Bravo Company Days

Chapter 4: fireguard adventures

For eight hours each night, our barracks became reminiscent of Berlin in 1936.

As soon as the hallway lights went out at 2100 hours, the barracks became a show of flashlights with red and blue filters that eerily resembled flashing police sirens. From then until first formation the next morning, all were subject to the Fireguard’s reign.

Supposedly, the Fireguard existed to make sure the barracks was clean and safe from fires. However, any private who had ever been caught with contraband, or who, on his way to the latrine in the middle of the night, had ever been greeted by a blinding shock of light to his unprepared eyes and a voice demanding to know what his business was, could tell you that Fireguard existed for more Orwellian purposes.

The honor of participation first fell on me that second night. I was standing at attention at final formation when First Sergeant Norman called my name from the computer-generated roster. I answered with “Case, moving” and exited the formation the meticulous way all the soldiers before me had, taking one well-measured step back into the gap between rows, pivoting on one foot, and hustling to join a separate group beside the main formation.

While the rest of the company was dismissed, a gruff Drill Sergeant A from fourth platoon put us at parade rest and treated us to our first rendition of the fireguard briefing.

“Those toilets better be so damn clean that the Queen of England herself would be honored to take a shit there,” he said toward the end of it. “And if I find that anyone is breaking rules on your watch, I will personally kick each of you in the ass so hard that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men won’t be able to put your anuses back together again. Are there any questions?”

I thought about commenting on the likelihood of British monarchs visiting Bravo Company, but in the interest of keeping my anus intact, stayed quiet until Drill Sergeant A said, “Get outta my sight.”

The formation turned into a mob and surrounded the complex matrix of papers taped to the wall that said when our shifts began. When the crowd thinned, I waded through and located my name under the 2100 shift column on the file that said, “stairwell duty desk.” That meant I had half an hour to do as I pleased before I had to take my station.

The first thing I did when I got back upstairs was double check my locker, which I had spent the evening tediously arranging for the pending inspection. On the top shelf, my field caps were folded as specified beside my flashlight and laundry detergent. My BDUs were on hangers, with the button side of my tops facing the left, sleeves folded back so that it looked like each pair was standing at parade rest. There was a small dresser with two drawers at the bottom. On the right side of my top drawer were my socks, underwear and PT gear which were rolled, stacked and folded, respectively. The bottom drawer was mine to arrange as I pleased. There I kept my toiletries in a neat bag I bought at the PX along with a few blank notebooks, a journal, and an assortment of pens and pencils in a refreshing clutter. At the back of the drawer were several pieces of literature disguised with the jackets of religious books, my one sin.

Satisfied, I decided I was overdue for a real shower and slipped into the latrine in my Army-approved shower shoes and toiletries bag. The latrine room was L-shaped, with a row of sinks and toilets lengthwise and a smaller shower room to the right. The best space I could find for myself had more water spraying from cracks in the neck than dribbling from the showerhead. The water was lukewarm at first and turned to ice within seconds. I removed a green bar of soap from the Army-approved plastic soap container and scrubbed my body as quickly as possible. The fleshy top of my recently sheered head felt alien as I applied the shampoo. When I got out I was shivering, but when I donned a clean pair of underwear and a new set of BDU’s I felt refreshed.

I climbed onto by bunk with one of my cherished black notebooks and recorded the following:

I’m laying on my bed at the barracks at 2040 hours. Ten minutes until I have to report for fireguard (it’s always a good idea to be ten minutes early around here). There are twelve people in room 218, but only four are in the room now. Beneath me, Private Macintyre is sitting Indian style on the floor putting some kind of powder on his feet. He looks like a skater kid from high school and speaks with some sort of northeastern accent. Is it from Boston or Brooklyn? He’s told me, but I don’t remember. Note to self: find out where he’s from.

Private Riley is also on the ground, doing pushups. His bunk is the one closest to the door. Whereas most of us are still learning each others’ names, Riley has already earned a nickname: Ritalin. Ritalin Riley’s biggest challenge at basic training seems to be resisting the temptation to smile at the drill sergeants. His one passion in life is Pokemon. Today, he asked me what my favorite one was. I told him it was a toss up between Pikachu and that fat, sleepy thing. He thinks we’re buddies now.

Private Floss is just standing in front of his locker talking to himself. He’s been there since formation let out. It sounds like he’s saying something like “No, no, that’s not quite right,” but when someone asks him about it, he emphatically denies he’s said anything.

