Spare Parts

by Buzz Williams

  But Edsar had been my brother too. Somehow, I thought, Lenny would understand.

  PART IV

  VETERAN

  TEN

  1 APRIL 1991

  SITTING ON THE BLEACHERS of the sandy theater, I indulged like a glutton, shoveling cheeseburgers in and pouring Coke down, my eyes watering from the unfamiliar sting. After eleven weeks in the field, Tent City was a vacation. Especially postwar Tent City, where the mission had switched from ramping up to winding down.

  Finally, we were preparing for home. Our training schedule included leisure, recreation, sports, and any other opportunity to be social . . . and human. Parties. Music. Movies. Food. Drink. It felt good to be a spoiled American again.

  “So what’s playing?” I asked the Marine next to me.

  “Rocky . . . after the lecture.”

  “What lecture?”

  “You just rotated in, huh?”

  “Yeah. . . . What lecture?”

  “Battalion sends officers to talk about the move back to the world,” he said. “You know . . . counseling shit.”

  The officer, a salty Vietnam veteran and reservist, soon stood before us, talking about the difficult transition from combat to home.

  “You boys are going home to the biggest fucking party you ever saw,” he told us. “And you’re the guest of honor. The whole goddamned country’s wrapped in yellow ribbons.”

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  None of us had realized the magnitude of America’s embrace of us as national heroes. Life in the field had insulated us from the news. Homecoming sounded great—the red carpet at the airport . . .

  welcome home parties . . . parades!

  “Enjoy the attention! You deserve it,” he continued. “But take your loved ones along for the ride. When the fanfare fades, they’ll be all you have left. Don’t fuck them over!”

  His message was crude, but effective. It was time to begin thinking about Gina and Mom.

  “Some strange shit will be going on inside you, Marines. But it won’t be so bad if you know it’s coming, and you deal with it. . . .”

  Strange shit—that was Marine for feelings.

  “When the homecoming honeymoon is over, you’ll probably be mad as hell. . . .”

  He talked a lot about the grieving process. Grief wasn’t something I had ever done particularly well.

  “Don’t expect things to be the same when you get back. Then you won’t be disappointed. The old lady fucked up the check-book. . . . The kids’ll listen to Mom more than you. . . . Your girlfriend’s fucking your best friend. . . . That dick at work got your promotion. . . . And those antiwar professors dropped you from their classes.”

  He understood Marines, particularly Marine reservists. We weren’t just going home for leave. We were going home for good.

  Back to our wives and children, family and friends, work and school . . . back to our lives. It would be absolute culture shock. The journey back into civilian mode would be just as difficult as the warrior transformation.

  The cycle was reversing. The gears were downshifting. The warrior ego was letting go.

  20 APRIL 1991

  Our stay at Lejeune was much briefer on the back end of the war. With only four days to process off active duty there was barely S P A R E P A R T S

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  enough time to get shitfaced and tattooed. By the time the buses rolled in at 0600, though, our seabags were stacked by the roadside, ready to load. Homecoming at Camp Upshur was only hours away. The morning formation was filled with nervous energy as Marines prepared for the long-awaited reunions with their friends and families. On the way to breakfast I had an unexpected reunion of my own.

  Mobbing our way toward the chow hall along the corridor of barracks, I noticed groups of active-duty Marines clustered here and there, smoking and joking. There was no longer a noticeable difference between them and us. Our cammys were just as salty, mouths just as filthy, and stories just as grungy. But they knew who we were, and they stared. This was their intersection. Their barracks. Their territory. They were Morrison’s rednecks.

  Slowing, I wondered what would happen. Would it be an insult?

  Would they come to finish the fight they’d started five months before?

  “Squad! Ahhh . . . tennn . . . huhhh!”

  The small group locked their bodies as Morrison about-faced.

