Ice

by Ice-T

  That little crime spree came to a head when he told us we had to go steal an infantry-blue rug for his office. We found the rug in the nearby guesthouse. We had to wait for the guest to leave, then we snuck in, rolled the rug up, and snatched it. But our dumb asses hadn’t planned properly, and another officer, who was supposed to meet us with a Jeep, bitched out and never showed. So we were stuck carrying this big-ass rug. We hid it, and figured we’d come back the next day to get it. The first day it was reported missing, the rug was only about twenty-five yards from the guesthouse.

  We went back, grabbed the rug, shoved it into a cab, and got it back to our unit. We delivered it to the CO, just like all the other stuff we’d stolen. Of course, the cabdriver went and snitched, and the next morning I got woken up by C.I.D., the Criminal Investigation Command of the military. They rounded all of us up, they cracked us, and they put us in the jail on the post.

  But the insane part was—just to show you how fucked-up the military can be—while I was in jail, they gave me my $2,500 bonus. I mean, the bureaucracy of the military is so retarded, nobody checks with anybody else, so they ended up giving $2,500 to a dude in jail awaiting a military trial for burglary.

  So I’m cooling my ass in jail, which is really just a converted barracks that they’d turned into a holding cell for soldiers awaiting trial.

  But as soon as they handed me the bonus, I stared at the money. I stood up and told the other dudes, “Dig, I’m getting the fuck outta here.”

  The holding cell wasn’t too secure. And it connected to an office. I managed to work my way over into the office, got on a phone, and figured out when a civilian plane was leaving Columbus Airport. I timed my escape to the airline schedule. I waited until there was just enough time for me to make it from the post to the airport and buy a cash ticket for the plane. The other two dudes who were locked up with me didn’t want to break out. They were scared. “Naw, man, we ain’t goin’ AWOL.”

  We were locked in, of course, but it wasn’t like we were in maximum security. There were no bars on the windows. The top window wouldn’t go up, but I figured out a way to make the top window come down a few inches. Just enough for a skinny dude to squeeze through. I went up to the top bunk and managed to wriggle my ass out of the top window. I had to time my escape so that the guards at the gates wouldn’t see me. It was just like breaking out of a prison.

  In the lockup, we were all wearing distinctive prisoner’s uniforms. They were like standard-issue fatigues but they didn’t have our name patches—which was a dead giveaway to any MP looking for an escapee—so I had to creep back into my own barracks and grab one of my uniform coats that had the name MARROW and all my insignia. I got dressed and looked just like any other enlisted man on the post.

  I flagged a cab, went to Columbus Airport, and paid cash for a one-way ticket to L.A. Security at the airports wasn’t as tight then as it is these days, especially on domestic flights, so you could buy a last-minute ticket with cash and—boom—you were sitting on the hot tarmac, taxiing inside a California-bound Boeing.

  A couple hours later I was back in Los Angeles, AWOL, and without a fucking plan. How long was that going to last? Couldn’t go back to my crib, because that’s the first place the MPs would come look for me.

  So I stayed on the lam, ducking and dodging, hanging out at some of my friends’ houses. After a few weeks, I realized I had to call back to the fort to squash this shit before I got hauled before a court martial looking to hammer me with some real prison time. I called the post and, finally, I got my CO who’d asked us to pull all the burglaries.

  “Dig, I ain’t fin’ to go to jail for this shit,” I told him.

  He started to tell me he couldn’t help, but I cut him the fuck off.

  “You got a lot more to lose than me. You got your retirement on the line. So figure this shit out!” I said. “Call me when it’s smoothed over, and I’ll come back.”

  It was petty crime, wasn’t like we were stealing guns or munitions, but it was still a burglary charge. None of us wanted that shit on our records. This CO was a lifer; he’d put twenty-plus years in the Army and he was getting ready to retire. So he had every motivation to squash the case.

