by Dennis Foley
He moved on not waiting for a reply from Fitch. Inspecting each man’s back pack and equipment, he worked his way forward and finally stopped at Scotty, in his solitary leadership post out front of the platoon. He lowered his voice. “You ready, Hayes? Because if you aren’t you better get that way, fast.
“You got an accurate platoon roster?” Russell walked around Scotty and checked out his equipment—pack, canteen, entrenching tool, shelter half and ammo pouches.
Scotty pulled a folded roster from his pocket.
“You going to get this bunch to the training area in one piece today?”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
“I don’t want to lose anyone on the way ’cause they can’t hack it. You got it?”
“Yes, Sergeant.” Scotty had heard all the trainee lore. Stories were told and retold, but every trainee would later learn they were mostly gross exaggerations. The rumor was the seventeen mile march to the Bivouac Week was so grueling trainees fell out from sheer exhaustion in large numbers, many needing to be hospitalized. There were even stories of deaths due to exhaustion. The only thing Scotty would find to be true was the day’s march was more of a run than a march and it was exhausting.
“Hayes, you flake out today and nobody in this platoon will even follow you to the shit house.” He tugged at Scotty’s loose and sagging shoulder harness. “Tighten this up. You get to double-timin’ and your gear starts sliding around you’ll be one sorry ass trainee. You’ll have blisters where you didn’t know you had places.”
“Yes, Sergeant,” Scotty said.
Scotty had not really paid much attention to the stories. It seemed to him if they were true certainly something would have leaked out of Fort Benning to the newspapers and mothers across the country would be incensed by the treatment of their sons. Maybe it was not wanting to believe the stories or maybe he thought how bad could it really be? Anyway, he knew he had enough to think about keeping up with the extra duties as acting Sergeant. It was enough for him to be worried about getting through one day at a time and being responsible for the other thirty-nine trainees in his platoon. And lately he had even started thinking about graduating soon and the few weeks leave he’d get—and about going home.
But now the day had come to march out to the bivouac area. Getting there was the first hurdle. Once there it would be a week of advanced field training—live-fire exercises, the gas chamber and testing on their knowledge of first aid and map reading and then their final qualification on the rifle range. Failing any of these tests would mean being recycled—to Scotty a much bigger worry than a march to the training areas.
As he stood there waiting to move out, he recognized he really hadn’t prepared for the march—the extra weight he had to carry, rigging everything so it would be comfortable and travel well. It was as if the day would never come or he wouldn’t be there long enough to see it. But it had come and he now recognized he would have to deal with the weeks of little sleep. That alone would be a big problem. He would need more than average endurance to make the march.
Toward the center of the company formation the Field First Sergeant, senior to Russell, yelled the commands which turned the entire company in the right direction and started them marching in a long and neatly formed column of six platoons of four even files per platoon.
As they left the company area Scotty’s thoughts shifted to his responsibilities. He had to keep every man in his platoon in line and in step. He had to keep them moving at a steady pace with the others to keep the rigid formation from falling apart once the going got tough and the trainees tired.
In the first half hour on the march they threaded their way through the regimental cantonment area, blocking intersections while they passed.
Scotty noticed some in his platoon were already hacking and coughing with what the medics called URI—upper respiratory infection. It was something every trainee experienced. So many trainees from so many different parts of the country coming together late in the year, being forced to live together, sleep in cramped barracks and sit jammed into bleachers in outdoor classes provided just the Petri dish needed to exchange and spread the viruses. Almost every trainee suffered some kind of URI before Basic Training was over.
By the third mile the buildings and asphalt roads gave way to the apron of the training areas. The range road was the forty mile long central artery which every trainee took to get to the firing ranges and training areas. Wide enough for a school bus and topped with crushed gravel, the roadway sliced its way through the trees and Georgia Kudzu on its lazy arc around the numerous rifle, tank and grenade ranges—all of them firing into a common impact area in the center large enough to hold a small city.
