CH.5 — A Couple Of OK Cottontails

Skebo wakes me up five minutes before my usual 4:45 a.m. rising.

“God damn,” he says. “God damn.”

I spring up. There’s a note on Apperson’s pillow.

“Later, boys.”

His military gear is all over the floor. Suitcase gone. Laundry bag gone. Troop gone.

I start to shake. I’ve never been this close to major wrongdoing before.

“He couldn’t have gone far,” Skebo says. “I got up to piss at 3:30 and he was still here.”

Skebo might have the bloodhound in him, but I don’t.

“Are you saying we should track him down? I say let him go. He’s where he wants to be.”

We decide the best strategy is to pretend we didn’t get up early. Pretend we don’t know anything about anything. There’s only one snag. In order for the entire bay to achieve ignorance, Carouthers must be in on the plot. That means somebody has to play Mister Alarm Clark. Somebody white.

“Carouthers can’t stand us when he’s awake and we’re 50 feet away from him,” I say. “No telling what he might do if we touch him while he’s asleep.”

Skebo is no less eager to administer the wake-up call. So we hatch a plan.

The hall closet is filled with cleaning supplies. We’ll fetch a broom and gently poke Carouthers from what we hope is a safe distance.

I target his ankle and tap with the pressure of a baby kitten taking its first steps.

Nothing.

“You’ll have to do it harder than that,” Skebo whispers.

I put the handle between his toes, pretend they’re guitar strings and lightly strum.

Carouthers’ involuntary reflex system picks that exact moment to go haywire. His left foot goes into full-blown spasm and powers down on the handle.

“Ow, fuck.”

And what’s the first thing he sees when he wakes up? A white person standing over him with a stick in his hands.

Carouthers grabs the tent stake and comes at me.

“No, no, it’s not what you think,” Skebo shouts, jumping between us. It’s the single most bravest act I’ve ever seen.

Carouthers pauses, perhaps in respect for one white motherfucker’s willingness to give his life for another.

“Apperson,” Skebo breathes. “He’s gone.”

Caucasian conspiracy is written all over Carouthers’ face until he sees the note.

We explain that the thing to do is let the DIs make the discovery for themselves.

Carouthers goes along. 4:58. 4:59. Haddox thunders down the hall, throwing light switches and hollering for everybody to get the fuck up.

We watch him enter our room. After drop-kicking my boots because they aren’t sufficiently shined, he sees the slip of paper.

“Jesus shitpile Christ.”

We take that to mean Haddox has been forced to revisit his worst subject in school — subtraction. There’s one less of us than there was the night before.

He looks at Apperson’s bed and then us.

“Don’t touch a thing.”

We creep to the edge of the steps, our gateway to the CQ. The place quickly fills with DIs from our company and from those in adjoining barracks. Ten minutes pass and officers begin to arrive.

Soon we’re given new orders for the morning. Our quarters are off limits until the investigators finish sifting through Apperson’s leavings. Skebo, Carouthers and I are ushered to the pit that contains the horizontal bars. We’re not to move.

The bad morning for Carouthers just got worse. First, he was awakened by a white person with suspicious intent. Now he must endure forced togetherness with folks of the opposite color.

Skebo senses an opportunity to probe the inner workings of the large man. He gives Carouthers preferred seating next to one of the bars’ wooden supports.

I’m squirming. It was OK talking about race with Gaines, who is as engaging as he is unintimidating. Carouthers is brooding, menacing. If I had the gift of gab — and I’m not saying I do — this person would make me want to give it back.

Skebo is a little nervous in his opening presentation.

“Uh, er, to get this discussion off on the right foot, it seems, uh, that we need to come to a mutual, er, understanding.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Carouthers snorts.

“In the room,” Skebo goes on, “there’s something that bothers, uh, us.”

I shake my head. Don’t include me in this. I’m happy that Carouthers has seen fit to let us live.

Skebo plods on.

“There’s this, uh, word that you use when you refer to us that’s, uh, not a very nice word. We’d, uh, sorta like for you to call us a different word, er, if you don’t mind.”

“What goddamn word?”

“Uh, er, when you look at us and say ‘motherfucker.’ We, uh, have never had conjugal visits with our moms, and don’t expect to in the near future.”

This is Bravest Thing № 2: Pointing out a vocabulary shortcoming to someone who ignores the manufacturer’s recommended use of the tent stake.