  I stayed AWOL, hiding out in L.A. for a month, and then I got a call saying it was all over. The stolen infantry-blue rug had been returned. I had to turn myself in to AWOL Apprehension in Long Beach. I wasn’t considered a high-risk prisoner. Sometimes they handcuff you to an MP and put you on a plane, but they didn’t categorize me as a flight risk so they just handed me a ticket and I returned to Fort Benning like it was nothing.

  I did receive an Article 15, which is basically a military reprimand. But that was it. Slap on the wrist. They probably would have busted me down in rank, but I didn’t have any rank to begin with, so they just sent me on to my post.

  DESPITE THE ARTICLE 15, I managed to make it through Advanced Infantry Training. After Fort Benning, I went on to Advanced Individual Training. To become Airborne certified, I had to do a three-week course: Ground Week, Tower Week, and Jump Week. Ground Week, you’re jumping off platforms, learning how to perform a PLF (parachute landing fall), which is critical in not busting your fucking legs when you hit the ground. Tower Week, you make jumps from a thirty-four-foot and two-hundred-fifty-foot tower—this funky old relic that had been trucked in from some World’s Fair. All the students are in harnesses, jumping in succession—boom, boom, boom—learning how to make a mass exit.

  Personally, I never had a fear of heights, but some cats who weren’t fazed by the idea of jumping out of a chopper at more than a thousand feet freaked when they had to make the thirty-four-foot tower jump. For one thing you could actually see the ground up close. And on the tower, you’re static, connected to a cable. So it’s all psychological: in the back of your mind you still think you have the option to back out. Once you get into a C-130 there’s no turning back. You got no option but to jump the fuck out.

  If you make it through Ground and Tower Weeks, you graduate to Jump Week. You’ve got to make five acceptable jumps from an aircraft into the Fryar Drop Zone. Two were jumps with a rucksack and a dummy assault weapon. The other three jumps are called “Hollywood jumps,” meaning you only wear your parachute and reserve. We jumped out of old planes like C-119s, C-130s, and C-141s. That was one of the best weeks of my Army career. I may not have done any drugs, but I was definitely an adrenaline fiend. I got more than my share of it at Jump School … I’ll never forget the chant we used to do while we were about to make the jump.

  Stand up, hook up, shuffle to the door, jump right out and count to four.

  If that chute don’t open wide, I’ve got another one by my side:

  If that chute don’t open, too, look out Devil I’m comin’ through …

  When you get into your specialized training, you could become Airborne—depends on what base they send you to. If you get shipped to a full Ranger Battalion, you’re going to be with nothing but Rangers.

  But after completing Ranger training I found out something that had my brain in knots for days. I learned that you can’t be Airborne and be stationed in Hawaii. There is no designated Rangers unit at Schofield Barracks. The recruiting officer on Crenshaw Boulevard had bullshitted me. So I terminated jump status and went to a straight-leg infantry. I didn’t want to be stationed at Fort Bragg. I wanted to be at Schofield Barracks, out in the Pacific, with the surf and the sunshine and the girls. I joined the Army to support my baby daughter, but the biggest attraction was the opportunity to serve in Hawaii.

  Eventually, I flew out to meet my unit, the 25th Infantry, Schofield Barracks, the Tropic Lightning outfit. It was a hell of a good posting. As far as weather and scenery goes, you couldn’t find a better post in the entire U.S. military.

  You’re out there on the islands and there wasn’t much to it except drilling in formation every morning, jumping in Jeeps, and doing war games in the fucking Kahuka Mountains. I learned to shoot an M2-03 grenade launcher.
For a while I carried a 90mm recoilless rifle. I was an assistant gunner on an M60. I shot the TOW rocket, which sits on top of a Jeep. I shot the Dragon, which you need to carry. It’s a wire-guided missile that shoots out of a missile launcher.

  I enjoyed all that armaments training. Would have been fun if you could walk to it. If you could roll out of bed and stroll to it, it would’ve been a blast. But nothing in the military is designed to be fun. They make you march to everything and half the time they’re screaming shit at you.

