Bravo Company Days

Chapter 8: journal selections

8
Excerpts from my journal:

Sunday 5-1-2004

Writing in my bunk after dark again. Today I went to the Protestant church across the street because I promised Macintyre that I would do something to “expand my mind.” It was an experience not unlike culture shock.

I had already seen the electric guitar and drum set in the church but it was still surprising to hear people jamming on them in sacrament meeting. Chaplain Marshall, who gave the sermon, even let some of the recruits play the instruments. Certainly this is a different strategy for receiving spiritual communication than the strategy of reverently listening for the “still, small voice” I was familiar with.

The experience was definitely a welcome getaway from the barracks but it didn’t do anything to resolve my spiritual doubt. Just like the Mormon services, people walked out of the church talking about ‘feeling the spirit’ and “being rejuvenated by God’s love” but I left feeling sort of cheated. It just felt kind of hollow to me. Sure, the music was great. But do we really need a higher power to explain that?

Well that’s been on my mind. Good night.


Monday 5-2-2004:

The squad leaders rotated. I guess it’s going to happen every Monday. Floss just replaced Macintyre as my squad leader. He still seems really shy, hesitant and easily startled. Everyone in the platoon who is not in our squad keeps laughing at him. Normally, I would be excited for the duties to shift again, except I think next week it might be me in the hot seat.

We started bayonet training. Everyone was issued an M-16 A2 rifle from the armory along with a bayonet and a pair of leather gloves. Then the whole company did drills in the field across the street. It went like this: everyone would line up in twos like we were learning hand-to-hand combat—but further apart, obviously—then one of the drill sergeants would blow a whistle and we would race to see who could put on the gloves, attach the knife at the end of the barrel, thrust the weapon in the general direction of the opponent (you were standing so far apart that there was no chance of really hitting him, of course.) If you were the fastest you would throw down your bayonet and exclaim “the quick!” If you were the slowest you would yell “the dead!”

I was usually the dead. But so what? It’s an antiquated skill anyway. Are there really a lot of bayonet slashes taking place in Iraq or Afghanistan right now? I doubt it. So why are they wasting our time with this crap, exactly?

That’s enough ranting for one night.


Tuesday 5-3-2004:

Right now I’m sitting in the desk by the stairwell for Fireguard. It’s the 0100 to 0300 shift. Everybody hates that one—you can’t go to sleep because you know that as soon as you do you’re going to have to wake up for your shift. Then when your shift is over you’ve only got a couple of hours before you have to get up for morning formation so you have the same problem. The one good thing I can say about it is the barracks has already been cleaned by the first shift and the drill sergeants rarely harass us.

It’s also kind of a blessing to have a chance to write in my journal for a couple of hours. I actually do have a lot to write about tonight. I just wish I could have done it on the 2100-2300 shift.

Today—or I guess yesterday, since it’s actually Friday right now—we completed our big bayonet exercise. The entire company loaded up in a bus which took us to the bayonet challenge course. (They have a challenge course for everything!)

This course had two parts. The first part took place in a sort of huge sandbox with rows of dummies that were made out of tires. The drill sergeants would take us through it groups of five telling us what combat maneuver we were to execute before moving to the next row.

For instance if Drill Sergeant A from fourth platoon shouted ‘right slash,’ I would make a counter-clockwise circular motion and bring the knife down across “the enemy’s” chest; if he shouted ‘thrust’ I would lean back on one foot for leverage and then throw myself forward and stab the figure in the chest; if he said “face smash” I would ram the butt stock of my rifle into the artificial head.

We concluded this part of our training with a “killing spree” in which we “killed” as many of the dummies as we could in 30 seconds.

The drill sergeants could not help but make this more theatrical by making us shout macabre slogans. For instance if they shouted “What makes the Green grass grow?” we would have to shout back “Blood drill sergeant, fresh red blood!” And when they said, “What makes the green grass green?” I would say, “Guts drill sergeant, just like spaghetti!”

I doubt any of that was really necessary.

The next part was a 200 yard obstacle course. I guess the idea was to prove that we could jump over a few fences and crawl under barb wire through the mud with a bayonet without goring ourselves.

