Absolutely American

by David Lipsky

  If they blow this last event, they’ve blown Sandhurst. Their faces look as if they’ve been used to mop a floor, heads are nodding, the Black Sheep are staring more at their boots than at the sky. Huck steps in front of them.

  “Hey,” he says, voice serious, “I’ve had a great time with you guys, man. Not gonna lie. I can’t believe this shit’s over. In seven or eight minutes, man. The Black Sheep, all over.”

  The squad turns to Huck. “After all the shit we’ve been through, every fuckin’ practice since January tenth, it all comes down to this right here. You don’t think the whole corps isn’t gonna be out there watching us, ’cuz we’re the last team in? They wanna know how the Guppies are gonna do, how the Black Sheep are gonna turn it out. The team that’s supposed to finish last at West Point, that’s us. So we’re all gonna be sucking it up out there—no walking whatsoever.”

  The team calls back, Black sheep! and Suck it up!

  Huck swallows. “I’ve had a great fucking time with you guys, all the shit we’ve gone through. I never thought—most of you guys didn’t know me two years ago. Back then, I hated people who did Sandhurst, I wanted to hit ’em in the face. Anybody military, I hated ’em. All right? Now I love this shit. You guys were amazing.

  “All right, I hear them clapping down there, they’re getting ready for us. We’re going to suck it up.”

  It’s late afternoon, shadows long, sun catching on the leaves. As the team moves forward, Bryan Hart steps close to his friend. “Hey, Huck. Seriously, way to go, man.” The next chance they get to spend any real time together will be almost a year from now, after Ranger school, before Bryan drives down to the 101st Airborne to ship for Iraq.

  Two hours later, at the award ceremony, Huck makes the long walk up the Washington Hall stairs to shake hands with the British commandant; his team has won the regiment. The Guppies get a streamer to put on their company flag. Late that night, legs going stiff, Huck e-mails Major Vermeesch. “Sir, I’d love to tell you this in person but I’ve got to get it off my chest. Today was nearly the best day in my life. I owe you a big thanks. If you hadn’t pushed me and inspired me over the past three years, I would have missed out on knowing this team. Just between you and me, I have a satisfaction 10X greater than beating Navy.”

  The major responds at a decent hour. “I didn’t have the words on Saturday, but please understand that I have never been prouder of—or happier for—any soldier than I was of you that day. That single event, and your team’s success in it, are testimony to all that is right about West Point. Whether you want to believe it or not, you are one hell of a good guy, and you have the potential to be a great soldier. Your success as the Squad Leader will do more to eliminate the ghosts from your past than you will ever know. Be proud—and please know that it only gets better from here. God Bless, Maj V.”

  This would be the end of Huck’s before-and-after story, except there’s another after. Huck has gotten word through a sports agent. Huck’s hands are basically fumble-proof, he snaps a couple hundredths of a second faster than the NFL standard, and the New York Giants are only fifty miles down the river. The team plans to offer him a contract if he can get out of the Army.

  Whitey’s Helicopter

  The November weeks before Whitey Herzog deployed to Kosovo passed in a flurry of last things, each action sharpened by a kind of farewell awareness. Writing a check was sending his last rental payment; making a package of dog tags and insurance forms for his parents was his last trip to the post office; withdrawing travel money, he got his last smile at the teller’s window. The day before he flew out, Whitey drove the hilly, pinched streets of Watertown, eyes camera-wide, logging enough footage—Tower Records, Applebee’s, Wal-Mart, Midas, Denny’s, Blockbuster, Target—to spell him six months away from the franchises of home.

  That night, he piled uniforms, boots, compass, knife, CDs, neck guard, glove liners, knife sharpener, nail brush, ammo clip, a Bible trimmed with BDU colors (“in case you’ve got to pray in the jungle”), checking items off his packing list with a yellow highlighter. He put Hendrix and the Allmans on the stereo. Every so often, he reached around to scratch the small of his back, where his first tattoo was still healing: a hillside, a cross, a pennant with the initials MJM—Mark Joseph Matty.

