by Nico Walker
“Listen. I have to go. If I get caught out here I’m absolutely fucked. I have to get back inside.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll try and call again soon.”
“Okay.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“Sweet dreams.”
“You too.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Sundays were easy because we had the morning off just to clean the barracks and do whatever and we could go to a religious service if we wanted to. I identified with the Hare Krishnas, but they didn’t have a Hare Krishna service so I went to the Buddhist one. You couldn’t go alone. You had to go with a battle buddy. Specialist Kovak was a Buddhist too. We went to talk to the cadre.
I said, “We’re going to a religious service, Drill Sergeant.”
He said, “What religious service are you going to?”
“Buddhist, Drill Sergeant.”
“Go.”
And we went and it was alright and there were a lot of people at the service because the Buddhists gave out mini Reese’s cups. But there was more to the services than just that. We would start off with some deep breathing. Then we would chant for a while, something like twenty minutes’ worth of breathing and chanting. After that the Buddhists would tell us things about Buddhism and they’d ask questions and if you knew the answer then they’d throw candy at you.
On this day Staff Sergeant Rockaway joined us. He said to call him Sergeant Rock. He was real into Buddhism. He said since he started being a Buddhist he had bought a car (paid off) and a motorcycle (paid off). Buddhism had changed his life for the better. He said he’d started being a Buddhist when he was in boot camp, going to the services on Sundays.
“Just like y’all are now,” he said.
* * *
—
THE NEXT day we learned unarmed combatives. Drill Sergeant Cole was teaching us. He taught us the Sleeveless Choke. He taught us the Tokyo Choke. There were all different kinds of chokes we could do. And we all sat in a circle and we were supposed to take turns choking each other. They sent two of us at a time into the middle of the circle, and the object was one of us was to choke the other one out. I was paired with Specialist Kovak because we were about the same size. I choked the shit out of him. When it was over I got the idea that I had surprised him and I felt bad about it. The next time I let him choke the shit out of me. Still I felt bad about it. Kovak was my battle buddy, and I’d choked him.
* * *
—
THE ONLY way not to graduate basic was to try and kill yourself. One kid tried hanging himself from the drop ceiling in the latrine. It didn’t work. He brought the ceiling down. So he didn’t die. But he didn’t graduate either.
My parents came down for the graduation. A lot of people’s families came. A lot of people’s families didn’t come. We marched around on the stage in an auditorium and did cadences. The Toby Keith song was played and we were all dismissed with a day pass good till 21:00. My parents took me to Chili’s. I ordered a veggie burger.
My mom said, “I bet that’s the first veggie burger you’ve had in a while.”
“Actually, no,” I said. “MRE number twelve is a veggie burger in barbecue sauce. It’s not bad, but this is much better.”
We had time to kill, so we hung out at the hotel room they had in the town by the base. My mom took a lot of pictures of me in my Class A uniform. And I smoked cigarettes (Winston Reds), and those were really good. And after a little while we went back to Fort Leonard Wood, and we said goodbye to one another there.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Those of us who were healthcare-specialists–to-be got on a bus. We were going to Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. The bus driver was a Vietnam vet with a right hand that had been melted into a red fleshy claw back in his white phosphorus days. He was an agreeable man, and he encouraged us to drink and smoke on the bus. When we got to Fort Sam there were all-new drill sergeants who yelled at us, but the whole drill sergeant thing was played out by then and we didn’t give a fuck if they yelled or not. All the same we pretended like we were scared shitless so they’d overlook our being beer-drunk and smelling like cigarettes.
We were in the intake a few days, waiting for groups to show up from the other basics. Then everybody was there and we found out we were called Charlie Company and we got on a bus to go to our next barracks. There was a girl from North Dakota named Private Harlow, and she told everyone on the bus how she liked dipping Copenhagen and getting gangbanged. So she was popular. And we all thought about what it would be like to gangbang Private Harlow.
* * *
—
WE ARRIVED at the company. The prior service were there already. The prior service either could be military personnel changing their MOSs and branches of service or could be ex-military people who had enlisted again after they’d been failures in the civilian world. They’d get trained with us. Most of them looked like shit. And they were bad for morale; they ruined our expectations as far as what we thought we were about to become.
The training battalion had a mantra: Warrior Medic. Naturally everyone thought it was stupid. Yet the cadre were supposed to call us Warrior Medics. So it was like that. And it was to last 14 weeks. But we were supposed to get weekend passes after a while.
It was all classroom instruction in the beginning, which was a welcome change from basic, from digging graves and freezing our asses off in the woods and getting gassed. We had EMT textbooks, and we listened to lectures. It was a lot of PowerPoint, and some Faces of Death now and then. The Faces of Death was meant to get us used to mortality. We watched a guy break his neck when his car rolled. We saw an eviscerated motorcycle rider. We saw a chick who had got stabbed about a million times.
There were two instructors per platoon, an E-6 (staff sergeant) and a civilian paramedic. Our civilian paramedic was Ms. Grey. She was hot and probably a lesbian. But never mind. She was an expert. She worked on the Life Flight out of a hospital in San Antonio and she knew more than most Army medics put together.
