Читать книгу Where War Ends - Tom Voss - Страница 15
ОглавлениеWhen inanimate objects hit the floor, there’s a crashing sound. When human beings hit the floor, there’s a thud. Thud. Private after private was yanked from his bed by drill sergeants who paced through our barracks like predators. They grabbed soundly sleeping bodies from top bunks and hurled them and their mattresses to the floor — a six-foot drop below. With every thud I said a silent prayer of thanks for my bottom bunk.
“Toe the fucking line!” shouted a drill sergeant.
Our entire platoon was up and in line in less than a minute. In my sleep-induced stupor, I tried to get a sense of the time. It was pitch-black outside and still hot as hell — that muggy, choking heat of a Georgia summer night. There was no air-conditioning in our barracks, so we toed the line in as little clothing as possible — physical training (PT) shorts or army-issued, shit-colored underwear.
Fort Benning was just outside the city of Columbus, about a hundred miles from the Alabama border. The average temperature in July was a punishing 92 degrees. Thick, still air hung above flat, wet plains that gave way to rolling hills — the perfect setting for grueling midday marches. With a forty-pound rucksack, a sweat-soaked uniform, and rust-colored mud that practically swallowed my boots with each step, marching in the Georgia heat was almost enough to make me regret joining the army altogether.
It was spring 2003, and I was about eight weeks into basic training — a thirteen-week boot camp to turn soft, selfish teenagers into trained killing machines. On March 19, 2003, just weeks after I’d started basic, the United States and its allies declared war on Iraq. The threat of being sent to war felt vague, distant, and less like a threat than a chance to put my training to good use. The possibility of war felt especially unimportant when two sour-breathed drill sergeants were screaming in our faces in the middle of the night.
We were in trouble for something. Big trouble. We had fifteen seconds to get fully dressed, downstairs, and into formation to hear about whatever we’d done wrong. It was an impossible order, and they knew it. We sprinted to our lockers and scrambled into PT uniforms amid a never-ending chorus of Hurry UP Hurry UP Hurry UP Hurry UP Hurry UP Hurry UP Hurry UP.
Ninety seconds later, a hundred and sixty privates from four different platoons stood at attention before eight fuming drill sergeants in the yard below. Every private from Charlie Company 2-19 had been pulled from his bunk in the middle of the night. On the rare occasions when we’d been woken up like this, it’d never been with the entire company. Someone must have fucked up big-time.
I made a frantic mental dive through the maze of the previous day, trying to remember if I’d screwed up. PT was fine — I was the third guy done with push-ups. I shaved and made my bed and put on the right uniform. I locked and relocked and re-relocked my wall locker. A few days before, I’d accidentally left it unlocked, and a hysterical drill sergeant had tossed the whole locker across the bay, my underwear and shaving kit flying like shrapnel, my tightly rolled socks rolling across the floor like severed heads. Even worse, our platoon had to do a shit ton of push-ups because of me, which was not the best way to make friends.
This wasn’t about me . . . was it?
It couldn’t be. I had the perfect temperament for military service. Head down. Mouth shut. The quiet one who was a good team player. I was like my dad, who dedicated his life to helping people who needed help but usually didn’t want it. I was like my Bampa, who risked his life to protect the lives of the men he commanded during war. If called on to do something like that, I was pretty sure I’d be ready.
But not everyone came to basic ready to take one for the team. Like this kid from the Bronx, Ferraro. Where I kept my head down and my mouth shut, Ferraro kept his chin up and mouth open. He was constantly getting punished because of it. Ferraro was stumpy and muscular. He had straight, archless eyebrows that make him look like Bert from Sesame Street, and a silhouette of black stubble on his head that never quite disappeared, no matter how often he shaved.
Ferraro took a lot of pride in being the platoon clown and didn’t seem to care if it got him — or the rest of us — roasted. His favorite prank, the Pinkeye Nightmare, required a top bunk, a loose pair of pants, and a sleeping private. Ferraro would climb up onto the bunk, straddle the sleeping guy’s face, pull down his pants, and shout “WAKE UP!” at the top of his lungs. When the sleeping private awoke with a start, the guy’d slam his face right into Ferraro’s waiting asshole. Maybe, instead of a family who valued service and restraint, Ferraro hailed from a long line of court jesters or reality TV stars. Maybe, in his family, it was a sign of character to indulge in humor that only you found funny. Or maybe Ferraro was just kind of a dick.
