Major Conflict

by Jeffrey McGowan, Maj USA (ret. )

  The day before the written exam, Ron walked up to me in the hall. “So I heard you went out to dinner with Ruth the other night,” he said.

  “Hey Ron, how’s it going?” I said, kind of taken by surprise. “Yeah, she’s nice. Ruth is a nice girl. We had a good time.”

  “I think it’s fucked up,” he said, and with that he walked away.

  So it was actually no surprise when I realized that this guy was planning on busting my balls throughout the entire propblast ceremony. But after about ten hours of it, ten hours of his screaming at me about how weak and worthless I was, making me do things twice, three times, I was starting to get pissed. As I completed my first jump from the tower, I heard him yelling over a bullhorn.

  “Blastee McGowan, that was the most fucked exit I’ve ever seen. Get back to the tower immediately and do it again.”

  He was sitting on an elevated chair that looked like the kind of lifeguard chair you’d find on Coney Island or Riis Beach, kicked back, self-consciously relaxed, looking up at me with what I imagined was a malicious gleam in his eyes. As I got out of the harness and ran back to the tower, I heard him yelling again.

  “Blastee McGowan, go to the head of the line. Go to the head of the line now and wait for me there.”

  I did as I was told, cursing him under my breath, and by the time I was fully rigged again, he’d arrived and pulled me off to the side and started pulling at my harness.

  “Well, Blastee, it looks to me like your harness is too loose. Shall we tighten it up a bit?”

  He made me tighten the harness so tight that it bit into my shoulders and thighs.

  “Okay, Blastee McGowan, I think that will do. It looks right now. You can’t do much right, can you, fuckface? Now listen, listen up, you jump only when I am grading you, got that? Do not jump for the other graders, only me, pal, got it?”

  “Whatever,” I said. I felt like punching him in the face. I was really beginning to lose it with him, but the day was supposed to be about mental toughness and fighting wasn’t allowed, so I bit my tongue and did what he wanted, waiting until he was in position before getting ready to jump again.

  In a few minutes there was one guy in front of me, then I was next up. One of the captains came up to me and whispered quietly in my ear.

  “See that watermelon?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “We were going to have you guys jump with it and whoever dropped it would have to carry it around with him for the rest of the day, but since Ron has been such a total prick all day long, especially to you, we’ve decided that you should dive-bomb him with the watermelon. Whaddya think?”

  “Yeah, but won’t I hurt him?” At that point I hardly cared if I hurt him, but I thought I should ask anyway. I was fired up to do it right away.

  “I don’t think so,” the captain said. “Joe’s there now to distract him, and he knows it’s coming.”

  “Cool,” I said. “Done.” I couldn’t wait to see the expression on that fuck’s face as the watermelon exploded all over him.

  He was on the bullhorn again, yelling for me to hurry up, when Joe distracted him and the captain handed me the watermelon and I jumped. I held on to it for a second, trying to aim it perfectly, and then let fly. As I dropped from the tower I watched the watermelon fly through the air in a beautiful arc, smacking dead center on the floorboard of Ron’s chair. Splat! Ron had just started turning his head back from Joe when it hit. His face and body were completely splattered. He was so startled that he slipped and nearly fell out of his seat. Hanging safely now in my harness, I looked over to see him pulling himself up and wiping all the wet red flesh and slimy, black seeds out of his eyes and nose. The whole unit exploded into laughter and applause; there were whistles and shouts, and I joined along. It felt as if a huge burden had just been lifted off everybody’s shoulders. Ron tried to maintain his dignity, collecting himself quickly, though comically, since there were still big chunks of watermelon on his uniform and in his hair. He then ran over to where I was hanging helplessly in the harness.

  “What the fuck, you could’ve fucking killed me. I oughtta kick your fucking ass.”

  “Fuck you,” I said, not caring about anything now. “Let me outta this harness, you dumb motherfucker, and I’ll beat your ass from one end of this field to the other.”