After less than an hour on the range road Scotty’s feet already hurt. The tender bones bumping up against the inside of his combat boots had never adjusted to the constant pounding since his first day in the Army.
His rifle, slung over his shoulder by a stiff canvas strap, felt much heavier than its actual eight pounds. His steel helmet pressed down heavily on the top of his nearly bald head and made his neck ache just holding it up.
In spite of the aches and pains, Scotty wasn’t going to let on to anyone else he was feeling the effects of the march. He might have felt differently were he still a trainee hidden somewhere in the ranks of the platoon, but as a trainee leader he was visible out in front and his pride wouldn’t let him whine or quit.
His platoon was third in the order of march. Already trainees were starting to drop out. On either side of the roadway sergeants from other platoons were yelling at pale faced soldiers collapsed in the drainage ditches or leaning against tree trunks suffering from the demands of the march. Some were favoring painful feet. Others were bent over vomiting heavy mess hall breakfasts.
From somewhere behind him Scotty heard Russell bellow, “Hayes!”
Without looking around from his position up in front of his platoon, Scotty kept marching. “Yes, Sergeant.”
“You already got some damn stragglers fallin’ out in the back a the platoon, boy. We don’t have stragglers. You hear me? Get on it. Now!”
Scotty peeled off and let this platoon pass by until the tail end came abreast of him. The platoon’s rear ranks were ragged and no longer held the precise alignment they’d started out the morning with. He came along side the last row of shuffling, staggering trainees and fell into step with them. “What’s the problem back here?”
Two of the three stragglers didn’t respond, but Fitch turned to face Hayes. “Fuck you. Get your ass back up front where you can keep sucking up and kissing Russell’s ass.”
Kissing Russell’s ass? Without thinking Scotty reached over and yanked Fitch out of the formation by his pack suspenders.
The two stood by the side of the road while the entire company moved on. Fitch glared at Scotty. “What are you gonna’ do? Huh?” He nodded at the sergeant’s stripes pinned on Scotty’s sleeve. “You think those put some weight in your ass? If you don’t let go of me now I’m gonna’ lay you out here in the street, you asshole.”
Scotty could feel blood rush to his face. He let go with one hand and quickly felt it tighten into a fist ready for what was to come. Russell’s words suddenly echoed in his head: Don’t let ’em know you aren’t sure what you’re gonna do, Hayes.
“Fitch! There a problem? Hayes? What’s the story?” Russell yelled from fifty yards up the road. He didn’t wait for a reply. “Get your asses back into formation before I come back there and sort you two out. Now!”
Clearly focused on Scotty’s eyes, Fitch lowered his voice. “We aren’t through with this.”
All Scotty could think to reply was, “No. We aren’t. Anytime. You just say when.” He shoved Fitch toward the formation now a hundred yards up the road. “Move.”
Fitch turned and started a half-hearted shuffle somewhere between walking and jogging to close the distance between him and the platoon.
“Hayes,” Russell yelled. “You get your ass back up wh
ere you belong. You can’t honcho a forty-man platoon from back there. A marching platoon’s like spaghetti. You can’t push it. You got t’get up front and pull it.”
Two hours into the march a sergeant up at the head of the column yelled out the command to change the pace from a fast march to a double-time and the entire trainee company broke into a synchronized run.
Running in step was hard enough but carrying a rifle, pack and gear made it much harder. Everything Scotty carried clanked and rattled as he ran. In no time he started to doubt his ability to keep up the pace for the remaining eleven miles ahead. He remembered track in high school and tried to feed his straining leg muscles with oxygen by forcing himself to exhale, clearing his lungs to allow room for as much oxygen as he could take in on the next breath.
Ahead Scotty heard the first trainee completely lose it, fall and pancake onto the gravel pathway. The sound was immediately followed an unseen cadre sergeant yelling at the unseen trainee to get back up on his feet and catch up.