At the end of the obstacle course, we came to a final dummy which we could slay with the method of our choosing. Drill Sergeant Chambers was present to make sure that we killed the dummy properly and with motivation. I tried to give him his motivation by yelling “Die Taliban Scum!” as I demonstrated the proper groin slash technique. Unfortunately, I had not factored in the slippery mud into my stroke and I fell back on my rear end. I jumped up and stabbed the damn thing on a second attempt.

After making a complete ass of myself, Drill Sergeant Chambers smiled, nodded and said “Hooah Private Case.”


Wednesday 5-4-2004

For PT this morning we broke down into running groups which, from fastest to slowest, are: Alpha, Bravo and Charlie. I run in Alpha. Drill Sergeant King is our formation leader. The man is the most insane runner I’ve ever seen. He runs with his arms tucked in, taking long strides like a raptor. Today, Alpha group ran a three-mile loop in 18 minutes, 10 seconds. All of the soldiers running were completely winded but not Drill Sergeant King. He didn’t even seem to be breathing hard.

Since Drill Sergeant King was the only authority figure running within earshot of us, he decided to treat us to a special cadence that was, strictly speaking, no longer allowed. The macabre little tune went something like this:

Left-right, left-right, left-right KILL!
Left-right, left-right I know you WILL!
I go the park where the children play,
Pull out my machine gun and SPRAY, SPRAY, SPRAY!
Go to the market where their mothers shop,
Pull out my machete and CHOP! CHOP! CHOP!
Left-right, left-right, left-right, KILL…

I have to admit that I found the whole thing pretty tasteless and disgusting. I mean I still feel a little repulsed to think that the U.S. military, which I had so long associated with morality and goodness, had been singing that cadence regularly until just a few years ago. I have tried not to think about it. I have tried instead to think about the briefing on the second day.

Most of today’s training was devoted to squad-level combat maneuvers. The drill sergeants marched us to the field across the street to show the right formations. The most important one was “The Battle V” which consisted of two slightly offset V shapes of four of five soldiers each.

The squad leader would be between the two V’s giving hand signals. For instance, a slash motion from left to right across the chest indicates that the element is approaching a danger area and a closed fist means “freeze.”

We spent the afternoon rehearsing this formation and the various hand signals and response movements involved. I have to say that overall I was pretty impressed with Floss. He would get nervous when the drill sergeants approached him but other than that he seemed to have a pretty firm handle on things.

By the way, I’m beginning to think I may have misjudged Floss. He may be socially awkward and a little bit afraid, but that doesn’t stop him from being good in other regards. For instance, Drill Sergeant King loves to challenge the squad leaders by approaching them and asking where every member of their squad is. Every member they can’t account for is twenty five pushups they have to do. Once I saw a squad leader who could only account for himself out of seven people in his squad. Floss, as jumpy as he is, has withstood the challenges better than I expected. Maybe there’s more in him after all. Time will tell.

Anyway that evening, while we were shining our boots on the drill pad, Drill Sergeant King came out of the barracks holding a bulging mail bag. That got everybody’s attention. This time I did get a letter from home. It was a single page letter, half in my dad’s handwriting and half by my mom’s. They mentioned the outcome of Jesse’s basketball game (his team won) as well as big lightning storm over the mountain that took place a few days after I left. I was surprised how little they had to write about. The last three weeks of my life had seemed so eventful that it was hard to believe I had not been gone longer.

They ended the letter by saying that they were proud of me. I wondered: would they be proud if they knew that I was singing about killing innocent children in a park?



Thursday, 5-5-2004

Today was long and pretty rough. Still I’m not tired. I feel like writing.

We completed the first of our “lanes training” exercises today. To do this we had to march for a couple of miles to a small forest area on the outskirts of the base. It might sound weird to hear that there are forest areas on a military base, but there’s actually quite a bit of wilderness area on Fort Jackson.

The idea was to spend the entire day as if you were in a war zone. Every squad in Bravo Company had to be evaluated on six different “lanes” or battle drills. When one squad was being evaluated, the soldiers in the rest of the squads would be laying in the prone position in a huge circle around the training area. If a drill sergeant managed to get across the perimeter before someone said “eyes on enemy” then everyone pulling guard would have to do pushups for as long as the drill sergeant dictated. Usually, that was for a while.

