50. You hear stories of what the fifty is like, the damage it can do. Shoot people into body parts, or kill without touching someone, just the blast of air being enough. It was going POOM POOM POOM POOM and the passenger up front was going BRAAT BRAAT with his rifle on burst, and I was thinking fuck it. Better come up and do my part. The TOW had a display I turn on, a switch to press, and in the end, a trigger like everything else. Like any other weapon. It went FWEEE! through the window I aimed at, and then the whole front of the building shuddered. Dirt fell off it, along with a few loose bricks.
"Fuck." The sergeant leading the patrol said on the radio. "Was that the TOW?"
And it was, which I said on the radio, and it was pretty fucking dissapointing. The firefight lulled down until it stopped completely. As we drove back I started thinking about other ways I could tell the story. What I was coming up with was a fireball, massive and fiery. This occupied me for a while as I stared out at nothing through the turret. Finally I gave up completely. Only when we pulled back through the gate did I remember the game again.
There were four of us back then, in those early sessions- me, Cory, Bill, and Teddy Freeman. We were all Lance Corporals. This was the first deployment for all of us, except for Teddy who had been to Marsoc and gotten busted down.
I had never played before, when the game started, which suprised everyone because I was already known as "Nerd." This nickname had stuck because of comic books and action figures discovered in the barracks during a wall locker inspection. While it was true that I enjoyed Comics and collectibles, I had never gotten around to playing Dungeons and Dragons, until just then.
Both Cory and later Bill admitted to having played before. They each had their own justifications, Cory said the people he smoked weed with in college were into it, Bill said he was trying to get with a nerdy girl in high school. Teddy offered no such explanation. All the books were his, thick hardcover tomes with price tags on them that looked like fifty bucks each. The map was his, hand drawn on gridded drafting paper, and the miniatures were his, each painted intricately, the result of an obvious hours worth of work.
It was the first week of deployment and we were not scheduled to relieve Chosin Company for another two days. We were Marines of D Company, Weapons Platoon, christened "Dogfight" Company by our not-overly-bright Company Commander. Most of our platoon was borded up inside the FOB in a series of steel cargo containers known as Connex boxes. Due to the overflow, we were fortunate enough through no fault of our own to recieve an actual trailer, with air conditioning and electricity. It could have held two people comfortably, and with four it was a hassle. But we were all friends, and used to living tightly on ship. Even with our ballistic vests and helmets, piled under the beds, and our rifles hanging off the posts by their slings, I would still describe it today in pleasant terms.
We were all from diferent sections. Cory and Bill were machine gunners. Teddy was a mortarman, and I was an assaultman. Or "rocketman" like they mockingly called me, from time to time. When we made up our characters, I can see now how that influenced things. Cory and Bill wanted to roll fighters, and I wanted a Wizard, for the firepower. Or fireballs, or whatever.
Looking at it now, with time gone, I have a lot more appreciation for the care Teddy put into that fantasy world. Or "campaign" as I guess its called. There were a lot of rules, some of which he had made up himself. We couldnt make our characters anything but human. We had to be the good guy, which sounds pretty common sense if you just hear it like that, but in D and D your allowed to make characters with "alignments" of good, evil or neutral. This turned into a small arguement, as apparently Cory and Bill had spent time playing as evil, and enjoyed it.
I'll give you a little background on Cory and Bill, so you can see how this would be weird for me: Cory Hunter was a giant of a man, from Tulsa Oklahoma. His email adress was SoonerLite34 which kind of shows you where his mind was, OU football and Miller Lite beer. He imbimbed other things, chemically when he could get them, including freebase cocaine with Jon Odle. That means smoking crack, in case you didnt know it. He had a fiancee back home and a girl on the side at the base. He fell out of runs but never humps. He had been promoted E-3 Lance Corporal out of infantry school and non-recommended for every promotion after that.
Bill Mcgovern was shorter and smaller, with the sort of permenant tan that only comes from having a Puerto Rican mother. He was in JROTC in high school and ran a near perfect score on the physical fitness test. He was immediatedly promoted to team leader. He liked Lite beer as much as Cory, but stayed away from the illicit stuff. Of course, everything was illicit for the both of them, being both twenty years old. Now that I think about it, most of the platoon was under twenty-one, or just over that.
Both of them wore preppy clothes when off duty, Abercrombie and Fitch instead of anything military related. Both of them grew their hair out as long and low as Marine Corps regulations would let them get away with, which wasnt that long and low at all, but was a far cry from Gunny Kurre's high and tight. If you had to pull them out of a line up for possible role-playing game enthusiast, it would be a long shot. But here we all were.
All we managed to do that first night was get our characters made, and have Teddy describe the where all of this was taking place. It was a ruined tower outside a forest. We didnt kill a dragon, which I was a little dissapointed in, but we got to hack apart a few goblins. I earned experience points.
