Drill & Sanctimony

In the morning, after only a few hours of sleep, the Sergeants rousted and flushed us toward breakfast without letting us shower first, even though we had the same clothes on as the day before. I could have used some extra sleep that morning - maybe only one or two hours. I was irritated to be treated like such a newbie, especially after logging so many hours playing Close Combat: A Bridge Too Far. I deserved to look like them, the Sergeants, to be dressed in nice shiny boots and a pressed camouflage uniform.

  We could have easily slept an extra two hours, because the breakfast line took that long. Waiting in the line, I grew ravenous. Drill Sergeants wearing blue mesh vests circled the cafeteria floor like the sentinels in The Matrix, making sharp turns and taking quick steps wherever they went. Now and then, one of them would pop out and scare the bejeezus out of some Private. We weren't supposed to be watching, but it was hilarious entertainment. Every few minutes, some Private would fill his glass from the soda machine and then receive a sticky shower when a Drill Sergeant screamed: "What in the heck do you think you're doing, Private?!"

  Nearly everyone laughed when one of these idiots dropped his cup onto the floor, but anyone caught laughing lost his position in the line. If a Private laughed while eating, the Drill Sergeants escorted him or her out of the cafeteria. I was glad to see people getting kicked out, because their exit brought me closer to those runny eggs.

  But that turned out to be a myth. The eggs were not runny at all.

  When I neared the doorway that led into the serving counter, the promised land, I leaned inside to take a peek. A woman with a hair-net was squeezing a large clear-plastic sack, playing it like bagpipes. But rather than producing music, she oozed out a yellow liquid that turned into a solid-gold scramble when she troweled it around the hot griddle.

  While I was leaning forward, my ear suddenly tingled with pain from a very loud and very near noise. I turned around and saw a Drill Sergeant.

  "Private! You are at the position of Parade Rest. At the position of Parade Rest, you must keep your eyes at the position of attention, and you will remain silent unless otherwise directed."

  I turned and said to the Drill Sergeant, "Yes, Drill Ser..."

  "You do not turn your head. I repeat: your eyes remain at the position of attention."

  He was really angry. Everyone was watching me. Without even thinking, I got spooked and started blowing bubbles. It just happened. I can't help myself. It's a very neat trick, really, and none of my friends can do it. I can create a bubble by manipulating and curling my tongue. I can even launch the bubble so that it floats away, into the air. When I was a kid, my neighbor and I were eating lunch one day when I decided to put some liquid soap into his soup. After I saw him blow a bubble, it looked so cool that I put some soap into my soup and that’s how I learned. But I hate that guy now, ever since one day while we were huffing thinner in his garage when his mother walked in and we were both grounded…

  "Just what in the hell are you doing, Private?!"

  I released a bubble into the air and watched it float away, up, toward the Drill Sergeant and it popped near his chin.

  "Bubbles at Parade Rest. Private." I could not stop. "Private! Step out of line, Private."

  I snapped out of it when he yanked me aside. "But Drill Sergeant," I said, "it took forever to get up here to the front of the line."

  The Drill didn't respond. Instead he pulled a chair away from a table and placed it in front of everyone in the dining area.

  "Get on that chair and tell everyone about the position of Parade Rest."

  "What? Are you serious?"

  "As a heart attack. Get on up there. What's your name?"

  "Paul Sprungli."

  "Springlick, I will permanently put your head deep inside your fourth-point-of-contact if you do not stand on that chair right now." He made an announcement to everyone. "Parade Rest is commanded only from the position of attention. The preparatory command for this movement is Parade. On the command of execution, Rest, move the left foot ten inches to the left of the right foot. Keep the legs straight without locking the knees, resting the weight of the body equally on the heels and balls of the feet. Simultaneously, place the hands at the small of the back, centered on the belt." He looked at me. "Now you say it, Private."

  "Say what?"

  "What I just said."

  At that moment, I considered going Green Beret instead of Ranger, with the hope that I might get reassigned, but...

  "Say it!"

  "Ah, ah, Parade Rest is like this...this movement...of balls on your feet." I moved my hands and feet.

  The other Drills gathered around, including little Drill Sergeant Pint. Apparently he remembered me from the night before, and at first, he seemed pretty cool. I thought he might save me from further embarrassment.

  "Hey, I know this guy," Pint said to his peers, and then to me he said, "How's it going so far today, buddy?"

  "Ok, I guess," I said.

  "Did you sleep good?"

  "Pretty good."

  "Was your pillow ok?"

  "Mmm, so-so. A little lumpy. The blanket had a hole in it."

  "Oh? Sorry to hear that. Did you eat yet?"

  "Not yet."

  "Good, good. We'll get that for you right away. And when you finish, let me know. I'll be over by the exit, ok? Sound like a fair deal to you?"

  "Which exit?"

  "The only exit."

  I nodded. "Sure, no problem."

  Then he stopped smiling, raised his voice, and turned red. "Now can I get a bloody dag-gum Drill Sergeant, please! Where do you think you are, roundy, back on the block? Am I one of your buddies?"

  "No, Sergeant."

  "That's Drill Sergeant! Do I have to spell it in ketchup for you to understand?"

  "No."

  "Now tell us what Parade Rest is!" Pint wailed.

  "Parade Rest is a thing that we do at the position of attention. Ah...rest is something found...at a parade..."

  The Drills surrounded me and screamed from all cardinal directions for a full minute. I was surprised to see them all leave, all at once. I waited a full five minutes to get down from the chair, but when I did, I grabbed a tray and a fork and entered the serving line.

