Carrying

by Theodore Weesner

  Sergeant Noordwink: “Competitive in theory, sir. Doesn’t mean superior.”

  Lieutenant Kline: “Point is, this is a training exercise meant to test your character. Don’t any of you be losing your mo to this cynicism.”

  Sergeant Noordwink: “Realism, sir.”

  There comes an evening at Graf, off duty for refueling, when four soldiers in flak jackets and dusty battle gear walk by and I recognize the muscular soldier from the Autobahn dustup weeks earlier. DeMarcus Owens. It gives me a shiver to see him. I’m working with Sherman at the time, helping with refueling from a camouflage-painted tanker (The Claw needs to be refueled after every ten operating hours) as the four soldiers pass twenty feet away with M-16s draped over their shoulders. All are African American in the de facto segregation that lingers in the army, and the shortest of the four, the most muscular, is my nemesis, DeMarcus Owens.

  “Cav scouts,” Sherman says as I look after them. “Gotta be a tough mother to be a cav scout.”

  “One of them’s a gangbanger,” I say.

  “In 2nd Cav? You’re kidding.”

  “We came in together in the back of a truck from Rhein/Main. He’s carrying a shank in his sock. When I saw it, I guessed he was a gangbanger.”

  “You can get dishonorably discharged for carrying a shank in the army.”

  “He threatened to cut my throat. Twice.”

  “He came at you with a shank?”

  “Not exactly. Shank ended up on the Autobahn. Courtesy of yours truly. Which is why he threatened to cut my throat. Threatened again after we unloaded at Bindlach. I say I ‘guess’ because after a while I decided it was too dumb for words to bring a shank into the army and into Germany, that he had to be living in a dream world where carrying was still an okay thing to do.”

  What I’m thinking as I talk to Sherman is that one of these days I’m going to run into DeMarcus Owens face to face and learn if he’s a gangbanger or not. It has to happen, living on the same base. If carrying was an immature thing for him, won’t he have left it behind? If he was buying into a childish fantasy of heroism, won’t he have outgrown it by now and be able to say so?

  “Gangbanger ain’t gonna make it in cav,” Sherman says. “You go cav, you get with the program or you get cashiered. It’s hard to believe anyone would be carrying after everything they said at Knox. Some of these warriors, the white dudes and the brothers, they take offense. Some very tough guys in armor, believe me. Can snap a neck, crush a windpipe in five seconds. Faster, mon, than you are at getting off those HEAT rounds.”

  At Hohenfels, field conditions are severe and we create shelter for sleeping by attaching tarps to our vehicles and staking them on one side. The field challenge isn’t merely gunnery practice but warfare, living and fighting under adverse conditions. “Getting into the animal thing,” as the lieutenant puts it.

  The lieutenant, as I am coming to see, is himself a warrior, not what I expected in an officer. He loves the life, wants to fight, carries on about tactics, M1A1s, coordinated strategies. “Of the sixty tons that make up this beast, it’s true, a full ton goes to its electronic brains,” he says one evening as we sit on the ground eating MREs. “More brainpower than an entire army, though it’s true that our little pea brains are needed to turn things on and give them their orders. An M1A1 has eyes that can see an enemy six klicks away even if he’s hiding in the woods or underground,” the lieutenant adds. “Ammo from an Abrams main gun travels at a thousand feet per second. The rounds are so powerful that on blitzkrieging at forty miles an hour we can fire HEAT rounds that will penetrate reinforced concrete ten klicks away, and release a hundred bomblets like a cloud of hand grenades that will kill every plane, person, vehicle, radio within a hundred yards in each direction! We may lose a simulated battle in the days ahead,” he adds. “I’m sure we will, because losing teaches more than winning. But we should not for a second think our vehicle is not a friend or that we aren’t well armed and protected if the real thing comes along.”

  OPFOR soldiers pass here and there, walking in pairs, riding in army Blazers and Suburbans. They wear no insignia and, representing a ferocious and unprincipled Soviet force, appear threatening, though our engagement against them won’t start for several days as our squadron continues practicing and preparing for our battlefield encounter.

