by Daniel Gibbs
“You can still do that, David. You just have to forgive yourself. You did nothing wrong; you defended yourself and the two soldiers under your command.”
“Not well enough. Private Beckett is dead. On my watch. Under my command.”
“So you blame yourself for his death as well?”
“Yes. I shouldn’t have tried to be a hero.”
“Major Pipes believes you saved his ship.”
“Good for him.”
Amy paused for a moment. “What do you want, David?”
“I want to be a man of peace. I want to try, in some small way, to make this universe a better place.”
“I might say that you made the universe a better place by saving Major Pipes’ ship.”
David closed his eyes for a moment. “Then why do I wake up seeing those dead Leaguers in my dreams at night?”
“Because most of us aren’t equipped to handle killing our fellow humans in close quarters without it causing significant emotional trauma. And those it doesn’t affect tend to have some form of mental disorder that prevents them from being in touch with their feelings.”
David shook his head. “Right now, I almost wish I had one of those disorders.”
“Trust me, you don’t.” Amy smiled before asking her next question. “What about boot camp? What happened to you once you were denied the draft deferment?”
“I took the oath…” David said, his mind trailing off to remember the day after his eighteenth birthday when he attended the ceremony to take the CDF Oath of Service. He’d known for years that the draft was coming as it had been enacted when he was thirteen years old. Thinking back to his vow to become a rabbi, he stood in line with dozens of other young men and women, patiently waiting for the sergeant-at-arms to start the ceremony.
“Good afternoon, recruits. We are gathered here today as you take your first steps to becoming young soldiers in the Coalition Defense Force. Each of you has passed your entry physical exam, been provided with a military occupation, and received your orders to basic training. Now raise your right hand and repeat after me.”
David raised his right hand and repeated the oath as directed. “I, David Cohen, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the Terran Coalition against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, and that I will obey the orders of the President of the Terran Coalition and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”
With the oath behind him, David was a soldier. He spent one more night at home with his mother, who, with the pride of a military mother, threw a party to see him off, but David’s heart lacked the pride that his mother’s held. As he’d just graduated from secondary school, he didn’t feel ready to go away for four years, but he knew that it was his duty to do so, as so many had fought before him.
After pulling up to the recruit training center for the CDF on Canaan the next day, David stepped onto the transport craft packed with sixty young men and women. Little was said amongst the recruits on the hours-long journey from the city to the military base as the young adults all waited with naïve eagerness for what would happen next. It was early the following morning when the transport craft pulled into the docking bay.
A drill instructor in a crisply pressed uniform, one who didn’t seem fazed by the time of morning, stormed onboard. “Let’s go! Let’s go! Move it! Get off my transport, ladies! Sleep time is over! Welcome to the CDF!”
David awkwardly stood and made his way forward with the rest of the teenagers, falling into their first formation as directed by the drill instructors. Once in formation and separated, men on one side and women on the other, a tall, burly drill instructor stood in front of the formations. The recruits stood at attention simply out of fear and awaited their next command, trying not to be last or too slow.
“Attention, recruits! Welcome to recruit training station Lancaster. This is where you will become trained soldiers of the CDF.”
The drill instructors paced between the ranks of recruits looking for someone to flinch, to remove a hair from their face, or scratch an itch. David stood motionless like a mannequin, trying not to attract attention.
“Staff Sergeant! Did you tell this recruit he could yawn?” a drill instructor asked, regarding the heavyset teenager standing in the front of the formation.
“Absolutely not!” the big man in front barked.
“Recruit… do you need a nap?” the drill instructor screamed at the scared recruit next to David.
“Uh, no, sir!”
“Drop down and give me ten pushups, recruit!”
The teenager fell to his knees, but had trouble getting through the pushups required. After five, he lay in the dirt.
“Oh, look here. Momma’s fat biscuit-eater is out of shape. Keep pushing, recruit!”
After a moment, the recruit finished out the pushups and was roughly returned to his place in line.
“As I was saying,” the drill instructor said, “when we tell you to, you will pick up your belongings, file off, starting with the front row, and go straight into the room to your right. Women, to the left. The drill instructor at the front of the room will provide you further instruction. File off!”
With that command, each recruit picked up their belongings and quickly followed in the person to their right to complete processing. Everyone was fitted for camouflage fatigues, and as that occurred, their civilian clothes were packed in their bags, tagged and gathered. Finally, heads were shaved, and they were organized into companies.
As David went through each section of processing, an array of thoughts flooded through him. My father chose to do this. Did he know what he was in for?
It took several hours to get through all of the processing stations. By the time he finished, David just wanted to go home. God, please help me get through this, he kept repeating to himself. Finally, the recruits were reassembled and David sat with one hundred and sixty others, with a shaved head and poorly fitting fatigues, listening to the senior drill instructor introduce himself.
“Sit up straight! Stop slouching! Act like soldiers!” A short, brutally imposing man with a nametag that read “Salazar” said at the top of his lungs in a raspy voice. To David, it seemed like the man had been doing this his entire adult life.