Skebo’s lips are running in place. I take that as an indication he’d appreciate some help, and quick.

“Uh, I must admit it does somewhat bother me when you say I’m a motherfucker,” I stammer.

Carouthers exhales, which I interpret as a hostile reaction.

So I quickly backtrack.

“We’re not saying that you stop calling us motherfuckers altogether. Not at all. Just maybe adopt a gradual stepdown program. For example, instead of calling us motherfuckers four times in a row, you throw in a cocksucker on fifth reference. Then the next day, let it be two motherfuckers, a turdball and a pissant before you get back to motherfucker.”

That’s it. I’ve done for Skebo’s lips all I’m going to do.

“You’re ‘fraid of me, ain’t ya? ‘Fraid of the tall dark Negro.”

I don’t have any problem nodding to that. Neither does Skebo.

For the first time, Carouthers acts like he’s tired of that role. That he wants a new character to play.

“Aw, shit, man. I ain’t so bad.”

Skebo takes that as a signal that the roundtable is at least temporarily in session and asks the first questiion.

“When did you go to an integrated school for the first time?”

“Fall of 1964,” Carouthers says. “Up to then, I rode a bus 40 miles one way every morning to the all-black school. Three white high schools were by the side of the road, but the bus just kept on going.

“You don’t know how that makes you feel. You ain’t good enough to go to the white school with the new brick building and the nice paved parking lot. You gotta go to the colored school where the roof leaks and the janitor is the math teacher.”

I think about how he could beat the crap out of me in less than five seconds, and ask if he played sports when he went to the white school.

“They started a wrestling team the first year I was there. No other brother tried out, but I said, shit, the white folks are trying something new. I’ll try something new. They didn’t have enough money for a mat, so the coach went out and bought piles of used carpet. I remember the day I learned a reversal. I went home and said, ‘Mama, I know how to get away when a guy’s on top of me.’ She started laughing and shit. I’m thinking how to score two points and she’s thinking queer love. But she never said nothing and paid the four bucks so I could have a team sweater.

“The day comes for our first meet. We were going to the biggest high school in that part of the state. They had a portable mat that they put on the basketball floor. We kept hearing that six, seven hundred people come out for the matches.

“I’m excited, man. At lunch I wrote down all the moves I knew on a napkin. I’m studying that napkin all the way through fourth and fifth period. I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna do that, then, bam, the ref’s gonna raise my hand.

“It’s 2:30 in the afternoon and the coach pulls me out of math class. He’s got this look on his face. It snowed the night before, so I thought maybe the match got called off.

“Man wouldn’t look me in the face. He talks sideways-like and tells me I ain’t gonna be wrestling. I thought the guy I was going against couldn’t make his weight, or maybe got sick.

“Then he tells me he called the other team’s coach and told him I’m black. This gave the man a chance to talk to his wrestler in my class and find out if he had a problem. Kid had a problem all right. Big problem. Said he’d quit the team if he had to put his hands on a nigger. Other boys on the team found out about it and they said they’d turn our bus over if I wrestled.”

Skebo asks if he participated in any other activities at the new school.

“What do you think?” Carouthers says. “No fucking way.”

I think about the wrestling incident, and what I hope will be my career after leaving this place.

“Maybe you should have gone to the newspaper. Told your story. Raised a stink.”

Carouthers looks at me as if to say, hey, glad you asked.

“When my father passed. Mama took the death notice in along with his picture she kept on the mantel. The woman behind the desk said she couldn’t put it in the real newspaper. Mama would have to wait ’til Sunday when they ran News from the Colored Community. She put the piece of paper back in her purse. Mama knew her place. The white people called her Mrs. Miller’s Bessie on accounta that’s who she cleaned house for. Didn’t have no name of her own. She walked in the door. I’m playing with my Dinky Toys on the floor. I could tell something happened, but I was too little to know what. She started to put Daddy’s picture back in the frame real careful-like. Then all of a sudden she throws it down. Glass flies all over the place. ‘Ain’t that some kind of shit,’ she said. Only time I ever saw her get mad.’’

My turn to testify.

I tell bout the summer we visited my grandparents in the Virginia mill town when I was 12. My brother and I did the hug-and-kiss routine for a polite period of time before asking to go to the swimming pool.

My grandfather said there wasn’t going to be any swimming this year because the niggers decided they wanted to go to the same pool. The grownups in the living room were in unanimous agreement that the uppity niggers were at fault, and the town council had made the correct decision.

