Spirit Mission

by Ted Russ

  * * *

  The weekend of the Army-Navy game is one of the few times plebes are given privileges. Turtle and I tagged along with Zack and Bill on a plan the two of them had put together. We stayed at a dive hotel near UPenn. Zack knew a bunch of girls at the university. It was a rowdy weekend, and it was just what we needed. We went bonkers. Turtle got so attached to one of the girls that he snuck her into the Corps during the game. Tacs hate that kind of thing, of course, and it took Eifer no time to spot her. Turtle got slammed with twenty hours on the area. “Totally fucking worth it!” was his response.

  Army-Navy Weekend was also the first time the four of us had seen one another in civilian clothes. When we got to the hotel, we quickly ditched our cadet uniforms in preparation for meeting up with the girls. We changed in a frenzy of anticipation and then stood still for a full minute, knocked into silence by one another’s appearance. Turtle wore a black studded leather jacket, ripped jeans, and a red bandanna tied on his head do-rag style. Bill looked like an imitation 1950s motorcycle racer, with a brown leather jacket and dirty black jeans. He wore an old, dark brown hat with a small black brim that had obviously spent a lot of time in the wind. Zack was a tall vision in denim: blue jeans with a blue denim jacket and a gray Chicago Blackhawks hoodie underneath. I’m sure I looked as funny to them: the straight-laced goober right out of the J. Crew catalog. Having been thrown together six months ago in West Point’s cauldron of sameness, we found it jarring to see one another in our chosen social uniforms. In the “real world,” we would never have been friends. Our appearances would have been too foreign, the assumptions about one another too negative. But at West Point, all of the visual cues had been taken away. Our friendships had formed based on proximity, mutual hardship, and a common code. Forged in that way, our bonds now made our clothes seem silly, an afterthought. We made fun of one another for a few minutes and then left to meet our dates.

  The weekend followed what I came to learn was the standard Army-Navy Weekend program. Friday was a frenzied and drunken exploration of Philly, followed by a painfully hungover Saturday morning. We struggled to sober up and get into uniform for the Corps’ march into the stadium a ridiculous three hours before the game. Eifer stood by to make sure we made it. The several that did not were quilled hard. By the time the game ended—with a big win over Navy—we were ready for more action and headed back out to South Street and another long night.

  On Sunday, we returned to West Point for final exams. The Corps’ high Army-Navy Week spirits were replaced by a collective siege mentality. Since we’d beaten Navy, our class had been given the privilege of falling out. We did not have to ping or be at attention when we were out of our rooms; we just couldn’t talk. We played it safe, though, and didn’t wander around casually, but it was nice not to be at attention all the time. It felt strange. I noticed things I had not observed in six months of living in the cadet area: gargoyles, insignias, carvings of cadets’ faces, cannons, and officers’ sabers were everywhere. Then, suddenly, the semester was over, and I flew home for Christmas leave.

  NINE

  1355 HOURS, 1 AUGUST 2015

  Back in the TOC, I got another cup of coffee, then wandered over to an empty corner of the planning area and tried to clear my head. I didn’t notice Weber until he was standing almost right in front of me. He did not look happy.

  “Who were those guys, sir?” he asked.

  “West Point classmates of mine.”

  “They didn’t seem like West Pointers.”

  “They were actually two of my best friends in the world.”

  “‘Were’?”

  “Still are, I guess. We just haven’t seen much of each other lately.”

  “The shorter one just seemed like trouble to me.”

  “Oh, he definitely is,” I chuckled. “Could you tell he was an amputee?”

  “No, sir. Not at all. Where did he lose it?”

  “Day three of the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003. He was with Third ID. High-caliber gunshot wound below the left knee. When he got back to Walter Reed, he worked out like a fiend for about a year. He found an experimental artificial-limb start-up out of San Francisco to work with him on a specifically designed prosthetic. I heard he bugged the hell out of them. You can’t tell now, but he majored in aerospace engineering at West Point. After a couple of iterations, he had a kick-ass leg and could move better than most full-limbed soldiers.”