Scotty’s platoon was in no better shape than the others. He turned and awkwardly double-timed backwards so he could see them. He mimicked the encouragement he heard up ahead, “Close it up. Stay in formation!”
There was some grumbling in the rear of the platoon directed at Scotty.
“Okay, knock off the bullshit,” Scotty yelled. “We’re going to finish this march one way or the other. Bitching won’t help.” He turned back around, nearly tripping over his own boots and got back into step.
As Scotty ran his stomach soured and he felt light headed. Suddenly the thought of falling out himself fired a flash of panic through him. He couldn’t fall out. He couldn’t quit. They were all watching him. No. He had to hold on and finish—no matter what. He struggled with his load and gulped in as much air as he could. He tried to command his body to relax and ignore the pain of the forty pounds of clanking combat gear.
Chapter 6
AFTER AN HOUR OF DOUBLE-TIMING a cadre sergeant halted the company and gave them their first break.
“Hayes. What are you sitting down for? Huh?”
Scotty quickly capped his canteen and looked up to Russell’s dark eyes peering out from under his helmet—his hands on his hips. “We were told to break for chow, Sergeant.”
“Not you, Hayes. You eat after you’ve checked every man in your platoon.
“You ever see any member of the cadre go through the chow line before every trainee’s been fed?”
“No, Sergeant. But —”
Russell pointed to the soldiers seated along the shoulder of the road “‘But’ shit, Hayes. Get off your ass and go check their feet. You find someone with blisters you send him back to the meat wagon. You got it?”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
“Make sure every man changes his socks. You find a man without any socks, you dig into your pack and give him a pair of yours. You got it?”
“My socks?”
“That’s right, your socks. Kick his ass later—when we get back. But you won’t have anyone in this platoon falling out a this march because of feet. You hear me?”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
Scotty looked at the platoon. Most of them eating C Rations, some stretched out on the grassy margins just off the gravel path trying to regain their strength. Still others slept—a skill learned early by every Army trainee.
“What are you waiting for, Hayes?”
“Nothing, Sergeant.” Scotty jumped to his feet, dropped his gear in a pile and started toward the others.
“Hayes!” Russell yelled again.
Scotty turned. “Sergeant?”
Russell pointed at Scotty’s gear on the grass. “Where the hell you going?”
“To check feet, Sergeant. Like you told me.”
“Put on your gear. We’re in simulated tactical mode from the time we left Sand Hill until we return to the barracks next week. You go somewhere, you wear your helmet, your gear and carry your rifle—everywhere. And it goes for every man in your platoon.”
Scotty turned back and picked up his backpack and pistol belt and rifle. “Yes, Sergeant.”
Though his own feet hurt, Scotty was completely surprised at what he found among the other trainees. A forced march in boots only a few weeks old affected each trainee differently. Some had no mark save the cross-hatch pattern the bootlaces traced up the front of each ankle. Others were bleeding from blisters which had grown, burst and drained into socks not completely clean before the march.
He stopped in front of a boy from Louisiana and made him take off his socks—already suspicious of what he would see. The sock on one foot was wet with blood and the other showed the start of another growing stain. As he got closer the smell of dirty feet and dirty socks assaulted Scotty’s nose. “Damn! You ever wash those feet?”
The boy took off his socks and threw them on the ground next to where he sat. “What’s it to you? You my mother?”
Scotty surprised himself with is reply. “Yes. I am your goddamn mother until we get out of Basic. And I told you all last night to bring clean socks. Do you remember me telling you to bring clean socks? You think I just made that up to make your life miserable? Why do you think I said that, huh?” Scotty pointed at the soldier’s bloody feet. “To keep this from happening. Now, get your gear and let the medics decide what to do with you.”
He watched the soldier hobble barefoot to the ambulance parked behind the last platoon. Inside he felt responsible. If he’d just checked their socks before they started the march.
“Hayes.”
