Battle Dress

  Cadet Daily collected us from the semicircle and led us to a copse of trees in a far corner of the training site, then remained standing while he had us sit on the ground around him.

  “Eloquent speech out of Cadet Stockel,” Cadet Daily said. “Reminded me of myself. Hope you took it to heart.” He paced back and forth before us, rubbing the back of his neck. “Okay, Third Squad. Let’s get that blood pumping through your cerebral tissue. What does the acronym MOPP stand for?” He stopped in front of Kit. “Bogus?”

  “Sir, MOPP stands for Mission-Oriented Protective Posture.”

  “All right! You knuckleheads are more awake than you look. And what about MOPP levels—why do we have them? Zero, you’re up.”

  Cero paused a moment before he spoke. “Sir, the MOPP levels determine what equipment soldiers must wear, depending on the chemical threat. Sir, there are five MOPP levels—Zero through Four. Sir, the MOPP equipment consists of—”

  Cadet Daily put his hand up. “Cease work there, Motivated Trooper. You’re getting ahead of me.” He turned to Gabrielle and smirked. “Why don’t you finish where Zero left off, Miss Bryen?”

  Gabrielle’s head shot up. She’d been nodding off. “Sir, I do not understand.”

  “Zoning out there, Bryen?” Cadet Daily shook his head. “Stay alert, stay alive, soldier. Dig her out, Hickman.”

  Hickman imitated Cadet Daily’s smirk. And with the voice of a bored state trooper from somewhere south of the Mason-Dixon Line, he said, “Sir, the MOPP equipment consists of an overgarment—jacket and trousers—overboots and gloves, and an M-40 series protective mask with hood.”

  Cadet Daily crouched until he and Hickman locked eyes. “Smirk off, Hickman! I don’t know who you think you are, pal. But you are not that person!” He leaned closer and said through clenched teeth, “You got a problem coming to the aid of your squadmate here?” He pointed at Gabrielle.

  “No, sir,” Hickman answered quickly.

  Yes! I knew Gabrielle should’ve been more alert, but Hickman’s attitude sucked. And now Cadet Daily let the whole squad know it.

  Cadet Daily slowly rose to his feet. “I didn’t think so, Hickman. Moving right along.” He stepped past me. Phew. “Bonanno, let’s just cut to the chase. What’s MOPP Four? Because that’s what you’ll be wearing today.” He looked at his watch. “And don’t take all day.”

  Bonanno nodded. “Yes, sir. Sir, MOPP Four is when you wear all your MOPP gear because you know you’ve been gassed.”

  “That was inelegant, Bonanno. But accurate. Now, Third Squad—ON YOUR FEET!”

  We jumped to our feet.

  I knew what was coming next. Okay . . . get ready. Like a gunslinger about to go for his six-shooter, I inched my left hand up my thigh and toward the gas mask pouch on my hip.

  “You know the drill!” Cadet Daily yelled. “You have nine seconds to don and clear your protective masks. Gas! Gas! Gas!”

  I took in a gulp of air, released my chin strap . . .

  “CEASE WORK!” Cadet Daily roared. “HOLD IT RIGHT THERE, THIRD SQUAD!”

  I froze, my hand still on my helmet’s chin strap.

  “A number of you No-Go’d before you even got your masks out of your carriers! What did you do this morning, Third Squad? O.D. on stupid juice?” His eyes lingered on each of us as they traveled around the circle. “The last thing you want to do, Third Squad, is suck in a huge amount of air when someone signals ‘Gas!’ You stop breathing. Period. Do you hear me? Because if you don’t, you might never get your mask out of its carrier. And you’ll be nothing but a blue hunk of twitching human flesh, waiting to be crammed into a body bag.” He paused, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m not being melodramatic, Third Squad. You are training for combat. And when the smoke from the battlefield has lifted and the carnage is revealed, you will find yourself in either one of two states: alive”—he looked up at us—“or dead. And a dead lieutenant isn’t much use to his troops.”

  Dead. I tried to picture myself dead on some faraway battlefield with other dead all around me. And surprisingly, the thought didn’t really scare me much. I only hoped that my death wouldn’t be caused by some stupid thing that I did. I’d want the minister at my funeral to say I’d been brave. I wondered how my family would feel when the military bugler played Taps. Would my mother cry?

