The subject always bothered me. It made me feel both uncomfortable and inadequate. I didn’t want Cadet Daily thinking that I’d sleep with a boyfriend . . . even if I had one. And I didn’t like him broadcasting the fact that I was a female. I’d rather have him—and the rest of the squad—think of me as just another one of the guys.
I nodded, then pulled socks out of my ruck and wormed my feet into them. The tent was silent once again. Suffocatingly silent. I knew we’d have to talk about last night eventually. Last night wasn’t going to leave on its own. I took a deep breath and plunged right in. “So Gab, how’s your knee this morning . . . really?”
Gabrielle tugged at a string on her sleeping bag and shrugged.
“It looked bad last night.” I waited for her to say something.
She continued to groom her sleeping bag.
“Is it still swollen?”
“Does it look swollen?” she snapped back.
I’d said the wrong thing, and now I had to fix it. “I can’t tell, Gab. I took out my contacts last night, so everything looks swollen.” I laughed, hoping she’d laugh, too. But she didn’t. “Are you going to see the medic today? Or—”
“I’m not going on profile, if that’s what you’re getting at. So don’t get your hopes up, Super Troop.”
My hopes up? Super Troop? I watched her bend her knee up, then down. What did she mean by that? Did she really think I was glad that she got hurt? Or was she insinuating something else? This wasn’t like Gabrielle; she always said exactly what was on her mind.
But . . . wasn’t she right? Wouldn’t the whole incident—Gabrielle’s accident and her yelling—actually end up benefiting me in a twisted sort of way? Didn’t it make me look that much better—more “hu-ah”—in comparison? And wasn’t that what I’d wanted all along? To have the guys think of me as one of them and not some wimpy female in disguise?
I felt miserable. These thoughts were taking me to a place I didn’t want to go, shaping me into the kind of friend that I’d never want to be.
“Besides,” Gabrielle was saying, “Ping said he’d look at my knee before breakfast, and he’s better than any worthless company medic, anyway.” Then she looked at me and sighed. “I—I guess I made a real idiot out of myself last night, huh?”
I didn’t exactly know how to answer that question. I had been both embarrassed for her and angry at her last night. And rightly so—if we’d really been in combat, Third Squad could’ve gotten wiped out because of her. But I couldn’t tell her that. She was my friend, and I didn’t want to make her feel bad.
“Well . . .” I stammered. “You were hurt, and well, it’s over now and it was only practice—”
“You wouldn’t have yelled.”
I didn’t like the way she’d said that, accusingly. And I didn’t like the way she was looking at me, studying me. It made me nervous; I needed something to do. I got on my hands and knees and felt down the length of my sleeping bag, searching for a lump that might be my glasses. “That’s not necessarily true. I mean, if I were really hurt—”
“My knee got bruised, Andi. Not broken, not blown out, not anything. Just bruised.” She crawled over to her ruck at the foot of our tent. “And everybody knows it.”
“But that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt, Gab. Sometimes bruises hurt more than breaks.” There, that was a true statement, one that I hoped would make her feel better. After all, I’d had twisted ankles and shin splints that had kept me from running before.
“Whatever.” She dug into her ruck, her back toward me. “I almost wish I were debilitated for life. At least then I’d be justified a little for last night.” One of her hands left her ruck and moved up to her face. “After all, all I did was ‘fall down.’”
I closed my eyes. So, she heard Hickman. “Gab, I—”
“Let’s just drop it, okay?”
“Okay.” The silence was so strong now that it seemed to be squeezing the musty air between us. I cleared my throat. “Hey, uh, are my glasses on your side? I can’t find them.”
“Correction, Andi. You mean ‘Tactical Eye Devices,’ right?” She wiped her face on her T-shirt. “What for?”
“Because I need them to see, Gab. Why else?” I laughed nervously, grateful to be talking about something else. “Come on, do you see them? I’m totally blind.”
“But you wear contacts. So what’s the big deal?” She pulled out her BDU pants and crawled back onto her sleeping bag. “You didn’t lose a contact, did you?”
“No—”
“Well, that’s a relief.” She lay down on her back and started wiggling into her pants.