  What were they up to? Continuing on, watching and waiting, we passed with eyes right. Once we were close enough, his right sleeve snapped and his hand popped to his cover, fingers aligned with the brim. A hand salute! They remained locked in their salute as we passed, dead serious in their expression. We kept walking, cautiously waiting for the jeer that never came, the fight that never started. I regretted not stopping, or acknowledging his gesture with anything more than a sideward glance. Morrison would stay in my thoughts through breakfast that day, and during the journey home.

  Although I hadn’t spoken a word to him since boot camp, what he did that day had communicated volumes to me, and made me think about my journey from spare part, beyond, and back again.

  24 APRIL 1991

  A standing ovation awaited as our buses thumped across the wooden bridge leading into Camp Upshur, more alive than I had 256

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  ever seen it. There were yellow ribbons. White tents. A band. And the crowd! Windows dropped and heads poked through as Gunny Brandt called for us to keep our military bearing. He was no more successful than Capt. Cruz, who was trying in vain to assemble a formation. As we fell in, the crowd fell out, breaking off into waves, rushing, disbanding us.

  The air was full of the smell of women’s perfume. Gina’s perfume. Then I caught a glimpse of her teary face, her outstretched arms, and felt hair mashing my face. Looking on I saw Mom, wiping her eyes, waiting patiently. I could hug them, but I couldn’t speak. The words were lodged, stuck, trapped in my throat. Then the bullhorn sounded.

  “Delta Company! Fall in! The sooner we form, the sooner we dismiss!”

  Standing in formation, I wondered how I looked. Not like the last time they saw me, for sure. Better? Worse? Heroic and hand-some? Or worn and haggard? I aimed for the middle, alive and well.

  My face felt like leather—I had crows feet around my eyes, a scar on my eyebrow, and five o’clock shadow plus. I could taste the blood from my chapped lips, and smell the desert lingering in my cammys. It felt odd not having my knife strapped to my leg, my rifle across my back, or my gas mask on my side. As amputees still sense their ghost limbs, I still felt their presence. On my left bootlace my ID tag shone. I considered taking it out, but thought they wouldn’t notice—and if they did they wouldn’t get it. Inside my sleeve my shoulder burned from the new ink etched into my skin, a Ka-Bar knife with the inscription: SWA DESERT STORM USMC. My tattoo would remain covered, like so many other things, buried until later when, or if, I was ready to share.

  25 APRIL 1991

  I lay in my bed for the first time since returning home, a total stranger to everything around me, looking up and around, tossing and turning, thinking way too much before sleep. There were troS P A R E P A R T S

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  phies on the dresser from my school days, but I couldn’t recall when I had earned them, or even the sport. Scattered cassettes lay on the nightstand—music from a lifetime ago. My diploma hung crooked above me on the wall, a reminder of high school and who I had been before the Corps and the war. Those days now played in my head like old black-and-white movies on a television late at night, the fuzzy reception making them barely recognizable.

  Flopping onto my side, I saw the picture of Gina on the shelf, giving me hope for better days ahead. But the poster of the Marine, the one with war paint on his face and rifle ready, was the last thing I saw before my eyes closed for the night. . . .

  In my dream sandy trenches stretched forward, line after line, as far as I could see. I scrubbed the bolt of my rifle with
a small green toothbrush, keeping it lubed, sand free, and ready for the enemy looming on the horizon. In the distance I could see glimpses of them, shadowy silhouettes crawling stealthily toward me, trench by trench. The Marines in the trench with me were strangers, and weren’t concerned at all about the advancing enemy. Instead of preparing their weapons and gear they ate, drank, smoked, and even laughed. Growing ever more anxious, I dropped my bolt into the sand, rendering my rifle useless. Still the silhouettes kept coming, closing in on me.

  My comrades laughed at my sandy bolt, and my futile attempt to scrub it clean. One stopped laughing long enough to take aim and fire, killing the enemy soldier climbing into our trench. Then he resumed laughing with his buddies. I stood and peeked over the trench. There were silhouettes everywhere. They were coming faster now, and I thought I was ready. My bolt was clean and back inside the receiver.

