Drill & Sanctimony
By Peter Anthony
Copyright © 2011 Peter Anthony
All rights reserved.
Front Jacket Photograph by Matt Carr
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Books written by Peter Anthony can be obtained either through the author’s official website:
www.peteranthonybooks.com
or through select, online book retailers.
UNCLASSIFIED
This document has been declassified. No security clearance is required.
Chapter 1. Airport
Am I not entitled to the full twelve ounces?
On the plane from Milwaukee, the flight attendant gave me a glass full of ice and a droplet of Coke. For a snack, she gave me a tiny bag of pretzels. I counted eight in the bag. To wash it down, I waited ten minutes for some ice to melt. To get the flight attendant's attention, I had to hit the call button six times before she came over to give me a refill.
"And leave the can," I said.
She pursed her lips at me. I returned to playing Mega Man: Zero 3 on my GameBoy and listening to my iPod. At least she had the courtesy to smile when she set the Coke can down on my tray table.
Before I left that morning, Grandpa drove me to the airport, spewing advice. He kept interrupting me during a difficult level of Mega Man, forcing me to restart twice. Even though I had the cheat codes for the game, I really wanted to finish the level, to feel like I had accomplished something.
"Maybe now you'll wake up and see the real world," he said, "and get in shape for once. Your mother lets you slide, but I know you've been smokin' that reefer since you were about twelve. Those friends of yours - they'll be doing the same thing when you get home, but you'll be a different person."
On and on, day and night, that man could talk about one pointless thing or another, whether it was history, books, or world news. He really pushed my button at the airport drop-off in Milwaukee when he snatched the GameBoy out of my hands.
"Put that gadget down for minute," he said, pointing his veiny, yellowish finger. "Listen to your Sergeants," he said. "Keep your head down, and don't volunteer for anything. It's all a head game. And it's easy if you remember that. Understand?"
The noise coming from the game indicated that Mega Man was now deceased. I said nothing, I only stared at my GameBoy until he returned it to me.
"Whatever, Grandpa."
"Good luck, Paul," he said. "Don't forget to write your mom and tell us how you are doing. Keep your head on straight. And for once in your life, don't blow those damned bubbles..."
I slammed the car door behind me. Silence at last. That's the thing about old people: if you don't cut them off, they will never stop. Every conversation I had with Grandpa, he basically forced me to walk out on him, because if I ever waited until he finished speaking, after his concluding sentence I could go straight to his funeral.
From Milwaukee, I flew into the St. Louis airport where I had to rendezvous at the USO lounge. Now that place was tolerable. The USO volunteers understood portion sizes, unlike the flight attendant. Some old man was wearing a funny Army hat from ancient times. He said, "Order anything you want, young man," and it was about time, too, because I was starving.
I wasn't in any hurry to eat Army food. Grandpa often wheezed about the runny eggs and the potted meat he had eaten in the Army, so if this was going to be my last healthy meal, I wanted something to fortify me. I ordered a hotdog, a hamburger, a large fry, a chocolate shake, a piece of batter-fried fish, a bag of FunYuns, two ranger cookies, and a large Pepsi.
No sooner did I receive my tray when some Sergeant marched into the room and announced, "Twenty minutes. Don't order too much food," and then he looked at my tray and added, "That better be for you and two battle buddies, Private."
I told the Sergeant the score. "The dude said I could order anything I wanted."
"I can tell you right now that the world is no longer your napkin," the Sergeant said, "and that you gonna spend three weeks in fat camp, so maybe now ain't the time to pack yourself with grease like a doggone wheel bearing."
I looked at his shoulder to see if he had any worthy combat patches, or a Screaming Eagle or a Big Red One, but I didn't recognize his iron-on cartoon unit. He did have an Airborne patch (one that he probably bought at the PX or the Commissary). In light of this impatience, I took a handful of fries and stuffed as many as I could into my mouth. A TV in the USO lounge beckoned me with a Bud Light advertisement.
While I ate, I fished the GameBoy out of my backpack so that I could resume playing a level-in-progress. That same Sergeant kept strolling around like a little Goomba, irritating everyone wherever he went. He continued counting down the minutes, yelling each one out. "Nine minutes."
Apparently, my bus was leaving for Fort Leonard Wood, and soon I would be on my way to becoming an Airborne Ranger. Missouri was just the first checkpoint to getting my tan Ranger beret, at which time I would be able to slay all comers.
I didn't even have time to eat the hotdog, so I stuffed it into my backpack next to my smokes.
I know, I know: I should have gone Navy SEAL. Already, with this Sergeant ragging on me, I could tell that the Navy would have been preferable. The truth is, after playing SOCOM 2: Navy SEALs for three years straight, I was tired of the SEAL life already. Grandpa, he was an Airborne Ranger in 'Dubya Dubya Two,' and my joining the Army seemed to make everyone happy, including my dad, an Army lifer, who was permanently absent from home with stepchildren like me in three states. When I turned nineteen, Mom said that I had to apply to college, find a job, or join the Army, so I was like: "Fine, I'll be an Airborne Ranger, jump out of airplanes and snatch people in the dead of night. If that's what you want, mother." By the time I joined the Army I had already set several multiplayer deathmatch records on GoldenEye: 007 for Nintendo 64, so the military would be mostly review to me. I didn't want to be one of those Navy Seamen anyway. Movies about the Navy make me yawn and it seems like sailors hardly ever get shot at or killed any more.
The USO Sergeant looped around us one last time and yelled at me for watching TV, even though there were three other people sitting in the room.
"Didn't you hear me, Private?" he said. "I said your group is movin' out."
"What about these other guys?"
"Don't worry about them, Private. These guys are eight hours early because of flight scheduling. This ain't their bus." Then his eyes grew large when he did an extreme close-up on my face. "Waitin' on you, Private."
The Sergeant nagged for two minutes while I bagged my GameBoy and iPod. Full of unasked-for advice, too, this general of the USO snack shop.
"You don't need your headphones," he said. "Put that cell phone away. That's all junk for the amnesty barrel. Hope you don't have any food in that bag."
Talk about no privacy and zero personal space.
In the hallway outside of the USO lounge, we lined up like children. The Sergeant, along with some of his fellow underachievers, performed a roll call. A bunch of civilians ogled our formation, passing by en route to their connecting flights. Most of them smiled and took pictures like we were zoo animals about to mount each other. Kids nearly broke their necks trying to look back at us. The Sergeants made us stand there doing nothing for twenty-five minutes, which made me wonder why I couldn't have finished the hotdog and then got in line.
Finally, the Sergeant called us to attention. I thought he was
pulling my taffy. "We're in civilian clothes," I said, "we're not supposed to march," but he didn't hear me, because he called "Right, Face!" followed by "Forward, March!"
All the way to the airport exit, he called a loud cadence, making a scene. When he said 'left' he said 'lay-eft' or 'yo lay-eft,' like his jaw needed to be wired shut and reset, and sometimes he sounded like a skipping CD player that needed a good slap, saying "left" when either foot landed.
"Yo lay-eft lay-eft lay-eft lay-eft lay-eft rot lay-eft."
He neglected the right half of the body, or the "rot" half, as he called it. When I passed by him, he tried to stare me down, but I was like, "Next time we meet, you'll be salutin' me and I'll be droppin' you like birdseed." I didn't actually say it, but he got the point. The Sergeant paused his cadence to tell me, "I'd love to smoke your ass right now."
Chapter 2. Missouri