  “All right, Third Squad.” Cadet Daily clapped his hands together. “As you were.”

  I noticed that my fingers were still clutching my chin strap. I slowly lowered my hand to my side.

  “Let’s do it right this time. You’ve got nine seconds.” Cadet Daily yelled again, “Gas! Gas! Gas!”

  This time I held my breath, released my chin strap, and dropped my Kevlar to the ground with the others. With my left hand I yanked open my gas mask pouch, pulled the mask out with my right . . .

  “SEVEN SECONDS!”

  I held the rubber facepiece with both hands, checked the hood and harness—Okay, hood hanging down, harness up—I opened the facepiece wide, jammed my chin into the chin pocket, pulled the harness up over my head . . .

  “FIVE!”

  What’s going on? The mask wouldn’t fit. I struggled with the elastic harness, but the mask was too tight. Something pressed hard against my cheekbones. I yanked the mask off my face and looked inside. Nothing. My hands shook. Oh—what’s wrong?

  “THREE!”

  I glanced at the others. Some were still clearing their masks, but everyone was wearing them—except me.

  “TWO. . . . ONE. . . . CEASE WORK!”

  We snapped our hands to our sides.

  The hood from my mask, which was still in my hand, dangled in the dirt.

  Cadet Daily slowly made his way around the circle, checking masks. “Go!” meant “pass,” and “No-Go!” meant “fail,” and so far, he was giving out all “Go’s.” Then he stopped in front of me.

  “One of these smacks is not like the others,” he sang softly. “One of these smacks just doesn’t belong.” He leaned closer and whispered, “You forgot to remove your glasses, Davis.”

  I winced. I am such an idiot! That’s what was wrong. I’d been so used to wearing contacts, I’d forgotten I was wearing TEDs.

  “When I tested you on this yesterday, Davis, you got a ‘Go.’ Right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So I assume that the only reason that you failed to do something as elementary as removing your glasses today was because you had contacts in yesterday. Correct?”

  “Yes, sir.” I stared at the place between his eyebrows. Calm down! It’s just a stupid mistake. So you aren’t perfect. It’s not the end of the world.

  “So, continuing with this line of reasoning, Davis, since you were not accustomed to removing your glasses when donning your mask today, you forgot. In other words, you had a major brain cramp, correct?”

  “Y-yes, sir.” I bit the inside of my lip and braced myself for the coming explosion.

  He stared at me for a long time. “Okay, Davis,” he finally said. “Put your mask back in the carrier. Let me check the rest of these guys, and then I’ll retest you. All right?”

  “Yes, sir.” I almost smiled.

  As he walked away, he said, “Just make sure you put your inserts in right, or you won’t get a good seal. And you’ll be a ‘No-Go’ again.”

  Inserts? “Yes, sir,” I squeaked, my brain working double time. What in the world are inserts? Think!

  “All clear!” Cadet Daily yelled. Everyone, except me, tore off their masks and wiped their sweaty faces on their sleeves. “Return your masks to your carriers and your Kevlars to your heads. In a few minutes I’ll give the signal for gas again. This time you’re gonna don all your MOPP gear. This is the standard, Third Squad: You must go from MOPP Zero to Four in eight minutes. You will don your masks first, then the rest of your gear, in this order: trousers, jacket, boots, gloves. Got it?”

  “YES, SIR!”

  I folded the hood around the mask and stuffed it inside my carri
er. MOPP Four, eight minutes. Mask. Trousers. Jacket. Boots. Gloves. Got it.

  “Make sure everything is snapped, zipped, and tied, or you’ll ‘No-Go.’ I know putting your mask on first will make life difficult, Third Squad. But hey, that’s the way it’ll be when the balloon goes up, so get used to it.” He checked his watch. “I highly suggest you organize your gear on the ground in front of you. You’ve got three minutes—WORK!”

  I emptied my barracks bag and worked on arranging my MOPP gear on the ground—gloves under boots, under jacket, under trousers.

  Cadet Daily stood over me. “Davis,” he said quietly. “Listen. I’m just gonna retest you on your mask at the same time I test these other guys on MOPP Four. After you don your mask—if you pass—continue on with the rest of your MOPP gear. With everybody else. Understand?”

  I looked up at him, relieved. “Yes, sir.”

  He nodded and walked away.