By the time it was my squad’s turn to go through the first few battle drills, it was about 11:00 a.m. and we were already pretty smoked thanks to the lazy guards on the other side of the circle. Our first exercise was reacting to indirect fire. The nine of us in my squad navigated the woods area in the V formation that we practiced yesterday, methodically swiveling our heads from side to side to keep an eye out for the enemy. Drill Sergeant Chambers accompanied us to make sure we were doing everything right. Occasionally, he would stop us to tell us that private so-and-so was holding his weapon to high or looking at the ground too much.

The rest of the drill sergeants were hidden in the woods. They represented a made-up terrorist element and they called themselves “Al-Snafu.” When we came to a clearing, one of the drill sergeants blew a whistle that represented the shrill sound of an artillery shell coming through the air. Floss yelled, “Incoming seven o’ clock, three hundred meters!”

As we took up a fighting position in a group of trees Floss counted heads to make sure everyone was accounted for. Everyone was except for Riley. Drill Sergeant Chambers had tapped him on the shoulder which meant that he was a casualty. Allen and Smith went out to drag him back into cover. They found Riley lying on the ground holding a card that said he needed to be treated for a compound fracture in his leg and a sucking chest wound. The two privates drug him back into cover and we all treated him the best we could with the first aid pouches we had clipped onto our LCE’s.

When Riley had been fixed up with a splint, a pressure bandage and a suction bandage, Drill Sergeant Champers blew on his whistle three times and all the drill sergeants who had been participating came out of hiding. That’s when we had our AAR (which means, by the way “After Action Review.” Are there enough acronyms here or what?)

Drill Sergeant Chambers and the other drill sergeants who had been participating gave us the pros and cons of our operation. Basically, they thought we did a good job, except Allen and Smith should have used a better buddy-carry technique instead of dragging him all the way across the open field to where the rest of the unit was.

The whole company got together to have an MRE lunch between exercises. Only it wasn’t like the first time when we ate at the vertical challenge course because they made us eat in shifts—one group would pull guard while they other ate. That cut our chow time down from twenty minutes to just ten because we were only eating half the time.

Now we are better acquainted with MRE’s and so there was a flurry of trading. I traded my grape jelly for the jalapeno cheese spread, which added a real zing to my wheat snack bread. I decided that I would risk to bootlegging some candy back into the barracks so I traded my M&M’s for a bag of Skittles, which are less likely to melt in a cargo pocket.

After lunch, we rotated quickly through five other lanes. These included such skills as navigating a danger area to responding to direct fire. It was clear that we were short on time because two or three of them were very rushed. The final lane was probably the most memorable because that time, the drill sergeants didn’t tell us what the drill would be.

Instead of Drill Sergeant Chambers, Captain Gibson and 2nd Lt. Frank, the Bravo Company commander and executive officer, escorted us through our final obstacle. I realize I haven’t written much about the company officers, but there really isn’t much to say.

The captain was gone the first few days for an appendectomy and the lieutenant, fresh out of West Point, just arrived here last week. The captain’s a muscular guy who looks like a Hollywood action star. The lieutenant looked like he’s president of the West Point chess club. We salute them about once a day. They always seem nicer to us than the drill sergeants do, but I was still afraid of them for some reason, probably because I was so unfamiliar with being around officer rank.

We carefully followed them through a grove of trees. I saw a taunt string partially covered by some leaves but I before I could say anything, Macintyre, who was at the front of the formation, tripped it. At that point, a whistle blew and the lane was over.

“You have failed this training event,” Drill Sergeant B from first platoon said during the AAR. She looked directly at Macintyre. “If this had been a real world scenario you would have thrown away your own life and the lives of your battle buddies.” She looked up at the rest of us again. “Situational awareness, soldiers, is the only thing keeping you alive.”

That and air I guess. God, is it really 1:30 a.m.? I’m going to hate myself for this entry in the morning, but I think I might thank myself for it later.


Friday 5-6-2004

On fireguard again this time it’s the regular 2100 to 2300 course. That’s not nearly so bad. Right now its 22:15 I only have about 45 minutes left before shift change. I’ve spent most of the shift cleaning.

Today was really not a very productive day for me or anyone else. We marched to the navigation challenge course. The drill sergeants told us to march between two posts in the ground and count our paces. In the future we could use our pace count to determine how far we had walked. My count was sixty five.

The next part of our training, had we had the chance to do it, was to use compasses to find various targets, but when we arrived at the course it was raining and lightning was striking everywhere. The whole training event got called off because of the lightning. The reason was the a soldier in another battalion had been killed by a lightning strike a few months ago and so now there were lightning protections areas (called LPA’s of course) that we were supposed sit under for shelter. The lightning never cleared up and so we had to go back.

