Through All the Plain. Benjamin John Peters
2. Bravo Company
Our platoon leader was named Staff Sergeant Nygo. I still don’t know how you pronounce it. Beelzebub was there as well. He was one of Nygo’s cronies, always prowling about, pointing his finger at us and yelling. He’s what you would call an Enforcer. When one of us screwed up, Beelzebub was the man who disciplined us. It was a “good DI, bad DI” routine. We would screw up, Beelzebub would “slay” us, and SSG. Nygo would “comfort” us. “Slaying” or “quarter-decking” are the terms DIs employ in lieu of hazing. It amounts to the same thing, however. “Mountain climbers,” Beelzebub would say. We would start pumping our feet. This would continue for five or six minutes. “Push ups!” We would switch exercises. Five minutes later Beelzebub would scream the next exercise. And on it went—he could be creative.
Throughout the quarter-decking process, Beelzebub would thrust his nose against a recruit and shout obscenities: “You’re dog shit on Sunday, Recruit,” or “Your father hates you and your mother’s a whore,” or “Dumbass! I bet you were adopted. Nobody loves you, Peters.” Or, if he was feeling particularly malicious, he would creep up to my ear and whisper, “Why did you join the Marine Corps, Recruit Peters? You don’t have what it takes. You’ll never graduate. I hate you and your fellow recruits hate you. It’d be easier if you died.”
He did this to me. He did this to everyone. And what could we do? As for me, I would pump my legs, listen to Beelzebub spew his motivations, and try to forget myself.
There were other DIs. There were always other DIs. All told, there were usually four or so Drill Instructors running about minding the seventy-five recruits in my platoon. With as many of us as there were, you would think we would have tried to break the rules. To the contrary, our Drill Instructors were magicians. They saw all. At night, we might be sitting in front of our racks cleaning our M-16s. It would be quiet except for the sound of clinking rifle bolts. Across from me, a recruit might lean over and whisper to another recruit: “Hey, what do you think we’re doing tomorrow?” Before his bunkmate could answer, Beelzebub would materialize. “You wanna talk, Recruits? You still have energy, is that it?” The recruits would shake their heads. “Bullshit,” Beelzebub would say, “quarter deck, now!” It was a science. Beelzebub and his ilk knew exactly what they were doing. They knew when to back off and when to come down hard. They were training us for warfare and, like war, they were unforgiving.
A great secret of the Marine Corps is it’s nothing like the commercials. On television, all of the Marines are chiseled men wielding flaming swords. In real life, Marines are people like you and me. They wheeze when they run, smoke cigarettes, cuss like a drunken aunt at Easter, and generally aren’t very trustworthy. Most of them, as least during Recruit Training, would as soon as steal your stuff as watch your back. We had all kinds. The Canadians—I use the plural because, as it turned out, not only were there two but they were twins—were skinny, tall, and looked like rats when they smiled. They made me a bit uneasy. But my platoon also counted blacks, Asians, Latinos, and whites among its rank. Some of the new recruits could not, and I mean this literally, could not speak a word of English. We had skinny recruits, fat recruits, stupid recruits, and well . . . more stupid recruits. Let’s be honest: the enlisted Marine Corps isn’t drawn from the intellectually endowed segments of our society.
When we were finally situated with Senior Drill Instructor SSG Nygo, our DIs assessed each recruit, chose the best from among us, and divvied up the choice jobs: Guide, Squad Leader, and Scribe. The Scribe is a platoon’s bookkeeper. He keeps tabs on gear (how much we had and who was using it), on Physical Training scores (each recruit’s time in the three-mile run), and mail (he receives it and hands it out). The Squad Leader was responsible for all of the members who comprised his squad. He answered to the Guide, and the Guide answered to the DIs. The Guide is the leader of the platoon. He is supposed to be the fittest, smartest, and best-looking Marine in the bunch. The Guide marches in front of his platoon, carries his platoon’s guidon, and, eventually, competes with the other Guides in a Depot-wide Guide competition. The Guide, as our leader, was required to sleep in the middle of the barracks and answer for the platoon, both good and bad. When something went wrong, it was his fault. When we did something well, however, it was due to his leadership. For his trouble, the Guide would graduate Recruit Training as a Lance Corporal. The rest of us would graduate as lowly Private First Classes.
Early on, for no reason that I am aware, they selected me as the Guide.
“Recruit Peters,” Beelzebub shouted, “get your ass over here.”
“Yes, Drill Instructor.” I ran.
“Grab your shit and move it to the Guide’s bed, you just got promoted.”
“Yes, Drill Instructor.”
I had no intention of moving my stuff. I made a show of obeying Beelzebub’s instructions, but didn’t follow through. The Guide was quarter-decked more than anyone else. He was to be an example. When things went wrong, the Guide was singled out and mercilessly slayed. I wasn’t that ambitious. To be the Guide, a recruit had to want it. The Guide was someone who would sell his soul for the Marine Corps. The Guide couldn’t fake it. I intended to slide through Recruit Training without becoming totally brainwashed. But if I became the Guide I would be fully assimilated. The Guide had to become a mini-Beelzebub. In many ways, the Guide was our platoon’s Faustian craving of what Beelzebub had to offer: mortal sacrifice in exchange for earthly power. Let some other poor recruit get his ass kicked.
Dawn came. The Guide’s bed was empty.
“What the hell? Where the fuck is my Guide? Peters!” yelled SSG Nygo. “Did Beelzebub not tell you to take the Guide’s position?”
Shit. “Yes, Senior Drill Instructor.”
“Why the hell are you not moved then, Recruit?”
Play dumb. That might work. “Was I supposed to move in right away, Drill Instructor? I thought—”
“What the . . . you thought, who the hell told you to do that?”
“Well—”
“Shut-up Recruit, you’re not my Guide, you’re a flower. Beelzebub,” he called, “take this recruit to the quarter-deck and kill ‘em.”
What Beelzebub did to me was bad. It was really bad. But I only experienced it one time. The recruit who eventually became our Guide was killed every day.
Our Scribe, on the other hand, was of the Recruit Intelligentsia. He was a University of Chicago dropout who wore military-issued black-rimmed glasses. His name was Recruit Hernandez. He was the administrative nuts-and-bolts of our platoon and, because of his unique position—he did most of the work our DIs should’ve been doing—he wasn’t quarter-decked that often. I envied the role of Scribe, but I preferred my role as a Platoon Wallflower. Blend in and they won’t notice you. If they don’t notice you, then they can’t kill you.
At Recruit Training, each platoon is broken down into four squads of about fifteen to twenty people. A Squad Leader is in charge of the recruits who comprise his squad. The Squad Leader gets slayed for the mistakes made by his platoon. Like the Guide, the job of Squad Leader is for ambitious Marines, and so went to those aspiring young recruits who were vying for the Guide’s position. The buddy I enlisted with—my former roommate, Recruit McDougal—was a Squad Leader, and I didn’t envy him. He embraced that role; he sought the challenge. Whereas the Marine Corps was a shock to my system, for Recruit McDougal it was a blessed break from the monotony of college. We were still friends, familiar faces in a barrack full of cogs, but our relationship had changed. He was a leader; I was his follower.
I had no desire to be the Guide, the Scribe, or a Squad Leader. Both the Guide and the Squad Leaders were singled out too much for my taste, and the Scribe had too many extra responsibilities. Recruit Training was hard enough as it was. My experiences during Recruit Training revealed aspects of my personality I’d never before acknowledged. I discovered I didn’t want responsibility for another’s success. More to the point, I didn’t want to be accountable for another’s mistakes or weaknesses. I was scared of too much attention. I was