  WHEN I LOOK BACK on my U.S. Army career, I always tell people, “I did two years in and two years out.” Meaning, the first two years of my military stint I was gung ho, because I knew I was doing the right thing. I wanted to be the best goddamn M60 gunner on the base. I took pride in that shit. I felt I was giving my life direction.

  But by the second year, I knew I didn’t want to be a lifer. And I was just looking for a way to get out …

  I’ll never forget the turning point. I had a sergeant named Donovan who was a Ranger. You’d see lot of the old-timers with that Rangers patch on. These were guys who’d been in the military for decades, and were constantly changing their Military Occupational Specialty—MOS. Sergeant Donovan had seen combat in Vietnam.

  Sergeant Donovan was always fucking with me. He fucked with a lot of the black infantrymen for a lot of reasons, but basically because we wouldn’t cut our hair. We found a way to make our hair look regulation by packing it under our hats. It was just a little trick but that way, when we were on leave, we could comb our hair out and look like we were locals. We found out really quick that you couldn’t get any pussy if you were in the military. When you go off post, most of the girls in Hawaii, and especially the tourists, were warned not to fuck with the GIs from Schofield Barracks.

  And these old sergeants like Donovan, I think their whole job description was to make the enlisted men feel psychologically fucked up.

  The hair issue really pissed Donovan off. He was always screaming, “You fuckin’ losers—why don’t you cut your hair?!”

  And I didn’t give a fuck really. I was used to him busting balls about my long hair packed up into my infantry hat.

  I was a squad leader at Schofield Barracks. One morning I’m standing in formation with my squad, and Donovan decides to get about four inches from my grill. I could smell the stale coffee and Marlboros on his breath.

  “Marrow!” he screamed. “You fucking loser! You’re only here because you can’t make it in civilian life.”

  You can’t make it in civilian life. More than anything else, that’s the one statement that propelled me to where I’m at today. I give Sergeant Donovan all the credit.

  When he barked that shit in my face, I’m not gonna front: those words cut me deep. I’m standing there in formation, in the blazing tropical sun, and I’m looking at myself like some outsider would see me. And I said, Damn, maybe it’s the truth. What kind of future do I really have in the outside world?

  But that’s the beautiful thing: Sometimes in life, someone will say something to you that either crushes you, breaks your spirit, or it drives you to the next level. After we broke ranks, I kept running over Donovan’s words in my mind—You can’t make it, Marrow. You can’t make it …

  ONE THING THAT HAPPENED during my time at Schofield Barracks was I got introduced to the pimpin’ life. I’d met every kind of hustler at this point, cats who robbed banks, cats who sold coke, but this was my first close encounter with the real pimpin’ game. One of my partners in the barracks, his girl had a sister who was a prostitute. So we used to hang out and get our weekend passes and go to her pimp’s party. He was a fly-ass dude named Mac. He lived down by Diamondhead. Mac had it crackin’ down there.

  I’d been interested in the pimp game, but more from a distance. All through high school, I was reading Iceberg Slim. I picked up my street name, and later my rap name, from Iceberg Slim. He was the first author I discovered who truly delved into the life of crime and pimpin’ and made it real to me. I went everywhere with his books, idolizing him. I’d memorized entire sections and could spit them at will. The Crips back in South Central used to constantly say, “Yo, kick some more of that shit by Ice, T.”

  And now I meet this real pimp in Hawaii. Mac liked the fact that I could quote Iceberg, and he started studying me at those parties. I was different from the other infantry dudes since I never drank or smoked. I mean, I partied and danced, but I was always detached from the shit. Mac used to pull me aside and talk to me. “Ice,” he’d say. “Dig, you cut out for this here. You cut out for this pimpin’ game. You got them light eyes. You don’t seem to care about these girls.”

  But honestly, it always seemed a little too obvious to me. I always felt girls liked to flirt with you in order not to give you the pussy; they just liked to see men get weak. It wasn’t sexual attraction; it was a mind-control thing.