Everyone seems irritated at these rules, especially the drill sergeants. I heard one of the drill sergeants appealing to the captain for the training not to be interrupted, but the captain seemed to be on the side of “safety.” So now there’s fresh fuel added to the officer-vs.-enlisted feud that we all know is going on. That should make the rest of the cycle amusing.


Saturday 5-7-2004

More combat training today. This time they taught us offensive maneuvers, like how to break someone’s arm in a straight arm bar or a triangle bar. After the drill sergeants had demonstrated the new tactics we paired up again for two minute bouts. Drill Sergeant King made sure Allen and I were never paired.

The most memorable time was when I was paired with Pv2 Hadley. It had been evident for a while that she had a crush on me. She was always asking me to “help her down” off the bleachers and gooey stuff like that. So wrestling with her was a bit awkward. At first I was being really passive but she started getting aggressive. As embarrassing as it was to touch her, being bested by a girl was even worse. So I fought back, determined to pin her. I finally did, but I accidentally grabbed her breast while trying to get her off me. I can just imagine the rumors that are circulating on the female floor right now.

Seven more weeks and I’ll be through with this place. Hal-ay-yoo-yah!

Sunday, 5-8-2004

I’m bored I’m bored I’m bored I’m bored I’m bored I’m bored I’m bored I’m bored I’m bored I’m bored I’m bored I’m bored I’m bored I’m bored I’m bored I’m bored I’m bored I’m bored I’m bored…

I decided not to go to church this Sunday. I knew this would mean boredom, but if I have to choose, boredom is better than intellectual dishonesty. (That’s what I did think anyway, now I’m not so sure.)

I used the time for letter writing the best I could. The problem I encountered was that I was describing the same events to several different people and that was just as boring as doing nothing. I stared at this notebook all day and not had a thing to write but “I’m bored” for pages and pages.

I never thought I would be relieved to be put on area beautification detail, but I actually felt a lot better doing something outside. It was raining lightly and the smell of the ozone and wet grass seemed to invigorate me.

I marched to evening chow after that and went to a few briefings in the evening, so I didn’t get back to my room until evening formation. When I did get back, I found my locker had been disemboweled. All my personal items, which I had organized so neatly, were all over the floor. The linen had been stripped off my bed and thrown into a pile with my clothes and on top of that my shampoo bottle had been emptied. My letter from home was lying on the floor not far, completely soiled by the shampoo.

“Looks like you forgot to lock your locker,” said Macintyre. “Man does that suck for you.”

Allen laughed and said something stupid.

I felt a sob rising in throat that I knew that I could not hold back for very long but I could not break down in front of them. Anything but that! Lights out was in a half an hour and I probably should have busied myself with cleaning up the mess, but at that moment I had to escape.

The problem was finding a place to escape to. I seriously thought about hiding in the supply closet but instead I followed the hallway all the way to the end where there was a latrine that was rarely used. I went into the shower area and put my head in my hands and cried. And worse, I prayed. I prayed to I God I didn’t even believe in. There was no spirituality in my prayer, just weakness. I’ve never felt lower.

“Case?”

I looked up. It was Riley. I told him to go away, but really I felt glad he was there. He sat down and put his arm around me but I still didn’t look up.

“It’s okay about your stuff. Allen and Macintyre and Floss and everybody else in two-eighteen are helping pick your stuff up now. You can borrow my top sheet since I take it off anyway. I think we can wash your blanket off well enough so that you can still use it. So everything’s cool, see?”

“It’s not about stuff, Riley.”

“So what is it then?”

“It’s me. I’m such a fucking idiot! I used to be smart before I came to this place—this motherfucking place—and they, they made me lock up my books and shave my head and sing those awful chants. It’s, it’s just… I’m not me anymore. I’m lost. I don’t know… I just don’t know…”

I trailed off and then I looked up at Riley. He looked pretty shocked. I don’t think he had never heard me swear before. I did go back to the room though. Everybody knew I was crying but no one gave me any shit about it. I helped clean up the rest of my stuff and then jumped in bed with my flashlight and so I could write discreetly under the covers after lights out.

It’s now 22:30 and I’ve written everything and I feel much better. Writing always makes things better.