Bravo Company Days

Chapter 7: adapt and survive

7

The first days of basic training remind me of a time when I jumped into Lake Little Lemhi at scout camp some years ago. For a minute the water was freezing and my teeth chattered. Then I began to tread water and I noticed the cold less and less. Basic training is a psychological plunge. The first contact is intense, but you get used to it. The mind, like the body, constantly surprises with its ability to adapt.

By the second week of basic training the Bravo Company recruits had shown signs of adapting. The voices that answered with “here drill sergeant” were no longer timid. Calls for volunteers received more hustling privates than were needed. A newfound confidence was infiltrating Bravo Company almost as quickly as runny nose and cough we were all getting.

The change in attitude was not limited to the rank-and-file. The drill sergeants were starting to act more like stern teachers than recreational sadists. This was not a sign the drill sergeants had “gone soft,” as it seemed to me at first but rather a calculated strategy adjustment. The drill sergeants were willing to correct anyone who thought otherwise.

On Monday we learned first respondent medical skills. I was treating a simulated casualty for bleeding when Drill Sergeant Chambers stopped me.

“Now hold on there, Case. You see that pressure
dressing? That’s not nearly tight enough. See I can move it up and down his leg just by tugging it lightly like this. You’ve got to really pull that bitch tight if you want arterial bleeding to stop. And the knot is supposed to be directly over the wound to maximize pressure.”

I said, “Roger that, drill sergeant,” then I pulled the knot apart with my fingernails and fixed it the way he had specified.

“That’s it. You’re cookin’ with oil, Case. Now switch places with Johnson and let’s see how he does.”

Later that evening First Sergeant Norman addressed the assembled company from his platform. He explained that soon we would begin our next phase of training, during which the platoons would answer to internal chains of command. Each soldier would report three times a day to his or her squad leader and each squad leader would report to the platoon guide, or PG. Only the PG would be allowed to address one of the drill sergeants directly.

When the drill sergeants took charged, they announced what soldiers would be in leadership positions and who belonged to what squad. Cateau was the PG for second platoon. Her ability to stay reposed and obvious motivation made her an obvious choice. The squad leader I fell under was Macintyre. Why they chose him I still haven’t figured out.

The next morning, after completing our regimen of sit-ups, push-ups and cardiovascular exercises, Cateau marched us to chow for the first time. Drill Sergeant K walked beside her to help her with the commands. While we marched, Cateau lead us in her favorite cadence:

Around the world she pushed the baby carriage,

She pushed it in the spring time in the mer-ry month of Maaaaaay,

And if you asked her why the hell she pushed it,

She pushed it for the trooper who was far, far away.

Far away, Far away she pushed it for the trooper who

was far, far away…

And in the closet her daddy kept a shotgun.

He kept it in the springtime in the mer-ry month of

Maaaay,

And if you asked him why the hell he kept it,

He kept it for the soldier who was far far away…

I liked this cadence, not only for its rousing beat but because it made me feel gallant—like those knights who would ride to battle with a ribbon of the woman they loved tied around an arm. It reminded me of how I felt during the briefing on the second day.

Once we had crammed down another breakfast, all the troops in Bravo Company formed a huge line in front of the storage room on the third floor of the barracks to sign for another round of issued equipment. Our new gear included a rucksack, two one-quart canteens with pouches, two crayons of facial camouflage, a Kevlar helmet, chemical-resistant over-garments and a gas mask, which was kept in a green pouch at our sides and a load bearing equipment, or LBE, which was a belt and suspenders that sort of held everything together.
Putting on all this equipment made me feel more like a warrior. All except the helmet, that is. My head was just a bit too large to fit a medium-sized Kevlar helmet and a bit too small to fit a large. I ended up with a large-sized helmet that made me look like the satirical wobbly-headed Bill Clinton figure that I kept on the dashboard of my used car in the civilian world.

After lunch we practiced defensive maneuvers for nonconventional attacks. Cateau would yell “Gas, gas, gas!” and we’d have nine seconds to rip our masks out of the carrying pouches at our hips, pull the masks over our heads, tighten the Velcro straps, clear them by exhaling vigorously, and suction them to our faces. Each failure came with a penalty of twenty five pushups.

