by Tom Kratman
“Most modern feminist literature tends to ignore the whole question. Instead, feminists—like Sylvia Torres, for example—want to concentrate only on individual achievements, abilities, and strengths. Which is why those views are useless…to you. Note they never seriously talk about women’s weaknesses. It’s as if they can’t even conceive of the difference between battle and peacetime pursuits. Perhaps they really can’t understand that battle is a social event, conducted by groups, and in which the cohesion of groups matters much more than individual prowess.
“Worse, it’s as if they—like many of the men in the world—can’t even conceive of the benefits and need of that peculiar form of semi-insane groupthink: Esprit de corps.”
* * *
Not all lectures were informal.
The women sang with feeling, “Miseria, Miseria…” as they filed into the dank and musty shed. Under its shade, buttocks pressed down uncomfortably into the rough wood chips intended to cushion the fall of the women as they learned to fight hand to hand.
Franco spoke. “You girls know a little more now about battle than you did once. Let me tell you some more.
“A man is not braver than a woman is; ‘She who faces death by torture for each life beneath her breast.’ The Catholic Church has lists of female martyrs miles long.”
He made a hand signal and a picture of a young girl, hanging, neck broken, frozen with shirt ripped off and breasts disfigured, shone from one wall.
“Rather more recently, there was this girl. We don’t know her name. We do know she was hanged by the Sachsens during the Great Global War for sabotage. She was captured, tortured, and then hanged because she wouldn’t give any up information. That was bravery equal to any man’s.
“Tsk-tsk.
“But, unfortunately, she proves not a damned thing about women’s bravery in battle; in groups.
“None of you have been to war,” Franco observed. “I have. Twice, actually, against both the Sumeris and the Pashtians. So trust me in this. Imagine a battle between a group of women and a group of men. Remember this is not a drill. Bullets are flying; shells scattering razor sharp shards of steel in all directions. People are screaming; some in anger, more in pain.
“There are a few individuals—men and women both, transcendentally motivated—who ignore all that, fight on despite danger. There are also some who cower and hide; and you can’t really blame them, though you just might have to shoot them later. For the rest, though—the relative sheep, like most people—they only stay the course because they care about their comrades, and their comrades’ good opinions, more than they care about themselves.”
Franco turned and pointed to Gloria. “Chica, when was the last time you cared if somebody thought you were brave…or tough…or disciplined? Do not answer. Just think about it. Women are far less likely to care about someone’s opinion of them when that opinion does not concern something that is essentially womanly.”
He concluded, “More than lack of physical strength, more than health, far, far more than courage; it is this that is your greatest obstacle.”
* * *
To give the cadre credit, they did try to find the key. And they did run off any girls who seemed incapable of eventually making their unit their primary source of self-identification. They also, naturally, dumped those whose lack of competence could degrade the unit, thereby making it considerably more likely that the rest of the women would develop esprit. They let stay none of the slackers, nor that one thief, nor those who couldn’t or wouldn’t learn to shoot…nor those who were too afraid.
Once, the cadre even let the girls see a male infantry training maniple at close range, just for a few hours. They wanted them to see how things were supposed to be.
That was very strange to the women. The men were jocular, content with themselves and with each other. And they exuded a sense of mass brotherhood the girls had never seen or felt before. They knew, in a way that the women didn’t yet, that any man in that maniple could count on any other to fight by his side, and never to desert him.
* * *
The cadre tried all sorts of things, some quite bizarre, to help the women learn the way things were supposed to be. Once, for example, they showed a movie, entitled Kirti, dubbed into Spanish, about a tercio of Hindu soldiers in the Federated States Army during their Formation War.
The girls—most of them—thought it was a pretty good movie, actually, though very sad at the end. A number cried when all the great characters they’d learned to like as the movie progressed were killed in a hopeless, desperate attack, an attack they’d volunteered to make. The story, they were told, was mostly true.
That evening, after chow, they had discussed it with Franco.
He said, “It was, in fact, the battle actions of this mostly Hindu regiment that had led directly to massive opening up of military service to Hindus, which had gone a long way towards winning the war for the side that did so. Of course, the world being the way it is, the Hindus remained in their own units for nearly a century after that.”
Inez commented, “Seems kind of unfair, Centurion…keeping them apart like that. Bound to lead to worse treatment. The movie showed us that.”
“Yes, Private, so it seems. Would the world have been a better place, would even those Hindus have been better off, if they’d been integrated with whites from the beginning, but had failed in battle because they didn’t like or trust one another? Would a statement in favor of racial integration have been worth maybe losing that war?”
He answered his own questions. “I suppose that depends on whether an aesthetic principle is more important than the success of an ultimate good.”
Interlude
Gloria Santiago sat miserable and alone on the front steps to the barracks. Other soldiers passed without speaking. The last of her “friends” had been downchecked by the rest of the platoon on a peer evaluation the day before. That woman was already on her way to a non-combat training unit.
Gloria’s eyes were bloodshot, her body sore and bruised. Her once fair skin was dry and scratched. Worst of all, her spirit was very nearly broken.