  I did not tell Weber how ugly it had gotten with Turtle. The reason he worked so hard was to regain his combat status with the army. He was facing his personal abyss: life out of the military or, worse, life as a REMF in the military. So, in Turtle fashion, he told the system to fuck off and fought back. Hard.

  He became a minor celebrity at Walter Reed. Generals and congressmen would visit to shake the hand of the “inspiring army major” who had such a great attitude. I got to Walter Reed twice to visit him during that time. He was an animal.

  But the army ultimately denied his appeal one year to the day of his wounding in Iraq. Not only was his combat status denied, the army then insulted him deeply. They offered him a staff job at the Pentagon.

  Turtle walked out of Walter Reed Army Medical Center that day and moved to a trailer park in Virginia Beach. He lived off of his disability pay, spending his time either in the gym or drunk. I was overseas then but heard that he was circling the drain when Zack found him. Zack spent three weeks by Turtle’s side, getting him sober. Rumor was that Zack missed a deployment with Delta to stay with him. I didn’t know if that’s true, because ordinarily that kind of thing is called being AWOL and ends careers. But Zack’s reputation in JSOC at that point was such that he could probably have gotten away with it.

  Zack told Turtle about the contracting bonanza going on in Iraq and put him in touch with Creighton. Creighton pulled some strings and got him a small contract working with the CIA. Turtle’s abilities and attitude did the rest.

  “You ever heard of Thayer Tactical?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Most people haven’t. It’s a small contract shop that Turtle started. They’re not as well known as Blackwater or some of the others. Turtle has kept them small and focused.”

  “Turtle?”

  “Long story.”

  “What do they do?”

  “Mostly direct-action jobs for the CIA. They’ve got a one hundred percent success rate and have done well. It doesn’t hurt that Turtle still has friends at the CIA who are influential.”

  Thayer Tactical had been an immediate success. Turtle was a millionaire by the end of the first year. He kept trying to recruit me. “You’d be perfect. I need a SOAR operator.” I kept rebuffing him, giving him grief about the name Thayer Tactical, instead. I thought it was hilarious that a double-century man who had nearly been kicked out for discipline issues no less than half a dozen times had named his company after such a prominent and revered figure in academy history. “It’s good branding, Sam” was his only response.

  He must have been right. By the end of its second year, Thayer Tactical’s revenue exceeded thirty million. From time to time, I’d hear about Turtle’s success and would feel happy and relieved for him but also a little jealous. Looking back now, I wondered if what I’d been experiencing was regret.

  “What about the other guy? The tall one.”

  “That’s probably the toughest guy you’ve ever seen. Infantry, then Fifth Group for a few years before being selected for Delta. He’s been there forever and is now up for squadron commander. I think he would have gotten it.”

  “What do you mean ‘would have’?”

  I ignored the question and looked at the map of Iraq on the wall behind him.

  Sergeant Weber glanced over his shoulder to see what I was studying. He then looked back at me with a face that was equal parts puzzled and angry.

  I couldn’t worry about his feelings at that moment. I needed to figure out a way to ditch him and sneak away from the TOC with Pete to plan tonight�
��s bootleg mission.

  “Look, Weber, I’m sorry, but can you excuse me? I’ve got to get some things together for a briefing with the admiral here in a little bit.”

  He hesitated.

  “Sure, sir. Roger that. Don’t let me get in your way.” Weber stalked off.

  TEN

  FEBRUARY 1987

  “I swear to God I have never seen a place as depressing as this,” I said to Creighton as we trudged through the snow on the way back from class.

  “What is so depressing about it?”

  “Look around, Creighton!”

  I gestured at the bleak landscape. No place on earth can match the gloom of West Point from January to March. The sky is gray. The stone buildings are gray. The snow is gray. The uniforms are gray, and even the pallor of the Corps is gray. The cumulative effect of weeks without sun and the crushing amount of time until spring weigh down the Corps’ spirit. It becomes mole-like and depressed. Even firsties, weathering their final cadet winter, become skeptical that it will ever end. This span of time is called the “gloom period.” And by February, it has fully descended. The river’s complexion is dark beneath a dirty crust of ice as it moves, unperturbed, southward.