The E-6 looked like Harold Ramis, and he chain-smoked mentholated Camels. He’d been in the Army 15 years and he told us shit he thought we needed to know about it: namely the ways people died in the Army. He also told us you could use tampons to treat gunshot wounds. He said you ought to use unscented tampons. I asked him if he had ever been stationed at Fort Drum. He said, “Why do you ask, Warrior Medic?”
I said I wanted to go to Fort Drum because my girl lived in Elba, New York, and it was just a couple hours away.
He said, “Don’t ever ask to go to Fort Drum. You’ll spend more time in the field there than you will anywhere else, it gets cold as hell, and she’s just going to cheat on you.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Drill Sergeant Masters was a perfect honky if ever there were such a thing. He addressed the company formation: “WARRIOR MEDICS, YOU WERE TOLD TO COME UP WITH A COMPANY CHEER. YOU WERE GIVEN A WEEK TO DO THIS. THIS IS WHAT IS CALLED A DEADLINE. AS OF NOW YOU HAVE MISSED THE DEADLINE….OPEN RANKS.”
We said, “OPEN RANKS.”
“HALF-LEFT…FACE.”
We did a half-left face. Which was bad news. It meant the fucker was going to smoke us.
“FRONT.”
This was even worse news. It meant Front-Back-Go’s. When he said “FRONT,” we were supposed to drop down and start doing push-ups till he said otherwise.
So we did.
“…BACK.”
Now we were supposed to roll over and start doing sit-ups. I didn’t like sit-ups, especially on concrete. They made my ass hurt.
“…GO!”
Now we were supposed to jump up and run in place like Sweatin’ to the Oldies. And we’d do that till he said “FRONT” or “BACK” again. Front, Back, and Go could come in any order at any interval for any duration.
�
��FRONT…BACK…GO!—FRONT!—BACK!…GO!—BACK…GO!—FRONT—BACK—GO!—FRONT—GO!”
Etc. Etc.
This went on till the company lay prone on the concrete, in a pool of its own sweat, unable to front, back, or go anymore.
Then Masters had us form up again.
“NOW, SINCE YOU HAVE FAILED TO COME UP WITH A COMPANY CHEER, I HAVE TAKEN WHAT IS CALLED THE INITIATIVE AND COME UP WITH ONE FOR YOU. ONE WHICH YOU WILL HAVE TO LEARN NOW.”
This is what he had come up with:
Warrior Medics in the fight!
On the double day and night!
We will beat out all the rest!
Charlie Company is the best!
Don’t stop! Get it, get it!
Soldier on, Warrior Medic!
Don’t stop! Get it, get it!
Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooo-
OoooooooooooooooooooOOOOOOOO-
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAH!
MAKE! Way! Here come the Warrior Medics!
Oo! Ta-ah! Here come the Warrior Medics!
MAKE! Way! Here come the Warrior Medics!
Oo! Ta-ah! Here come the Warrior Medics!
MAKE! Way! Here come the Warrior Medics!
Oo! Ta-ah! Here come the Warrior Medics!
The refrain was to go on indefinitely, till we were signaled to stop. That’s how it went. And from that day on, whenever the company was called to attention (something that happened no less than a million times on any given day), the company cheer was to be recited in its entirety. No exceptions. To make matters worse, after a while it got to be expected that the guidon bearer would do the robot throughout the refrain.
So don’t ever join the fucking Army.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Private Harlow was in my platoon. She’d get in trouble for wearing makeup.
They’d say, “Harlow, don’t think I don’t see that makeup!”
“Harlow, you better wash that makeup off your face!”
“Don’t let me catch you out here with makeup on again, Private!”
When we learned to take vital signs I got paired up with her. She was the casualty first. She lay on her back. She’d taken her BDU top off so it’d be easier to take her blood pressure; she just had her brown T-shirt on and she was cold because they kept the air-conditioning going full blast in the classrooms.
I was on my knees beside her with the stethoscope in my ears. I was getting the blood pressure cuff on her arm.
She said, “I’m freezing. Don’t look at my tits.”
I hadn’t looked at her tits.
Now I did.
She had nice tits.
Her tits didn’t get all flat and sideways when she lay on her back.
“I feel like I’m gonna get tea-bagged,” she said.
She smiled when I didn’t look at her.
I blew up the BP cuff.
“Do you shave your balls?”
“Goddamn.”
“That’s a yeah!”
“I can’t hear the thing when you’re talking.”
“Sorry. I’ll be quiet….Drill Sergeant Masters shaves his balls.”
“A hundred and ten over sixty.”
“You and Drill Sergeant Masters have something in common.”
“Please don’t say stuff like that.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll never say it again.”
I thought probably she was telling the truth about the guy’s balls. It was by no means unknown that the cadre fucked the female recruits sometimes. We knew they did that at Leonard Wood. It was the trade-off, I guess: the girls didn’t have to carry their equipment but the drill sergeants would fuck them, or some of them anyway. I was depressed.
