by David Lipsky
TAC appointments run two years. Just when you have the situation under wraps, the call comes to move on. (This lends TACing a bittersweet flavor of parenthood: “You know you’ve done your job well,” TACs say, “when your unit functions without you.”) Major Vermeesch is short, which means he’s preparing his G-4 goodbyes. You get the impression he wouldn’t mind seeing George depart the company at the same time. So Super-V performs his own rite of spring, and warns his cadet that if he fails the makeup, he’ll recommend separation from West Point.
Before he leaves, there’s another sight Vermeesch would love to see. West Point hosts an annual military competition called Sandhurst. Britain’s own military academy—also called Sandhurst—abstains from the academic classes that keep West Point a fully accredited college. Instead, it offers an intensive one-year military program—all four West Point summers with the intermissions snipped out, what the Academy would be like if cadets went right from Beast to Buckner and then straight on to Ranger school. Graduates leave Sandhurst as tactical demons. In late spring, the British academy ships two teams west. They compete against squads from every West Point company, in a timed and graded Warrior Forge. Teams run nine kilometers, shoot targets, build rope bridges, rappel down cliffs, scale walls and paddle assault craft along the route. Joining a Sandhurst team is what’s known as a gut check. (The un-huah view it differently. “They’re all masochists and sadists,” they say.) Sandhurst means months of cold-weather training, a voluntary haze. No West Point team has beaten the Brits since 1993.
The Corporation will carry the flag on behalf of G-4. “I gave them a mission,” Major Vermeesch says. Whether or not they can defeat the British, Vermeesch wants to see them win the corps of cadets. He thinks they’ve got a shot. “They’re really quality people. Sandhurst is about sacrifice, overcoming adversity and winning—all those things that are great about the Army. They can exhibit to the company standing behind them that in our profession there is no second place. Second is that dead or bleeding kind of thing.”
The squad—essentially, the Corporation plus Jeremy Kasper—train professionally. They run over the 0530 ice, tramp through the 1630 slush. Squad Leader J. J. Simonsen, a square-headed Kansan, swipes complicated workout tips from Men’s Health magazine. They dine at their own table, banquet off post, swab rifles together outside the weapons room and celebrate training’s end with wholesome spirit pranks like dunking each other in a lake.
The other subject on John Vermeesch’s desk is Huck Finn. A year ago the cadet was ready to pack his bags. “Finn’s story is one of those things that keep me going, you know?” Vermeesch says. “That makes me wanna come to work every day. You go, ‘Hey man, all the bullshit, all this stuff that we do every day—somewhere in there, my fingerprints got left on somebody.’”
On the job, Finn brings a large-hearted Huckness to bear. The plebes George and Huck welcomed into the corps last summer are now being promoted; the promotion ceremony is the last formation where upperclassmen can officially push them around. The post hums and clicks like an engine room, plebes reciting Knowledge, pumping out push-ups. One streetwise plebe slides into formation just before the ceremony, sparing himself any last-call abuse. Huck spots it and applies the most forceful correction I ever see him make. He towers above the plebe, fists at his side, neck going red. “Why didn’t you show your face the same time everybody else did? Everyone else was out here—thirty minutes ago. You’re waiting behind and everybody else is getting hazed. You sit in your room and get by scot-free while your friends take the heat instead of you? That’s called a Blue Falcon, and this place ain’t about Blue Falcons!” Blue Falcon is a polite way to invoke the initials BF—a buddy fuck. It’s about the lowest form of behavior Huck can imagine.
The Sandhurst competition runs on the last Saturday in April, and there’s no second place for G-4. The team commits some errors, some oversights, finishes in the pack, far out of the money. They stagger back to North Area for the cadet barbecue, uniforms grimed, features smoothed with a look of honest, earned exhaustion. Huck watches the Corporation with guarded interest; maybe his not joining the squad was a kind of Blue Falcon of its own. He approaches Mark Thompson—the two have walked different cadet paths since sharing a room at Beast—while Mark loads a hamburger with iceberg lettuce and a tomato slab. He wipes his forehead with the back of a palm that leaves it muddier. “Hey, you think I could do this shit next year?” Huck asks. “Be like a Sandhurst squad leader?”