Scotty turned to find Russell next to him also watching the bleeding trainee who had reached the ambulance and was pointing out his blisters to one of the medics.
“His socks were dirty, they bunched up and just rubbed the skin right off his feet.”
Russell turned to Scotty. “His status?”
“Pardon me?”
“Where’s your roster? Keeping track of your people is every leader’s job.” He pointed to the blistered trainee. “After we get to the bivouac area and I ask you for a status report I want you to be able to account for every man by name, by status, by location. You need to write all this down. You may think you can remember where he went and he’s with the medics or evac’d to the post hospital but by the end of the day there may be ten of them. Your memory all that good, Hayes?”
“I, ah —”
“No, Hayes. Nobody’s memory’s that good and when you are doin’ this in a shootin’ war it gets harder than woodpecker’s lips. You can’t rely on your memory. You have to be right and you have to keep good notes. Be exact. There’s mommas, wives and babies back home who want to know for sure what happens to their men.”
Scotty watched Russell walk away, not having waited for a response. A shootin’ war? The man was such a puzzle to Scotty—sometimes rough and demanding and other times he seemed to treat Scotty like an equal. He turned to look at the others. Every man in the platoon watched as Russell passed through the clusters of trainees changing socks and caring for their feet. His authority over them was absolute, but his concern for their welfare seemed to be strong and ever present.
The break was way too short. Scotty’s uniform was soaked through with sweat even though the cooling winds of a Georgia fall had been in their faces all day. As quickly as Scotty finished checking all the feet and tending to those who needed medical attention the company was back on the range road running toward the bivouac area still miles away. And Scotty never found the time to eat.
Another hour and a half of running and more trainees gave out or gave up. Those who couldn’t continue were scooped up by the cadre and ushered off to the ambulance creeping along behind the company. Those already in the ambulance would be shuttled to the post hospital as soon as a replacement ambulance arrived. Some of the casualties would rejoin the company by nightfall, but most would recycled to other training companies.
With the sun getting low on the horizon and the end of the march only a mile off Scotty heard
a rifle, steel helmet and trainee crash onto the gravel behind him. Without even thinking about it, he pulled out of his slot up front and looped around to the back of the platoon.
There, on all fours, was Fitch—vomiting. The color had drained out of his face.
Scotty dropped to one knee next to the fallen trainee. “Fitch. Fitch! Look at me.” He wanted to see exactly how bad it was.
Fitch mumbled something unrecognizable and tried to lay down in the gravel.
Scotty stood, straddled Fitch and looped his arms under Fitch’s shoulders to lift him to his feet.
Fitch stood, but he was very shaky. His bluster and bravado was completely gone. His fatigue shirt was soaked with perspiration and stained with vomit.
“Can you walk?”
“Dunno. Just leave me here,” was all he could seem to master.
“Give me your gear,” Scotty said.
“Huh?”
“We only got a mile to go. You can make it.” Scotty reached down, picked up Fitch’s steel helmet. Then his rifle. He slung the weapon over his shoulder next to his own.
“I can’t,” Fitch said. “I can’t make it.”
“Sure you can. Your gear, Fitch. Gimme.”
Fitch fumbled with the large buckle on his pistol belt. Once loose, he shrugged his backpack and remaining combat gear.
“Hayes! Don’t make a career out of it back there!” Russell yelled.
Scotty didn’t respond. He took Fitch’s harness holding all his gear and slung it over his free shoulder doubling his own load. “Let’s go. Easy.” He held Fitch up and the two moved forward at an awkward shuffle.
Freed of his gear Fitch regained some strength.
The two hobbled along for two hundred yards—Scotty holding up Fitch, managing to carry all his added gear.
Russell bellowed from the font of the platoon, “You going spend all day back there, Hayes?”
Hayes got Fitch to within a few yards of the tail end of the running platoon. “Parks! Johnson!” Scotty yelled to two other trainees. “Come take Fitch.”