Private Allen is reclined on the bottom bunk closest to the window. I don’t know anything about him other than he’s from Clay County, Kentucky, he’s missing his middle finger on his left hand from the second knuckle up, and he enjoys sharing tall tales of his sexual exploits. Right now he’s admiring a porno he found in the ceiling. It’s a good thing I’m going to be gone for fireguard the first two hours after lights out—on these squeaky bunks there’s no such thing as discreet masturbation.

At 2050, the hallways were in a flurry of activity that proceeded eight hours of lockdown. I weaved past the privates who were making their last pilgrimage to the latrine to take my station at the duty desk next to the stairwell. In the log, I wrote “2050. Pvt. Case signs in.” I drummed my pencil idly on the desk, envying the soldiers who had been selected to clean the toilets, mop the floors or simply wander the halls looking for an excuse to call someone out on something.

“So where are you from again?” I asked Macintyre, who was already sweeping the stairs in front of me with a big push broom from the supply closet.

“Brooklyn. How ‘bout you?”

“Idaho.”

“Idaho?” He stopped sweeping to unbutton his jacket and hang it on the railing. “What’s there to do in Idaho, milk goats?”

“I guess there’s lots of hiking, hunting, camping if you’re into that stuff.”

“But you’re not?”

“What makes you think that?”

“Just the way you said it, I guess.”

The lights in the hall flicked out and a dozen red and blue circles of light came into being. I stood up to move the desk to make the most of the light from the stairwell.

“So what are you into, Case?”

“Well, I’ve always wanted to be an author, but not
just any author, a good one.” I disclosed this with a
tinge of embarrassment that I couldn’t trace to the
source. “So I like, you know, reading books and writing stuff in notebooks.”

“That’s cool,” Macintyre said simply.

“So what are you into?” I said, plopping back into the desk.

“Drugs.”

“Come again…?”

“Drugs. I said I like drugs. You know, like reefer,
coke…”

“Yes, yes. I know what drugs are.”

“…Heroin, meth,” he continued, “ether—I am particularly fond of ether.”

“You’re pulling my leg.”

“Nah. I got outta high school two years ago and I’ve been partying hard ever since. My dad encourages me to get it out of my system while I’m young.”

“Are you into anything else?”

“Sex.”

“I’m guessing you didn’t join the Army in the interests of drugs and sex.”

“Well, not in the interest of drugs...”

“You must have less carnal interests.”

“Sure. I like anything new, anything adventurous. I like foreign food, silent movies, learning about different cultures and religions. For a while, sex and drugs were adventurous. One morning I woke up with a hangover and realized that drugs were no longer the adventure they used to be. Sex still is, don’t get me wrong, but I still needed something new. Anyway, as soon as my headache went away I found a recruiter and signed up for four years of active duty Army.”

“Huh. So, what’ll your next adventure be?”

“God knows. I only think about today.”

The air was now saturated with dust and a coughing Macintyre pulled his undershirt over his mouth and nose as a filter. He tried for a few minutes to sweep the dust in the pile into a small dust pan with the clumsy push broom. We both laughed as the dust went everywhere on the floor except the dustpan. Macintyre agreed to let me help him by holding the dustpan. Together, we made short work of it.

I climbed back into my desk and looked at my watch. 9:45 p.m. Not even half way yet.

“How long do you think the average human life expectancy is, rough guess?” asked Macintyre out of the blue.

“I think it’s like seventy two years, for most people,” I said.

“For most people, its closer to two years put on a loop thirty six times,” Macintyre retorted. “How many people do you think spend ten years living across the street from a church of a religion they don’t know anything about and never check it out? How many people go to a music store every week to buy the same processed corporate pop who don’t know or care about the difference between Mozart and Tchaikovsky? Earth is a big planet full of small minds and it’s a damn shame.”

“Huh,” I said.

I heard the sound of shower shoes smacking against the floor and moved my light up to see a lanky soldier with high cheekbones and a prominent Adam’s apple shielding his eyes.

“Whoa, take it easy on the eyes, man,” he said. “I just need to take a dump.”

“Oh, uh, sorry,” I said. “I just need your name rank and—”

“It’s Private Ryan Johnson, third platoon.”

“Uh, thanks,” I said once I had scrawled his information in the log. “Enjoy your visit to the latrine facility.”