“Gab! We’re not supposed to wear contacts today. Remember? Because we’re getting gassed?” My stomach twitched, thinking about the day ahead of us. Don’t think about that now. I pulled out my BDU pants and lay down on my sleeping bag next to her. “Remember what Cadet Daily said? ‘Tear gas and contacts don’t mix.’”
“Well, I’m wearing mine, anyway. The gas can’t be that bad.” She jammed her brown T-shirt into her pants. “Plus, I think it’s stupid that we can’t wear our civilian glasses. I mean, what’s the big deal?” She jabbed me with her elbows as she worked on the buttons of her fly. “Wearing TEDs is just another big haze.”
“Well, I guess it’s because they want us all to look the same, and—”
“Tactical Eye Devices. What’s so tactical about them, anyway? They’re ugly.” She sat up and started weaving her BDU belt through her belt loops. “Around here ‘tactical’ and ‘ugly’ seem to be synonymous: If you wanna be ‘hu-ah!’ you gotta look gross. It should be a cadence.” She stabbed the end of her belt through the buckle like she was thrusting her bayonet into the enemy. “No way am I going to wear TEDs in public. And neither should you, Andi. Who’s going to know if you wear contacts or if you don’t? Don’t be such a duty dog.” She pulled her brush out of her ruck and ran it through her hair. “I may be a wimp, but at least I won’t be an ugly one.”
I glanced at Gabrielle and chewed on the inside of my lip. I’d said something wrong again. I just wanted to do the right thing and stay out of trouble. I wasn’t a risk taker like Gabrielle. She was always testing the boundaries here—talking at unauthorized times, sneaking food back from the mess hall under her hat, chewing the sticks of gum her friends enclosed in her letters, wearing the faintest shade of lipstick to dinner when no makeup was allowed, and now blowing off Cadet Daily’s instructions to not wear contacts. Maybe my need to play by the rules was what was annoying her. I sat up and pulled my ruck onto my lap. I’ve sure started some winner conversations this morning.
“TEDs aren’t that bad,” I said, trying to turn the focus off of me. “Kit wears them, and he looks okay.”
“Kit’s a guy, Andi.” She pulled out fresh socks and jammed her feet into them. “The Army didn’t have femininity or style in mind, believe me, when they created TEDs.” She pulled the drawstrings on her ruck. “So, you dressed? I’m going to open the flaps. It smells like moth balls in here.”
Gabrielle was right. The Army-issue glasses were ugly. Even more ugly, if it were possible, than our low quarters. The only people whom I had ever seen wear glasses so hideous in the real world were geeks in the movies . . . and my dad.
TEDs—what a perfect name. Not only would my dad have paid money for the thick, brown plastic frames, but he shared the name—Ted. Just then, thinking of my dad wearing his way-out-of-style glasses, almost made me feel sorry for him. It suddenly struck me how pathetically out of touch he really was. Maybe he was just incapable of understanding that things like encouraging letters or having a bedroom to come home to might be important to me. I mean, anyone who would walk into LensCrafters and actually choose that style of glasses out of so many . . .
I sighed. “Okay, Gab. You win. TEDs are ugly.”
But Gabrielle wasn’t listening. She was staring at the snapped tent flaps, thinking. “You know, Andi, I can’t believe I never thought about it before, but if you put Kit
in a pair of tiny wire-frame glasses—dark brown with a touch of gold, maybe?—he’d be a pretty cute guy. You know, the intellectual type.” She smiled to herself as she ripped open the flaps and stumbled outside. Cooler air and light flooded into our tent.
“The grass is dry, Andi. You’d never guess we spent half the night in the rain.”
I tossed my ruck, boots, and canteen outside the tent before crawling out myself. Then I sat down beside Gabrielle, just outside the opening of our tent, to pull on my boots.
“Howdy, neighbors. And how are you on this fine morning?”
I squinted in the direction of the voice. Two blurs were sitting in front of Kit and Jason’s tent next door.
“Awake,” Gabrielle answered without looking up, quickly twisting her hair into a bun.
“Glad you’re off to a good start,” Kit said. “How’s the knee?”
“It still works.”