The day was exhausting but I had trouble getting to sleep that night on account of the ceaseless hacking and coughing that pervaded the barracks. Wednesday morning forty seven people signed up for sick call and the formation was noticeably smaller. The drill sergeants had warned us about “the private plague”—that was what they called the malady that came from bringing two hundred recruits with localized strains of the cold into one barracks.

Most of the troops who went on sick call returned with doctor’s diagnosis proving that they were really sick. Still, accusations of shamming circulated because of convenient timing of the ailments. After all, Wednesday was not just any day, it was the feared “gas chamber day.”

Those of us who were unlucky enough to feel okay loaded on a bus bound for the “Nuclear Biological and Chemical Warfare Confidence Course.” We unloaded in a fenced in complex on a hill some ten minutes later. We spent most of the day in a classroom where a staff sergeant took us through a lengthy slide presentation that taught things like how to dissemble, clean, and reassemble the masks and how many shots of atropine you were supposed to give someone who had been infected with chemical agents.

Then came the dreaded gas chamber. We donned our full chemical gear and masks and the drill sergeants escorted five of us at a time to a small one-room building. The room was unfurnished except for a propane burner in the middle of the room that billowed white smoke from a coffee can. I noticed a slight haziness of the air in the room and I felt a sensation on my exposed skin like a sun burn.

The drill sergeants asked us to walk around and rotate our heads to make sure we had sealed our masks properly. There was one soldier who did not, Floss I think, who suddenly fell to the ground choking. Two sergeants grabbed him by an arm and drug him outside. Our next instruction was to slip two fingers under the sealed portion of our mask and let a little bit of the noxious fumes seep in. As we did this, Drill Sergeant Chambers went from soldier to soldier, asking each to pull the mask over his mouth and repeated his name, rank, and social security number and squad. I was already beginning to tear up when Drill Sergeant Chambers reached me. I said the information as quickly as I could with a breath of air I had been holding. I was hoping he would move on to the next soldier but instead he said, “One more time, slowly.”

I took a shallow, breath of the stuff and coughed but forced myself to say it again with as much motivation as I could muster. I was beginning to feel weak. Little black dots were creeping in from the periphery of my vision. Nevertheless I gave him a “thumbs up.” Satisfied, he moved on to the next soldier. I pulled the mask over my mouth and resealed it to my face. I blew a one strong breath to flush out all the gas and the air in my mask was breathable again.

Our final challenge was the worst yet: the drill sergeants made us each pull off our gas masks entirely and keep our eyes open for five seconds and shout “Bravo Company!” before running from the room. We came out of the room in tears, trying to dissipate the gas by flapping our arms like pathetic flightless birds. Far from being a relief, the sudden contact with oxygen seemed to intensify the irritation in my eye. My eyes swelled until I could only see through little crescents. Snot ran down our noses and hung from our chins in long quivering strings. It was unclear what, exactly, the course was supposed to instill confidence in, other than the working condition of our sinuses.

With a day like that behind us all soldiers, sick, well or somewhere in the middle, were happy to hear that our first batch of mail had arrived. After a shower had washed the last of the eye-stinging residue down the drain, we congregated in the classroom on the first floor of the barracks. Drill Sergeant K reached into a large post office bag and reached in and pulled out each letter one at a time, calling the soldier to whom it was addressed, and tossed it on the floor. Each soldier did 25 pushups before opening the letter. I almost felt bad for Riley, who got letters from both of his parents and each of his five cousins. Almost.

Five minutes went by and I had still not received a letter. It was impossible to see how many letters were still left in the mail bag though I could still see that there was some weight in it. Everyone without a letter feared the each one would be the last.
“Private Case.”

I did my pushups in ecstasy. Determined to save the surprise for the last possible moment, I tore open the envelope and unfolded the letter without looking at it. When I could think of no further excuse for delay I glanced down at the paper in my hands. “Congratulations Spencer, you have been pre-approved for such-and-such brand of credit card.” I deposited the letter in the nearest trash receptacle I could find.