  In the morning, he pulled on BDUs, made coffee and stamped into the living room. Iggy subjected his ruck to an Infantry once-over, posing questions and offering anxious, wifely advice: “Make sure that cord’s tied tight. Don’t put your ammo on the side of the chem mask, ’cuz the way you got it rigged, you can’t get at that shit. It would make things slower if you have to reload. Hey, have you got—did you pack your flak jacket?” They loaded Iggy’s Honda, Iggy steered them onto Fort Drum, parked at the Rapid Deployment Facility, a low-roofed building with a wide-open entrance, soldiers inside stacking duffels and rifles, a flag on the wall. They both knew this morning would come; the surprise was that Whitey was leaving first. The Goodfellas shook hands, Iggy told Whitey, “You know how it is, brother—I’ll see you when I see you.” Whitey nodded and stepped through the doorway.

  Then Whitey is in Kosovo, Camp Bondsteel. He jogs with other officers at sunup, clouds going pink, under guard towers where rifle barrels peek over the sides, climbing Radar Hill with its satellite dishes angled to the sky. For a few moments the landscape spreads itself below him: post, village, whitewashed Balkan houses with orange roofs. The region is like a smashed anagram of America. When he hits the Macedonian barbershop, the haircutters are always watching Jerry Springer—below the razor noise, there’s that chant: “Jer-ry! Jer-ry!” Whitey slides off the chair to explain every time, “Guys, so long as you know—not all America is like that.” His unit brings supplies to kids; Albanians and Kosovars are taught in separate schools, one building modern and heated, the other filled with dirty children and concrete floors; adults from the good school wait until the soldiers leave, then remove all the new gear from the underfunded place. He drives roads where Kosovars in Levi’s—kids and parents—are rubbing their arms, sawing branches off trees. “You don’t see too many intact trees around,” Whitey says. “Because they’re freezing, they need ’em to heat their homes. The thing you don’t realize is, these people are not that different from us. This isn’t some backward place—their ideal world would just be a night out in Buffalo.”

  There’s a lot to get done. Whitey works till two in the morning, reports back to his desk at 0700. USAREUR—the United States Army in Europe—is preparing for the new currency, the euro; it means retooling spreadsheets, testing new systems, sending around the forms. People at home are watching combat footage on the news, the military is once again making them proud. A priest from his Buffalo high school e-mails, asks if Whitey would write about his experiences, he’d like to send word out to parents through the school bulletin. Whitey is happy to do it; of course, he can’t reveal anything operational. The priest writes back, “Can I at least tell people you’re in Afghanistan? Or is that a secret?”

  It embarrasses Whitey. He explains he’s in Kosovo, he’s not doing anything dangerous, just necessary work. But writing helps him put something into words. For two years, he has lived his life with a whisper running at the same time, like bad reception on the radio: Wouldn’t everything be easier as a civilian? Every month he’s in Kosovo, that whisper becomes harder to make out. He’d like to share this with Iggy. “We’re so tight,” Whitey says. “He’s my best friend, but he’s hypocritical in this one way. He gives me advice, I listen, and it’s always good advice—he totally squares me away. But he won’t take any advice from me.” What Whitey would say is that you have to treat the life you get as if it’s the one you set out wanting. Whitey has deployed, but to Kosovo; he wanted Infantry, then Aviation, he’s here as combat service support. But a lot of life is almost in the same way. You have to take the emotions and motivation you’d have if things were ideal and apply them in situations where they are not.

  But Iggy doesn’t need that
advice. When he finished the rotation with his old platoon, Mafia, he got reassigned to staff. Two months later, Mafia deployed to Afghanistan. “My boys went without me,” he says quietly. Iggy feels just what Adamczyk and Keirsey always spoke about: not necessarily wanting to be in combat, but a churned sense of standing in the wrong place while other soldiers are fighting. He understands the way back is by digging in, working long hours, telling his major, “Sir, I’d rather stay and knock this shit out rather than have it still be waiting in the morning.” The war focuses him; he understands there’s no other place than the Army. When Mafia returns to Fort Drum, his guys visit their former platoon leader at his office—the major tells Iggy it’s a rare thing. In the spring, Iggy has earned his way back to a combat position. He begins talking about heading back to Ranger school, trying out for Special Forces.

