by Phil Walker
When he left, Robby and Willis realized how big a day they had just experienced.
“Does it seem cold in here to you?”
“Yeah, it does,” said Willis.
“Wait a minute, I saw, an instruction manual over there on the table between the beds. Robby read the pages, and found that there was a small box on the wall that showed the temperature in the room in a lighted display and a button to set the temperature. The room was 55 degrees. Robby pushed the button and moved the number up to 70. Almost immediately, the sound of air came through vents on both sides of the room in the ceiling. Willis reached up and said, “There’s warm air coming out of these vents.”
“Guess we won’t be cold at night,” said Robby.
“What’s the book say about that thing in the bathroom?”
Ronny checked the index and read the part about the “thing.”
“It says here that it’s called a toilet and you use it to go to the bathroom.”
“I’m gonna try it,” said Willis, “I got to pee.”
He stepped into the room and lifted the lid. He peed, and said, “Now what?”
“Turn the handle,” said Ronny.
Both men watched in amazement as the toilet cycled.
“I wonder what time it is,” asked Willis, “I’m plumb tuckered out.”
“Me too, Guess we can sleep in our boxers and a t-shirt.”
The men pulled down the covers and got into bed.
“What a comfortable bed,” said Ronny.
“Yeah it is, you gonna go shut off the light?
Ronny looked at the lights on the cabinet. “They have switches too” He pushed the one on his side and the light went out. Willis pushed his button and the room was dark. Both men were asleep in minutes.
15
It seemed like Ronny had just closed his eyes when he heard the blare of a trumpet cascading through the Fort from speakers everywhere. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs and jumped out of bed, shoving Willis in the process.
Both men made up their bunks, trying to make them look as neat as they had found them the night before. Then they quickly dressed and went out of their room. Several other men were running down the hall toward the front door.
They went outside to the street in front of the barracks and found two soldiers standing there with strange hats on their heads. They were round and creased in the middle. Their uniforms were perfectly tailored. One had three stripes down and two stripes up on his sleeves, the other three stripes. The Sergeant was not a huge man, about Ronny’s size. Many of the recruits were bigger and broader than he was. He had broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and his face was lean with a long nose. He had sharp, dark eyes. The Sergeant was muscular and had a pleasant face.
He walked back and forth in front of the 50 recruits. “I want you to organize yourselves with the shortest man here in the front right corner and the tallest man back there in the left corner. Ten men in each line in front of me. Do it now! If the man in front of you is taller move up. If the man to your side is taller, move down,” he said as the men struggled to find the right spots. When the unit had formed up properly, the man said, “Now, I want you to stretch out your right arm and make space so that you fingers are just touching the shoulders of the man next to you.” The 50 men shuffled around. “Straighten up these ranks, when I stand in front of the man in the front row, I don’t want to see nothing but him.” More shuffling.
“I am Sergeant First-Class Boswell. This is Sergeant Carson. We will be your drill instructors for basic training during the next six months. During that time, we will train you in the fundamentals of military service. You are the First Platoon of Company A, of the First Regiment of the Ranger Brigade of the American Army “Right now it’s time for you to eat breakfast, and I want you back here, in exactly this formation in 45 minutes. Fall out.”
The men made a wide arc around the sergeant and ran for the mess hall. They were the only recruits in the huge mess hall at the moment, but within minutes, another platoon of 50 men came rushing in, and on top of them another 50 men came in.
The food was excellent. They had scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits and gravy, pancakes, toast, orange juice, wonderful butter, a superb collection of jams and jellies and rich maple syrup. They also had more of the fabulous coffee. If anything, it tasted better than the night before.
The time went very quickly. Ronny paid special attention to the big clock on the wall to make sure they got back in the correct time. It was exactly 45 minutes and the entire unit was back in the formation they had when they fell out from reveille. Sergeant Boswell nodded with satisfaction.
“Our training cannot proceed in the manner of most armies,” he announced. “In many ways it will be run on an almost individual basis, since you all come from such different backgrounds and social situations. We need to move you all to the same place in terms of education and an understanding of what it means to be a part of a truly elite force.”
“So we’ll go back to the very basics, and your training will begin in a classroom. If you will follow us, we’ll go down to the education building.”
The men walked down the street, past the mess hall and the Administration Building, to a two-story structure. As they went inside, they found the building divided into classrooms that held 50 students. There were desks in lines, a podium at the front, and a large plasma screen hung on the front wall. Of course, the colonists had never seen such a thing before, and since it was black, they assumed it was some kind of a blackboard.
When everyone was settled, Sergeant Boswell said, “We are going to begin with some basic orientation.” He pushed a button on a pad and the big screen came to life in full high definition color.