Hoping to come up with something other than Gabrielle’s knee to talk about, I put my other foot into its boot and found the new topic in the bottom. “My TEDs!” I yelled, exaggerating my surprise, and nudged Gabrielle. “See? Right where I’d be sure to find them. Mystery solved.” I smiled at her then, hoping she’d smile back and break the tension. But all she did was shrug, uninterested.
I quickly stuck my TEDs on my face and looked back at Kit and Jason, now in focus, sitting cross-legged and dressed like us in brown T-shirts and BDU pants. “Hey, guys. Nice to . . . see you.”
Kit and Jason had shaving cream smeared on their faces and a canteen cup on the ground between them. Kit dipped his razor into the cup and felt around his face with his fingertips. “I didn’t know you wore glasses, Andi. Interesting.”
“That bad, huh?” I grabbed my toothbrush out of my ruck and squeezed toothpaste on the bristles.
“That’s an understatement.” Gabrielle watched me as I brushed my teeth. “Try using water. You’ll never get the scum off your teeth brushing dry.”
I smiled again at Gabrielle, my mouth full of foam. “Thanks, Mom.”
“I didn’t say that you looked bad, Andi—” Kit said.
“Of course not,” Gabrielle muttered. “She never looks bad.”
Now what? Her snide remarks were really starting to worry me. She seemed to resent my very presence—and since we’d left the tent, it was getting worse. Every single thing I said or did just brought on another jab. I stopped brushing and stared at Gabrielle. Okay, just don’t let it get to you. She was having a bad day because she’d had a bad night. But she’d get over it. Eventually. I’d just have to ride it out.
“—I said ‘interesting,’” Kit was saying. “And, anyway, from what Cadet Daily said yesterday, it won’t matter what we look like after we hit the gas tent.”
“Yeah,” Jason said. “In a couple of hours we’re gonna be slobbering all over ourselves and twitching like roaches that got hit with Raid.” He limped over to his tent. “Everyone will be nasty. With a capital ‘N.’”
“Thanks for the graphic description,” Gabrielle said.
Kit grinned. “TEDs will just add to the charm.”
I spit around the corner of my tent and rinsed my mouth with water from a canteen.
Gabrielle stared at the toothpaste foam on the ground. “I guess we know which side of the tent you’re tightening.”
I ignored Gabrielle and went back to lacing my boots. “How’re your feet, Jason?”
“They’re okay—they only hurt when I first put my boots on.” He suddenly got a strange smile on his face, then ducked into his tent before hobbling over to us. “Gab, you act like you rolled out of the wrong side of the rack this morning. So I have a little something for you. To, uh, you know, cheer you up.”
Gabrielle smiled up at him. “You do?”
“Sure.” He scooped something out of his pocket and sprinkled it into her open hand.
Gabrielle looked down and screamed, flinging Jason’s gift on the ground. “Toenails! Nasty, bloody, disgusting toenails! You are such a child!” She scowled back at Jason, who was laughing and returning Kit’s high-five. “How old are you guys, anyway? Ten?” She poured water over her hands. “Why didn’t you do that to Andi? Oh, wait, let me guess—it’s ‘Let’s Pick on Gab Day,’ today. Right?”
Jason shrugged. “Andi wouldn’t have screamed, Gab. She’s, you know, too tough for that.” He got a sick look on his face then, realizing too late what he had said. “Sorry, Gab. I didn’t mean . . . about . . . well, you know—”
Gabrielle’s face froze. Mine burned. Any other time his compliment would have made my day, but right now it was probably the worst thing he could’ve said. I didn’t want praise this way, not at Gabrielle’s expense. And right then I made up my mind: The next time praise came my way, I’d be standing on my own merit, not on someone else’s misfortune.
“LET’S MOVE, THIRD SQUAD!” I heard Cadet Daily yell as he stomped toward us. “Tighten down those tents! Get into the proper uniform! Come on—you ain’t the Rag Bag Brigade! Let’s go! Reveille’s in two minutes, and you’re behind the power curve!”
We jumped to our feet and scrambled in different directions—throwing bodies into BDU shirts, grabbing weapons, hammering tent pegs, strapping on gas mask pouches, and covering heads with BDU caps.
