Battle Dress

  “Are you kidding? As soon as Cadet Daily sees this thing, you know what he’s going to do. He’ll haze us, and then he’ll yell at the top of his lungs so the whole world can hear.” She deepened her voice to mimic Cadet Daily’s. “‘Hey, Ping! I got a mission for you! Bryen and Davis’s tent needs some CPR! Let’s put that Combat Medical Badge to good use.’ I, for one, would like to avoid that.” She leaned closer to me and whispered, “Especially with Nathan Monroe right next door. I want him to think I’m squared away.”

  I frowned. “Gab, what are you talking about?”

  “You know, Andi. Nathan Monroe.” She jerked her head toward the Second Squad tent next to ours. “The big guy? With the golden hair and baby-blue eyes? He has the cutest dimples when he smiles.”

  Gab definitely had her priorities. But they weren’t mine.

  New Cadet Monroe was the new cadet who stood directly in front of me in Second Squad at least three times every day in formation. I could describe the shape of his head and knew that he needed a haircut at the end of each week because stubble always grew down the back of his neck by Friday. But I didn’t know his first name, had no idea what color his eyes were, and had never made him smile.

  “He was recruited for football. A quarterback, Andi. And he’s from San Antonio, Texas, and he’s really nice and—I told you all about him. Remember? The day we fired our M-16s. He was in the foxhole next to me.”

  She was really starting to irritate me now. “Well anyway, Cadet Daily won’t need to haze us this time, Gab. We’re going to get this tent right, all by ourselves.”

  “Why do it ourselves when Ping can do it better? And faster.”

  “Because I hate to always have him do our work for us, that’s why! I don’t want to be . . . the weak link in the chain.” I got down on my hands and knees and yanked out a tent peg. “Where’d I put my e-tool?” I sat up and looked around. “You see it, Gab?”

  “Weak link in the chain?” Then she snorted. “Oh, I get it. Hickman’s little remark is getting to you, huh?” She put her hands on her hips and glared at me. “That’s ridiculous! We pull our weight, Andi. Everyone, even Hickman, said we—”

  I looked up at her. “Oh, yeah? Well, I don’t call getting someone to bail us out all the time ‘pulling our weight.’”

  “But Ping doesn’t mind, Andi! He likes—”

  “Well, I mind. Okay? So pass me your e-tool? Please?” Standing up to her was hard. It would’ve been easier to just get Ping. I put out my hand; it was shaking.

  But Gabrielle didn’t notice. She had crossed her arms and closed her eyes. “Plus it’s not bailing us out. It’s called ‘cooperate and graduate.’ Ever hear of that? It’s one of Cadet Daily’s most favorite things to say.”

  I dropped my hand. “Yeah. ‘Cooperate and graduate,’ Gab. Not ‘get over and graduate.’”

  “You’re so funny, I forgot to laugh.”

  Couldn’t she see that getting the guys to do things for us all the time wasn’t really that different from falling out of runs or ruck marches? That every time we did it, we became weaker in their eyes, and soon they’d despise us like they despised Offenbacher? Well, I wasn’t going to play that game.

  “Your e-tool, Gabrielle?” Great, now my voice is shaking.

  Gabrielle huffed but tossed me her e-tool. “I just don’t understand you, Andi. You’re acting really weird, you know that? What are you trying to prove, anyway?”

  I didn’t answer her. Instead, I uprooted the other two tent pegs on that side of the tent and worked on stretching the canvas as tightly as I could.

  “There you go, not saying anything,” Gabrielle said. “As usual.”

  She was right; I knew I hardly ever said anything. But now I wanted to. I wanted to scream, “You wouldn’t understand! You don’t have to prove anything. You can go home to your mom and dad and your debutante balls anytime you want. You don’t have to belong here. But I do . . . because I’ve never belonged anywhere!” But I just couldn’t do it. It was better—safer—to say nothing. I’d said way too much already, and now she was mad at me. I pounded the tent pegs back into the ground. I took a deep breath and sat back on my heels. “There.”

  Gabrielle was watching me, her arms crossed again. “There, nothing. The rest of Third Squad is already done. So we’re the weak link in the chain whether Ping helps us or not.”

  I ignored her and walked to the other side of the tent. “Oh—there’s my e-tool.”

  “Good. Give mine back.”