I went back to drumming my pencil on the desk. I discovered that No. 2 pencils were actually amazingly diverse percussion instruments. If you hit the metal part below the eraser on the desk just right, I swear, it sounds almost like a steal drum. Mix in a few standard taps with the wood part above the lead and you’re practically a one man band. I had the drum line to Stairway to Heaven going when Macintyre rained on my parade.

“Are you ever going to stop drumming that pencil,” he said, “because you’re driving me insane.”

“I didn’t even realize I was doing it,” I said innocently. I set the pencil securely in the groove on the opposite end of the desk. I sat there for a minute, resting my head on my left arm, looking at the pencil. It seemed so sad, sitting there all alone with nothing to do. I allowed myself to touch it, to move it around in the little groove in the desk until it accidentally came out and rolled across the desk to me. The sound it made was incredible! I looked up at Macintyre to see if he’d noticed, but he was sitting on the top stair looking into space. I did it again, relishing the music.

“Are still making that sound with that pencil?”

“You said stop drumming the pencil,” I said
defensively, “I was rolling it.”

We sat in silence for few seconds, then I said, “I need to use the latrine. Could you sign in for a second?”

“Sure,” Macintyre said.

I wrote “Case signs out for latrine break” and initialed it, then left. I was washing my hands and on my way out of the latrine when I heard footsteps from the shower area.

“Johnson is that you?” I asked, remembering I never signed him out in the log.

I stepped into the shower area, which was secluded from the rest of the latrine and saw Johnson standing there looking nervous with a smoldering cigarette in his fingers.

“Johnson! Come on, man, you know you’re not supposed to be smoking in the barracks. Now I’m going to have to report you and look like a jerk.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Johnson said, his fingers interlaced in a begging pose. “Please don’t put this in the log. I was totally stressed out and I gave in. I can’t afford to lose three hundred dollars on an article fifteen. I’ve got a car payment and a wife and two kids, man.”

I brought my index finger up to my lip sharply and pointed a finger toward the hallway where the other Fireguards roamed. “Okay, calm down, we’ll figure something out,” I found myself saying.

“Really?”

“Really.”

I took a moment to survey the damage. Four cigarette butts lay bent and extinguished on the floor. The smell of smoke was overwhelming and I could see no obvious means of ventilation. I pressed a button on my watch and the glowing phosphorescent blue screen displayed 10:15 p.m. We had to wake up the relief party in fifteen minutes and then the drill sergeant would inspect the floor.

“Alright, first things first,” I said. “Pick up all the cigarette butts and open up the windows.”

“Thank you soooo much. I’m going to remember this. I’ve got your back from now on. What can I do to repay you?”

“For now, you can shut up.”

I went past the stair well to the supply closet to find anything that might help get rid of the smell. I stepped over a couple of old worn mop buckets and came back with two folded cardboard boxes, suitable for use as fans, and a box full of scented spray. The rest of the Fireguard was busy finding their replacements, so I was able to make it to the latrine unspotted. Macintyre gave me a funny look as I passed him up. I decided it was best to chance it and tell him what I was up to.

“Good job,” Macintyre said, “I’m proud of you for not tattle-telling on him.”

In the latrine, Johnson had opened the windows as I had asked him. I felt a cool breeze coming in from outside, but the cigarette smell was still noticeable. I handed him one of the boxes and we got to work, flapping the huge pieces of cardboard comically toward the open windows.

“I don’t think this is working,” Johnson said. “The air is coming in not going out.”

He was right—the whole hallway was beginning to smell faintly like smoke.

“Just keep fanning,” I said, “we can still try to cover it up with spray.”

“Don’t you think it might be a little suspicious to have all that spray in the air?” Johnson asked.

“Not as suspicious as having the smell of smoke in the air,” I retorted. I expended two cans of air freshener in the latrine and hallway, then signed back in to the desk in the stairwell and wrote that Private Johnson had signed out of the latrine.

It was 22:30 by my watch (I had adjusted it to military time) and the stairwell was crowded with our would-be relief party. Five minutes later, I heard somebody shout “at ease” and everyone cleared a path in front of the door for Drill Sergeant A to step through. He did not bother to say “carry on.”

“You better get back into proper uniform, soldier,” he barked at Macintyre, who quickly donned the jacket that he had set on the railing.