The next day we drove by the city park. There was the pool. Blue as can be.

And not a soul in the water. A giant padlock hung from the gate.

One of the grownups in the car said black people are filthy and the chlorine can only do so much. There’s be disease all over that water, they told my brother and me. Best to just stay here on the porch.

I gather these thoughts, and begin to understand why the person sleeping across from me in the bay would holler the lyrics to “Shaft” and keep a tent stake at the ready.

Skebo isn’t saying much. You’re the master of ceremonies for this little shindig, I say. You can’t let your guests monopolize the proceedings.

“I was a member of the Key Club in high school,” he says softly. “One of my best friends was this black kid named James. He beat me on every French test. I hated that.”

Skebo hesitates as if the tale is too painful to tell. He looks over as if to ask permission to remain silent. Carouthers shakes his head. The troop will talk.

“My stock in the club wasn’t too high,” Skebo goes on. “One reason was because I studied too much. Another was that they saw me driving around with James in the front seat, and the word got out I was a nigger-lover.

“For some reason, James wanted to join the Key Club. He had this weird notion that they’d forget he was black and take him right in. James kept asking for me to get him an application. I could see bad things coming and didn’t want any part. I’d either tell him I forgot or lie and say the club secretary was out of forms. He finally ended up getting one from the faculty sponsor.

“The day for deciding the 1966–1967 pledge class came. Each member got a copy of the roster. One of the football players printed ‘Nigger’ in big letters besides James’ name.

“Somebody noticed that James used my name as a recommendation. The room got quiet. Was this true?

“I denied James and I were friends. Denied we walked down the hall together on the way to French class. Said we just happened to have the same-length stride, that’s all. Said the only reason he was in my car was because it was storming real bad that day, and you wouldn’t want to see even a nigger get killed by lightning.

“That seemed to satisfy them. The next step was listening to the speeches. An applicant’s name would be called out, and one or more club members would say a few words in his behalf. James’s turn came. No one said anything. I wanted to tell them James was a great guy, and they’d really like him once they got to know him. But I didn’t have the guts. There was a long silence and then the next name on the pledge class roster was called.

“This went on for about 45 minutes and then they passed out the ballots. I couldn’t acknowledge James in public, so the least I could do was give him the satisfaction of getting at least one vote, right? But I didn’t even do that. I was afraid somebody in the club would recognize my handwriting. He’d see the check mark beside James’ name, know it was mine and I’d be called nigger-lover for the rest of my life.

“James called that night to find out if he got in. I said, God, it was close. We bounced the applicants around for more than three hours. I spoke up for you at every turn, old buddy, but damn, you came up two votes short.

“And you know the worst part? James bought it. Thanked me for going the extra mile for him and then joked he was going to beat me again on the French test tomorrow.

“I put the phone down and started sobbing. Right in front of Mom and Dad. I told them I wasn’t going to school the next day. They could make up some song-and-dance for the principal if they wanted to, but I didn’t care. Wasn’t going to study the lessons either. Get some Fs for a change. I screwed over a guy I liked. The least I could do was screw over myself.”

Carouthers can’t believe what he’s hearing. It’s as if Skebo and I are at confessional and he gets to listen inside the little room.

“We were never the same friends after that,” Skebo goes on. “I couldn’t face up to him after what I did. It was like there was this deed to our friendship, and I sold it out from under him.”

Skebo says he heard James moved to California.

“I know his mom and dad. Maybe one day when the time is right, I’ll ask them for his address. Tell him the white guy who sat behind him in French class is a shitty excuse for a human being.”

I recall my high school and the black homecoming queen who wasn’t. Five girls were nominated, and you voted by stuffing money in campaign jars that were put under their pictures. Carolyn was well-liked by all the kids and the quarters and half-dollars rolled in. We were trying to send a message that times were changing, and a predominately white school could have a black homecoming queen if it wanted to.

The teachers were appalled that Carolyn could win one of the school’s highest honors. The last day of the contest, they sneaked out in the hall during classes when they thought no one was looking and stuffed Penny’s jar with dollar bills. At the end of sixth period, it was announced that the Caucasian chick had amassed a veritable fortune and was the winner hands down. The quarterback kissed Penny at half time and everything was right with the world.

Awkward silence on the podium until Carouthers pounds the gavel.

“You two are some all right cottontails,” he says, beaming.