  But my rifle still wouldn’t fire. This time the problem was an empty magazine. The magazines in my pockets were all empty, too, though I hadn’t fired yet. I asked the Marine next to me for some rounds. He laughed at me. I asked another and another. No one would share their rounds. Running hunched over along the trench, I finally found Dougherty, who gave me one of his magazines.

  The enemy was closing in. Waves of them were rushing us, like 258

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  an incoming tide, swelling from rain, intensifying by the minute.

  The Marines around me were now standing, locking bodies in their sights, firing and killing and cheering as the bodies dropped into the trenches to our front. Rounds were zipping overhead. Shouts from us mixed with cries from them.

  Taking a knee, I attempted to insert the magazine that Dougherty gave me. After several tries my trembling hands dropped it into the sand, fouling it with earthy grit. That didn’t stop the enemy troops from advancing. Realizing that there were too many to kill with rifles, the platoon sergeant began calling for machine guns and grenades. But I hadn’t fired a single round . . . killed a single enemy . . . helped in any way at all. So in desperation I jammed the sandy magazine into the rifle, pulled the charging handle, and flipped the selector from “safe” to “burst.”

  A silhouette popped up only three trenches away, but managed to drop down before I could shoot. The next time he popped up I was ready, but when I squeezed the trigger, nothing happened—a jam. Knowing that this would be my last chance, I removed the magazine, cleared the jammed round, and slammed the magazine back in. When he popped up in my trench that final time, his rifle was pointed at me, and mine at him. The last thing I saw was his finger pulling back and a bright muzzle flash.

  I awakened facedown on my floor, half under my bed and soaked in sweat, embarrassed, angry, and afraid. Embarrassed someone might find out . . . angry I couldn’t control it . . . afraid it would happen again. Naively, I pulled the poster off the wall, as if it mattered. I had learned not to guess, or predict, or even to try to understand, my dreams.

  At night the trenches came whenever the hell they wanted. And I couldn’t do a thing about it.

  JUNE 1991

  Stepping onto the dry rotted door that still lay in the grass outside Second Platoon’s barracks took me back in time to my first drill S P A R E P A R T S

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  weekend. Twenty-one months had passed since I first smelled the dank air of the Upshur Quonset huts, heard the old wooden bridge rumble, and saw the parking lot fill with cars and laughter and cursing. It was our first drill weekend after returning from the war, and it seemed a lot like that first drill. It shouldn’t have, though. After the war I had expected to join the other veterans, and storm around base like seniors on campus. I had expected drill would be a time of nostalgic reflection, and new kids, right out of boot camp and MOS

  school, would gather reverently to hear our stories. I had expected a welcome, a celebration, and a reunion of the band of brothers.

  The barracks was eerily vacant. Sgt. Moss’s wall locker door was wide open, a spiderweb inside where surplus gear once bulged its sides. I had hoped he would return, but deep down knew he wouldn’t. He never saw himself vindicated through combat the way I did. He had focused instead on his shortcomings, and had opted out when his contract expired. Cpl. Shane had transferred to a grunt unit in Michigan. Bennett and Haley, along with the other Fox scouts, had returned to their unit in New York. Dougherty’s locker was open and empty too. He had earned a slot in Officer Candidates School, leaving me as the only returning member of Red Two.

  My band of brothers was gone.

  Nagel earned a medical discharge. Draper transferred to a different unit. Poole simply stopped coming to drill. Even Capt. Bounds moved on, along with Capt. Cruz and Gunny Brandt. Within a few months a quarter of our company disappeared. Some left legitimately, by end of contract or transfer. But many, like Poole, simply quit, abandoning their contracts, and accepting discharge under other than honorable conditions. The only Marine I recognized in First Platoon was Sgt. Krause.

  “Normal attrition” was the official spin from our administration.

  Attrition my ass. Those who left were making personal statements: I’ve served my time. One war is enough. I don’t care . . . I’m fucking done. It was a mass exodus.

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  AUGUST 1991

  “Lance Cpl. Williams! Take charge of the platoon and carry out the orders of the day!”