  “What did you expect?” Creighton asked.

  I just shook my head at him. Creighton and I were roommates for second semester plebe year. For the most part, it was a good match. He was a much better student than I was, and he helped me raise my academic game. I tended to be more social, apt to go to the gym or goof off. When my influence prevailed in our room, it helped integrate him further into the company.

  I quickly learned to respect Creighton’s strategic mind. He worked at sharpening it constantly and, after a while, forced me to do the same. We often ended our day with a quiet game of Risk before taps. It was the simplest of the several strategy games he played regularly. Most of his games were more complex, involving ten- and twenty-sided die and voluminous rules. For those, he had to travel the cadet area to visit his fellow strategy geeks. I was not up to the task.

  We were one of those odd pairings that West Point often throws together, improving each of the individuals. He was a “gray hog,” though, and it really chafed when I wanted someone to share in my misery. Gray hogs love being cadets: the uniforms, the regimented lifestyle, the traditions, everything. They love it all and cannot understand those who don’t. Creighton, like all gray hogs, was totally at home living in the cadet area.

  Carefully delineated by the Regulations for the United States Corps of Cadets, the cadet area is a physical boundary in which all of the rules and restrictions apply; plebes have to ping. Cadets have to be in the full, designated uniform. No civvies. Only firsties are allowed to drink alcohol. No cadet is permitted to eat or drink while walking in uniform. No carrying books in backpacks.

  The regulations were endless, consisting of all of the things Bill scornfully referred to as the “reindeer games.” The specific area was a strange geographic concoction of just about everything “at the level of the Plain,” mean sea level for cadets. Beyond this border, a cow could drink a beer; inside it, he could not. On one side of this street, my classmates and I were at attention and at the mercy of upperclassman; on the other side we were not.

  But, actually, we were always within the cadet area. That’s the potent, inescapable reality. The cadet area is mental. Once a cadet, you’re never able to leave it. The cadet area is burned into your head, and you carry it with you. I’ve heard general officers say, “Sometimes I have to remind myself I’m not a cadet anymore.”

  I first felt this stamp on my psyche while home on my first Christmas leave. I had reveled in the freedom to take big bites, decide what to wear, and plan my own day, but I found myself looking around every corner for upperclassman. I was sure they would jump into the dining room as I ate with my family. “Goddamnit, Avery! That was a big bite! You’re done eating. Take your plate to the sink, and when you get back, you better have your neck and back straight! You’re a disgrace!”

  * * *

  Captain Eifer wasted no time digging into the company. He had quilled me twice before the end of January: once for improperly aligned uniforms in my closet and once for insufficiently shined shoes at dinner formation.

  It took no time for Turtle to land hard on the area. He had become the go-to plebe for spirit missions. Firsties and cows were constantly grabbing him in late-night conscriptions for their purposes. He often pulled me into the mix, until I begged him to stop. I needed sleep.

  He got busted a few times for minor infractions and then finally got caught rappelling down the face of Washington Hall in an attempt to hang a “Beat Navy” flag over the commandant’s office windows for the Navy basketball game at the request of one of E4’s cows.

  He got twenty hours on the area for that one, and Wilcox went nuts. He forbade any further enlistments of Turtle in spirit missions. “The kid needs to graduate!” Wilcox was no longer the company commander, but no one dared cross him.

  Classes were hard. Creighton helped us all study for military history. He was better than our professor and held weekly study sessions in our room for all the guys. We felt under siege but united.

  I’d been a fool to want to get back after Christmas, though. Camaraderie and companions were no match for the place and season. By February, I was chest-deep in gloom.

  Fortunately, Colonel Krieger refused to let me wallow. I got back from class one Wednesday to find a note from him on my desk.

  “Be at Mac’s statue at fifteen-hundred hours this Saturday. Bring a friend. We are grilling steaks. No excuses. Col. Krieger.”