Mark laughs. “No.”
“Why not? Bro, I’m gonna do this shit.”
“Seriously?”
“I’m serious. I wanna fuckin’ do it. I know y’all are afraid to have an ox. I’ll get in shape, I promise I won’t hold anybody back. What do you think? You think I got a chance?”
Mark thinks it over. “Sure. If you do it, I’ll do it. You a squad leader—that’s a team I’d like to see.”
Seven days before George Rash retakes his APFT, Major Vermeesch and Sergeant Tierney sit him down for a surprising offer. All George has to do is call it a day.
This is his first remedial APFT that carries major penalties; if George is separated, it’s not just the end of West Point, it’s repayment or some Joe years in the Army. Even if he pulls it out and grinds through firstie year, there’s still military life waiting. “You’re gonna have a company commander exactly like Major Vermeesch,” Tierney reminds George, “and a first sergeant exactly like me. Spartans, who prey on the physically weak. That’s reality. This is not your niche. You can either change yourself—or do yourself a favor and get out of here.”
The TACs know the pattern; George will find a way to pass when he needs to. The only way to stop him is by getting him to stop himself. They offer George unqualified resignation, with no repayment, no penalties. A no-fault divorce: everyone agrees it was a mistake, everyone gets on with their lives. As the TACs view it, the consequences of George staying could be severe for West Point. “George leaving would be for the long-term good of the institution,” Sergeant Tierney tells me. “If he makes it through, the credibility of this place will be seriously impacted. If civilians realize that people like cadet Rash can go through this system, then it’s not the spartan atmosphere it’s supposed to be or used to be.”
They advise George to think it over; he does them the courtesy. He outlasted DeMoss, if he passes this APFT, he’ll have outlasted Vermeesch. He’s studied the TAC as closely as the TAC has studied him, and he has no hard feelings. “He hasn’t specifically rooted against me,” George says, “but I think the only time he ever rooted for me was right at the beginning. Shortly thereafter he pretty much said, ‘OK, you’re gonna probably be the problem child in the company. So . . . you’re gonna sink or swim on your own.’”
George heads home from the library under lights going streaky in the fog, trees filling out with leaves. The offer is on his mind, shading whatever he sees like the bill of a cap. “I’ve fully considered it,” he says, breaking it down to a series of questions. “Do I really want to leave my friends? Besides, I’m gonna have to keep physically fit, whether at West Point or elsewhere. So one way or the other I’m still gonna be running—just for health reasons, unless I want to be really fat or a slob. And as much as I hate it at West Point, I understand it. You never want to leave the familiar. And do I really want to basically invalidate the last three years of my life? Then everything I’ve done, all that I’ve learned and experienced, and my commitment that I swore to in August, would mean nothing.”
George informs the TACs of his decision. The two men seem disappointed; they don’t recognize how much George has internalized their system. He’s learned that you may fail, you might get separated, but dead or bleeding, you do not quit.
A couple of days before the test, Rob Anders—who completed George’s first remedial APFT with him years ago—takes George for a run, shows him where he’s been using his arms improperly. They should pump in sync, providing some of the momentum. “As long as they�
��re moving, your legs are gonna wanna move along with them,” Anders says, demonstrating with a quick run.
At exam time, George throws on his gym alpha—the Academy PT suit—walks down to Gillis Field House and the track. An overflow crowd is taking APFTs today. A female cadet waves from the floor mats: “Hey, George.” The DPE instructors, in their own tight version of the gym uniform, scowl like slim, moody Teamsters. Cadets wash out on the sit-ups, lose their grip over push-ups, wander off under the volleyball nets to count the consequences, plot their next moves, phrase their explanations. George breezes through the events, leans back to stretch his legs. The DPE officers say, “Ten minutes.”
George blinks his way outdoors. The track, the sky, the noise of cars and a train. Major Vermeesch and Sergeant Tierney are standing by the wall near the stairs. George nods to them; the three have come to this moment together. Vermeesch pushes from the wall a little. He could say nothing, he could wait quietly to see how Rash does, but that would be another kind of Blue Falcon. He motions his cadet to stop.