  “Hey, Andi,” I heard Kit’s voice behind me. “Why don’t you try angling the tent pegs toward your tent instead of up and down. You know, at about 45 degrees? It’ll give you some more pull.”

  I heard Gabrielle snort again. I nodded at Kit, resigned. “Oh, that’s right. Ping did that the last time he—”

  “And try moving that one up some,” he said, pointing to the peg holding down the tent’s front right corner. “See? So it’s even with the other side? And that should do it.”

  “Yeah. That makes sense—”

  “Shh!” Gabrielle hissed. “Andi wants no free advice, Kit. She likes doing things the hard, stupid way.”

  Kit gave me a look that said, “What’s up with her?” I just shrugged my shoulders. Kit rolled his eyes and walked the few feet back to his tent and unrolled his bedroll, mumbling something about rather living on a rooftop than being around a contentious woman.

  And somehow I felt better. For some reason, I didn’t mind Kit’s kind of help. Maybe because he’d been so laid back about it, just sort of offering it up to us like I’d seen him do with some of the Third Squad guys on occasion. Or, maybe more importantly, because he let us do the work. He didn’t wave us aside and fix things himself while we just stood there. He didn’t assume—or better yet, make me feel—that I was incompetent.

  After Gabrielle and I fixed all six tent pegs around the tent, we stepped back. “Well, Kit?” I called over to him. “What do you think? Better?”

  Kit gave us a thumbs-up.

  “So I guess we just need to tighten the ropes at the front,” I said, thinking out loud. “And hopefully that should be it.”

  “I’ll do it,” Gabrielle said, pushing past me. We watched as she slowly pulled on the rope, causing the front tent pole to tilt forward. Like magic, the sag in the middle disappeared.

  I could tell that Gabrielle was trying hard not to smile as she held a tent peg in one hand and looped the rope around it with the other. “Mind pounding in the peg, Andi? I can’t do everything, you know.”

  “No problem, Gab.” I grabbed an e-tool and started hammering.

  “You hit my hands, girl, and you’re—”

  “You’ve just got to trust me, Gab.”

  “I do,” she mumbled.

  When we were done, our tent looked perfect. I put my hands on my hips and smiled. “It really looks good. Huh, Gab? No sags. No wrinkles.”

  Gabrielle bent over and rummaged around in her ruck. Then she stood up and held out two sticks of wilted Extra spearmint gum. “A piece?” She raised an eyebrow. “For peace?”

  I laughed and looked over both shoulders to make sure no upperclassman was around. “Where in the world did you get that?”

  She gave me a secret sort of smile. Then she shoved one of the pieces into my hand and whispered, “Just chew carefully.”

  CHAPTER 11

  THURSDAY, 5 AUGUST 0045

  I have a fine incipient case of split personality,

  The masculine lined up against the feminine.

  This is no place for the feminine.

  —DICKEY CHAPELLE, WOMAN WAR CORRESPONDENT (KILLED WHILE COVERING THE VIETNAM WAR)

  SIMULATED BOMBS SCREECHED through the air and white lights flashed, then hovered like spotlights over the woods we’d soon enter. We should have been snuggled inside our sleeping bags. But instead, we sat shivering on metal bleachers and watching the starless sky spit drizzle, the water beading on our ponchos and rolling off. With camouflaged faces
and vacant stares, we looked like veteran troops as we waited out the minutes until it was Third Squad’s time to go out on our first night patrol.

  Finally, Cadet Daily stood up. He tossed Cero a roll of green duct tape. “Pass that around, Zero. Tape everything metal, Third Squad—flashlights, M-16 straps, LCE suspenders—and anything else that makes noise. Including your mouths, if necessary.” He tossed a wad of olive-green cord to Ping. “That is what we call dummy cord, Third Squad, invented especially for knuckleheads like you. Go ahead, Combat. Help them tie their weapons to their bodies. Leave only about three feet of slack, max. I don’t want to spend the few hours of rack time we’ll have left tonight beating the bushes for an M-16 that was lost in the dark. Now get hot. We’re moving out in a few.”

  After Cadet Daily had inspected our tape and tie jobs, he formed us into a single-file line with Kit in the front and Ping in the rear. “Remember, Third Squad,” Cadet Daily said, “this is a tactical patrol. As soon as we move out, noise and light discipline will be enforced. That means no talking and no flashlights. Tonight realism is the name of the game. You got that?”

