What made basic training worse for me than anybody else was that my Shipman acted as our 'Platoon Guide,' getting the assignment simply because he was a college graduate and his rank was Specialist.
I should have been the Platoon Guide. Nor was I alone in this sentiment. Many others envied his post and yearned for the title.
His first failure as a leader came early, when Drill Sergeant Pint pointed out that out of sixty people, only Shipman's boots were shined. His boots sparkled, but selfish Shipman didn't even bother to see to it that the rest of us shined our boots. His second failure came when Private Major slept through guard duty. Any good Platoon Guide would have been there to wake Private Major, who suffered from a tendency to return to bed during his guard shifts. The Drill Sergeants punished Shipman for these failures. Because I was his battle buddy, I was punished alongside of Shipman.
These failures caused a band of Privates to form and declare war on Shipman's reign of terror. We wanted to throw a soap & towel party like we had seen in the movies, but every night we were too tired to organize anything. Shipman stayed up until almost 23:00 writing letters and reading his Gideon's Bible. Not only did he stay up late, but he woke early, at 4:30, before the lights even came on, so scheduling his beating proved difficult. When the lights turned off at night, I stared at the ceiling for ten minutes thinking not about Shipman but about breakfast. That's what I prayed for. I dreamed of the French toast that in the morning I would slather with butter, syrup, peanut butter, raspberry jam, and four packets of sugar. With my restricted diet, sugar packets became necessary supplements for maintaining my strength. I started smuggling condiments out of the lunchroom, pocketing them as snacks for my daytime activities.
When the lights turned on in the morning, by instinct I pulled the covers over my head. Within five minutes, my mother, Shipman, started tugging at me to rise and shine.
"I'm sick of making your bed for you, Sprungli."
"Then don't," I said.
"Come on, buddy. Time to get up."
"Leave me alone. Go marry your sister."
"Knock it off with the Mormon thing. It's Church of Christ, Sprungli. How many times do I have to tell you that?"
When I finally did get out of bed, I only had about five minutes to get outside and into formation. In basic training, I never once brushed my teeth - no time for it. While I put my boots on, my squad leader, a waif who walked around with her head down, rushed inside to yell at me. She would say, "Get outside, Sprungli. The company is already standing at attention!"
"Already?" My voice echoed in the empty barracks. "Seems a little early."
Someone was always stealing my stuff, too, so I usually couldn't find one of my boots, or my poncho, or my iPod, which forced me to borrow from someone else. That morning it was my field jacket.
"Hurry up, Sprungli!"
I always stepped out of the door a minute too late, and then I would get dropped on the gravel. Shipman also got dropped for being unable to assemble his platoon properly. Drill Sergeant Pint threatened to fire Shipman every day, but for some reason never followed through on the threat. Shipman remained the Platoon Guide for the entirety of basic training.
My squad leader loved to scold me, too. Shipman became good friends with her, enough that I had to mention the cozy relationship to Drill Sergeant Pint, just in case the Platoon Guide had a romantic interest in mind, a violation of POSH. They looked ridiculous together, with him being at least a foot taller than her, or maybe more, because she always stared at the ground.
Dril Sergeant Pint asked me, "You think Shipman is what?"
"I think he's having an affair with Private Vang."
"An affair? Sprungli, do you even know what that means? First of all, he's not married. Second, he's the most squared away soldier in the company and she's his first squad leader. He's supposed to talk to her." Then he looked down at my boots. "Holy hell, Sprungli, watch out! Snakes!" He started to stamp the ground with his boots.
"Snakes?" I felt a bubble forming in my mouth.
Pint stopped stamping the ground and yelled into my chin. "Tuck in your bootlaces, freak. Army Regulation manual six-seventy-dash-one clearly states that the excess lace is tucked into the top of the boot."
"I knew that, Drill Sergeant."
"Beat your face, Sprungli."
"Beat my face?" I softly punched myself on the side of the head. "Like this?"
"Yes, like that." Then he waited a second. "No, you dummy. Beat your face means do push-ups!"
I'd rather have literally beat my face than do that horrible exercise. By this time, my shoulders ached like I was having a permanent heart attack.
Worst of all, as Shipman's battle buddy, I had to be present for all of the interactions between Shipman and Pint. Shipman read to Pint from a list of scribblings in a little waterproof notebook.
"Private Waters needs a new poncho," Shipman said. "Someone stole his."
