Through All the Plain. Benjamin John Peters
it? Why you here?”
“I don’t know, not really sure. I guess it’s ’cause I want to defend my country.”
“Yeah, all that shit, too.” He turned his head forward, bored with me.
It wasn’t long before we saw a campaign hat, also known as a Smokey the Bear hat, bobbing towards us. An angry man with a shiny shave and a closely cropped haircut boarded the bus. There was no turning back.
“All right, shitbirds, whose got my files?”
At the San Diego USO, both our personal and medical data had been collected and assigned to an unwitting recruit. He was from Canada—not that any of us knew. But, later, it was strange to learn that a non-American had enlisted in the United States Marine Corps.
“Me, sir,” the Canadian said.
“What the hell! Do I look like your father? No, goddammit,” he screamed, answering his own question. “I’m enlisted. From now on, you will refer to me as such. You will,” he pitched his voice to include us, “refer to me as, Drill Instructor. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir . . . I mean, Drill Instructor.”
“Give me that shit.” He held out his hand.
I was aware this had gone too far and wanted off the bus. The Canadian, stiff and glistening, handed over the goods.
After taking one look, the Drill Instructor—DI for short—threw the stack of folders down the length of the bus. “Pick ’em up recruit and they’d better be organized by the time we get to the depot.” The DI stalked to the front of the bus and sat. “Move out.”
The bus driver turned the ignition.
Wait, can’t we talk this through?
The bus pulled away from the curb and towards our training.
It was a dark ride through San Diego before we arrived at the Recruit Depot.
‡ ‡ ‡
On September 11, 2001, I was living in Denver and working as a mattress salesman. I had left the ivy-laden bricks of higher education for the high-pressured world of commission sales. There was a problem, however. I was a terrible salesman. “Hi, welcome to The Mattress Company,” I would recite. “Nice weather outside. Would you like to get in bed with me?”
My boss would call me into her office every Monday to discuss my goals, numbers, and ambitions. I didn’t have any, nor did I want any. I was a twenty-year-old dropout. To me, it was simple: I needed the money.
One fall morning, instead of calling me into her fluorescent-whitewashed office, my boss, Elaine, was nervously pacing. She was distraught. “I say kill ’em, that’s what I think. I can’t believe it. When I was in the Navy—” she stopped.
I nodded my head and smiled. She regularly told tales of her time in the Navy, and I often feigned awareness. I was daydreaming about snowboarding.
“Are you listening to me?”
“What? Yeah! The Navy, right?”
“Go in back and turn on the television,” she commanded.
Cool. “Okay,” I said.
I turned on the television.
Smoke.
People running.
New York.
I was confused.
Was it an attack, an accident? Why would anybody do this? Well, a strong response is necessary. They started it.
When my roommate came home that night I told him I had a plan. We would join the United States Marine Corps—they were the best—and would defend our country. It was our duty, our responsibility. We would enlist together.
He said that he thought it was a great idea.
The next morning we drove to the recruiter’s office, signed our papers, and joined the Marine Corps’ “Buddy Program,” which promised us a place in the same platoon throughout Recruit Training. We would live together, train together, and become Marines together.
Two months later I found myself on a bus with thirty-odd new recruits and one terrifying drill instructor, winding through the gray and empty streets of San Diego.
‡ ‡ ‡
Both patriotism and a heroic ideal had driven me to enlist: young men and women have a responsibility to defend their country in its greatest time of need. This was true. But it was also true that, a year before enlisting, I’d been “born again.” I was a new Christian, crisp but crude, struggling with a novel paradigm. The beliefs and practices of the church, in many ways, were as foreign to me as those of the United States Marine Corps. As our bus pulled into San Diego’s Recruit Depot, I had one last civilian thought: Jesus said to love your enemies. Why the hell hadn’t I thought of that before?
“Get off my fucking bus, Recruits,” a burly DI resembling Ambule yelled. He was covered with tattoos: lots and lots of tattoos. As I shuffled past him to my appointed place on the yellow footprints—perfectly aligned ranks-and-files used in teaching Close Order Drill—I noticed one rather exquisite tattoo: a dancing mermaid sexing an M-16.
This is unbelievable.
“All right, Recruits, get on my footprints.”
We scrambled to do what Ambule said. I was lucky. I arrived first. The Canadian, juggling our files, was several steps behind.
“What the hell, Recruit? Are you trying to piss me off?”
“No, sir . . . Drill Instructor.”
Ambule stalked over to the Canadian, punched him in the stomach, and left him to consider his various misdeeds.
Oh shit.
He turned to us.
“You are now property of the Unites States Government. You will not eat, drink, or shit without the government’s approval. That means me, Recruits. I will tell you when and how to breathe.” At this, one of the recruits standing next to me chuckled. It was a poor decision.
“What the hell! Who the fuck laughed?”
Unbeknownst to us, another DI had crept up while we were standing in formation. “Shit, Drill Instructor Ambule, can’t keep your recruits in check?” The new DI made his way around to the front of the formation. He was wiry and sported a shaved head. He was evil incarnate. His name was Drill Instructor Beelzebub.
“Some recruit laughed. Can you believe that Sergeant Beelzebub?”
“I’m on it.”
“All yours.” Ambule was smiling.
Beelzebub sauntered over. “It sounded like it came from over here.” He contemplated me. “Was it you, Recruit?”
Silence.
“It’s okay, Recruit, you can tell me. Was it you?” His teeth were tobacco-stained.
“No, Drill Instructor.”
“Hell, it was somebody. Can’t you tell me who, Recruit?”
In Recruit Training it’s commonplace to betray fellow recruits. I should have sold out the recruit who laughed. But I didn’t. “I have no idea, Drill Instructor.”
“Oh, you have no idea do you? Well fuck, I say it was you . . . unless you want to tell me different?”
Groaning, the Canadian stirred in front of the formation.
That was the last thing I remember clearly about my first week as a recruit. The next few days were a blur. They shaved my hair, issued my recruit gear, and taught us how to make a military bed. This phase lasted seven days. It was an introduction. They called it “Intake.” The day we dreaded was fast approaching, however. Our DIs referred to it as “Black Sunday,”