  One afternoon Whitey goes up in a helicopter, escorting cash reserves to a secured banking facility. It’s funny, everybody always reminds you that the Army isn’t about money, but there’s more money on this Blackhawk than Whitey has ever imagined—bags of coins (“they’re heavy as shit”), bills in duffels and boxes (“the bills are nice and light”). He’s wearing body armor, has a pistol holstered under his arm, but the feeling is very different from four years ago with the Rangers. Back then, he was looking forward to something, the place where he is now. He stares out the window. A woman in a babushka is pinning laundry outside her house, two boys glance up at the noise of the helicopter, a dark road winds through the mountains. “It’s very serene,” Whitey says. “There’s no drama to it, nothing glorious. I’m doing a simple job, but it requires extreme attention to detail. That makes you calm, because you’re very focused.” Listening to the rotors, Whitey realizes that if the Blackhawk malfunctions, if somebody shoots them down, it wouldn’t bother him. “You know, the aircraft crashes,” he says, “the money burns, no big deal. The Army would drive on. It’d suck to lose the equipment and money and lives—big loss—but it wouldn’t be detrimental. I’d be glad to have given my little part to the effort. You know, the whole year at Aviation and afterwards, I lost that vision, because I had to concentrate on other things. Now I’m seeing myself more in the big picture, and it’s a wonderful feeling.”

  A few days before he goes home, Whitey receives his Officer Evaluation Report from his commander.

  Don Herzog executed his duties as my Disbursing Officer flawlessly. He was my right arm during a very difficult and challenging deployment to Kosovo as a part of Operation Joint Guardian. Don encountered some historical firsts, faced by no other leader on a tactical deployment. 1st Lt. Herzog’s technical and leadership abilities exceed his years and experience. His performance as the Kosovo disbursement officer was simply spectacular, absolutely phenomenal for an officer of his junior grade . . . He possesses superior intelligence, communicates effectively and has demonstrated often his superior leadership qualities. His potential is limitless; select for below-the-zone promotion to Major and send to advanced civil schooling so that the Army can take full advantage of Lt. Herzog’s multiple talents. He should command a finance company or detachment; he is a clear pack leader and in the top 1 percent of his peer group in ability.

  When Whitey steps off the plane at Drum, Iggy is waiting in the crowd. “I’m fucked,” Whitey says with a laugh. “They’ve got me for twenty.” He knows he’s staying in. “I’ve been there,” he says, “I’ve seen it, and I want more.” A few months later, he’s offered a company command in Hawaii—a Finance plum—and he turns it down. He wants to try for Special Operations, get into Psy Ops—Psychological Operations; he knows how important it will be in the terrorism fight.

  Iggy tells him something he heard from one of the TACs at West Point. “He said he never began it wanting to stay the whole time,” Iggy says. “What he said was like, ‘I tried my best not to do this, but I can’t not do it.’ There was just something about it he couldn’t shake—loving soldiers, and knowing inside he was a soldier too.”

  The $250,000 APFT

  Because the firsties are ready to graduate, they’re out experience-hunting, dropping by each other’s rooms, stockpiling West Point memories: sights, lessons, people. There’s lots of reflecting on the achievements of George Rash. As the cadet who’s survived everything, George is developing the broad-shouldered proportions of myth.

  Huck Finn is sitting at his computer, checking reports on the latest round of hours, spitting dip into a Gatorade bottle. Dan MacElroy—the Black Knights’ punter, with a kicker’s sparrow build—crosses his legs on Huck’s bunk. “That kid made it past so much,” he says. “Every cadet at this Academy knows who George Rash is, and very few of them had good things to say. Just the fact that he could take the brunt of that—I think it’s amazing.” MacElroy grins. “And ironically, it seems to me that, throughout history, it’s those type of people . . .”

  Huck shakes his head. “George Rash is not that type of person.”

  “You watch,” Dan says. “Give him a couple years. My point is, he’s the triumph of everything, of cadets who make it through. Look at someone like MacArthur. When he came in here—”

  “No,” Huck says. “Don’t put General MacArthur’s name next to George Rash.”

  The conversation is being duplicated throughout the corps, cadet opinion flipping over like dominoes. “Actually, to be honest, I was a naysayer from the beginning,” Steve Ruggerio tells his roommate, Marcus Genova. Steve ate whitefish at Rash’s bar mitzvah two years ago, and Marcus survived a remedial APFT alongside George at Gillis Field. “I was one of the ones who said, ‘This kid shouldn’t graduate, can’t graduate, won’t graduate.’” Steve laughs. “But what can I say? The guy’s tenacious. And he’s not a bad guy either, once you get to know him.”