  Cadet Daily can be pretty cool. Sometimes. Maybe nobody even noticed that I No-Go’d. It was pretty hard to see out of the masks. I chewed on the inside of my lip, watching the others stack their gear in neat piles. But I’ve got to find out about those inserts. I just couldn’t No-Go again. Not after Cadet Daily had cut me that break. I glanced at Hickman on my right, then at Bonanno on my left. Between the two of them, I figured Hickman would be more likely to know. Oh, why couldn’t Kit be next to me? Or Ping? I closed my eyes. Oh, well. You gotta do what you gotta do. I turned to Hickman and whispered, “Hey, Tommy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Hey, do you have any idea what ‘inserts’ are? Do they have something to do with the filters?”

  Hickman stopped stacking his MOPP gear and stared at me. “So you ‘No-Go’d.’ ” It was a statement, not a question.

  I made my pile neater. “Well . . . yeah. I, um, sort of forgot to take off my glasses when I donned my mask.” You didn’t have to tell him that!

  Hickman sighed. “Look, Davis. If you got issued TEDs, you got issued inserts. People that need glasses put prescription inserts into their masks so when they take off their glasses and put on their masks, they can see.” He shook his head. “They went over all this yesterday.”

  “Oh.” I managed a fake laugh. “Well, I guess I really didn’t pay attention since I normally wear contacts—”

  Hickman did not look interested.

  “So . . . inserts are those weird-looking glasses things with the wires on the ends that came with my TEDs, huh?”

  Before my lips had finished forming the words, I had already figured out the answer to my question. And I cringed inside. I’d packed away those weird-looking glasses things with the wires on the ends in MacArthur Barracks’ basement with the rest of my stuff. What an idiot! I had thought they were a replacement set of lenses for my TEDs in case the originals ever broke.

  Hickman shrugged. “I have no idea what they look like, Andi. I don’t need glasses.”

  I smiled, trying to play the whole thing off as if it were no big deal. “Well, thanks for the info.” I turned away from him and gnawed on my fingernails, one after the other. What am I going to do? I can’t see without glasses . . . or inserts! Oh—Gabrielle was right! I should’ve worn my contacts ! Cadet Daily’s going to kill me. . . .

  “Gas! Gas! Gas!” Cadet Daily suddenly yelled. He was moving toward me.

  Oh, well. It’s a good morning to die.

  “Eight minutes, Third Squad.” Cadet Daily nodded at me. “Starting . . . now.”

  Here goes. I held my breath and dropped my Kevlar to the ground. Glasses . . . I pulled off my TEDs and shoved them into the cargo pocket of my pants. The world was now a blur of browns and greens. I reached for my gas mask . . .

  Okay, just act like you can see, and he’ll never guess you don’t have inserts.

  “Seven seconds . . .”

  Somehow, by the time Cadet Daily said, “Cease work, Davis,” the nine seconds were spent, and I had donned and cleared my mask. Cadet Daily moved closer and checked it. Then he thumped me on the top of my head. “You’re a ‘Go,’ Davis. Drive on.”

  I did it! Thank God! I pulled the hood over my head. Then I unbuckled my LCE and shrugged it off, letting it drop to the ground. I stumbled to my pile of MOPP gear and snatched what I hoped were trousers off the top, holding them close to my face. Pants! So far, so good. I struggled to get them over my combat boots. Now—the jacket. Sweat trickled down my neck, and steam from my face fogged my mask, further blurring my vision. I took my time with the jacket, making sure that I didn’t mismatch the snaps. By the time I finished, I felt like I was standing in a sauna dressed in a triple-thick sweatsuit with a plastic bag over my head.

  “YOU’RE AT FOUR MINUTES, THIRD SQUAD,” Cadet Daily yelled.

  Now—the overboots. I bent over, hard to do with so much on, and, like a drunk trying to fit a key into a lock, I fumbled to get those floppy, one-size-fits-all rubber boots over my combat boots. Lacing the overboots was even worse: looping the laces through this eyelet and back through that one, inside to outside, letting my fingers do the seeing since my eyes couldn’t.

  “THIRTY SECONDS REMAINING!”

  Only thirty seconds? I looked up. I didn’t see much movement in the haze. Great. Is everyone done already?

  I dropped to my hands and knees, groping the ground for my gloves. Oh—come on! Where are they? Squinting didn’t help. Okay—just calm down. You’ll find them....