Carouthers must translate.

“Whites, goddammit. You know, the tails. You’re a couple of OK whites.”

From motherfucker to cottontails in one roundtable. I need to take my step-down program on the road.

The investigators — if that’s the right word for three Junior Achievement MPs who shave less than 3 percent of their faces — call us to the CQ.

“Did you know Apperson was leaving?”

Three heads shake as one.

“Do you have any idea where he went?”

Another round of shaking.

We’re dismissed.

On the way out the door, Carouthers whispers: “I should have said he went to the Black Hills of Dakota. Wanted to live next to some Negroes.”

Our platoon reports to personal hygiene class.

Where we learn:

“Use clean clothing. Have a clean body. Have clean mess gear. Wash hands after using latrine. Why are these measures important? To prevent the spread of disease. Always have clean and dry feet, especially between toes. Do not get debris or mud into canteen when you fill it. Add one iodine tablet for clean water, two for cloudy water. Why are these measures important? To prevent the spread of disease.”

Then a class on troop movements.

Where we learn:

“On command of forward, shift weight to right foot. Fingers are curled. The right hand is nine inches in front of the pants seam. The left hand is six inches to the rear of the seam. Arms swing close to side. A step is 30 inches. There are 120 paces a minute. All marching steps from halt are started from left, except right-step march. The command of double-time march is given from halt or quick-time. Make a fist with forearms parallel to ground. Take 180 steps a minute at individual distance of 36 inches per step. On right-step march, raise right foot 10 inches from heel. No arm-swinging. Halted command given when heels are together.”

Then an exercise PT followed by a running PT forced on us because of dickhead Peavey, who lost his glasses while we were marching. When he leaned over to pick them up, Ya double-timed right over top of him. Despite the fact Peavey put up the resistance of a kite tail, the rollover effect was devastating and troops went down like flies.

Four different DIs got in his face, but Waldspurger got off the best line.

“Peavey, this ain’t no comedy show on TV. You’d better change your channel.”

Followed by a class on military customs and traditions.

Where we learn:

“The salute is always with the right hand. The salute is six feet before passing officers or when making eye-to-eye contact. The index finger will touch helmet liner or the eyebrow if not wearing a hat. If on a detail, the man in charge will salute. If double-timing, slow to quick-time to salute, then resume running. If sitting in a group, call attention and all salute.”

Then our first look at the M-16s.

Alpha Company is marched to a nondescript brick building across the street from the mess hall. They open the door and we see row after row of high-powered rifles locked down high and low by thick metal bars. We’re introduced to a thick-necked individual with teeth the color of a football who pronounces himself the armorer. He acts as if we’re getting ready to enter a cathedral.

“Inside this supply area, men, is the most advanced infantry weapon known to man. The M16. 5.56 caliber. Magazine-fed, gas powered, shoulder-fired. Semi-automatic or automatic. Weight: 6.55 pounds. Weight with cartridge magazine and sling lift with 20-round clip: 7.6 pounds. Cyclical rate of fire, 700 to 800 rounds per minute. Maximum effective range: 460 meters.”

I expect him to genuflect at any moment. The man is so overcome by all the muzzle velocity at his disposal that he cannot find the words that give justice to the killing potential.

Skebo whispers a suggested text.

“Blessed Father, the enemy knows not what they do. Let us blow their brains out.”

Waldspurger herds his platoon into a classroom where there’s an M-16 on the table. We’re encouraged to cop a feel. After that buildup, I’m expecting the thing to look like a torpedo, but it’s more like a billy club with a trigger mechanism. The barrel is light. The stock is light. You could beat the enemy over the head with it and not even raise a welt.

“Let’s have a show of hands,” Waldspurger calls out. “How many of you are familiar with weapons? You’ve hunted or gone target-shooting or something like that.”

About two-thirds of us. Ya not only raises his hand, he waves it. The troop has been waiting for just this moment. He can’t run and he can’t march, but by God he can sure pour lead.

“OK, now how many of you have had at least a little experience with rifles?”

Most hands go up, but I keep mine down. I’ve never fired a gun in my life — something they’ll find out in three seconds when I go to the range.

“Don’t worry about it. They can teach a terrier to shoot.”

Waldspurger takes a seat.

“I’m gonna tell you guys what to expect out there.”

This is unbelievable. The guy is about to break the drill instructor’s code. He’s going to give us prior knowledge.