I just don’t understand it, Santiago thought. This world is so different, so strange. And I’m no good at any of it. Even those damned little bitches Trujillo and Fuentes can beat me up. It’s so unfair…nothing ever prepared me for this.
Santiago stood up and began walking away from the barracks to the nearby woods. She wanted to be alone in fact as well as spirit.
From a hundred meters away Corporal Salazar saw her slinking, spiritless walk. He began to follow her to the woods.
Chapter Six
May all our citizens be soldiers, and all our soldiers citizens.
—Sarah Livingston Jay
Maria:
They couldn’t give it to us; it had to come from inside; inside ourselves.
I can’t speak for everybody; not for all the Amazonas. I can only tell you what I felt; what happened to me.
You remember how Centurion Garcia had made a bunch of us “pregnant,” making the rest of us carry their gear. Well that was imposed; we hated him every step of the way. And most of us, by this stage in our training would almost rather drop down dead than “get knocked up.” Certainly we wouldn’t ask to see the medics over little discomforts, as we might have if some other women hadn’t had to carry our load for us if we did.
I wonder, though, if we’d have been so reluctant if there had been some young men around to carry our gear for us. It’s just possible they wouldn’t even have minded, stupid boys. I sometimes think that men are overgrown babies whose spoiling of us often keeps us from quite growing up ourselves.
Or maybe we keep each other from ever quite growing up.
One impossibly late night after another impossibly long day I went to bed (not a real bed, of course, just my tacky air mattress under a strung out poncho). I was feeling a little poorly, nothing definite, just a general feeling of inner rottenness. But by morning I really was sick
: dizzy, throwing up, a fever, too. I still don’t know what it was that got me, influenza, bug bite, or reaming rod of randomness.
Unfortunately, we had another road march—heavy packs—scheduled for that morning. To add injury to insult, I had to carry the machine gun. I couldn’t; I just couldn’t.
The cadre had been dropping girls right and left of late. Less than half of those who had started were still with us. The rest were, like me, pretty much at their limit.
Curiously, again like me, it had also become extremely important to all but a tiny number of those remaining to complete training. Whatever it was: unwillingness to go home as failures, a real need for the benefits that went with service, some stirrings of pride in being soldiers, I don’t know.
In my case I had to finish training…for Alma’s sake.
I think Marta noticed me first, throwing up outside the perimeter. She came up and asked me, gently, what was wrong. I threw up again and started to cry for Alma; and for the life I’d hoped to build for us. I knew I’d never make the march. I’d be a failure. And they’d boot me out.
She held me a minute or two, kissed my forehead. She told me it would be all right. Then she took my machine gun, throwing it up on her shoulder with a grunt. In a few minutes Inez Trujillo came up, she and the rest of the squad. With hardly a word they took my pack apart; splitting up my gear among them. They hung the empty pack on my back. Trujillo told two of the girls—Isabel and Catarina—to help me. They got on either side of me and put my arms over their shoulders.
If Garcia even noticed or cared he never let on. He just called us to attention, gave us a “left face,” took his position at the front, and ordered us to march.
The first few miles were bad, but I still had a little strength in me; just enough to keep going. The next nine or ten miles were worse, because I didn’t have that strength left by then, but I couldn’t drop out after having let the other girls put themselves through hell having to carry me for the first few miles. Funny thing, pride, no?
I don’t like to think about that march too often. It was bad. Half the time I was nearly delirious. Most of the rest I was puking. The girls helping me didn’t say a bad word even when I threw up right on them, though the stench made them start to gag, too.
Now you might say those women did nothing special; that if they hadn’t taken my gear willingly, Garcia would have made them. That’s true, they had to carry my equipment if I couldn’t.
But they didn’t have to carry me. That they did on their own.
It’s hard not to love a group like that.
* * *
There was a funny upshot of that incident. Without a word of explanation Garcia had us turn in those miserable poles, the “pricks,” the next day. They were carried away on a truck. He never reissued them. We never gave him cause to.
* * *
Fortunately, we spent the next four days in the same general area, learning how to conduct raid, ambush and reconnaissance patrols. We did make some cross-country moves, but they were fairly short moves; without heavy packs.
Mostly, they left me behind to help secure the Objective Rally Point, or ORP. That’s the last position where your patrol—usually squad or platoon sized—stops, short of the actual place where you set up the ambush or do the recon or raid.
If I hadn’t been sick, it might have been fun. I know most of the other girls thought it was. Though, by then, they would probably have to be considered a little weird. Being in the ORP wasn’t so bad. Still, I was usually alone.
Actually, I hoped I was alone. There was always the chance of a snake showing up to keep me company. I hate snakes. And the antaniae? The moonbats? I am frankly scared to death of them. The thought of one crawling into my sleeping roll with me is enough to pull me to my feet, shivering, no matter how tired I am. As soon as I was remotely able to keep up I insisted that I not be left behind in the ORP anymore. If the other girls thought that was because I was tough, I did nothing to disabuse them of the notion.