“Sir, yes, sir!” the company responded in a completely non-cohesive manner.
“My name is Staff Sergeant Macro Salazar. I am your senior drill instructor. My mission is to train you maggots to become soldiers in the Coalition Defense Force.” Salazar thundered. “A soldier in the Coalition Defense Force is a person who possesses the highest of virtue, obeys lawful orders, shows respect to his fellow soldiers and seniors, and strives to be the absolute best at anything he attempts. Spirit, discipline, and courage are at the core of everything that he does!”
Salazar strolled around the bay as he spoke. “Each of you may earn the right to be called a soldier, and I will give everything of myself to train you, even after you give up on yourself. From now on, I will be with you every single day, everywhere you go, and I will instruct you on how to do everything that you need to learn to be a soldier in the Coalition Defense Force.”
Pausing for a moment, Salazar turned toward them and glared. “I have told you what I will do for you. Now I will tell you what I expect from you. No one will quit, You will give one hundred percent of yourselves at all times. You will obey all orders quickly and without hesitation. You will never give up. Do these things, and you may earn the title of Coalition Defense Force soldier. Now stand up!”
Jumping to his feet with the rest of the recruits, David marched in place as he was instructed.
“Attention on deck! Right face! Forward, march, recruits!”
With that, the recruits halted, turned to the right, and filed out of the bay with the drill instructors barking orders at them from the top of their lungs.
As Dav
id finished relating the memory to Ellison, she looked genuinely sympathetic. “I was too old to be called up when the draft was instituted, David… I don’t have a frame of reference for it.”
“Boot camp itself wasn’t that bad. It was what happened when the drill instructors found out who my father was… I was an easy target,” David said.
“How did you cope with that?” Ellison asked.
“By trying to stay off their radar as much as I could.”
“Could you tell me about it?”
David thought back to his first drill formation, standing at attention outside of the recruit barracks.
Salazar’s voice as he walked down the line of recruits flooded back into David’s mind. “And why did you join the Coalition Defense Force?” he asked in his raspy voice.
“I was drafted, sir!”
“You were drafted…you didn’t volunteer? Do you not want to serve your country?”
“Sir, I do want to serve my country, sir!” David responded with confidence.
“Are you contradicting me, recruit?”
“Sir, no, sir!”
“Are you confused, recruit? Because you did contradict me!”
A female recruit behind David snickered at his predicament. Salazar immediately turned his attention to her. “Do you think I’m funny, recruit?”
“Sir, no, sir!” she shouted.
“Drop down and give me twenty-five!”
The teenager dropped down into position and counted off her twenty-five push-ups.
“One, two, three, four,” she said, laboring harder with each rep.
Once completed, the young recruit ran back into formation as Salazar returned his ire to David. “Now, do you want to serve your country?”
“Sir, yes, sir!” David shouted back.
“Do you think you’re special? Did your daddy fly his ship into the side of a League battleship or something?”
“Sir, I don’t think I’m special, but my father did fly his ship into the side of a League battleship, sir!”
Salazar stared at him for a second. “Well, no shit,” he said, momentarily taken off guard. “So you’re that David Cohen?”
“Sir, yes, sir!”
“You do think you’re special, then! Drop down and give me fifty pushups, recruit!”
As David dropped to the ground to do the pushups, he saw the smirk on Salazar’s face. Oh great. Ten weeks of this guy busting my balls because of my father. That’s just awesome.
Fifty painful pushups later, David finished the count and Salazar ordered him to his feet. “I’ve got my eye on you, maggot. Back in line!”
Walking down the line of recruits, he stopped in front of another young woman. “And why are you here?”
“To, uh, figure out my life path, sir!” she got out nervously.
“Do I look like a life guide to you, recruit? Do I look like your mommy?”
“Sir, no, sir!”
“Lucky for you, I am a life guide! I will lead; you will follow! You will do exactly as I instruct you at all times. Do you understand me, recruit?”
“Sir, yes, sir!”
“I don’t think you do! Drop down and give me twenty-five pushups!”
Walking back around to the front of the line, Salazar continued his monologue. “Now give me a battle cry!”
The body of recruits yelled out a cry that was mostly ineffectual. “That was pathetic!” Salazar barked. “Sergeants! Give them a proper demonstration of a CDF battle cry!”
The two drill instructors picked an unlucky recruit to scream at in both his ears. “Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!” they shouted at the top of their lungs.
“Now try it again, recruits!” Salazar said.
Again, the recruits screamed out a cry much louder than the last, but nowhere near what the two drill instructors had managed.
“It’s still pathetic! You wouldn’t scare a small dog with that noise. Never mind, I’ll fix that in the next ten weeks, and I will turn you filthy civilians into lean, mean fighting machines. Now fall in. We’re going for a run, ladies!”