“The big thing is not to get the range cadre mad at you. They do the same thing day after day and have absolutely no patience. Worst I ever got hollered at in basic was at the quick-fire range. I lost my firing pin for a few minutes and they ‘bout had a shit fit.”

Laughter all around. Waldspurger is rarer than a gemstone in a grease rank.

“It’s about three miles to the shortest range from the barracks and five miles to the furthest,” our DI goes on. “Sometimes you’ll march both ways. Sometimes you’ll ride cattle cars. Changes every day.

“And speaking of every day, that’s pretty much what rifle training is. You’ve still got a lot of classes and guard mounts and shit like that, but you’ll see Armorer Fickley just about every morning from here on out.”

We head for home where the schedule says there’s an hour of admin time, which is another way of saying jacking off in the company area.

We’re trying to turn Carouthers on to “Riders on the Storm” when we hear a whistle.

“Alpha Platoon, fall out.”

It’s Litton, and he’s pissed.

“Your platoon leads the company in AWOLs,” he screams. “Did you know that?”

Gilchrist of our number walked off post the second day. And, now, Apperson.

“Start running in place,” he commands.

Ten minutes pass and we’re still high-stepping. When it suits him, Litton drops us for pushups. We do as many as we can until our arms collapse, and then we get back to running in place.

This is bullshit. I didn’t know Gilchrist, but I know for a fact Apperson didn’t want to be here. Shouldn’t have been here. Should have been at least in jail if not the penitentiary. But the Army cut him a deal. Put on these fatigues and we’ll forget all about those silly felony convictions. The guy comes out here for a few days, begins to miss his switchblade and — surprise, surprise — jumps ship. He would have fled from any unit he was in. Alpha, Bravo, Gamma, Sigma Phi, whatever.

But this Litton, this West Point graduate, can’t understand that. It’s not our fault Apperson is gone, it’s the Army’s fault he was here.

Twenty minutes and our legs are still churning. I know I’m sometimes guilty of complaining for complaining’s sake. But this time I have a mature, fully rational reason to despise this place. From Litton on down, they’re barbaric bastards plugged in like a power plant to the most anal-retentive approach to determining right and wrong.

Several of us are puking. Many look like that could happen any second.

Litton calls the rest of the company to the sidewalk.

“Alpha here has had two AWOLs,” Litton roars. “The rest of you men, look them over. See how sick they look from running in place. This is what’s going to happen to a platoon every fucking time it has an AWOL.”

If I had more balls, if I had 45 seconds until my enlistment is up, I would say, “Apperson was the lowest common denominator of our band of merry men. We knew he was a piece of shit. Nobody in Alpha Platoon would be a tourist in any state where Apperson ever maintained a residence. Nobody in Alpha Platoon would have signed Apperson up for anything more than the guy who passes out books and magazines inside the joint.”

But, naturally, I keep quiet.

We’re dead on our feet, we’ve got blisters the size of tote sacks and our knees may never stop cracking.

So where does Alpha Platoon go?

To the chop shop.

There’s no hair to cut off, but that doesn’t bother Litton who orders the barbers to use their instruments to scrub-brush our upper regions.

It’s one thing to push us to be quasi-soldiers, but all Litton is doing is showing his ass.

The barbers aren’t into it any more than we are. I watch the one take a couple of quick laps around Boil’s bulging cranium, realize he has absolutely no idea where he’s going or where he’s been, and holler a quick “Next.”

Leave it to Ya to put his feelings into perfect words.

“This is totally fucked,” he says, kicking his pistol belt down the hall.

But Skebo isn’t on board.

“Best performance I’ve seen since we’ve been here,” he says, wiping vomit from his chin. “Litton should get an Academy Award.”

Explain yourself, I command.

“Litton’s not stupid, OK,” Skebo begins. “Apperson wasn’t going to get on the career track out here. Litton saw the AWOL as an opportunity to foster esprit de corps.”

“How the fuck was he doing that?” Carouthers wants to know.

“By making us all mad, that’s how. Would you agree that right now there’s an entire platoon that would like to see Litton get run over by a tank?”

I murmur in the affirmative. You can be as one happy, or be as one pissed. Our captain opted for № 2.

“Litton played it for all he was worth,” Skebo continues. “He wasn’t more than 10 percent irritated at us, but he came over as if we firebombed his first-born. He wanted us to hate his guts in 40-part harmony.”