Finally, Drill Sergeant K turned the bag upside down and no letters came out. There was a sigh of disappointment from all the troops who did not get a letter and Drill Sergeant K—still his sadistic self—smiled at this.

I turned to Allen who was in the desk next to me. He was staring at an unopened envelope in a sort of daze. Somehow, Allen’s immune system had been able to ward off the infectious enthusiasm but not the cold.

“Didn’t you do your pushups already?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said, bringing his hand up to his face just in time to block a series of sneezes.

“So why don’t you open it?”

“I’m scared of what might be inside. There’s no return address.”

“Oh, don’t be silly. Maybe it’s the judge writing to say he’s reconsidering that custody issue, huh?”

“You think so?”

“Sure.” I didn’t think it was likely that a judge would write a letter without using an envelope with a special seal or at least a return address, but it seemed to encourage Allen.

Allen slipped his thumb under the flap and tore open the envelope. He pulled out a handwritten letter on wide-rule paper. I could tell by the look on his face that something was wrong.

“What is it?”

“Dear Jesus.” Allen’s head sank down on the desk and his hand, still holding the letter balled into an agonized fist. “Not this, not this.”

“Allen what is it?” It was Riley this time.

“It’s the gal I had the affair with,” he said with his head still on the desk. “Apparently I knocked her up.”

There was a moment of silence.

“So does that mean you’re going to have to pay child support?” Riley asked, stupidly.

Allen looked up at Riley and gave him the finger with his nub without ever letting go of the now crumpled letter.

“What it means is that I’ll probably never get custody of my daughter.”

I’ve heard it said that everyone has a breaking point. With that letter, Allen reached his. For the next few days all of his boasting, his obscene jokes, even his sex stories stopped.

“Did I ever tell you about the day I lost my middle finger, Case?” Allen asked me when we were laying in our bunks one night.

“You said you lost it in a girl.”

He ignored that. “I was unloading concrete from a truck with my brother when I was fourteen. We were lifting this big sharp block of it and I slipped on the gravel and the edge landed on my finger, right between my middle and top knuckle.”

I could not help but wince and hold my middle finger at this account.

“And you know what I did? I picked up my finger got in the truck and drove all the way to the hospital while my brother—my older brother—was freaking out. I didn’t even have a license. I never cried. I told myself I never would.”

Allen was late for morning formation. He made a point of walking over to his place like he was in no hurry. Drill Sergeant Chambers almost lost his head. Allen didn’t call cadence or else he called it off tempo. His feet were never in step. The drill sergeants smoked him, yelled at him, even pulled him aside to encourage him, but Allen didn’t care.

He became mean.

“Hey, Private Harris,” he called to a female soldier while we were eating MREs “You’re fat.”
He waited for a reaction, and when he didn’t get one, he prodded further.

“You’re ugly, too. No man will ever love you. You’ll die alone and no one will visit your grave.”
“Allen that’s enough!” I interjected. “Leave the poor girl alone. Don’t listen to him Harris. Allen ruined his life and now he’s trying to take it out on you.”
Macintyre just laughed at Allen’s malicious attacks. It irritated me that he always seemed to be Allen’s ally.

Allen became personal with me, too. I was cleaning out my locker and rearranging the pictures I had posted. Each soldier was allowed six photos inside their locker and I was deciding which I wanted. Allen snatched a photo out of my hands.

“Oooh is this Case’s girlie friend?”

“No, that’s my sister, Lindsey. Now hand it over.”

“She looks pretty sexy to me. I could definitely show her a few things she’s never seen before.”

I tried to grab it out of his hand but he evaded and licked the photo.

I seized it back at last and disgustedly wiped it clean with my undershirt. “She’s only fourteen, you pervert!”

The next day we were standing in line for chow in our ritualistic way. Each person stood at parade rest until the line moved. When there was an opening the each troop would meticulously go to attention, take one step forward and return to parade rest.
Just as we took our step forward, Allen leaned forward and said in my ear, “I bet your sister’s tender little pussy doesn’t even have hair on it.”