  The fight, when it goes down, will be decided by MILES scoring, a laser weapons system in which each vehicle and soldier wears a transmitter vulnerable to lasers fired by the other side. A rifle can ‘kill’ a soldier by setting off his MILES alarm, while a rifle cannot disable a tank except for a bull’s-eye shot into its rear grillwork. Observer-controllers (OCs) referee engagements and conduct after-action reviews (AARs) in which even junior tankers may be asked to explain what they did wrong and how they would do it differently the next time around. The training procedure is unique to the army, and an officer’s career path can depend on his critical analysis and character as graded by OCs otherwise unknown to everyone. An inability to analyze correctly or to accept blame, through ignorance or pride, can cost as many points as a poor performance. Character and analytical ability are interwoven; one is useless without the other. In battle the best combinations will prevail, while anything less will bring death and defeat.

  Captain Kinder, addressing Geo Troop one evening while standing on his command mud-belly against a silhouetted backdrop of dozens of antennas, has us know again that “OPFOR will cheat and lie and deceive at every level. They’ll ambush unfairly and in violation of the ground rules. They hold home court advantage and they’ll exploit everything in every possible way. They live here. They know every square inch of land, water, rock, and tree. They fight one visiting unit after another, and they live to humiliate with the most lopsided scores possible. Be alert to dirty tricks, beginning to end. We ever turn OPFOR itself loose on anyone, they’ll think they’re being hit by an entire brigade of monsters from Mars, believe me. What we’re going to do is fight them with all we have. Equipment, training, motivation, intelligence. We use them as we’ve been taught, OPFOR will know it’s been in a fight. It’ll be some time before they forget Geo Troop, First Squadron, 2nd Armored Cav. Toujours pret!”

  “What kind of cheating?” I ask Sherman as we return to The Claw.

  “You name it. They sneak behind lines. Bomb latrines. Send in stink bombs that take out HQ tents, mail trucks, water trucks, field kitchens. Just when you think you’re safe and the clock is turned off, they let you have it. You’ll find out.”

  I sleep well enough, the food is plentiful, and before long I’m feeling comfortable as a field soldier living outdoors. Near-frosty autumn daybreaks and glorious autumn sunsets mark most days, and being away from garrison, living in a state of grittiness relieved every three days by a shower, begins to feel more comfortable than burdensome. A rare chilly rain has me feeling a desire, on day four, to be back in the barracks or mess hall at Bindlach. Workdays are long–twelve, fifteen hours, running into darkness (when we use night vision equipment), whereupon sleep provides some animal fulfillment under a tent fly with your nose in the air. Then PT and jogging in chilly daybreak temps is invigorating, even joyous, as it triggers an appetite for morning chow from the steaming field kitchen.

  Alas, I have a place in existence as a soldier and a tanker. Concerning my soul (I guess that’s what it is), it finds itself nourished one morning when the lieutenant recites from Rudyard Kipling as we sit around outside The Claw sipping coffee. The words excite my heart with a thrill of seeming to count for something:

  I went into a theater, as sober as could be…

  They gave a drunk civilian room, but ’adn’t room for me.

  They sent me to the gallery or round the music ’alls,

  But when it comes to fightin’, Lord! they’ll shove me in the stalls!

  For its Tommy this, and Tommy that, an’ Tommy ’ow’s yer soul?

  But it’s a thin red line of ’eroes when the drums begin to roll…

&nb
sp; The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,

  It’s a thin red line of ’eroes when the drums begin to roll.”

  When dawn breaks on another day and I’ve had morning chow and washed my mess kit, I enjoy carrying a canteen cup of scalding water to the tank area where I use a half-stump shelf on a tree as a tiny tabletop. Boiling water is available from a galvanized garbage can positioned at one end of the field kitchen, a tractor trailer with fold-out counters that lets the vehicle work like a rig at Fenway, the water hot enough to remain warm throughout a routine of bathing and shaving.

  Dipping in with my razor, I manage a shave without using a mirror (don’t mind not seeing my ugly Irish mug) followed by a scrubbing of face, neck, ears, feet, underarms, crotch, and genitals with a warm, soapy washcloth. Then a quick re-dressing in clean socks and underwear. The water has cooled to warm by then in the autumn air, while day by day I feel newer and more manly living out in the air. If it’s happiness (as it seems to be), I have no complaints. All that is missing is a girl to talk to, to tease and adore, to serve wild rabbit or quail roasted on sticks and washed down with German beer.