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

“We need a ball-checker. Who wants to be ball-checker?”

The head poobah at the rifle range has set his M-16 on automatic. The presumption is that the weapon will kick like a stegosaurus. Our professor wants to prove it doesn’t.

And how best to get that point across in a Neanderthal setting?

Why, by putting the thing against his crotch and firing.

“Gotta have a pecker-checker before and after. Who’s it gonna be?”

The troops holler “Pea-vey, Pea-vey” like a football cheer. The company fuck-up is practically thrown to center stage.

“What’s your name, son?” the cadre guy asks.

The rumpled troop mumbles a response, but the syllables become trapped in all that acne and suffocate.

“Here’s the deal, son. You examine my private parts before I shoot off a 20-round clip and then after. If there’s any damage, you get to go home and I get to go to the hospital. Is that fair?”

The rest of us are in hysterics. Peavey winces, closes his eyes and starts to feel around.

“Can’t do it like a blind man. Gotta see what you’re getting. Go for it, son. Do I got one pineapple down there or two?”

Peavey puts his hands on the man’s balls for the time it takes a hummingbird to hit passing gear.

“OK, son, now tell the men where the butt of the weapon is located as we speak?”

“Your nuts,” Peavey whispers to the assembled multitude.

“I’m proud of ’em, son. You be proud of ‘em.”

“YOUR NUTS,” Peavey screams.

With ruffles and flourishes, the cadre guy proceeds to gun down an imaginary enemy with the M-16 braced against his reproductive region.

Twenty cartridges fly every which way, but the shooter’s ability to have interest in a vagina appears undiminished.

“OK, son, inspect the goods.”

In front of 200 troops. In front of all the DIs. In front of the entire range cadre. In front of more green than at Camp Chlorophyll, Peavey gets another hands-on experience.

“Umm, feels good, son. What are you doing Saturday night?”

But not everybody is convinced. We’re going to need a phase two.

“How many of you men still think the M-16 has too much bang for your buck?”

Several dozen hands go up, including mine. It could have been a trick. They can do a lot these days with mirrors.

“So what you’re saying,” our prof goes on, “is that my balls have been hardened to the M-16 after teaching 10,000 dumb asses to shoot?”

He smiles. Clearly, his favorite part of the lecture is coming up.

“So we need to use somebody else’s nuts. Somebody whose nuts aren’t as experienced.”

I can see where this is going.

“Peavey, come over here a minute.”

The cadre guy loads another clip.

“Spread your legs, son. Got to put the weapon in proper position.”

Which is directly against Peavey’s pouch pack.

“You ready, son?”

Peavey is clearly embarrassed, but not to the point of no return. There seems to be at least a small part of him that relishes the attention, even if it’s negative. If he’d get mad, the cadre guy might pick on somebody else. But Peavey just stands there with a shit-eating grin.

“OK, son. You just hold tight and I’ll do the rest. Troops, let’s have a countdown before our man here loses his nuts to a burst of automatic fire.”

“Three! Two! One!”

The cadre guy pulls the trigger. Peavey’s lower body gives a little, but there’s no shriek of pain. In the storm of bullets, his genitalia hold firm.

The troop is amazed. He thought his dick would be going end over end.

“So, what conclusions can we draw from our little demonstration?” the cadre guy wants to know.

“The M-16 doesn’t hurt,” Peavey stammers.

“Put it in language the men can understand, son.”

“Your nuts won’t come off.”

Alpha Company goes to a large classroom where 200 disassembled M-16s are on top of 200 schematics. With the care of Santa’s elves, the innards of each weapon have been perfectly placed inside the blue lines.

Here’s the charging handle.

And the bolt catch.

And the bolt carrier group.

And the buffer assembly.

And the catch button that releases the magazine.

And the firing pin.

I don’t care what the Davey Crocketts in the unit are thinking. To me, it looks like somebody made a major withdrawal from the mystery bin at the hardware store and dumped the contents on my table.

And remembering where everything fits?

A basset hound would have an easier time memorizing “Old Ironsides.”

We listen to a lecture on characteristics and capabilities of the M-16. Then one on operations and functions. Then we pour over the diagrams and tinker with the parts. The range cadre file between us like proctors at the SAT test. Screw up the first time and it’s, “Come on, troop, think.” After that, it’s “Goddammit, dickhead, if you insert the firing pin there, you’d better hope the enemy has signed a peace treaty.”