* * *
It was early one morning, following a less than fully successful ambush and while we waited for chow, that I cornered Trujillo. The others, especially Marta, Cat and Isabel, I’d already expressed my gratitude to.
“Inez…thank you,” was all I said.
She just shook her head, as if she didn’t quite understand.
“For carrying me. For getting the others to carry me.” I looked down at the ground, ashamed, actually.
“Wouldn’t you have done the same for us?”
I don’t know if I would have before, I really don’t. But I nodded, as if I was certain I would have.
“So what’s to thank? We’re in this together. We help each other.”
The subject was a little uncomfortable. I changed it. “Why are you here, Inez? I mean…I joined to try to build a better life for myself and my daughter. But why did you join?”
“I thought it was the right thing to do,” was all she said.
“There was a man,” I reminded her, “back when we first got on the hovercraft to come here. He was something special to you? A boyfriend? A lover?”
She looked confused for a minute, then started to laugh. “Lover? Ricardo is my brother! He’s in Third Tercio. He’s probably at Centurion School now.”
“Are you going to try for that? Centurion, I mean.”
“I’ll take what they offer me, if they offer me anything,” she answered.
“They will. You’re different from the rest of us, different from me, for example.”
“Maria,” she said, with a subtle smile, “do you think we carried you and your gear because we thought you were worthless?”
I really didn’t know what to say to that.
* * *
Somewhere nearby artillery was falling and exploding. Garcia paid it no mind, though it made the rest of us pretty nervous.
He said, “Many armies spend an inordinate effort, I understand, on limiting the effects of friendly fire. We don’t spend much. We’re soldiers. We’re there to be killed if the country needs us to be killed. We’re there to win, even if doing so gets us killed.
“You might not expect it to be true, but it is true, that the infantry only inflicts twenty or thirty percent of all casualties in battle. We take, on the other hand, about ninety percent of the casualties. Who kills us? The enemy artillery. Who among us does the killing? The machine guns. What kills or suppresses the machine gunners? Your own artillery.”
Garcia pulled a tetradrachma coin from his pocket and flipped it to illustrate. “Now you have a choice. You can stay so far behind your own supporting artillery that there is no chance of any of your own being hit by it. If you do, the enemy machine gunners will be up and firing when you attack. Two years into the Great Global War, there was an attack. Twenty-five thousand Anglians were killed, as many more wounded, on the first day alone, by a few dozen machine gunners that hadn’t been suppressed or destroyed by the Anglian artillery.”
He flipped the coin again. “On the other hand, you can follow your own artillery so closely that you take some losses in dead and wounded from your own side. Quality control at the factory—or lack thereof—ensures that if you follow a barrage closely, some shells will fall short among your own troops. But then, you can be on top of the machine guns, shooting, stabbing, hacking and blasting before they have a chance to mow your people down.”
His face took on a somber, serious cast. “How sad for those killed by their own side’s artillery.” The frown disappeared, replaced by a rare and ghastly grin. “How grand, however, for those likely much larger numbers not killed by the enemy machine guns. And the dead don’t really care what killed them.
“We go in for the second approach, taking losses to ‘friendly fire’ somewhat more philosophically than the world norm. It takes a lot of discipline, though, and that means a lot of training. Some of that can be inferential training, general discipline building. It’s better, though, if the training is a little more direct and po
inted. Move out.”
* * *
I was scared to death. Garcia wasn’t just flapping his gums about following a barrage closely. He wanted us to do it.
“Madre de Dios! Did you see that?” Marta stopped short, slack-jawed, to see a woman sail about fifteen feet into the air, arms and legs fluttering. The woman landed, stunned, it appeared, but otherwise fairly whole, a few meters from where a delay-fused shell had gone off not too far from under her feet. The woman was lucky the shell had missed her head before burying itself in the ground.
“Don’t think about it,” Cristina Zamora shouted. “Just keep marching forward. Forward!” Zamora was acting platoon centurion for the exercise.
About seventy-five meters ahead of where Marta and I stood, a wall of flying dirt moved relentlessly up a steep hill. They were firing delay fuses, but that was the only safety measure I could see, that kicked up a visually impressive amount of dirt and rocks with each burst.
We resumed walking forward, firing short bursts either from the hip or, shoulder held, aiming with the F- and M-26’s neat little integral optical sight. Look, anything you can throw at the enemy to keep his head down is worth the effort. Besides, walking is a lot faster and less exhausting than doing little three second rushes. In battle, an exhausted Amazona is a fear-filled and useless Amazona.
As we neared the top of the hill, the shell fire shifted a last time and redoubled in intensity. Zamora spoke into a radio, then shouted, “Wait for it!”
The delay fused high explosive was replaced by a dozen rounds of white phosphorus. A cloud of smoke enveloped the hilltop.
“Adelante las Amazonas!” We charged, screaming and firing all the way.
* * *
For whatever reasons, and each of us probably had her own, we did develop something like esprit de corps. Or, rather, most of us did. A few couldn’t. Life for them became very hard, because, as the overwhelming bulk of us still remaining bonded together, the others were left out in the cold. Some were encouraged into the group by that. Others just shut down before being washed out.