“Fucking who?”
“Wrong. Your name’s Stumble-ass. What’s your name?”
“Stumble-ass, sir.”
“What?”
“Stumble-ass, sir.”
“Right. Now get your kit and run!”
David wished he’d joined the navy.
Inside the white building there was a sparse barrack room, an antiseptic smell, a line of double bunks down both sides, the same DI standing, hands on hips, waiting for David, the last recruit in after the delay at the bus. It meant he got the only bunk left — right by the door. There was a whisper.
“Who spoke?” shouted the DI. It was the first thing about a DI that David noticed. They didn’t “roar” like lions, they shouted, a tad below hysteria.
A black recruit stepped forward, putting his hand up.
“Put your goddamned fucking hand down until I tell it to move.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes what?”
“You talk again, string bean, and I will personally cut your balls off. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes what?”
There was a long silence, at least five minutes. No one moved. Someone broke wind. The silence continued, then the DI, his voice rolling over the already tired and demoralized recruits, recited the litany of reception in a deliberately unemotional monotone, which made it even more foreboding for the recruits, though it consisted of telling them the obvious: where they were, Parris Island — though some thought it was a nightmare they’d woken up in. Most wanted to get back on the bus, but the bus had gone. The DI informed them that because of the small numbers of the peacetime standing army, training would have to be completed in a much shorter time than usual. If he had his way, he would work the miserable maggots eighteen hours a day, but insofar as Congress in its wisdom had decreed that a maggot had to receive seven and one-half hours of “uninterrupted sleep,” the maggots would have to work much harder than was usual for maggots in order that they
Strange insects buzzed and flapped against the gauze, reincarnated recruits, though David, trying to remember from his zoology course whether it was the female mosquito that made the zinging noise or the male. Anyway, it was like the DI: the one you didn’t hear was the one that got you, the one you’d like to kill. One of the fluorescent lights had started flickering. They were still at attention.
“Stumble-ass!”
“What’s in that plastic bag?”
David was so rattled, he couldn’t think. The sweat was pouring down his back. “Ah — candy, I—” It was some candy Melissa had given him when he’d left.
“No, sir.”
“Now what?”
“No,
“Take off your fucking pants!” the DI bellowed at the recruits, and began walking down the rows. “Oh — lookit this!” A recruit quickly risked a glance to see what the DI was looking at.
“Keep your fucking head up, turd.” The recruit’s head shot back up and stared ahead, eyes glazed by fear.
“Oh, look,” said the DI, his bellow daring anyone to look. “What have we got here, limp dink? Valentine shorts.” David could see far enough up the line without moving his head to see the recruit, a Puerto Rican, his boxer shorts covered with valentine hearts. The DI walked around the man once, reversed direction, and walked around the other way. David had never seen a more miserable-looking soul on God’s earth than the hapless Puerto Rican. The DI stood up to his full height, his nose almost touching the recruit, whose head was straining back while at the same time trying to remain at attention without tipping.
“Who gave you these, Thelma?”
“Name is Thelman—”
“Shut your fucking mouth. Your name’s
“My mother, sir.”
“Yes, sir.”
The DI turned. “Get your fucking plastic bag up here, Stumble-ass. On the double! Dump it on the floor.” David did so. There was a card from Melissa that fell out with the candy. David was beet-red from embarrassment and anger. He knew what the DI was trying to do. Everyone knew. It didn’t make it easier that you knew. The DI handed him the card.
“You’re the worst fucking lot I’ve seen yet. War brings out the best and worst in men. And you are the fucking worst. Empty your pockets and kits of all shit. Now. Understand?”
“Shit for you stupid assholes is any substance contrary to regulation. Aspirin is shit, narcotics are shit, vitamins are shit, prescription drugs are shit, candy is shit. Booze is shit. Anything I don’t like is shit. Understand?”
“Only wedding rings are permitted. What’s
“A radio, sir. Transistor.”
“That’s shit.”
The pile of drugs, combs, neck chains, condoms, gum, cigarettes, filled the plastic bag. But this was the easy part. Next day, beginning with the usual breakfast by numbers at 0430, David saw his hair, the last vestige of his individuality, falling from him in great gobs unceremoniously pushed away by an enormous broom into a garbage bag. Then there were the obsessive “forming” rituals of induction week, the humiliating “asshole inspection,” the endless grueling day of DI abuse, the numbingly repetitious use of every weapon from M-16s to the laser-guided TOW, the “Alfa Bravo Charlie Delta…” alphabet so that messages might never be misunderstood, the stifling, nauseating forced run through the gas hut, the issue of standard condoms along with other standard equipment, the bare dining room with the words “TACT, LOYALTY, GUNG-HO, COURAGE, TEAMWORK, HONESTY, KNOWLEDGE, MORALE” stenciled on the support posts above the painted footprints where you had to stand.
What David remembered most was the kind of small incident that for some reason stays with you for life. It was one night just after lights out, the moon cold comfort over the Carolina low country, when the Puerto Rican called Thelma turned to David and said, “I came here to be a marine — to fight for my country— not this kind of crap.”
From near the “mouse house,” the DI’s small room with basin at the end of the hut, a silhouette appeared, its peaked hat sharp against the halo of the moon. The DI’s voice, for the first time that David could remember,