  The night before simulated warfare is due to commence, Captain Kinder speaks to us again as we sit about our mud-bellies. Our engagement with the enemy will come in two phases, he explains. Unless we get annihilated in Phase One. We hear again that as a cav brigade spearheading VII corps our mission will be reconnaissance and stinging. We need to find the enemy and report his location while delivering a stinging blow that will knock him off balance. Moving aside, we’ll provide cover for combat divisions to pass through and hammer the enemy into submission.

  Locate. Knock off balance. Move aside while providing cover for the infantry. “Be the head of the spear,” the captain tells us.

  He speaks as well of seizing the initiative on an individual basis. Troop commanders are encouraged by the colonel to seize the initiative (in tank warfare it’s everything, he says) and he is urging us to do the same, platoon by platoon, tank by tank, man by man. When an opening occurs, you deliver a punch! You’ll need to read the landmarks accurately and make smart decisions. You won’t have time to write reports or put something up for discussion. “Speed, judgment, response is everything in tank warfare. Everything! Toujours pret!”

  The lieutenant adds that the colonel will be observing. “The man’s a five-star general to the troops,” he notes. “Lanky dude. Young, smart, on the fast track. Went to Yale for a PhD and wrote the training manual by which the new army lives. You see him, he’ll treat you like a soldier, with respect. He’s the most admired CO since Jumping Jim Gavin parachuted with the 82nd Airborne into Germany and ended up having an affair with Marlene Dietrich!” he adds, getting us to hoot and howl like a pack of happy dogs.

  I sit with Sherman that evening and, as before, he calls me ‘mon.’ “Mon, you got it,” he says, having me know, based on my performance, that I’ve progressed from recruit to crewmate.

  “Noordy’s okay,” he adds. “Fool loves to talk. Thinks, like, in full paragraphs. Sounds like he’ll be rotating home by the end of the year. Means the lieutenant will be moving another crewmate–like me–into the gunner’s seat. Or bring in a fast gun from outside.”

  I wonder if ‘mon’ is Philly talk but decline to ask. Sherman has two years of college plus two University of Maryland Overseas courses in German–in which he was tutored by an ex-girlfriend from Bayreuth–and I wonder if ‘mon’ is a way for him to distinguish himself as more educated than others, like myself, who say ‘man.’ He has his eye on the gunner’s seat? This is a surprise. I know I’m a step up on him, no matter that he’s a corporal. I know, too, that if the nod comes my way there’s a good chance a racial charge will follow, no matter my performance exceeding his by two to one. Affirmative action. The army brags about maintaining a level playing field, but everyone knows that people of color get two chances to a white guy’s one.

  A full day goes to fixing MILES sensors to everything in sight. Referees attach the laser devices to vehicles and inspect the connections–two for each soldier, to helmet and web gear. A tank kill, a laser hit from an OPFOR vehicle, maybe a Russian T-72, will not only shut off a vehicle’s electronics and leave it immobilized but usually kill every crewmate by way of secondary explosions of stored ordinance. If not killed, a crew member can exit with his weapon, can even (the loader’s position alone has an M-16 assault rifle fixed overhead) surface behind an enemy tank and take it out on laser shots to its rear grillwork, while facing all but certain lethal fire from accompanying enemy vehicles and dismounted scouts. “You survive, you earn a point,” the lieutenant says. “You survive and hit an enemy tank, you earn points big time, especially if it gets identified as a T-72. Might-have-beens earn nada. War is hell. When you lose, you really lose.”

  A kill endured or scored against an individual soldier will trigger a whine from the laser device. A near-miss, disabling a soldier and calling for emergency first-aid and evacuation, can set off a beep that will kill everyone, including the rescuers. Also, OPFOR ambushes will take place at inopportune times, because in war everything goes wrong and success goes to those who keep ordinary things happening. Mortar and incendiary attacks will occur at any time. Smoke, terrible noise, fires, explosions, nuclear-biological-chemical attacks, and firecrackers can rain down when least expected, requiring first aid and evacuation, even full withdrawal if the alternative is annihilation…all before a unit can even think of going on offense.