  My fingertips touched rubber. Yes! I scrambled to my feet and pulled the gloves over my hands. Then I slapped my Kevlar on my head. Done!

  “Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . CEASE WORK!” Cadet Daily yelled. “Okay, Third Squad, let’s see how you did.” Cadet Daily traveled around the circle until he reached me. “I think I’ll start with you, Davis.” He looked me over, from foot to head, then stepped behind me. “May I touch you?”

  Something’s wrong. “Yes, sir!” I yelled through my mask. Please don’t say I’m a No-Go again. Please.

  I felt him tugging at the bottom of my MOPP jacket. “You failed to snap one of the three snaps that connect your jacket to your trousers.”

  I wanted to clobber myself. Idiot!

  “But I’m a reasonable guy, Davis, so I’m gonna make a deal with you. You make the correction in five seconds, since you had five seconds to spare, and you’re a Go. If you don’t . . .” He smacked his lips. “I guess Third Squad will get to see your encore performance of ”—he now stood facing me—“blindman’s buff.”

  He knows. He definitely knows. I was thankful for my mask just then. I held my breath. Okay, go ahead. Haze me. I deserve it.

  “Make the correction.”

  I stood there, shocked that he had shown me mercy for the second time today.

  “Who are you, Davis? Helen Keller? I said, ‘Make the correction!’ ”

  “Yes, sir!” I found the snaps along the back hem of my jacket and made the correction before he changed his mind.

  When I looked up, Cadet Daily was gone. He had moved on to Hickman and, I was amused to hear, was correcting him for the same mistake that I had made.

  After he had inspected each of us, Cadet Daily said, “Okay, Third Squad. Let’s get those pores opened up and those lungs cranking. I want you to get the full benefit of today’s training. Double-time in place. Ready . . . begin!”

  He made us run in place. He led us through fifty repetitions of the Side Straddle Hop. He made us run in place. He dropped us for push-ups. He made us run in place.

  “Bring those knees to your chest, Third Squad! What’s the matter? You stay up all night or something? Put a little pep in your step!”

  Pep in my step? I felt like I was slogging through wet concrete up to my waist. And I was unbelievably hot.

  “Looks like Third Platoon’s ‘in the door,’ Third Squad,” Cadet Daily said, pointing across the site toward the tent. “See? First Squad’s going in . . . right . . . now!”

  I peered out of my mask’s fogged-over eyepieces, seeing
nothing.

  “And Second Squad’s standing by. It’s time for you to join the fray. Put on your LCEs and line up behind Hickman. Then double-time over to the tent. QUICKLY!”

  I felt the ground around me with my feet for my LCE until I kicked it. I snatched it up and jumped behind Hickman. I fumbled with my LCE, untwisting its suspenders and snapping its buckle, and tried to catch my breath as the rest of Third Squad pushed and stumbled their way into a single-file line.

  “What are you waiting for, Hickman?” Cadet Daily yelled. “An engraved invitation? Move out!”

  I jogged behind Hickman, squinting at the ground; its browns and greens rushed under my feet like a treadmill. Just don’t trip. Keep moving, but whatever you do, just don’t trip!

  I heard a lot of yelling as we neared the olive-drab blur that was the tent. I squinted. On one side I could make out a line of new cadets shuffling in. On the other side new cadets staggered out, their masks in their hands and their arms flailing. Upperclassmen holding—canteens?—had formed a sort of corridor just outside the exit, greeting the new cadets with faces full of water as they burst outside.

  “Come on! Keep the line moving, New Cadets!”

  “Oh, yeah! It’s a good day to be a soldier! HU-AH!”

  The scene wasn’t a pleasant one. I don’t want to do this.

  “Veer to the left of the tent, Boneheads!” yelled an upperclassman. “And double-time in a circle. I don’t want you resting while you wait!”

  Hickman curved us to the left, and soon Third Squad was trotting around and around like circus elephants.

  “Keep moving, New Cadets!” the upperclassman yelled.

  I tripped along behind Hickman for what seemed like forever.

  “Okay . . . you!” The upperclassman grabbed my arm and shoved me toward the tent. “Go on inside. The rest of you, follow him.”

  Follow him? For a moment I was confused. He did mean for me to go in first, didn’t he? Then I realized—MOPP suits made us sexless.