And the discomfort of the moment was forgotten.
CHAPTER 12
THURSDAY, 5 AUGUST 0810
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.
—WILFRED OWEN, “DULCE ET DECORUM EST”
AFTER BREAKFAST FOUR bus-sized Army trucks were lined up to haul H Company to the gas tent. Cadet Black was standing at the rear of one of them. “Get your motivated selves up to this deuce-and-a-half, Third Platoon, and mount up,” Cadet Black yelled. “It’s a good morning to die!”
“These guys are real original,” Gabrielle whispered. “If I hear that one more time—”
“Hey, you know the deal,” Ping whispered back. “Repetition aids learning.”
I clutched my barracks bag, containing my MOPP suit, and said nothing. They seemed so casual about this; I couldn’t even pretend to be.
“Two lines, Third Platoon! First and Second Squads, on the left side. Third and Fourth, on the right. Move out!”
We double-timed to the rear of the truck and stood, close together, in line. Mixed into the odor of sweaty bodies and morning breath was the smell of diesel and dirt that clung to the huge piece of canvas, forming the truck’s sides and roof behind its cab.
I hope the gas isn’t as bad as this stench! I’d like to put my mask on now.
We clambered aboard one after the other. Two long benches faced each other from either side of the truck. I squeezed next to Jason, placing the butt of my weapon and barracks bag on the floor between my feet. Ping took the spot on my left. I listened to the new cadets from First and Second Squads, sitting on the other bench across from me.
“This is gonna suck.”
“Naw. Cops use tear gas all the time.”
“Is that all it is? Tear gas?”
“Well, I’m not breathing it. I’m holding my breath.”
“Yeah? So, what’s gonna keep it out of your eyes?”
When all of Third Platoon was inside, Cadet Black slammed the tailgate shut. The motor started up, and we were off.
The truck bounced over the surface of the road and jerked whenever the driver shifted gears, causing us to rock against each other like passengers on a crowded subway car. The roar of the motor, our dreaded destination, and insufficient sleep created an overwhelming combination. New cadets started nodding off, their chins resting on their chests. Soon the grits that I had eaten for breakfast settled in my stomach, and resting the bill of my Kevlar on the muzzle of my weapon, I, too, fell asleep.
The truck jerked to a halt, and I awoke with a start
. Cadet Black opened the tailgate and hustled us out of the truck and into a clearing of sun-fried grass surrounded by trees. Standing in the far corner of the clearing, a large tent waited.
The gas tent. The grits in my stomach became one hard lump.
“Okay, H Company,” First Sergeant Stockel said, after we were all seated in a semicircle around him in the grass, “listen up. Today is the culmination of all that NBC training you’ve had this summer, and especially the skills you learned yesterday. Today you will understand why we had you out here yesterday running between stations in the woods, wearing your MOPP suits in ninety-nine-degree heat, looking like packs of camouflaged Darth Vaders.”
Laughter rippled around the semicircle.
But First Sergeant Stockel didn’t smile. “After today, Hardcore, NBC will mean more to you than some TV network that broadcasts sitcoms and soap operas. After today, Hardcore, Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical warfare will be permanently etched in your minds. Today, Hardcore, is a day that, I hope, you will file away in your hard drives as one of your worst”—he scanned the semicircle with narrowed eyes behind wire-framed glasses—“and your best. Worst because you will see what havoc relatively harmless gas can do to your body. And best because you will gain confidence in your equipment. Today your MOPP suit and protective mask will become something more to you than a bad Halloween costume.”
All was quiet around the semicircle.
I chewed on my thumbnail and glanced over at the tent at the far end of the site. Two upperclassmen in MOPP suits and gas masks emerged and walked toward one of the deuce-and-a-halfs. And then a humvee with a red cross painted on its sides pulled into the site. I looked at Ping.
He grinned at me and mouthed the word, “Medics.”
It sure boosted my confidence to see them here.
Before First Sergeant Stockel broke the company down into squads for the training, he told us what to expect. First, our squad leaders would test us on donning our MOPP suits and gas masks, and then the moment we’d all been dreading would come—we’d file through the gas tent and take one deep breath.