  “YES, SIR!”

  “I’ll be on point, and Ping, you’ll bring up the rear. Remember—no crowding. Keep your intervals, about two paces between men.” He pointed at the two fluorescent squares on the back of Kit’s helmet. “Keep the ‘cat eyes’ on the back of the helmet in front of you in sight at all times, Third Squad, and you’ll be good to go. I won’t tolerate any weak excuses from anyone who wanders off. Understand?”

  “YES, SIR!”

  “Now, for all the noise out here. When you hear a whistle and seconds later an explosion, that’s ‘incoming’—you hit the dirt. When you hear a pop and seconds later you see bright light flooding an area, that’s an ‘illumination flare’—you freeze. This ain’t rocket science, Third Squad. Just use your heads. Stay alert, stay alive. That’s what it’s all about. Now let’s move out.”

  We followed Cadet Daily into the woods, peering into the blackness, silent as snakes. The rain had softened the earth, muffling our movement. Even after my eyes adjusted to the dark, I could barely make out the shapes of the trees enclosing us. I held my weapon out in front and pointed it toward the trees, watching for any sudden movement. Years of running cross country had taught me to make split-second decisions about footing. But now, unable to see the ground, I chose each step carefully, feeling with the toes of my boots for rocks or tree roots—anything that could trip me up. And I watched the cat eyes, piercing the darkness from the back of Hickman’s Kevlar moving directly in front of me.

  My imagination quickly took over. I was creeping through the jungles of Vietnam, or the forests of eastern Europe. The enemy was out there, waiting, watching. Maybe somewhere someone had a round chambered in his weapon that was destined to rip through my body, ending everything in a second. I felt my pulse speed up, but I wasn’t afraid. I concentrated on keeping my breathing quiet, my footsteps soundless. I was ready for anything.

  A whistle screamed overhead. Incoming! The explosion crashed as we dove for the dirt. Then we silently got to our feet and moved on, only to hug the muddy ground again and again.

  Just after we started down a long hill, a new shrieking sound came from behind me and shattered the silence. “My knee! My knee! Oh, my knee!”

  Gabrielle!

  Cadet Daily appeared instantly. “What’s going on?” he hissed in a voice that only barely passed for a whisper. He crouched beside Gabrielle, who was now a crumpled, moaning heap, rocking back and forth in the mud and clutching her knee. “Bryen?”

  “Sir, I tripped. My knee . . .” She made a move to stand, but only ended up crying out again. “Something’s broken, sir. I just know it. It hurts so bad!”

  Ping had slipped up the line and was kneeling beside Gabrielle, his hands already examining her knee. I stood beside them, wishing I could do something to help. Poor Gab!

  “Keep it down, Bryen.” Cadet Daily leaned closer to Gabrielle. “You’ve gotta suffer silently. Understand? You’re compromising our position.”

  The rest of Third Squad pressed closer, trying to get a look at our first real casualty.

  Ping tapped Cadet Daily on the shoulder and whispered into his ear. I strained my ears to hear Ping’s words over Gabrielle’s whimpering. “. . . knee’s intact . . . sir . . . nothing’s broken . . . badly bruised . . .”

  Badly bruised? I stared back at Gabrielle, confused. That’s it?

  Cadet Daily turned back to Gabrielle. “Listen to me, Bryen. You’ve gotta suck it up, understand? You are jeopardizing the safety of every member in this squad. In combat, soldiers are shot, and they don’t make a sound.”

  “Yeah,” I heard Hickman whisper beside me. “And all she did was fall down. Give me a break.”

  The darkness could hide the disgust on Hickman’s face, but not in his voice.

  I chewed on my lip. I couldn’t completely disagree with him. Why couldn’t Gabrielle just stop blubbering? A wave of irritation surged up inside me. Doesn’t she have any pride? I stepped away from her and moved closer to Hickman, hoping the subtle gesture would distance me from Gabrielle in the eyes of the squad. I wanted to show them that I was disgusted by her unmilitary reaction, too.

  Immediately, I felt guilty. Disloyal. Gabrielle was my roommate. My friend.

  I heard a pop overhead, and instantly we were blanketed with white light. Nobody moved until the light melted into the dark.

  “The enemy knows our location,” Cadet Daily said. “We’ve got to move. Now.”