The video began a tour of the lands of North America. There were great forests, big rivers, spectacular snow-capped mountains, breath-taking canyons, and wide savannahs with huge herds of black beasts. There was music with the video and it was an inspiring look at the entire North American continent. Ronny looked over at Willis and both of them were deeply impressed with what they saw.
When the video came to a close, a half hour later, there was a lot of conversation among the men, and general applause. The picture changed to a man standing in an open field. He was wearing the same green fatigues as everyone else. He smiled into the camera and said, “Hello, Americans, I am General Compton, the Deputy Commander of the Brigade of which you are all a part, called the Rangers. When we are finished with you, in about five years, you will be the best educated, best trained, most effective, strongest and most lethal fighting force in the world. Believe it men. When other armies, no matter how many men they have, hear the Rangers Are Coming, they will shake in their boots with terror.”
“In order to accomplish this, we will be proceeding along several lines. First, we’ll be conducting a program in general education. Not only will all of you read, write, and do arithmetic, you will learn new things that none of you know, and your education will be more advanced than any university anywhere in the country.”
“Our second objective is to improve your physical conditioning to an extremely high level. You will be amazed at what you can actually do, given the proper motivation.”
“Next, we will be training you to work as one team, with a common purpose. This will require rigorous training in a military environment. You will walk, talk, shoot, shave, shower, and function as a single effective force. Each of you will learn to watch each other and to protect each other, as if they were yourselves.”
Next, we will begin, in the final two years of your training, to teach you to use the very special weapons we have available to us. I can assure you, no other army will have the kind of equipment and weapons you will possess. This is why a single Brigade of 3,000 men will be able to defeat any enemy force we face. I know that sounds like so much nonsense, however, I can assure you it is true.”
“The following is very important. The greatest cause of death on the battlefield is not bein
g killed in combat. It’s caused by infection from wounds, and from disease. The first one is battle injuries. The Rangers have the most effective medical treatment and the best corps of doctors and medics to be found anywhere in the world. If you are wounded in battle, the chances of your survival, with all your limbs intact, is 90%. The current levels in the British Army with their best efforts are less than 25%. The second part is disease. All of you have received vaccination against nearly all the common ailments. However, in order for us to insure your medical safety, we must rely on one very important policy, and that is not to allow disease to creep into our ranks because of poor personal hygiene. You will shave and shower every day. Your personal quarters will be kept spotlessly clean and in perfect order at all times. Your drill instructors will inspect your quarters on a regular basis and anyone who doesn’t meet our high standards will find there are consequences. We will not beat you, but additional physical exercise will be the penalty for not keeping these standards. I know that many of you have come from clean homes, some of you have not. The most privileged of you, do not live in a home that maintains anything like the standards of cleanliness we do here. It’s for your protection, and you will learn to appreciate it.
Finally, you are all volunteers. Nobody made you come here. You have already had three chances to back out. Over 25% have done so. This means you’re already the best of the best. However, if you find our standards, rules, training and discipline to be too much for you, then quit. Ring the bell in front of the mess hall and vacate the Fort. By the way, we are a secret army being built by the American colonies without the knowledge of the British. If you quit, at least until we open our offensive operations to conquer North America, Canada, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean, you will not be permitted to go home. You will be held in segregated facilities to insure our secret stays a secret. We are sorry it has to be this way, and following the open establishment of the Rangers to the public, anyone who quits will be permitted to return to whatever life you had.”
“Now, I want you to know that we are a Christian organization. We will have church services every Sunday. We believe, in our hearts, that we are doing God’s work here and are warriors in the service of our savior and redeemer, Christ Jesus. You will soon learn how serious we are about this part of our lives.
“So let us begin. Your drill sergeants have their orders for how we proceed from now on. Good luck, Rangers, and May God Bless you all.”
“Men,” said Sergeant Boswell, lack of education is not a disability or anything to be ashamed of, nobody will discriminate against you for needing to learn, and that especially applies to those of you who do have education. We expect you to provide aid, encouragement, and personal tutoring for all who are struggling to learn. Is that understood?
“Yes, drill sergeant,” cried the men in unison.
“I can’t hear you,” hollered Boswell.
“YES, DRILL SERGEANT!”
“That’s better. Now stand up as I describe your current educational level. All men who have had formal schooling, can read, write, and do numbers, stand up.”
About 30 men stood up. “You men, go upstairs to room 201.”
“All men who are able to read and write and do some numbers, but have not had formal education in a school, stand up.”
Ronny saw he was one of about 25 men to stand. “Your classroom upstairs is room 203. Go now.”
There were now five men left in the room. “Is there anyone here who cannot read at all?” None spoke up. Finally, Willis raised his hand, “Yes Grant,” said Boswell.
“It’s not that I don’t read, drill sergeant. It’s that I don’t read very well, and it’s hard for me to write a proper sentence. As far as numbers are concerned, I’m dumb as a post.”