Waldspurger was right. Their ditty bags contain little or no patience.

The pecker-checkee orders the film screen rolled in and the projector turned on.

“I used to have to explain this shit,” he says, flexing his pineapples,”but now I got me a movie.”

Lights, camera, horrible music, a grainy troop holding the M-16 as he would his girlfriend and wavy letters in 300-point type that scream out, “RIFLE TRAINING AND YOU.”

Several dozen basic trainees are lying on the ground with their firing machines resting on sandbags.

“This is battlesighting, or zeroing, the weapon,” Walter Winchell’s first cousin intones. “This is the first stage of your training. You fire from the prone-supported position at a 25-meter target. You will make windage adjustments to the rear sight and elevation adjustments from the front sight. You successfully zero your weapon when you can place a three-shot group within a half dollar.”

Naturally, the film breaks. While Pineapple Man’s helper is trying not to asphyxiate from the ensuing duststorm, the cadre guy asks for, and receives, questions.

“What if I can’t put three bullets in such a small space?” says the guy who brought his pillow to basic.

“Then you bolo.”

“Is that good?”

“It means you stay at the zero range while everybody else in your unit is one step closer to getting out of this place.”

“What if I only put two bullets in the shot group?”

“That’s not good enough.”

“What if the sun gets in my eyes and I can’t see the target?”

“Too bad.”

“The sun’s pretty important.”

“Do you want to be pecker-checker for the rest of your military career?”

“No.”

“Then shut the fuck up.”

Spliced to within an inch of its life, the film is once again ready for its matinee showing.

“After you zero your weapon, basic rifle marksmanship training continues at one of the field-fire ranges,” the narrator goes on. “You will fire at 100-meter targets from the prone-unsupported and the prone-supported positions.”

These things look at least a mile away. I couldn’t knock them down with a mine sweeper.

Lights on.

Pineapple Man explains the silhouette targets.

“They pop up electronically. If a round penetrates any part of the half-soldier, the shooter at that station is credited with a kill. You’ll get all the practice you can stand, and then we take you to record-fire where you get 100 shots from different positions and distances. To complete BRM, you need a minimum of 54 hits.”

Continuing with the director’s cut.

“As you become more proficient with the M-16,” the narrator drones on, “the training will become more and more difficult.”

The camera pulls back.

A 200-meter silhouette pops up for about two seconds and then goes down in its den. A shooter barely has time to draw a bead when, to the extreme left, a 100-meter target rises from a dirt mound. Then, somewhere in the next county, there’s a glimpse of enemy green at the 300-meter mark. Like its buddies closer in, it comes up only long enough to reject Missouri as a natural habitat.

I’m thinking, shit, they expect me to hit a target that could appear almost anywhere and at any of three distances and only stays up for the time it takes to fart.

My depression is only mildly severe until I hear Ya say not even squirrels move that fast.

Then it hits me. I won’t die out here. There would be too many messy investigations. I’ll just never be able to leave because I won’t qualify with the M-16.

Here I am at 50 years old at record-fire, more than a little gray in my hair and range cadre young enough to be my sons calling me a goddamn bolo.

Here I am at 60 with a geriatric Pineapple Man kicking me in the ass for not knowing how to adjust the windage knob.

Here I am at 85 when I’m not strong enough to fire a three-shot group, much less give it proper placement. A medic gives me a breathing treatment, they tape the M-16 to my fingers and I try again.

Back to the film.

Where we learn:

That all firing takes place while wearing the steel helmet that feels like you’ve got a Quonset hut on top of your head.

That basic trainees say “No brass, no ammo” more often than their prayers.

That we’re going to hear, “Ready on the right? Ready on the left? Ready on the firing line. Firers, watch your lane,” an awful lot of times in the next few weeks.

That the range cadre see absolutely no humor in the term “butt plate.”

We finished early at the range and have a few minutes of admin time before the trucks came to take us back to the barracks. One of the troops gets DI Hicks of Bravo Platoon to talk about his experiences in Vietnam. Word spread and soon about 20 men gather around.

Hicks shows the underside of his right arm. The fleshy part looks like he tried to hammer a nail through it.

“Small-arms fire outside Cu Chi. I screamed like I had been shot in the face. They poured some hydrogen peroxide on it and stitched me up. Captain called me a pussy and made me burn the shit that night.”

Oh, the new phrases we keep learning.