Ellison laughed as David finished retelling the story of his first drill formation. “Your drill instructor sounds like…well, a colorful character, David.”
David laughed with her. “The truth is, even though at first I couldn’t stand him, by the end of the ten weeks, I had grown to respect Staff Sergeant Salazar greatly. In fact, I doubt I’d be alive today if I hadn’t been given the training I received at his direction.”
“I’m glad the experience ended up being positive for you, then.”
“Me too.”
“I’m afraid we’re almost out of time.”
“Communications credits do come at a premium these days,” David said. “Thank you. Just talking about all this does make it somewhat better.”
“Good. Let’s do it again soon, then.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Amy,” she reminded him with a smile.
“Yes, Amy.”
“God bless, and Godspeed, David.”
“Godspeed.”
4
The following week, David was cleared to return to full duty. His presence had been requested by the commanding officer of the Artemis, Major Pipes. David had been told he was up for a commendation for his performance during the boarding action, but inside, he didn’t want the recognition. Walking up to the hatch to the CO’s office, he knocked on the rim, as it was open.
“Come in, Corporal!” boomed Pipes.
David walked into the office and braced to attention. “Corporal David Cohen, reporting as ordered, sir!”
“At ease, Corporal. Take a seat.”
Across from the major, David sat ramrod straight in the nearest chair and locked his eyes forward. Retreating to what he had learned in boot camp seemed to provide some comfort.
“Corporal, I wanted to speak with you earlier, but I was asked to wait awhile until you were cleared by the counselor. How’re you doing?”
David furrowed his brow. That was a loaded question, but he sensed Major Pipes had genuine concern for his wellbeing. “I’m…okay, sir.”
“Killing someone, even the enemy, isn’t an easy thing, son,” Pipes said, a look of concern on his face.
“No, sir, it’s not. I never wanted to kill another person. I just wanted to do my duty for four years, and then continue my religious studies.”
“Ah yes.” Pipes nodded to the flag of New Israel on David’s uniform shoulder. “Orthodox, yes?”
David nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Corporal, I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you to find out what your father did for the Terran Coalition. I understand you feel the best path for you is to be a rabbi, but I’d like you to consider the possibility of a different calling in life.”
David raised an eyebrow. “Sir?”
“You have clear command ability, son. Even though you lack advanced training in small arms combat, your first instinct was to rush to the sound of the guns. Furthermore, once there, you made the right calls throughout the engagement.”
David looked away. “With respect, sir, I had no business trying to fight off a League boarding party. I don’t know what was going through my head. I don’t know why I made the choices I did. I guessed, and my guesses cost a good man his life. He’ll never go home. He was under my command. It was my job to keep him safe.”
Pipes leaned forward in his chair. “Corporal, I can see all over your face that you blame yourself for what happened. You can’t do that. The League is the reason Private Beckett is dead. Let me tell you something… if you really guessed your way through that engagement, then I’m even more impressed because you innately made the right calls.”
David forced himself to look back at Pipes. “Thank you, sir, but I’m struggling to make peace with the fact that I killed a bunch of people. It shouldn’t be so easy to do that. It’s not right.”
Pipes stood up from behind his desk and walked around it to sit down nex
t to David. “No, it’s not right. But it’s something that soldiers like us have to deal with. It follows us around and it’s a constant companion.”
“How do you make peace with it, sir?”
“You don’t, and if you ever become okay with killing someone else, then something very wrong has happened to you. It’s supposed to hurt; it’s supposed to be painful. But if we don’t kill them, they’ll kill us. And after they do, they’ll kill our wives, our mothers, our families, and our children. So we stand on the line and ensure it doesn’t happen.”
Pipes put his hand on David’s shoulder. “Son, you’ve got a gift to command. You’re good at this, better than many others I have seen in my career. If you’d like, I’ll sponsor you for officers’ candidate school. We need more people like you out here or we won’t win this war.”
David shook his head. “I’m sorry, sir. I have no desire to be an officer, nor to continue in the CDF after I have completed my required service.”
Pipes nodded, a small frown evident on his face. “I understand, son. If that should change, I’d be glad to recommend you at any time. I have something else for you.” He paused for a moment, stood up, and retrieved a case from his desk. “Please stand, Corporal.” Once David stood, he snapped the medal case open and showed it to David. “I am pleased to award you the Bronze Star with the V device for your actions in defense of this ship.” After closing the case, he handed it to David. “We’ll hold a formal ceremony later, but I wanted you to have this.”
“Thank you, sir,” David said, unable to really say anything else.
“If you change your mind, you know where to find me, Corporal,” Pipes said, his easy smile returned.
“Yes, sir.”
“Carry on, Corporal.”
David stood quickly and braced to attention. “Yes, sir!”
David took his time walking back to his bunk, wrestling with the CO’s offer. What if he was good at being a soldier? That thought haunted him. He didn’t want to be good at killing people. I know my calling is to be a rabbi, he thought, looking up at the top of his bunk. What if Major Pipes is right?