As my eyes adjusted to the darkness of the yard, I noticed a private who wasn’t standing in formation with the rest of us. Instead, he was standing apart from the entire company, as if he’d been put on display. He was surrounded by drill sergeants who leaned in toward the private like they were ready to pounce. In the darkness, I strained to see who it was. When one of the drill sergeants stepped away from their circle of shame, he revealed a private with a stumpy, muscular physique, straight, archless eyebrows, a silhouette of black stubble, and surely an anus clenched in fear.
It was Ferraro, the face sitter. The butthole bandit.
My heart did a little heel kick — this jerk was finally going to get what was coming to him. Then my heart sank — Ferraro was from my platoon. If Ferraro was going down, we were all going down with him.
“Cum stains!” shouted a drill sergeant.
In the darkness, the drill sergeant paced back and forth in front of Ferraro, his white skin gleaming against the blackness of the night. He looked like a ghost floating toward a condemned prisoner and spoke in sharp, infrequent barks, with pauses so long you could drive a truck through them. Drill sergeants lived for this type of shit.
“It SEEMS,” shouted the drill sergeant, “that Private FERRARO here thought it would be a good IDEA to take a little midnight FIELD TRIP!”
Silence. No one moved. No one breathed. Ferraro’s chin quivered above his heaving chest. In his hand he clutched a small, oblong object that I couldn’t quite make out in the dark. He looked like he was ready to shit his pants, vomit, or both.
“Apparently, Private FERRARO thought it would be a good IDEA to sneak out to BRAVO Company,” said the drill sergeant.
We were Charlie Company. Charlie Company was never allowed to leave our barracks without permission, and definitely not to sneak out to Bravo Company, and most definitely not in the middle of the night.
“APPARENTLY Private FERRARO thought it would be a good IDEA to help himself to a little midnight SNACK!”
A few audible groans rippled across the company. Ferraro’s entire face rippled and twitched at the sound of them.
“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” yelled the drill sergeant.
He spat in Ferraro’s general direction before continuing:
“PRIVATE FERRARO so desperately wanted a CANDY BAR, that he LEFT HIS BARRACKS PAST CURFEW, SNUCK OUT TO BRAVO COMPANY, BOUGHT HIMSELF A SNICKERS FROM THE VENDING MACHINE, GOT CAUGHT BY A DRILL SERGEANT, LIED ABOUT WHERE HE WAS FROM, RAN AWAY, and GOT. CAUGHT. AGAIN.”
You have got. To be fucking. Kidding me.
The sergeant’s white skin turned a familiar shade of purple in the dim light — it was the look they got when they were about to burst a blood vessel from screaming so loud.
“PRIVATE HOT DOG HEAD!” yelled the drill sergeant.
“Yes, Drill Sergeant!” shouted Hot Dog Head, so named for the rolls of skin that bulged at the nape of his neck and made him look like a human shar-pei.
“WHAT PLATOON DOES PRIVATE FERRARO BELONG TO?” asked the drill sergeant.
Hot Dog Head paused a split second too long.
“I CAN’T HEAR YOU, HOT DOG!”
“Private Ferraro is from First Platoon, Drill Sergeant!”
Silence. Forty stomachs instantly dropped, including my own.
“HOT DOG HEAD!” shouted Drill Sergeant.
“Yes, Drill Sergeant!” said Hot Dog Head.
“DO YOU THINK PRIVATE FERRARO’S BEHAVIOR TONIGHT WAS ACCEPTABLE OR UNACCEPTABLE?”
“Unacceptable, Drill Sergeant!” he said.
The sergeant paused for dramatic effect, priming his vocal cords for his speech’s epic finale.
“Then why the FUCK did YOU let him go?”
Mercifully, he didn’t wait for Hot Dog Head’s sputtering response.