“Are the rest of you in about the same place,” asked Boswell?
All nodded that this was about where they were.
“Fine, your place is upstairs in room 205. Get moving.”
At lunch Willis and Ronny traded stories. Ronny said, “It was the strangest thing, the teacher had us all sit in front of machines that had a screen like the one we saw when we were together. It had a keyboard for putting the letters on the screen. The first thing I did was to put on a thing over my head that covered my ears. Then a strange woman spoke to me and told me what buttons to push to turn on the machine, it’s called…
“A computer,” interrupted Willis. I got the same thing. I spent four hours learning simple reading. We got one break for 15 minutes in the middle and I went down the hall and used the toilet. Do you know they have soft paper to wipe yourself off. Then you just push the handle and it all goes away. There was a sign that said, “Everything gone? If not use the brush to clean the toilet. Make sure you wash your hands with soap and hot water before you leave.” I guess that’s part of the being clean speech we got this morning.”
After lunch, Sergeant Boswell and Corporal Carson led them at a trot down the street to the huge parade ground. For the remainder of the afternoon they alternated between running through a very difficult obstacle course, and learning things like coming to attention and making turns in unison. Boswell explained the protocol for coming to attention, and for saluting officers. Boswell said, “You will salute me as if I were an officer at every appropriate time, but when training is over you will stop doing that. I am an enlisted man, like you, and do not rate a salute.”
The next morning, following breakfast, the drill instructors went into the rooms of the recruits and demonstrated the proper way to make a bed, and how to keep the rest of the room clean. They were introduced to mops and strong cleaners with pungent smells that were to scrub the floors. Rags with another kind of cleaner were for the furniture and fixtures in the bedroom and bathroom. The standards were very exacting and over the next week, many beds were torn apart, by the drill sergeants, and many floors and fixtures were done over. Always, the penalty for not passing the inspection was to run the half mile round trip from the barracks and across the Parade Ground, around the pole that held the big flag, and back. There was a time limit for that and the penalty for not coming back within that limit was to run the course again.
Every morning, the men exercised, ran the obstacle course, and gradually learned to march in unison. Every afternoon was spent in the classroom, learning more and more advanced reading, writing, and mathematics. The students had long since learned how to operate the computers and type their papers on the subject that was assigned. They learned that a complete encyclopedia was contained in the computer and all they had to do to research a topic was to type in keywords about it. Ronny was amazed at how much he had learned and was astonished at how fast Willis had learned. He was now almost as good at reading and writing as Ronny.
The social structure of the Brigade changed as well. By Christmas of 1770, the ranks were nearly filled with men recruited in the same way as Ronny and Willis. There were more than 3000 men at Fort Independence. There were also 50 women, 200 blacks, and 100 Native Americans.
For months, the educational system was not only teaching men to be literate, but also educating them in the concept that all men…including women were to be treated equally under God in the new nation. Racial and sex discrimination was absolutely not tolerated and the first of a handful of men who could not accept that rang the bell and were escorted away from Fort Independence.
As Sergeant Boswell told them, “Only the best from the past.”
Six men left the platoon, four had quit, and two others were found to have medical issues that allowed them to stay in the Brigade in various non-combat positions. The six replacements were four black men and two Cherokee Indians.
After a few weeks, it was amazing to see that the newcomers no longer were seen as different, just fellow sufferers under the relentless barking of orders and endless physical exercise. The women in the ranks proved to be every bit as tough as the men.
The modern computer system being used by the students brought the illiterate black
s and Indians up to speed in short order. In fact, one of the black men proved to be so good at numbers he was given special training in advanced mathematics and was soon tutoring his fellow recruits who were struggling at the lower levels.
Sundays were always special. It was a day off in which all sorts of sporting events were held with teams who represented their platoons competing for week long bragging rights in soccer, basketball, track and field, and martial arts. This last competition was an extension of the basic martial arts all recruits were learning.
But, Sunday was also a time for Church and was conducted in a non-denominational manner. Actually, it was a mixture of Evangelical and Pentecostal with a weekly communion thrown in. That was not the reason why the Brigade, who crowded into the big assembly hall that served as a church on Sunday, liked it. It was the Pastor of the church who held them spellbound each week with tremendous sermons on a variety of subjects, especially stories of Jesus and why he did the things he did and how those teachings were just as true today as they were 1800 years before.
Secretly, every man in the Brigade was in love with their Pastor. She was a tall, beautiful woman, about their age, with long flowing blond hair and the most amazing blue eyes. Her name was never far from the lips of the Brigade…Arcadia. She always wore a long, flowing white dress that looked almost like a robe with a silver belt. She was clad in this shining, shimmering dress from her neck to the floor and had long sleeves.