  “Demoralization happens all the time,” the lieutenant adds. “Promotions for enlisted personnel and career leaps for officers can be literally seized by outsmarting the blinking yellow lights and shrill whines…just as careers will end for any soldiers who show incompetence, lack of character, or cowardice.”

  Engagement with OPFOR is scheduled to start at 1500 hours. On an impulse (or a word to the wise, for it’s a conscious if adolescent thought) I leave early for noon chow, at eleven-ten, thinking if I were going to bomb a field kitchen I’d do so at noon, when the lines are the longest. The cooks are willing to serve, and I have food in my mess kit by eleven-fifteen and in my belly ten minutes later–I pack it in–and am returning to The Claw, but minutes later a dozen smoke bombs go off behind me, triggering shrill beeps, whines, sudden chaos. Besides terminating food service for the day, two dozen cooks and soldiers have to sit and endure the squealing beeps that have ended their lives. Looking back, I see an outraged major near the officer’s mess tent heave his coffee mug and whining web gear to the ground (the mug doesn’t break) and bellow at a female referee, “Goddammit, we were told they weren’t going to do that!”

  “Never trust an enemy force, sir,” the referee replies.

  “I want to see whoever is in charge of this horseshit right now, goddammit!” comes from the major. “You cannot tell me I am out of this maneuver!”

  “Sir, I’d advise you to assume your role, or I’ll to have to have you arrested. You’ve lost your field kitchen and your personnel have taken some hits. It’s warfare. Act accordingly.”

  The referee, whom the major wanted to strangle, displaying no insignia or rank, walks away. I watch over my shoulder as the major pauses–the prospect of never making lieutenant colonel sprouting between his ears–retrieves his mug and whining web gear and moves on, only to heave the gear yet again to the ground, like an ejected, outraged pitcher on his way to the tunnel.

  At The Claw, Sherman is pissed over missing chow and says, “You got served!?”

  “Lucked out. Good grub. Macaroni and cheese.”

  The lieutenant howls. “You had a hunch the enemy would strike? That’s a question, Murphy.”

  “Did, sir. Thought if I was bombing I’d strike at noon and spoil everybody’s lunch. A lucky guess,” I add, not wanting to disclose that my impulse originated from my experience with playing war as a kid in the vacant lots of South Boston.

  “Not all luck,” the lieutenant says.

  “Memo came out sa
ying the field kitchen would be a safe zone this time around,” Sergeant Noordwink adds.

  “Enemy faked the memo,” I note, making the lieutenant pop with laughter.

  “Easy to laugh on a full stomach,” Sergeant Noordwink says.

  “We ride on the beast within,” comes from the giggling lieutenant.

  “Meaning, sir?” Noordwink says.

  “Meaning don’t listen to memos in warfare,” the lieutenant says. “Listen to your gut. Good instinct, Murphy. Impressive. Says you’re in the game.”

  The battle proper, following the dirty tricks and a fresh start, begins when a skirmish explodes into an assault. The Claw is one of twenty-five Geo Troop mud-bellies accelerating by then into a hard-driving wedge that has been determined to be an OPFOR flank. The strategy, confirmed by the captain by radio, is not to feint at all, as everyone expects, but to accelerate and hit hard from the west, to turn the enemy into a counter-defensive response that will leave it vulnerable to a surprise attack from the south by Eagle and Fox. The move is bold and secret and was settled on only last night, and a high casualty percentage for Geo is anticipated, the captain notes, adding that fatalities will be resurrected from the dead and allowed to fight a day later. Enduring a 40 percent casualty rate while inflicting 30 percent will constitute mission accomplished. “Ambush remains a possibility,” he warns. “Could come by way of anti-tank missiles from choppers exploding on the scene. At the same time the boldness of our attack will be unprecedented, and our own Cobras and Apaches will rise to counter-attack air-to-air, which reply will also carry elements of boldness and surprise. Force on force,” he says. “Geo’s job is to get in their face, throw them off balance, get their beepers beeping and flashing.”