  But at that moment a couple of the other captains intervened and pulled Ron away and helped me out of my harness. It was time to go. There was still the evening portion of the ceremony to prepare for. I rejoined the others. Everyone was high-fiving me, and all the energy had returned to the group. As we formed up, ready to march away, Ron trotted over and said, so that only I would hear, “Remember, I still have tonight, fuckface!”

  “Fuck off,” I said, and we marched away.

  The final phase took place in a classroom away from the unit area. The room was draped in camouflage netting, and seats were placed in neat rows as if in a theater. In front of the seats were two tables with large cushy chairs, where the senior officers sat. This was all facing a mock-up of a C-130 chassis that had been built especially for the occasion. The idea was that the blastees would do their fake PLFs and then report to the president of the board to answer questions. If we answered all the questions correctly, we were inducted. The kicker was that the plates of the door of the mock C-130 were metal and were electrified, so as you took up a position in the door and put your hands on the plates, you would be zapped with current.

  It was pretty much guaranteed that you were going to go through at least twice. It was also pretty much guaranteed that two other officers would hold your hands to the plates to make sure that you got a full dose of electric current.

  As we put on the harnesses, and waited to be called forward, in walked Ron with a smug look on his face. He walked directly over to me.

  “Hello, Blastee, remember me? It’s going to be a long, long night for you. I hope you realize that. You got it?”

  “I’ll be thinking of Ruth’s pussy the entire time. It was nice and tight; guess a guy like you doesn’t give a girl much of a workout,” I said, looking down at his crotch. I never talked this way, but I was trying to speak his language, and I think I was succeeding.

  The look on his face changed instantly from smug superiority to cold, deep, unmistakable hatred. It startled me almost, the malice in it. He looked as though he was going to attack me, though I knew he couldn’t. So just to piss him off more, I broke into a large grin and stood there staring right into his face. He stared back for a second, then turned and walked out of the dressing area to take up his position in the door of the mock chasis.

  As he reenacted the procedures for preparing the door for exiting troops, the room filled with excited chatter as the men anticipated the next several hours of ballbusting. As the first officer went up to the door and put his hands on the electrified plates, he let out a grunt, trying hard to remain composed. After about a minute or so, he was allowed to exit the chasis and do his PLF. When he reported to the president of the board, he was asked several questions that I couldn’t hear, and for a moment it looked as though he might make it. But there was a loud whoop as he crashed and burned and was sent back to us. And so it went for the next several attempts. Basically, everyone had to go through once before the process could move forward.

  When my turn came, I stepped into the door and put my hands on the plates, where they were immediately held firmly in place. Being electrocuted is a hard feeling to describe; it hurts but in a very nonspecific way. It also seemed that it would never end, even though it was only a minute or so. It stopped as suddenly as it began, and as I regained my wits, I executed a PLF into a kiddie pool filled with water, which I could not see because of the spotlights shining from behind the board members. I slipped and fell in the water and struggled to get up quickly to report, all the while being hooted and hollered at.

  Once up and standing at the position of attention, I reported to Colonel Mastrianni, who was the division artill
ery commander at the time. He was an interesting character if ever there was one. In his mid-forties and in superb shape, he was able to run a six-minute mile, thus outrunning the entire officer corps. He was also something of a psychopath, known for screaming like a maniac whenever he came upon something he didn’t like. He made life in the DIVARTY (Division Artillery) pretty miserable, as he ruthlessly enforced his standards. He was the type of boss whom everyone hates.

  In fairness, though, despite Mastrianni’s harshness, I have to say that the DIVARTY and, for that matter, the Eighty-second Airborne Division as a whole were at an extremely high level of readiness and competence at the time. Commanders like Mastrianni, and many of the other brigade commanders under the exceptional leadership of Major General Hugh Shelton, challenged soldiers at every level to push themselves to the limit in training. The Eighty-second always has on standby a unit able to deploy anywhere in the world within eighteen hours, so it takes a certain unique brand of toughness and readiness to fulfill that mission.