“The latrines in our base camp were 55-gallon drums cut in half. Every few days you had to carry the things outside and light them with diesel fuel to get the crap out. Naturally, you had maggots in the tubs and they make a high-pitched squeaking noise while they burn up. That was something to hear.”

Boil asks what Vietnam is like.

“The Viet Cong eat rice balls all the time. Keep ’em around their neck in a plastic bag. Three bags in all. AK-47 rounds in the one. Marijuana in the other. Charlie whiffs a lot of dope.”

Boil asks his MOS (military occupational specialty).

“Infantry. Just another grunt in the grass. Real simple routine. Take a big orange malaria pill every Monday night and start shooting anything we see in thong sandals and black pajamas. One night my buddy and I came back from daytime patrol and there was VC’s body beside one of our perimeter’s trip wires. We decided to cut off the head, put it on a stick and leave the thing where the bad guys could see it. Like maybe that would get them to leave us alone?

Did it work?

“Hell, no. Every time there’s gonna be a big fight, the gooks’ officers make them dig mass graves. Everything they do depends on speed. You die and get dumped in the hole you dug the night before. If that’s a part of your daily routine, you ain’t gonna get bent out of shape by seeing a head on a post.”

Everybody likes Hicks. He almost never gets angry and has been known to drink beer with basic trainees.

Boil wants to know why Hicks isn’t at least half crazy after his 13-month tour.

“Believe it or not, more than a few guys came home the way I did. You’ve seen all the violent acts you ever want to see. Now you’re into gentle. Birds, a painting, a nice stand of flowers — that’s what I like to look at. I see a momma robin in her next and I’ll stare for 10 minutes. Never was like that before.”

Why drink with a bunch of ignorant-ass troops?

“The not-liking-this-shit. The innocence. You guys have never seen a cut-off head and hopefully you never will. The goofball things you like to talk about helps me forget.”

Bluefield, W. Va., Daily Telegraph

Richard Wesley, editor

Dear Mr. Wesley,

You don’t know me. I’m in basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo. I graduated college this past June with a degree in economics. I am not interested in a career in business. Instead I want to write funny stories for newspapers. Enclosed please find several from my files to include one about Nixon memorizing the lyrics to Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s “Lucky Man” so the kids will think he’s cool, and a piece on strippers who bare their breasts for the United Way.

I recently showed one article to a fellow troop, and he couldn’t find the words to express his feelings.

I have been sending these articles to editors of big-city newspapers. While their responses have been encouraging, some say I might need a pinch more seasoning before I reach that level.

I get out of this horrid place in January of 1972. I wonder if I could get that experience at your operation.

You’ll find me a hard worker. In college, I almost never cut class and made Bs in subjects I couldn’t stand. And I’m good at managing my money. The guys on the dorm got hungry for hamburgers every night at 9 o’clock, but they were too lazy to walk the 1.5 miles to Hardee’s. So I hired out my services. I charged a flat 15 percent fee plus an additional quarter per order if it was colder than 20 degrees outside. Want your change in a separate enclosure? Upcharge. Want straws and napkins? Upcharge. What I lack in newspaper training, I make up for by being able to live on or below the poverty line.

And you’ll find me good at making do with the materials at hand.

Last Saturday, they made us parade in our Class A uniforms. Twenty minutes before we were supposed to fall in, the DIs said our shoulder insignia had to be in place. Panic. If the parade went OK, we’d get a few hours off. If we screwed up, we would be confined to quarters. Not having insignia attached was screwing up.

Troops were running around like crazy looking for needles and threat. But not me. I calmly sneaked off to the woods in back of supply and found a tree that leaked stickum. I applied my private’s patch to the bark and then slipped it on the uniform. There was some curling up around the edges, but the thing held up long enough to get through the parade.With that kind of composure, I’d be your MVP at deadline.

Mr. Wesley, unless I hear from you to the contrary, I’ll continue to send funny stories. I do them longhand, and then wait until we get a work detail so I can volunteer to type for the supply sergeant. When I’m finished with his assignments, I type my stories and write letters. If he looks in on me, I tell him the backspace key could use a little oil. He gives the thumbs-up sign and I get back to wasting the Pentagon’s time.

That’s all I have, sir. I hope I’ve convinced you to hire me. I’ve got more paragraphs in me than the Army has gunpowder. Please let me be the fire in your hole.

Thank you.

Garret Mathews