  Sgt. Krause headed toward the air conditioned headquarters building where he would spend the remainder of the drill, hobnob-bing with the brass, pushing papers, and kissing ass. Not that I wanted him on the Ramp anyway. I preferred to be in charge of the platoon. The orders of the day, as they had been for the last two drills, involved meticulous washing, inventory, and maintenance on the three LAVs assigned to our platoon. But by the time his orders were translated through me to the crewmen, they were quite different.

  We went through the motions of hosing the LAVs, a waste of time and water because they hadn’t been driven since the last time we washed them. We then buzzed through the preventive maintenance checks and services. While I considered maintenance important, the complete checklist could be completed in a few hours. By lunchtime Saturday all three LAVs were scrubbed and serviced. Sgt.

  Krause would have stretched the work over two days. As a new crewman, before the war, I tolerated such redundancy. Many days I had sat and rubbed a rag over the same piece of gear for hours until the clock determined we were finished. Those days were over for me, and for the crewmen under me.

  During midday Sgt. Krause visited the Ramp to check on our progress, angry to find crewmen running gun drills in the turret.

  “Williams! Why aren’t the LAVs on the wash ramp? Why isn’t the gear laid out for inspection? Where’s the discrepancy list?

  Where are the crewmen?”

  “The LAVs are clean. The gear’s accounted for. The discrepancy list was turned in to maintenance. The crewmen are in the turrets.”

  My quick-fire responses sent him over the edge. Sgt. Krause then made it his mission to find a flake of dirt on the undercarriage, or a piece of gear stored in the wrong place, or an omission from the parts order. This to justify making us wash, count, check, service, S P A R E P A R T S

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  and list again. Once out of sight, however, we returned to our turrets. During this period of endless Ramp maintenance I made a dis-covery that changed my time in the reserves—collaboration with the Inspector and Instructor staff.

  The I & I staff were the active-duty Marines who ran the base year-round in support of reserve drill weekends. In the reservists’

  world the I & I staff were all-powerful. On the Ramp the maintenance chief, Sgt. Jackson, reigned supreme. He could fail a vehicle for cleanliness, sending it back to the wash ramp over and over. He could deny us using time-saving tools, like ratchets, in place of the wrenches in the vehicle inventory. He could shut down the solvent tank that cleaned our weapons in seconds, instead issuing
brushes and requiring hours of scrubbing.

  After cleaning and maintenance I would send groups of Marines to work with the I & I staff. The goodwill paid off in big dividends, especially with Sgt. Jackson. The quicker we passed our inspections, the quicker he could get groups of Marines to work for him. Our inspections never went smoother. The concept spread to other platoons as well. Sgt. Jackson was the first I & I Marine to cross over, leaving behind the us-versus-them mentality that had separated active-duty and reserve Marines at Camp Upshur.

  The same collaborative practices that had built bridges between the crewmen and the I & I staff, however, drove a wedge between Sgt. Krause and me. My ideas for improving training were no longer falling on deaf ears. The I & I staff listened to my suggestions, and I developed alliances with the people in power—alliances that were transcending Sgt. Krause’s rank and control.

  My passion for improving training was too much for Sgt. Krause.

  No longer the lemming of drills past, I respectfully but assertively challenged his authority whenever it impeded my idea of meaningful training. Moreover, I understood how to gain support for my ideas and turn them into action. Unable to control my rebellion Sgt.

  Krause did the next best thing; he transferred me into Third Platoon, under Sgt. Fields, a new-join grunt from the fleet.

  Fortunately for me Sgt. Fields appreciated my initiative and encouraged me to lead. Unfortunately for Krause, the switch was a 262

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  catalyst for my promotion. The next time our paths crossed, things would be different.

  SEPTEMBER 1991

  My first drill with Third Platoon brought a welcome break from the monotony of the Ramp. The weekend was devoted exclusively to qualifying on the rifle range, a monumental event in the Marine world. Rifle scores are part of Marines’ permanent records, factored into promotions, and even worn as badges on dress uniforms.