  One company over, in H-4, George’s Beast roommate, Calvin Huddo—a small, tough-looking cadet with slitted eyes and action-figure arms—is discussing how much his own feelings have evolved. “At first I just wanted him dead,” Huddo tells his pal Jared Fusnecker. “And then I was like, ‘OK, George. You try it here. Just suffer.’ You know what’s funny? He tried his ass off. George is probably the biggest miracle that we’ve witnessed during our time at West Point. I love the kid. I have the right to make fun of him, because I put in the hours at Beast. But that doesn’t mean I want to hear it from anybody else.” George has become a milestone, something to measure their transition from civilians to officers. “I walked in on R-Day,” Huddo says, “I was expecting my roommate to be six foot three, two hundred pounds, an athlete. I found George. It really set me back. I told him, ‘Hey, we need to get ready for inspection tomorrow, start making your bed.’ He’s like, ‘OK—how do I make the bed?’ And then, because George didn’t want to keep making it, he slept on top of the sheets every night in his BDUs. End of the summer, those sheets were more or less soiled black. The cadre were saying, ‘New Cadet Rash, why are your sheets a different color?’ And then by that point in Beast, his feet were gone, they were just hamburger meat. I wanted to say, ‘Stop, stop, you can just quit.’ He wouldn’t.”

  Cal Smith is considering the matter with Sam Kim. “First semester, I said, ‘This kid will not make it past plebe year.’ Somehow, he manages. He gets through APFTs, goes before an honor board—”

  “Falls out of road marches at two different Beasts,” Sam adds.

  “That’s . . . tenacity right there. You know what? I admire George. For four years, he’s taken the worst ass-ripping this place has to offer. People getting on him, telling him he’s a shitbag, and he’s stuck it out and hung around. Somebody was talking smack about him two days ago, I finally stopped him with my hand. I said, ‘The kid’s got a great heart.’”

  And down in Eliel Pimentel and Matt Kilgore’s room, they’re laying odds on what’s potentially George’s final achievement. The cadet ranked at the absolute bottom of each graduating class earns the title Goat; it’s considered a great negative feat, operating just at the edge of failure, like staying on a hig
h wire by one toe. The class takes up a collection, each cadet kicking in a buck, and rewards the Goat with a $1,000 bonus. “And George,” Eliel says, “right now is the last person in the class.”

  “Dead last,” Matt nods.

  “So it looks like he’s got Goat honors sewn up,” Eliel says.

  The prospect isn’t appealing to George; it offends his sense of pride. “I don’t want to be the Goat,” he says simply. “The extra thousand dollars sounds nice, but it’s not worth being the class’s last guy. But most people think I’m trying to get it.”

  For four years, head lowered, George has observed his fellow cadets; his feelings toward them haven’t varied. “There were people rooting for me who didn’t think I would graduate,” he explains. “And then there were those who figured I probably didn’t need to be here, and hoped to see me get kicked out. And some of those, if you actually meet them, are amazingly decent people.” George isn’t certain how he’s ended up a symbol. “I’m not sure I would consider myself . . . a charismatic individual. But I definitely leave an indelible mark on anyone I meet.” He shrugs. “We’ve all managed to come through this together. I could not have done it without them. And I like to think, to a lesser extent, that some cadets could not have made it without me. Because my presence—my continued presence—has shown that anybody can move through adversity, if they’re willing to put in the time and effort. And I like to think they view me as a success story. Because I’ve outlasted everybody who thought I wouldn’t make it. Am I wrong?”

  And then George bombs what should be his final APFT, undershooting the target by nine seconds. “He severely disappointed me,” Captain Paredes says. “This semester he hasn’t even done a bad job. But that was all he needed.” The TAC knows George’s file; whenever officers have said “pass or else,” George has found a way to pass. “Every time he’s on the hot seat,” he says, “under pressure, he does well.” But there must be other ways to demotivate George. He calls the cadet into his office, sits him down at the opposite end of the desk. “You need to hear this from me face to face, man to man, so you’ll know the way I look at things and where I’m coming from. I’m recommending you for separation now, whether you pass the APFT or not.” George blinks. “And, as a matter of fact,” he adds, “I’m also gonna recommend recoupment—that you pay the Army back.”