  Anyway, after I had spat out the blurb that everyone said when he reported to the board, there was a brief pause as I stared helplessly into the lights being flashed in my face.

  “Good evening, Blastee McGowan,” Mastrianni said. “Tell me all the brigades in the division and what their flashes are.”

  I began to respond, and I actually got pretty far along, but then suddenly I drew a blank. As I paused, I heard a voice coming at me from the left of Colonel Mastrianni.

  “Could you sing us a song? A joke maybe?” I didn’t recognize the voice.

  I immediately launched into the “All American” song, which is the song of the division. Whenever it’s sung, everyone must stand and join in. Toward the end of the song, the exhaustion of the long day was beginning to hit me, and I had trouble keeping up. When we finished, everyone sat down and Colonel Mastrianni spoke.

  “Well, Blastee McGowan, I don’t know if that will do. It appeared to me that you were lip-synching!” There was a low buzz of hisses and mock grumblings of “Shame!” and “I can’t believe it!”

  “Sir, may I speak?” The officious voice of CPT Ron Pierce interjected.

  “Yes, Jump Master?”

  “Obviously this blastee is not prepared for this evening. May I recommend remedial jump training for him? Maybe it will jog his memory?”

  “A little bit of electroshock therapy might do the trick. All right then, send him through again.”

  That fucking asshole Pierce. If only he knew how misplaced his anger was. If only he knew how stupid he was being! So threatened by a guy who’d never lay a hand on his big-breasted, platinum blonde, white-Corvette-driving ex-girlfriend because that guy had zero interest in touching any woman, big tits or otherwise. The funny thing was, though, at that moment I was so pissed off at Ron that I thought about dating Ruth and sleeping with her just to get back at him. But I knew I’d never do that.

  So I simply turned, remounted the mock-up, and submitted to being electrocuted twice more, then graded on my exit and PLF. As I returned to the setup area, I was definitely wide-awake now and pretty pissed off. I would go through the door three more times before I was invited to drink from the propblast cup. Once you were offered the drink, you had to chug it down in one gulp, and then everyone congratulated you. When we were all finished, we lined up to sign the book and receive our card and coin. It was handshakes from everyone then, and pats on the back, and finally the propblast ceremony was over.

  I had passed another milestone, and was now officially a part of the division with which I had wanted to serve from the time I was in college. After a very long day of bullshit, I wanted to crawl into bed and sleep for a couple of days at least, doing my best to make sure not to dream about CPT Ron Pierce or big-breasted platinum blondes.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The Bible and Bulgogi

  I had just started my new job as the battalion’s logistics officer, or S-4, when I found myself visiting the headquarters on some routine piece of business. I decided to stop into the operations office to say hello to a few buddies of mine. As soon as I entered the room, I realized I’d stepped right into a heated discussion about gays in the military. At that time everyone was talking about it. President Clinton had wasted no time putting the issue on the table, but even though both the House and Senate were controlled by the Democrats, an all-out repeal of the ban didn’t seem likely, especially considering the Pentagon’s own extreme opposition to the idea.

  “Goddamn gay guys,” Captain Fred Jones was saying, “they can’t serve. Somebody will end up killing one of them,” he continued, as if that hadn’t already happened. “And what about the shower situation? I mean, I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be showering with guys who like checking out my hoohaw.” Jones was speaking in his typically intense way, which I’d grown accustomed to. It was nothing by halves for Fred Jones.

  Captain Andy Loughlin agreed. “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “I can only imagine the nightmare it would cause. You know . . . I bet they’ll end up having one of those special months, you know, like Black History Month, faggot month, right, gay guy month, and can you imagine the sensitivity training we’d have to endure? And where would they live? I mean, they wouldn’t live with us, would they? They’d have to build, like, separate housing for them. And how much would that cost? Millions just to house the homos!” He kicked back and put his feet up on the desk.

  Maybe “discussion” was too kind. Shooting the shit was more like it.