“George,” he says, “listen up. One thing I think is helpful is to break up the run in your mind.” The major’s eyes clench above his words, as if he can’t believe he’s doing this. “Instead of thinking of it as two long miles, think about it in three-hundred-meter jumps, say to yourself, ‘All right, I see that tree up there. I have to maintain this pace to that tree.’ Hit that tree, you have to maintain it to the fence post. Then, when you hit the half mile on the way home, I want you to tuck your head down and give it everything you have left. You get me?” Vermeesch watches George coolly, waits for his nod, then says, “Huah.”
“Knock it out, Rash,” Tierney calls.
Cadets in trouble bring friends. Cadets who are pacing each other sprint inside the pack, offering casino encouragement and stadium pleading. “Come on! Do it! You can do this, give me a little more, give it everything you have.” As George rushes to the line, his shirt is soggy, his breathing is ragged, cadets he doesn’t know shout “Rash!” There’s no taunt in it; George has earned something. He beats the clock by ten seconds, a 15:44.
“Usually,” George says, sucking air, “I fall behind the pack by quite a bit. This time, I did what Major Vermeesch said, I started setting goals. ‘By the time I reach that point, I have to catch up to them. By the time I reach the next pole, I have to stay even.’ It felt better, kept me in a much better position. The relief is indescribable.” Cadets walking upstairs clap George on the shoulder.
Major Vermeesch ambles slowly to George’s side. George turns to face him, confesses his goal: to bring his run under fifteen minutes, where it was when he first arrived.
Vermeesch listens. “You oughta try and get there before you go out in the Army on troop-leading this summer,” he advises. “Because your huah soldiers are going to want to see you run.”
“I’ll try to, sir,” Rash says.
Vermeesch assesses his cadet one more time, turns to leave. “Take care, George,” he says.
Surprise and Courage
As the class of 2001 prepares for graduation, the last two lights dim out of the West Point sky. First the supe boxes his personal mementos and his Pumbaa doll and retires from the United States Army. In the Washington Hall mess, General Christman charges the corps to deliver him one more rocket cheer. The cadets stand and roar, and then he’s gone. The BTO, Joe Adamczyk, Skeletor, won’t be haunting any more Academy pathways, ricocheting cadets back to their rooms. In May he accepts an offer to serve as commandant of Valley Forge Military Academy—the model for Pencey Prep in The Catcher in the Rye, and the location shoot for the military-kids-go-plumb-crazy movie Taps. He’s approaching mandatory retirement for colonels, year thirty. Adamczyk jokes that he didn’t quite meet the standard: “Twenty-nine years, five months—I didn’t make the full career, there’s some guilt. Honest to God, that’s the emotion you get.”
The post becomes a jumble of arrivals and departures. In G-4, Major Vermeesch is clearing out his office, and Sergeant Tierney hangs up his stripes. Vermeesch set himself a goal when he arrived in company two years ago. He wanted to leave confident that his cadets were combat-ready, in case the call ever came—as it did for him, half a year after graduation. “I’ve talked about it with them. But I don’t know that . . .” He pauses and squints. He can’t know that in September, three months from now, the first contract in a long war will be made, fifty miles from where he and the cadets are standing. “No, I haven’t met the goal, they’re not all there. I don’t know that I’m capable of getting them all there.” He sighs, looks at a framed guidon on the wall. “To me, the part we’ve neglected is the military piece. If you’re an egghead in the Computer Science Department, are you really capable of, you know, going out and sticking a bayonet in someone? Hopefully, the cadets get it by immersion—twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, eventually they’ll figure out the right thing to do.”