When we formed up to go back to the barracks, Harlow was slow getting in formation. Masters pulled her up. She had some dip in her mouth. She was busted. Masters told her to swallow it. She fished the dip out to throw it away and he said no, she had to swallow it. She put the dip back in her mouth and swallowed it. She smiled at him. When he went away she threw up in the grass.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
It was Wednesday. We were five weeks in and coming up on our first weekend pass. Emily was flying down to see me. She’d arrive on Friday. It was going to be amazing. She was the hottest girl in the universe, and I was dying to get laid.
But it was still Wednesday, and it was 16:00, so we had to form up for Close of Business. And the first sergeant came out and told us he was fucking us. He said he wasn’t giving us full weekend passes just yet. He said he was only letting us out Saturday night so he could see how we’d do. If things went alright then he’d give us a full weekend pass next time. He said it like it was cool, like he wasn’t fucking us, like it wasn’t just an arbitrary fucking, in broad daylight, at four o’clock in the goddamn afternoon.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “You’re thinking it isn’t fair. You’re thinking, The other companies don’t do it this way….Well here’s the news, Warrior Medics. This ain’t other companies. This is Charlie Company, and we do things differently. That’s why we’re number one.”
I called Emily and told her the bad news. She was mad as fuck, but she said she was flying down anyway. She’d already arranged to take off from work. She said she’d come to town that Friday.
When Friday came around I couldn’t not see her. She was at the Super 8 off the highway by the base. She was close. I said fuck it. I took a chance. The company gave us an hour free every day in the afternoon for taking care of PX-type bullshit. An hour would be enough. Fifteen minutes to get there. Fifteen minutes to get back. Half an hour with Emily. I had no choice. I had to try.
I caught a cab at the big PX. I said take me to the Super 8 motel. It wasn’t five minutes from the gate. The cab let me out in front of the office. I went looking for her room; it was on the second floor. I found it. She opened the door, and the way she looked, there was nothing else for it.
* * *
—
SATURDAY she said, “I hate this.”
I said, “What can I do? I’m in it now.”
“Fuck!”
“What?”
“You act like you had no choice. But you did.”
“You act like I’m the one who left you.”
“You can’t even compare the two things,” she said.
“Why not?”
“I changed what school I was going to. You still could have come to see me whenever you wanted, and it wouldn’t have been like this. I wouldn’t have said, ‘Oh, well gee, sweetheart, I wish I could stay, but Sergeant Fuckass says I have to be in bed at FOUR O’CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON.”
She’d spent Friday night alone at the Super 8. She’d be spending Sunday night alone too. She was flying back to Elba on Monday morning. All we had was Saturday.
She said I was an asshole.
I said I understood that but I had done the best I could and it wasn’t like it had been the easiest thing in the world getting off-post Friday afternoon. I about hadn’t made it back on time and I’d have been so fucked.
About Friday she said she’d thought we could have at least talked a little first.
I said I hadn’t known she felt that way.
I said I’d thought it was the romantic thing to do.
* * *
—
SUNDAY MORNING Emily came along with me when I went back to the company. I had to go upstairs to the barracks and change into my PT clothes so I’d be ready when they called formation. I came back down in my PT shorts and my PT shirt, some ASICS running shoes on. The shorts said: ARMY. The shirt said: ARMY. I was wearing the reflector belt we always had to wear. It went diagonally across the chest. I looked like a fucking douche bag. Emily cried. She cried till it was time for her to get in a cab and leave
. And the whole time I was trying to act like I was tough because I thought I was tough and I was supposed to be tough. But I wasn’t. And I can tell you now that there are many things better than to try and be tough, not the least of which is to be young and fuck your girl and leave it at that.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
There was a fake river in San Antonio. It was like the Pirates of the Caribbean ride except instead of pirates and pirate ships you got fat drunks and chain restaurants.
I was down by the Fake River. Kovak was with me. We were walking around. It was night, the weekend after Emily. We had our first full weekend pass. It was Friday.
Kovak was an Air Force brat from Nevada who’d had some bad luck on account of he liked speedballs too much. Then he’d joined the Army. He was 23, so he’d made the liquor run early that afternoon. I’d put away a fifth of Seagram’s gin already. I missed Emily. Longing devoured my liver; I felt like Prometheus with his fucking birds. Now it was getting late and I thought I ought to eat something.
We passed what was advertised as a pub and grille. You could see inside. There were bagpipes on the walls, different types of flags, whatever. There were waitresses in plaid skirts. I didn’t care. They had a veggie burger on the menu so I wanted in, but the guy out front, who was wearing a kilt, wouldn’t let me in because I was only 20. I said I wasn’t trying to drink, I just wanted the veggie burger. Still he said no. I said I’d order one to go. He wouldn’t let me do that either. I got inarticulate. I told Kovak to go ahead without me. I almost walked backwards into the Fake River, but I was lucky and didn’t. I took the stairs up to street level, and the Alamo was there. A bum asked me for a cigarette. I gave him one and I told him about how I’d got fucked around on the Fake River. He said they were dirty motherfuckers for fucking me around like that. He was wearing an old Expos cap pulled down low and I couldn’t see his eyes, but he sounded sincere. He said there was a Denny’s nearby. I said Denny’s was good. I asked him if he wanted to go get some Denny’s. He said he didn’t have money. I said I’d pay.