In the morning I was sent out to a different unit on a Humvee patrol. This would prove to be a common enough event for all of us in Weapons, mostly the machine gunners, who were put atop the turrets of the AMRAP's and the Humvee's to man the heavy 50 caliber machine gun. But there just happened to be one Humvee which was outfitted with a TOW missile launcher, and I was put out bright and early, to stand the turret.
I should go into a little detail about my MOS-stands for Military Occupational Specialty- my job. I was trained at Infantry school to operate and fire the Shoulder Mounted Antitank Weapon, and the Javelin missile system. I only fired the SMAW, being that every Javelin missile costs about a million dollars, which is a little more than the Marines have to waste on training. There was a special school for the TOW, which I never went to. But it fell within my MOS, so I said roger that, and listened to the patrol briefing. I was a little nervous, it being my first deployment, and first time outside the wire.
"Okay." The Sergeant in charge said. "This is like any other day. Were making a circuit around Anbar and back."
"Are we going to stop around Motel Six?" A Marine asked.
"Fuck no." the Sgt. said. "If we get called up we'll respond. Other than that just drive straight on through."
"What if we take fire?" Someone said.
"Then we'll use the TOW." He said finally.
Inside the driver made me practice getting down fast in case the Humvee rolled. He offered me a dip of copenhagen, which I accepted. I never used tobacco before the Marines, and quit soon after, but at that time I dipped and smoked. The dip kept me awake. It calmed my nerves and gave me something to do.
I cant overestimate how important that was. The main thing I didnt know before signing up, I mean the one thing I wish I did have some clue about, was just how fucking boring everything was going to be. We sat for a good hour in the humvee's doing nothing. When we drove out the front gate, on the patrol, even that was really doing nothing, driving around in a truck with your head stuck out the top. Once you figure that out, and you start getting uncomfortable, because a fifty pound ballistic vest and helmet combination is really uncomfortable, you start looking for anything to do. Something to thing about, in your head, besides how much everything sucks. For me, right then, it was the dip in my mouth, and then a minute later, the TOW missile, and wondering if I could fire it if I had to. After that, I was thinking about D and D with the guys back in the trailer. I was trying to picture that fantasy world, which was mostly large forests with medieval architecture, overlaying itself on the trash ridden streets of Al Anbar. I was trying to think of myself in Wizard's robes and with a Magic Staff. It probably sounds stupid right now, but that helped out a lot. The whole time I was doing this, the unconscious part of my brain was swiveling around in the turret, trying to see if we were going to be attacked. All this went on until the radio in my helmet blared out "We've got some activity at the Motel Six."
"What's up?"
"Second platoon received fire. Calling for heavy support. There's no striker available."
"Roger that. Guess were it, then."
The whole time the humvee had been going pretty fast, but after that the driver really floored it. I had my hands tight around the TOW's controls, trying to remember the one class I had about the thing. In my mind I saw the missile firing out, and launching wide of its target, into the hazy blue sky. A million dollars wasted and a rough end to my first ever convoy mission. The passenger had his rifle out the window, ready to take a shot if he needed too. The traffic cleared up the closer we got, where I had my first experience getting shot at.
Its funny the things you dont know, until going to Iraq. For example, AK-47 and RPK tracer rounds are green, not red. The AK-47 makes a distinctive noise that's entirely different than a M4 or 16. And most memorable, bullets that are fired well over your head zing. But the ones that come close, they crack, and if you ever get close enough, you can pretty much gauge how much to the right or left you would have to be to die.
All of this happened when we got close enough to the building that had MOTEL nonsensically scrawled across the front, which otherwise would have been anonymous enough from its neighbors, clad in dirt and dirty yellow concrete. I made some kind of sound out my mouth that must have been "Awp." and I started to get back inside, to make myself small and less exposed in the turret. "Shoot!" The driver was saying. "Shoot the motherfucker!"
At this point the Humvee next to us in the convoy was lighting up the building with the 50. You hear stories of what the fifty is like, the damage it can do. Shoot people into body parts, or kill without touching someone, just the blast of air being enough. It was going POOM POOM POOM POOM and the passenger up front was going BRAAT BRAAT with his rifle on burst, and I was thinking fuck it. Better come up and do my part. The TOW had a display I turn on, a switch to press, and in the end, a trigger like everything else. Like any other weapon. It went FWEEE! through the window I aimed at, and then the whole front of the building shuddered. Dirt fell off it, along with a few loose bricks.
"Fuck." The sergeant leading the patrol said on the radio. "Was that the TOW?"
And it was, which I said on the radio, and it was pretty fucking dissapointing. The firefight lulled down until it stopped completely. As we drove back I started thinking about other ways I could tell the story. What I was coming up with was a fireball, massive and fiery. This occupied me for a while as I stared out at nothing through the turret. Finally I gave up completely. Only when we pulled back through the gate did I remember the game again.
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