Graduation—June 2,2001—is washed by rain. Security men patrol in gray slickers, families trot into Michie Stadium sharing umbrellas. Old grads shake hands and trade an old Academy saw: the class that graduates in rain goes to war. “But who the heck are they going to fight?” they chuckle. The supe and the comm read the thousand graduating names. When the supe calls “Max E. Adams”—the author of the Hundredth Night show—there’s a mammoth cheer; Max made it after all. The morning’s speaker is Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz: a gray-haired man in a blue shirt and a blue tie, peering out into the gray from under a canopy. He compliments the supe, appeals to the cadets to give their parents a round of applause (“a fitting Army tribute”). Then he welcomes the graduates to the business.
“I want to challenge you,” he says, “to think this morning about two words: surprise and courage.”
He looks over the crowd, measuring the response. “This year marks the sixtieth anniversary of a military disaster whose name has become synonymous with surprise—Pearl Harbor. Interestingly,” Wolfowitz points out, “that ‘surprise attack’ was preceded by an astonishing number of unheeded warnings and missed signals. Intelligence reports warned of ‘a surprise move in any direction.’ Military history is full of surprises, even if few are as dramatic or as memorable as Pearl Harbor. Surprise happens so often, it’s surprising we’re still surprised by it. Almost always there have been warnings and signals that have been missed—sometimes because there were just too many warnings to pick the right one out.”
He pushes back an unruly bit of hair. “Perhaps the simplest message about surprise is this one: surprise is good when the other guy can’t deal with it. Let us try never to be that other guy. A century ago, on a peaceful day in 1903, with great foresight, the secretary of war told Douglas MacArthur’s class, ‘Before you leave the Army . . . you will be engaged in another war. It is bound to come, and will come. Prepare your country.’” Wolfowitz grips the podium with both hands, takes in the field of young officers. “Be prepared to be surprised,” he says. “Have courage.”
Jeremy Kasper marches back to his room, showers, changes into his lieutenant’s uniform. He threads his way around packed luggage and cardboard boxes filled with cadet gear. For Jeremy, the speech left something to be desired—too heavy on the motivational, too light on military career specifics. “I was kinda hoping to hear a little more about the Defense Review that’s going on.” Jeremy says, shrugging. The Quadrennial Defense Review—staffing, budget and systems—is the sort of item he follows on the inside newspaper pages, to keep up with shifts in the profession, to have information to mull over with TACs. “Where the army’s headed, what the future of our stance on national security is, other than ‘Be vigilant. Be prepared.’ Heard that for four years.”
In a big raucous party on the front lawn of retired lieutenant colonel Henry Keirsey’s house, Hank swears his eldest son, J.D., into the Army. Then he pins one butter bar onto J.D.’s shoulder, while his own father stiffly pins the other. Hank welcomes J.D. into the military with a handshake. “I’m a very l
ucky man,” Hank says, looking at his father, at his son, three generations of soldiers. “And I’m awful proud of what he’s doing.” J.D.’s guests—Ryan Southerland is there, eyes fixed on Hank—talk long into the night about Wolfowitz’s speech. They debate “courage,” ask themselves where and when those surprises might come.
PART FOUR
The Fourth Year
An Army of One
ONE SPRING AFTERNOON, Iggy Ignacio climbed and swung his way to the top of the splintery ladder on the Fort Drum obstacle course. He hooked his leg over, and for one of the first times considered the link between elevation and gravity.
“Whoa,” Iggy thought. “This is like three stories down—this is high.” He looked down over a landscape of activity. Soldiers were running, shimmying, hoisting. “When you’re young,” Iggy says, “you always go, ‘Let’s do this.’ But as you get older your thinking is more, ‘Well, wait a second.’” The height seemed to measure a passage of years: semesters with the Long Beach JROTC, hoping for the Academy; four West Point years, waiting on the Army; then ten months at Benning and a year here at Drum. Somewhere below was everything military life rushed you past, a home, a woman, a family.
Iggy has talked this over with his NCOs—soldiers in a unit who’ve already got ten, fifteen years under their belts. “Hey, First Sergeant,” Iggy asked, walking into the man’s office. “Knowing what you do now, would you have gone this far?”
The sergeant’s mouth opened as his thoughts screened a quick montage of deployments and uniforms. “No sir,” the sergeant said. “I have a sixteen-year-old daughter who doesn’t even speak to me now.”