  In that instant I understood. Gabrielle had been wrong; pain or no pain, she should have been quiet, she should have kept it in. This was about something bigger than loyalty or friendship. This was about life and death.

  I saw Ping help Gabrielle to her feet. “Just lean on me, Gab,” I heard him whisper. “You’ll be okay.”

  But still . . . shouldn’t I have done something?

  I moved aside to let them pass ahead of me, and as I followed behind Third Squad in the dark, one thought plagued me: Gabrielle was hurt, and I had deserted her.

  0525

  Sounds faded in and out around me, muffled and murky at first, as if I were floating in a pool of water just below its surface. Then, gradually, the sounds became louder, sharper—people talking, the snaps of tent flaps popping open, sleeping bags unzipping, equipment clinking. I slowly became aware of the hard ground under my body and the musty fabric of my sleeping bag. My body was warm, but my nose was cold. Something moved against me, then groaned.

  I opened my eyes. Light filtered through the canvas of the tent that enclosed Gabrielle and me like two larvae in a canvas cocoon. Morning already? I rolled over and squinted at my watch—5:27—then closed my eyes again. It was already morning when we went to bed last night. My limbs felt heavy, tired, like they’d been injected with some kind of drug. Got to get up . . . need to get dressed . . . before Daily . . . gets . . . here. And I slipped back into the no-man’s-land between wakefulness and sleep.

  “RISE AND SHINE, MAGGOTS! IT’S A GOOD MORNING TO DIE!”

  The tent shook and my eyes snapped open.

  Cadet Daily!

  We both shot up into a seated position of attention, our legs still bound by our sleeping bags.

  “I want a verbal confirmation that you’re conscious. Bryen! Davis! You up?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Good. You got exactly twenty-two minutes to police up yourselves and your area before Reveille. I was generous, Ladies—I gave you seven extra minutes of La La Land ’cause of our late night. Don’t make me regret it.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “How’s that knee, Bryen?”

  “Fine, sir.”

  “I’ll check it before we move out to training.” He moved away, and I heard him repeat his morning greeting to Kit and Jason next door. “RISE AND SHINE, MAGGOTS. IT’S A GOOD MORNING TO DIE!”

  A good morning to die? And then, with a jolt in my gut, I r
emembered. We’re getting gassed today! We were going to practice what it felt like to die.

  Gabrielle sank back into her sleeping bag and moaned. “Three and a half hours of sleep. They’d never think of letting us sleep in for once.”

  “Hey, Cadet Daily gave us seven extra minutes, Gab.”

  Gabrielle snorted and covered her head with her sleeping bag.

  I fumbled with the zipper of my sleeping bag with shaky hands, swollen from lack of sleep. Then I untangled the sling of my M-16 from around my leg and laid the weapon, warm from my body, on the ground between Gabrielle and me.

  Okay—I’ve got to find my glasses. No contacts allowed today—Cadet Daily said. I started feeling around my side of the tent for my glasses. All right—where are they?

  “Come on, Gab.” I prodded the mound inside the sleeping bag beside me with my foot. “Get up.”

  “Okay, okay! I’m moving.” She squirmed out of her sleeping bag and looked at me. “Your boyfriend drool on you last night?” she asked, pointing at my left thigh.

  “What?” I leaned over to inspect it. My nose had just about touched my thigh before I saw what she was pointing at. “Oh . . . this?” I licked my thumb and tried rubbing the grimy streak off my thigh. “I guess I didn’t wipe off my M-16 good enough when we got back last night. It was really muddy out there, huh?”

  Gabrielle didn’t answer.

  I sensed she didn’t want to talk about last night. I could understand that; I wasn’t so sure last night had been one of my better moments, either. I worked quickly to fill the silence. “I’ll tell you what”—I nodded toward my M-16—“I’m really sick of sleeping with this thing.”

  “No complaints, Andi. You know what Cadet Daily says: ‘It’s the only boyfriend you’ve got right now.’ ”

  Every night that we’d been out here, Cadet Daily had reminded us to guard our weapons well. “You don’t have a girlfriend anymore,” he’d say. “’Cause Jody’s got her.” Then he’d smirk at Gabrielle and me. “And you ain’t got no boyfriend, either. So, Third Squad, when you go to bed tonight, cuddle your M-16 and consider yourselves lucky.”