  Pint returned, following me like a shadow. "I'm going to watch your portions, Private Sprungli."

  How could I tell that to my stomach? I was so hungry. I said, "But Drill Sergeant."

  Suddenly the Drills, the Sentinels, swarmed me again, sensing me by sonar. They shouted in unison for another minute.

  When they finally backed off, I reached the first lunch lady in the serving line. The cooks were as mean as the Drills. I never saw such a sassy lunch lady. In high school I ripped on the lunch lady all the time, but these creatures were not to be poked. Even the bagpiper with her liquid eggs sneered at me, exposing a row of golden teeth. I felt the need to blow bubbles, but that little Drill Sergeant Pint followed me through the whole line.

  "Sausage or bacon?" said the lunch lady.

  Pint shouted. "Sausage or bacon? Decide! How about neither! Face forward. Side-step. Move! Step, heel, step, heel, step heel step, uh-huh. Step, heel, step, heel, step heel step, uh-huh."

  It did have a nice rhythm. Holding my tray, I tried to reach out for an extra mini-box of Frosted Flakes, but Pint was waiting. He snatched it out of my hands.

  By this time, I was shaking, and for goodness sakes, I just wanted to eat, but even then my stomach quivered as much as my nerves. If I could only manage to get something to drink, I could just sit down and stare at the food, maybe eat quietly for an hour, perhaps go back for seconds.

  I grabbed two plastic cups from a tall stack and went to the Coke machine for my favorite mixture of MelloYello, Root Beer, and Cherry Coke, but when I pushed the cup against the fountain lever, another Drill Sergeant popped up and bellowed like a charging elephant in Age of Empires, video game of the year, 1997. r />
  "Water only, Private! Hydrate! Drink water!"

  I dropped the cup and spilled cola on my shirt. Somehow I managed to hold onto the tray. Behind me I heard all kinds of snickering.

  A girl bumped into me. She whispered, "Get some water and move." I filled two cups and followed her to an open table. When I sat down, she stared at her tray and whispered, "Girls can't sit with boys. Go away."

  Because she was cute, I said, "Thanks for the tip. By the way, I'm Paul Sprungli."

  "Why would I care? I'm not going to shake your hand."

  "Don't you have a name?"

  "West."

  I was on the verge of smooving her when that Pint suddenly grew like a new branch out of the rubber plant on her side of the table.

  "Sprungli," said Pint, "use that biscuit to cork your mouth. You too, West. I heard you two flirting. Better not be flirtin' up in here." Pint chased me away from the table, away from that beautiful West.

  At last, I started to eat. Even with starvation at hand, the food did not taste good because Pint commanded me to stuff my mouth at once, and to eat as fast as possible. No time to savor the eggs.

  Somehow, we became something of a trio: Drill Sergeant Pint, myself, and Private West. We went through everything together, from platoon to platoon, from inprocessing, to Fat Camp, to Echo Company.

  By the way, I only went to Fat Camp because of my height. No way I should have gone to Fat Camp, but let me explain that whole business.

  Inprocessing became a real nightmare. My recruiter didn't tell me about a week of sitting on wood benches, reading a manual called a Smart Book, and standing around with my thumb up my "fourth-point-of-contact." For ten hours a day we occupied lines in the hallways of a squat building, getting shushed so often by Goody Privates and Drill Sergeants that the place sounded like a Starbucks brewing cappuccinos. Finally, after my feet cramped up, we'd enter some doorway and pop out the other side holding a new piece of equipment, uniforms, field jackets, boots, and so on. We hardly had time to try any of it on. I asked for jungle boots or tanker boots, and they gave me the most vanilla boots on the market.

  When my dog-tags came, I was so excited to see my name, "Private Chips Dubbo," as requested, but some pencil-pusher discovered the mistake and tattled to the Drill Sergeants, who took me outside for what they call 'Front-Back-Go.' They stood around me while I performed push-ups (Front), flipped me over for sit-ups (Back), and then stood me up to run in place (Go).

  My new dog-tags came a day later, with my real name on it: PVT Paul Sprungli, O-positive, Baptist, US Army.

  On the third day we had to do a diagnostic Physical Training test. I passed the test, doing fourteen push-ups, eighteen sit-ups, and running one mile in the fastest time of anyone who wasn't disqualified.

  Everything was going fine until the tape measure and scales came out. My height, not my weight, was the problem. When I stepped off the scale, a female sergeant checked my height against my weight on a wall chart. She said, "You goin' to Fat Camp." If only I had been five inches taller, Fat Camp never would have happened.

  On that morning before breakfast, I really started to get discouraged. Everybody was talking about starting real Basic training, but here I lacked the height and had to think about Fat Camp.

  "That was so easy," one guy said. "When I was doing the push-ups, I could have done about eighty."

  "Did you see me run past you?" said another.

  "When I heard them yell out, 'twelve minutes,' I started running fast. I was like 'No way I'm going to Fat Camp.'"

  What a bunch of braggarts. To make things worse, no sooner did I sit down to eat, when Pint said, "Time's up!" and he chased me out of the building and rolled me in the grass for another session of Front-Back-Go.

  At first I protested. "But I just finished eating."

  "Do you think Osama Bin Laden gives a crap if you just finished eating?"

  Now how would anyone know how Osama bin Laden feels about breakfast?

  Chapter 4. Fat Camp