  But I was intrigued by the flashiness of the game. Over those months, Mac put me up to pimpin’—taught me the whole code. Mac was constantly telling me I was cut out to make a great pimp, but I also understood that this was part of his game: A pimp will tell you whatever he thinks you want to hear. That’s what they do: They’re masters and wizards of charisma. They’ll make you feel good about everything they say. They’ll compliment you until they work you into their world. So I listened.… And I smiled.… But I always kept Mac at arm’s length.

  In Hawaii prostitution seemed to be damn near legal. It’s not exactly Nevada, but there are all these military bases—Schofield, Hickam, Shafter—and all this G.I. Joe testosterone running loose on the weekends. Plus, there are all these horny tourists coming into town daily. It’s almost allowed by the cops, because they figure all these guys need to fuck something, or else there’s going to be problems. So the hookers and the pimps are given a little space to flourish, almost like a safety valve, to keep all the dudes from killing each other.

  AFTER SERGEANT DONOVAN GOT UP in my face with that shit, it was the dividing line. That’s what made me determined to get out. I was focused. I wanted to prove to myself that I could make something of myself in the civilian world. Now came the tricky part. I was trying to get out, but I couldn’t let on that I wanted out. I had a four-year stint to finish. If you let your superiors know you’re looking to get out, damn straight, they’ll bust you—take away your rank. I was just a PFC, but when they bust you down in rank, they’re taking away your money. You have to ride it all the way out to the end. Then at the last minute, you say you want a discharge.

  I was just going with the flow, keeping my plans a secret. So after that rah-rah first two years, I did my last two in the army, counting down the months. I was just saving enough money so I could take care of my daughter and maybe, after I got discharged, buy myself a Porsche. I still didn’t know what I was going to do when I got out, but I got the idea of getting into the music scene, probably getting some gigs as a DJ in nightclubs. Maybe even promote a few parties. I was an infantryman in combat arms, so I wasn’t trained for anything useful in civilian life. How are you supposed to put your expertise with the TOW rocket or as an M60 gunner down on a fucking job résumé?

  Finally, when I was getting close to my discharge date, with about six months to go, I learned something that nobody had explained to me. A lot of bullshit in the military goes like that—you’ll sign up to be a Ranger stationed at Schofield Barracks then find out months after all the training you can’t fucking be a Ranger stationed at Schofield Barracks. And that’s the way I learned about the “sole-parent discharge.”

  One night I pulled guard duty, which meant I’d be sitting at an ammo dump, which was boring as hell. I’d rather be digging drainage ditches than sitting on some fucking ammo dump all night. I tried to get out of it but couldn’t.

  For some reason, I was grumbling in the barracks about it: “Oh, you know, I couldn’t get a babysitter.… Shit, now I got to move my kid.…”

  And my CO overheard me and said, “What’d you say, Marro
w?”

  “You got a kid? I didn’t even know you had a kid.” See, I never told anybody about my personal life off the base, so they didn’t know I had a daughter.

  “Yes sir, I’ve got a kid. I’ve got a baby daughter.”

  One thing led to another, and my CO explained it to me. Because I wasn’t married, I was the main financial support for my daughter. And because I had no parents, no brothers, no sisters, the way the military looks at it, if something happens to me—if I get blown the fuck up in some training exercise in the mountains—my little baby girl is going to be on her own.

  “Marrow,” my CO said, “don’t you know you can get out early? You could get out with an honorable right now. You’re going to be getting out soon. But I’d advise you to take the discharge now, because in the next four months anything can happen to you.”

  Of course, when you’re in the military, an honorable discharge is always the goal. But it’s often like a moving target. There’s a million ways they can void that contract, especially if they think you’re not going to re-up. Anything can happen in your final few months. Since they were going to guarantee me an honorable discharge early as a sole parent, I jumped at the chance. I knew my CO was right. Who knew what shit might jump off in the final four months? I could wind up with a dishonorable discharge. Because of that offhanded remark I’d made trying to get out of guard duty, before I knew it, I was sitting down signing my early-discharge papers.