“YOU ARE ALL RESPONSIBLE FOR PRIVATE FERRARO’S BEHAVIOR TONIGHT. THERE ARE FORTY PRIVATES IN FIRST PLATOON, AND EVERY ONE OF YOU HAD THE CHANCE TO STOP PRIVATE FERRARO FROM LEAVING. BUT YOU DID NOTHING!”
Forty pairs of eyes sent invisible laser darts of hatred directly into Ferraro’s body.
“SO YOU ARE ALL GOING TO GET THE DOG SHIT SMOKED OUT OF YOU WHILE PRIVATE FERRARO ENJOYS HIS CANDY BAR.”
Another drill sergeant grabbed the candy bar from Ferraro’s sweaty palm, unwrapped it, and shoved it back into Ferraro’s hand. We all watched him take a bite and start to chew. And that’s when we heard the most despised words in all of basic training:
“HALF RIGHT, FACE!”
“Half right, face” is a command to make a half right turn while still in formation. It gives you just enough room to do push-ups and other PT without bumping into the guy next to you. The civilian translation of “half right, face” is “you’re about to get super fucked up.”
Ferraro finished his Snickers bar. Then he did the only thing he was allowed to do — he stood there, surrounded by drill sergeants, and watched us get our asses kicked.
After hundreds of mountain climbers and what seemed like thousands of push-ups, when we’d all been dissolved to quivering messes, we were finally released to go back upstairs to continue our punishment.
My legs shook as I climbed the steps to our barracks. Sweating and heaving, we gathered like exhausted sheep around Drill Sergeant Velasquez, who was holding Ferraro by the arm. Velasquez kicked a mattress across the floor of the bay — Ferraro’s for the night. Each squad would keep watch over Ferraro so he didn’t take any more field trips, go AWOL, or try to kill himself. Apparently, guys subjected to this level of public humiliation often became suicide risks or runaways. We’d watch Ferraro in shifts: Was it thirty minutes? An hour? I was so tired, even fifteen minutes felt like an eternity. Once our shift was done, the next squad would take up the watch, and we could sleep for an hour or so until it was our turn again.
My squad stood in a circle around Ferraro’s bed. He sat on the mattress, his arms wrapped protectively around his knees, staring downward. No one spoke. The minutes that ticked by felt like centuries under the weight of my body. Ferraro’s eyes started to close.
“Wake the FUCK up!” someone shouted.
More minutes passed. Ferraro began dozing again. I resisted the urge to kick him and kicked the mattress instead.
“If we’re staying up, so are you,” I said.
I have no idea how much time passed, but it felt like going to the DMV after running a marathon. When we were finally relieved by Squad 2, I collapsed into bed for an hour of sleep. Before I knew it, Drill Sergeant Velasquez was back with two other sergeants in tow; it was 5:00 AM and time for roll call.
“Get the FUCK up. Toe the line. Get into your uniforms because we’re going on a ten-mile march. Not you, Ferraro. You come with us.”
I don’t know what they did to Ferraro that morning. A few days later he was back in our platoon like nothing had happened — except he was different somehow. For the rest of basic, he barely spoke to anyone. He kept his head down and his pants on and graduated with the rest of us. But his spirit was broken. His desires had been battered and forgotten, or at least compartmentalized, at least for now. To survive, he had to relinquish the pleasure of individuality, but also its pain and consequences. He joined us, finally, without resistance. Ferraro’s candy bar was forever etched in my mind as a reminder of what it means to be a soldier — to be so connected to others that your personal desires don’t matter anymore. To be so connected that you can say no to what you want because saying yes would suck for everyone else. Becoming a soldier meant becoming responsible for your actions and for everyone else’s actions, too. It meant you shouldered the burden of another’s punishment as if it was your own. It meant you suffered shared pain and connected with others through the bonds of that suffering.
That’s what it was, then, to join the army: to relinquish yourself completely. To let go of your wants and needs and succumb to the will of the whole. To willingly attend your own funeral, step into the casket, and inhale the scent of fresh earth as it was shoveled onto your beating heart. And to be reborn as a single cell in a giant body. To support without thinking, to act without questioning, and to defend the greater body with your life.