Pint said, "Why is Waters always losing things? Who's taking his stuff?"
I looked away, up at the sky. Missouri has amazing clouds. Almost daily, I found a cloud in the sky that resembled Donkey Kong.
"Private Vasquez says he needs to make a phone call," Shipman said. "Her mother's exploratory brain surgery was yesterday. Also, Private Jackson is experiencing a really bad reaction to something. He doesn't know if he has an allergy or not, but he is very swollen in the face and, it seems to me, his lymph nodes."
"Did you diagnose him, Doctor?" mocked Pint. "Send Jackson to Sick-Call. Don't tell me about the symptoms."
"Yes, Drill Sergeant."
Sick-Call? I had heard of the term before, but for some reason, this time the words sprung into my brain like a broken mattress coil.
Shipman tore out his list of requests and handed the paper to Drill Sergeant Pint, who frowned and accepted it.
"Shipman, what is it with you and these little pieces of paper? Every day you hand me a little list. Do I look like a dag-gum refrigerator to you?"
"No, Drill Sergeant. I write the requests down to ensure that the communication is accurate."
"What are you, an accountant?"
"Drill Sergeant, I was in finance."
"Jee-pers frickin' Kris-muss. And what are you doing here? Finding yourself? Trying to make the world a better place?"
"Sort of, Drill Sergeant."
"Mother Theresa. Are we done, or do you have another list for me?"
"I just want to mention again, Drill Sergeant, that Private Waters has been missing his poncho for a whole week now, and I believe the rain is getting to him a bit."
"All right already. I'll get him a poncho. You sound like a broken record." Pint looked over my shoulder and shouted at the platoon. He yelled, "Private Vang, did you lose your dog or something?"
She shouted back. "My dog, Drill Sergeant?"
"Did he run away or get hit by a car? Should I print off some flyers and we can go around post them on telephone poles? We can call out his name if you like? Is this about a dog?"
"I don't have a dog," she replied.
"No? Well, then it must be something else. Did you throw-up on your boots? Are you counting the rocks on the ground?"
"No..."
"Are your boots a crystal ball? Can you see the future in them? If they are, can you tell me what's for lunch today?"
"I don't know, Drill Sergeant."
"Then quit staring at the damn ground! You're always looking down, Vang. Keep your head up! Be aware of your surroundings, Private Vang. It just might help you spot the enemy someday."
"Yes, Drill Sergeant."
Shipman defended her quietly. "Drill, Sergeant, I should point out that Private Vang grew up in Cambodia, Drill Sergeant."
"Oh?" said Pint. "How interesting? What region?"
"Region? I don't know Cambodian geography, Drill..."
"Like I give a hoot, Shipman. What does that have to d
o with her staring at the ground? I don't need to understand her cultural heritage. You know what: you just go ahead and beat your face, Shipman, for jabbering without purpose."
"Land mines, Drill Sergeant," Shipman said while he started bouncing out perfect push-ups. "She walks with her head down because of land mines."
"Land mines." Pint paused and then smiled. "Really? Land mines?"
Shipman nodded at the gravel. "That's right, leftover mines, Drill Sarnt."
"Well, then," said Pint, in a respectful tone. "That little woman is more of soldier already than either of you will ever be, ain't she? Land mines, I'll be damned. Sprungli, that little girl could kick your ass."
"Yeah right!" I scoffed. "At ease on the bullshit, Drill."
That comment exploded on Pint like a carton of sour milk. He forced Shipman and I to bear crawl everywhere we went that morning.
After two hours of bear crawling, I could not wait for breakfast. My back was killing me and the line moved toward the doorway so slowly that I became enraged. Watching the other platoons and companies eat drove me to madness. I couldn't help but make comments to those eating whenever I passed someone smiling and playing with their food.
"Take your time, Richard," I whispered to the eaters. Anyone from another platoon I called Richard. "Enjoy your food, Richard, think about yourself, Richard. Screw your buddy, Richard. Never mind us standing in line. Don't worry about me or anybody else, Richard, just take your sweet time."
To keep Pint at bay, I learned to speak without moving my lips. Noise to him was like stench to a housefly. And the Dining Facility had enough of those already. Bugs landed on everything, but I was too hungry to care. If the tapioca turned out to be maggots, I would have ate it and asked for thirds.