  Fred looked up at me, “What’s up, Jeff?” he said. “How’s it going?”

  “Good, good, what are you two meatballs up to?”

  “We’re talking about gays in the military.” Fred sneered, twisting his face as if someone were yanking hairs from his forearm.

  “I heard,” I said.

  “I mean, really,” Andy said, exasperated, “what are they thinking? I bet most gay guys wouldn’t even want to join. And what about the security risk thing?”

  Fred looked at me, grinning. “What do you think, McGowan?”

  I took a bite out of the apple I had with me, then said, chewing, “Hadn’t really thought about it.” I took another bite of the apple and said, “I don’t think it’ll happen, though.”

  “I mean how the hell do you find love in another man’s asshole?” Andy asked. “It’s like making love to a garbage pail. Dis-gus-ting!”

  “You mind there, Andy? I’m eating,” I said.

  Fred laughed. “Well,” he said, with an I-told-you-so tone in his voice, “that’s what you get when you have somebody who never served in charge. I think all that time not inhaling twisted his way of thinking or something. Doesn’t matter, though, the generals won’t let it happen. My buddy up at division says his boss told him they’re working the issue real close in Washington. Ole Bubba there doesn’t have enough credibility to do this, especially if Powell says no. It’s a safety issue. They’re afraid somebody would kill ’em. If you ask me, they don’t belong here. This just isn’t their world.” Fred said this last bit with such absolute certainty that it chilled me. Up until that point I’d been hearing “they” and “them” as if those words didn’t include me.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Andy said, looking at me quizzically.

  “Ah, I’m just tired. I had a jump last night,” I said lamely, finishing the apple and tossing the core into the tin pail next to the desk.

  “Where’d you jump?” Fred said.

  “Camp Mackall—Rhine Luzon—it’s always a bitch. Twenty-one seconds of green light. I almost went into the trees.”

  “Now see,” Andy said, leaping to his feet, “that’s exactly what I’m talking about. Just imagine what some faggot would do if he got caught in the trees. Ooh, ooh . . . help me, help me, I think I broke a nail . . . ooh, ooh!” He pranced around the office like a mincing queen on Dexedrine. “See what I’m saying?” he went on, his face red now, his breath oddly labored. “I mean, what is this world coming to? Can you tell me
what the fuck is going on here? They are actually thinking seriously about faggots, faggots in the military. Well, not in my army, Bub, not in my army! It’s that damn Clinton dude. No way would this have ever happened under Reagan.”

  “What the hell is goin’ on here? What’s all this bullshit? Shouldn’t you be crankin’ on the training schedules?” Major Mark Crist had suddenly appeared in the doorway. He was only half serious, looking for an excuse to take a break, apparently. Crist was a West Pointer and a good guy. I liked him a lot.

  “Just talking about our commander in chief’s desire to let the faggots in,” Fred said, chortling.

  “Don’t get all worked up; it isn’t going to happen,” Crist said confidently. “You’d have to change the UCMJ, and it takes Congress to do that. The army has a lot of friends there. Do you honestly think Helms or Strom Thurmond would even let it get a vote? They’d die before that happened. Besides, nobody wants to see homos getting beaten to death splashed all over the front page of the newspaper. Let ’em go be hairdressers and actors, no problem, but soldiers? No. I remember this one time when I was a lieutenant at Fort Hood and one of the duty officers was making his rounds and he caught two privates screwing in a trash Dumpster. We couldn’t get ’em out quick enough; they must have had three or four fights each, waiting to be chaptered. Nope, no way, it’s just never gonna happen.”

  “Damn right it isn’t,” Andy said. “And what about AIDS? I really think Falwell’s onto something with that. It’s not natural, and God’s taking revenge.” He leaned back with a self-satisfied look on his face. Both Major Crist and Fred were smiling sheepishly, though Crist’s smile was tinged with an unmistakable discomfort.

  I couldn’t hold my tongue any longer. “That has to be one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard. Andy, God does not give people AIDS because they’re gay.”