The comment hit its mark and I felt hatred contaminate me. It started as a disgusting, malignant knot in my gut spread through my body. A few weeks ago, in a paper for Philosophy 101, I had written “hate is defined as the desire to cause harm to another being or object as an end unto itself.” I had defined hatred correctly but never experienced it until now. Right then in the chow hall I understood evil. I understood how the Nazis could do the things they did, how family feuds could rage for generations long after the original insult had been forgotten. Hatred—the experience, not the definition—explained it all.

No compunction or threats of punishment would have deterred me from murdering Allen on the spot if I’d had the means. Yet I did nothing but stand there and tremor, even more aggravated by the thought that this reaction was just what Allen wanted. The line started to move. I went to attention and took one step forward. I sat next to Allen after my tray was filled because that’s where Drill Sergeant Chambers pointed his finger. I ate with more than usual displeasure then deposited my empty tray in the garbage and fell into formation as far away from Allen as I could.

As soon as everyone had returned to formation they marched us to the field across the street from the barracks. It was one big company formation so the PGs marched like everybody else and the drill sergeants called cadence. The cadence was loud and jovial and I sang reluctantly because I knew it would put me in a better mood. Then it occurred to me how strange it is that people are sometimes resistant to being happier. I would make a note of this in my black notebook when I had the chance and maybe use it for a philosophy paper.

The formation halted and the drill sergeants told us to spread out in a big circle.

“Our mission today is to learn basic hand-to-hand combat maneuvers,” said Drill Sergeant A from fourth platoon, who was standing in the middle of the circle. He narrated as two other drill sergeants demonstrated some important combat positions, and a few variations of the arm bar. When the instruction had been given, Drill Sergeant A instructed every other person to take two steps toward the circle then turn and face the person who was standing on their left. When Drill Sergeant A blew the whistle, everyone facing each other began to wrestle. This would continue for two minutes or until one person tapped. After each round Drill Sergeant A blew the whistle and the inside circle would rotate to the left while the outside remained stationary. Then the whistle blew and the new pairs would begin to grapple.

My first match was Duncan a very strong African American who was also PG of fourth platoon. He had no trouble breaking my chokehold and getting me in an arm bar. He had me beaten three times before the whistle blew. My next match was Harris. I heard rumors that she later claimed to have “given me a good fight” but this is only true because it was awkward wrestling a girl.

When the circle rotated a third time I was standing face to face with Allen and I heard the shrill whistle. The match begun like any other, until I felt Allen jab me in the kidney with his elbow. He said sorry but I knew it was no accident. Before the time was up I had him pinned with my forearm putting pressure on his neck. I could have stopped there but instead I pressed harder. Allen tapped with his free hand but I did not let up. The whistle marked the end of the match but I ignored that too. His face grew red in panic and his limbs flailed.

Just as he looked like he was ready to pass out I felt myself seized by the collar and pulled to my feet. I was staring in to the bulbous eyes of Drill Sergeant K.

“Private Case, what the fuck is going on here?”
I was at once terrified and ashamed. I tried to suppress the sob in my throat—please, God, don’t let me cry in front of everyone—but it was too late. A sob broke out. “I hate Allen! I hate Allen! I hate Allen!”

Without letting go of me, Drill Sergeant K reached down and yanked Allen to his feet by the collar. “You are going to tell me right now what this is all about.”

Still gasping for air Allen said, “Case is sore because I keep joking about his sister. Nothing serious, just jokes in good fun, that’s all.”

“Both of you are coming with me.” We marched in a small “formation” that consisted of me and Allen in single file and Drill Sergeant K calling the commands in a cold “left, right, left, right” without any cadence at all.

He marched us to the front desk and handed each of us a piece of paper. “This is your Article 15 paperwork. Fill it out in the classroom and then see me.”
An Article 15 was the lowest legal punishment the Army could administer. It involved loosing three hundred dollars out of your next paycheck and having a permanent scar on your record. Allen and I exchanged poisonous glances as we filled out the paperwork.

When we had finished the paperwork and set them back on Drill Sergeant K’s desk we waited at attention. He seemed absorbed too absorbed in his work to notice. Eventually however he gave the command for parade rest.