That morning, and most others, I had a single goal: French toast. Above all else, that. I also craved sausage, bacon, biscuits and gravy, Frosted Flakes, and at least two packages of Pop-Tarts, if they weren't already stolen by the many Richards clawing into the boxes, but nothing quite as much as French toast. Nothing on this earth compared to my French toast in the morning.
Dessert, however, became a power-struggle as fierce as the Cold War. And I needed dessert just to feel human. The Dessert Wars made animals out of people. Jell-O never excited me until basic training. I learned to crave it. Green, orange, red Jell-O. What made Jell-O extra double-plus-good was the suspended fruit that floated on top like a hovercraft. I became ravenous for the flotillas of fruit cocktail, mandarin oranges, or straight up pineapple wedges. The dessert trays were all too visible to those of us standing in line and we extended our necks like goats through a fence to observe the wobbling trays of Jell-O. When one of the hair-netted lunch ladies brought out a shining pan of that colorful bliss, my heart raced. But as battle buddy of the Platoon Guide, I was required to stand at the end of the line with him. Every meal, without fail, the Jell-O supply dwindled as I neared the front of the line. Standing there, I would watch Richard the First, Richard the Second, the Third, onward to the Tenth, emerge from the serving line with a full plate of food and he would proceed to pile on the Jell-O, as if Jell-O came down from the heavens in endless quantities. Once or twice I yelled out, "Take it all, Richard!" or I said, "Hey Richard, it's all about you, Richard! The Jell-O is all about you!"
That day when I reached the serving line, the Jell-O supply appeared to be at a safe level, but when I entered the serving line, I lost sight of the dessert tray. As I filled my plate with entrees and as many condiments as possible, I tried to be polite, which meant speaking loudly so that one of the deaf, snarly, crystal-methanized servers wouldn't mistake "Chili-Mac and peas" for "A gram of smack, please." Finally, plate in hand, I rounded the corner toward the Jell-O trays and I felt like someone had shot me in the chest.
The horror.
The empty horror.
Repeatedly, like a grand conspiracy against me, I witnessed the final serving of Jell-O being flopped onto some undeserving Richard the Fifteenth's plate. That last Jell-O thief was the legacy of all the squandering Richards before him. I dubbed him King Richard.
Whenever I saw the Jell-O tray empty, I called out to the workers: "Excuse me, Ma'am," with my voice cracking from urgency, "we need some more Jell-O."
But the Jell-O bearer never appeared like I hoped. Instead, Little Drill Sergeant Pint buzzed over and stole the condiments from my plate.
"You don't need Jell-O, Sprungli. Have some pears or pineapples. It's nature's candy. It's good for you."
In basic training, desserts disappear like that. Because of the greed of the Richards, I was forced to take reasonable measures to protect the scarce goods. When desserts were available, I made up for my missed opportunities. In the morning, they offered Pop-Tarts and Rice Krispy Squares, and believe me, I loaded my cargo pockets and snacked all day long. After I learned how the system worked, I knew that it was a dog-eat-dog world in the Dessert Wars.
Speaking of dogs, when I first arrived in Missouri, I thought all of the Army girls were dogs, or Koopa-Troopas from the Mushroom Kingdom, or creeps from World of Warcraft. But after a week or two, the olive-drab fashion started sticking to them. Girls never looked so good sporting lawnmower-cut mullets, hats pulled down tight over their eyes, baggy uniforms, and black combat boots. This phenomenon affected everyone in the male barracks, where none of us had experienced arousal since receiving our vaccinations.
Private Waters brought up the topic of our newfound impotency, asking, "Am I the only one who hasn't had an erection since the needle sticks?"
Of course, no one answered him, but he was right. Regardless, he received another nickname for admitting it: Private Wilted.
Private Major - he always stayed ahead of the game. He already had a steady girlfriend. One of the girls in our platoon, a short girl from southern Mississippi, warmed up to him right away. No later than one week into basic training, I was standing in line behind Private Major. Right there in the chow line he squeezed her like a Nerf ball. With one hand at Parade Rest, his other hand went wild under her brown shirt, like a badger trying to escape from a gunny sack.
I asked him, "Can I have a feel?"
"Never, Sprungli." He ignored me. "Get your own."
"Oh I will, Major. As soon as I meet you on the bayonet range, I will," I whispered. I was joking. But I wanted him to wonder: was I serious?
Major laughed without breaking fondle.
Chapter 8. Range