  Every cadet is assigned a sponsor after Beast, an officer to provide informal mentoring and a window into what life as an army officer is like. Many of these matchups fade quickly or are replaced by other informal relationships. My assignment to Colonel Stan Krieger had lasted. Visits to his quarters were relaxing, and he was fascinating. He didn’t talk much about the things he had done, but I knew they included Vietnam and Grenada and probably some other things I had never heard of.

  He wore his hair close-cropped, in the style of an old Roman general. The cool gray hair on the sides blended to black on top, framing a face that was weathered and tired but happy; the crow’s-feet were deep. He walked with a slight limp, but I could never tell which leg it was. It changed each time I saw him, and I never asked to clarify. He was slow to get out of a chair but could run ten miles easily. His arms were toned, and his belly was flat. He looked exactly how I thought an American warrior would look, and I wanted to be like him.

  Best of all, I liked to eat, and he and his wife liked to feed cadets.

  I invited Bill along, so Saturday afternoon he and I stood beneath the statue of General MacArthur and waited for Colonel Krieger.

  “It’s cold out here,” I said.

  “You don’t get winters like this in Charlotte, do you?”

  “You might get a cold snap, but that’s it. It’s a snap. You don’t get this sustained death march of a winter.”

  “We get it in Pennsylvania. Stomp your feet.”

  “Oh, please.”

  “I’m serious. I never did it growing up. Sure as hell did it when I was stationed in Korea.”

  I looked at Bill dubiously and stomped my feet.

  “See!”

  “Yeah. Balmy.”

  “You know it worked.”

  “Here he is.”

  Headlights reflected off the supe’s road; it was the colonel’s old Blazer. The ice crunched as he pulled to a stop, and we hopped in quickly.

  “Evening, boys,” he said. “Happy gloom period to you.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I said in mock appreciation. “This is Bill Cooper.”

  “Good to meet you, sir. Thanks very much for having us over.”

  “It’s our pleasure, Bill. Sincerely.”

  The colonel was not a department head, so he didn’t live on Colonels’ Row, though some considered his location more desirable. His was t
he last house on Lee Road just before the gate, sitting on a wooded plateau a couple hundred feet above the Hudson. There was no million-dollar view of the river, due to a thick patch of old-growth trees, but it was a quiet corner that seemed far away from West Point. The large brick Tudor-style quarters were old but comfortable.

  His wife greeted us warmly, giving each of us a strong hug. She took our dress gray tops and hung them in the hallway closet as we continued to the living room. Along the way, we passed the colonel’s study. The door was open, and Bill and I slowed to peer inside. The walls were covered in keepsakes and gifts from friends and former units. Framed old battle streamers, guidons, and photos of tough-looking men and dirty, beat-up helicopters. On the wall, centered behind his desk, hung half of a tail rotor blade on a simple wooden plaque. It was bent and scarred and hinted at something rough.

  “Whoa,” said Bill softly.

  “Keep moving, cadets,” said the colonel in a friendly but forceful voice. He shut the door to his study and nudged us along. “Let’s eat, fellas!”

  After gorging ourselves, we lay on the sofa, watched TV, and chatted with the colonel and his wife. For plebes, it was about as good a Saturday night as we could hope for: no upperclassmen around, food just an arm’s length away, and a TV that responded to a remote control.

  “So, how does it feel?”

  “How does what feel, sir?”

  “To be this close to having it in the bag?”

  “Are you kidding, sir? It’s not even March yet. We’ve got over three months to go.”

  “Trust me, guys. It’s going to start accelerating. You’ve got it licked,” he said, though he could tell we were skeptical. I smiled politely.

  The colonel grinned. “You’ll see. There’s something about rounding the corner at the end of February. Gloom period starts to weaken, not right away, but by the end of March, you’ll be sticking a knife in its belly, and then, boom! You’re yearlings.”

  Bill and I looked at him and nodded, unconvinced.

  “Just promise me you bastards will tell me when you realize I was right.”