“Soldiers,” Drill Sergeant K said, “if there is one thing I can’t stand it’s seein’ soldiers fight other soldiers. For God sakes there is a war going on and the enemy is not divided. How the hell are we supposed to win this damn war on terrorism if we’re too distracted fighting each other?” He let this rhetorical question ring for a bit before continuing. He held up a wallet-sized photo of a young black soldier with a red beret. I could tell it was Drill Sergeant’s son by the features on his face. He had a look of complete dedication on his face, the look of someone who was unafraid of death.

“As you might have guessed this is my son, Sergeant Matt King. A few months ago I got a call in the middle of the night saying that he had been injured while serving in Iraq. It turns out that he had been injured by an IED. He was in the gun turret and a piece of shrapnel the size of a nickel went right through his shoulder. He treated two other soldiers with more severe injuries before allowing himself to be treated. That is the sort of dedication I expect each and every soldier to display in this Army! You should be ashamed of yourselves for turning the fight on each other. Tomorrow I had better observe a major attitude change or I’m sending in this paperwork to be processed. Am I understood?”

“Yes, Drill Sergeant.” Allen and I replied in relief.

“Now get out of my face. Shower up, attend to your duties.”

I turned to go back to my bunk but Allen stayed in the same spot. “Drill Sergeant,” he said, “I want to go home.”

“Excuse me, Private Allen?”

“I said I want to go home.”

“One more time.”

“I want to go home.”

Drill Sergeant K slammed his fist against the desk. “So that’s what this is all about. Well you’re going to have to suck it up, Private Allen because I am not going to have a meeting with the battalion commander explaining to him that I have lost another soldier.”

“That’s fine,” Allen replied defiantly. “I’ll just make myself totally worthless to you. I’ll get out of bed whenever I want. I’ll eat for however long I want and I will disregard any orders I receive until you kick me out.”

Drill Sergeant K’s face changed from being sternly professional to being vindictive and personal. “Is that the kind of game you want to play, Allen? I can play that game too. My friend Staff Sergeant Hernandez happens to work with the battalion that would be responsible for your outprocessing if you were to leave today. All it would take is a quick phone call and I could see that your documents get mishandled, or misplaced. Those legal mistakes often take months to fix. In the meantime you would be stuck on medical hold. If you tried to leave before then you would be AWOL and probably go to jail.”

Allen tried to hide a look of horror on his face. “You’re bluffing. You can’t really do that.”

“Try me. It would make my day.” Drill Sergeant King’s lips curled into a sick smile. He knew he had won.

Allen could think of nothing to say but “I’ll stay, Drill Sergeant.”

“You’ve made the right choice.”

Allen and I started back to room 218 when Drill Sergeant King called us one last time. “Not so fast. If you want me not to turn these papers in then you’d better give me some pushups.”

“How many, Drill Sergeant?”

He pointed to the long hallway that connected the two sides of the barracks. “Do ten pushups then move forward one square. When you get to the other end of the hall you’re free to go.”

We were both stunned.

“That’s over a thousand pushups, drill sergeant.”

“Right you are Private Allen. I guess you’d better get on it as soon as possible.”

With no other choice we got into the front leaning rest position and started doing pushups. After fifteen squares my uniform was damp with sweat. Drill Sergeant King gave us permission to unbutton our jackets.

“How many more squares to we have left in this hall?” I asked Allen.

“About eighty.”

We continued at it for two hours. Whenever we had to give our chest muscles a chance to rest Drill Sergeant King made us do flutter kicks or crunches. Other soldiers stepped over us. Huge puddles of our sweat gleamed on the hallway floor. Drill Sergeant King allowed us to go to chow with the rest of the company but then we started right where we left off.

We finished around midnight. By that time there had been a shift change and the drill sergeant who replaced Drill Sergeant King said “dismissed.”

Allen and I climbed the stairs to room 218 and we both started opening our lockers for a fresh change of clothes and a towel for a shower (the fireguard were willing to allow an exception for us.)

All of the sudden, Allen turned to me and laughed like we were old buddies. “Is that Drill Sergeant King a bastard or what?”

“He sure is.” I realized suddenly that the regular Allen was back and this episode would soon be forgotten. In basic training you can adapt to anything.