Drill Sergeant A inspected the floor, occasionally grumbling something under his breath. He made us re-mop a couple of the rooms’ floors, of course—no drill sergeant would ever give you credit for doing everything right the first time, no matter how good a job you had done. I gulped and exchanged nervous glances with Macintyre as he walked into the latrine.
Several privates coughed and exchanged disgusted expressions at the overpowering smell of meadow spring scent that filled the room. Drill Sergeant A stopped at the doorway. I thought he was opening his mouth to say something when he sneezed and said, “Damn this cold.”

While the drill sergeant was preoccupied examining the sinks, I heard two privates discuss the smell in hurried whispers. No, I didn’t use any spray did you…? Well, someone did…

I froze. They were on to us. But Drill Sergeant A moved on to the toilets, lifting each seat, searching for the smallest trace of filthiness. He seemed satisfied. He went to the shower room. I held my breath.

Drill Sergeant A sniffed loudly, the nostrils on his thin nose expanding. Then he squinted down at the floor and bent down to pick something up. “Someone has been smoking in here,” he said, holding a cigarette butt up to the light. “Someone has been smoking in my goddamn barracks!”

He ran into the hallway and flicked a switch by the stairwell. “I want everyone against the walls in thirty seconds or no one will get any sleep tonight,” he said as the florescent lights in the hallway flickered on “Thirty, twenty nine twenty eight….”
By the time the count was down to ten, the last few dazed privates were scrambling to find a place along the wall to squeeze in, shoulder to shoulder.
“One.” Drill Sergeant A waited for a few seconds to see if anyone else would run out of the rooms. No one did.

“I want to know right now. Who had the balls to smoke in my latrine?”

Silence.

“Aright, Bravo Company, we can do this the hard way. I’m stuck here all night anyway. Front leaning rest position, move!”

With an undisguised grumble of dissatisfaction, the privates whose eyes were still glossed with sleep assumed the pushup position. The hallway became a tangle of arms and legs as Drill Sergeant A said, “Down, up, down….”

“Just admit it!” someone shouted after thirty pushups.
I was just about ready to give in when Macintyre stood up.

“I did it,” he said. “I smoked a cigarette in the latrine.”

“Are you trying to be the hero, Macintyre?”
“No, drill sergeant, I did it.”

“Prove it. Show me your cigarettes.”

Macintyre moved as quickly as he could stepping over the mess of bodies until he got to room 218. I heard the sound of his locker door slamming and a few seconds later, he emerged with a pack of cigarettes in his hand. Drill Sergeant A snatched them away.

“These are the cigarettes you smoked in the latrine?”

“Yes, drill sergeant,” Macintyre said.

“Do you think I was born yesterday, Private Macintyre?

These are Lucky Strykes. The butt I found in the latrine was a Marlboro. I oughta know, I smoked them for ten years.” Drill Sergeant A turned to the soldiers in the hallway, who were still supporting their own bodyweight with arched backs and trembling arms. He held the pack of Lucky Strykes over his head and said, “Private Macintyre wants to be the hero. So be it. One of you little pukes is about to owe Private Macintyre a big favor. Position of attention, move!”
With a collective sigh of relief, two hundred privates assembled themselves shoulder to shoulder against the walls.

“Private Macintyre, which locker is yours?”

“Number eight in room two eighteen.”

I stood at attention as Drill Sergeant A walked into room 218. There was an unpleasant sound of metal scraping against the floor. Suddenly, Macintyre’s locker was in the hallway, with Drill Sergeant A standing beside it.

“Open it,” he said.

Private Johnson entered in a combination on the lock and opened the door.

“That’s an awfully neat locker, you’ve got there, Macintyre,” said the drill sergeant said. “I bet you put a lot of time into it.”

Drill Sergeant A started with the bottom drawer, pulling it out and dumping it at Macintyre’s feet. He unrolled each pair of socks, unfolded each shirt, until the contents of Macintyre’s locker were evenly distributed throughout the hallway.

“I decided to let you off easy tonight, because you’ve got balls, Private Macintyre, balls that someone here doesn’t have. The next person who smokes a cigarette on my watch will get worse. Now get some sleep.”
Drill Sergeant A seemed so happy with his punishing Macintyre that he seemed to have forgotten his promise to make life hell for everyone else on guard duty, too. I made no point of reminding him.

A few soldiers including Johnson helped us move the locker back in place. Just about everyone contributed to gathering Macintyre’s things into a big pile in our room. But ten minutes later, it was only Johnson and I who remained to help him put his locker back in place for inspection.