Joining the Army and PVT Easter

My decision to join that Army was about as close to involuntary as it gets, I guess. I was 29 years old and newly unemployed. I was in a vicious depression and drank it all away on money I didn’t have. I drank so much of my money I couldn’t pay rent, or a power bill, or a phone bill or any other bill. I had lived with my girlfriend/fiancée for the last 6 years, on-and-off. In that time I was semi-successful, working steadily for AT&T and depending on her for every bit of self-worth I could scrape together. She was a pharmaceutical sales rep and made decent money and even more decent connections. With doctors. Single doctors. One day, out of the blue, she told me she was moving away. Without me. In hindsight I am sure she was through with my worthlessness, and I kind of don’t blame her. All this coupled with the mounting financial mess I was making and the drinking sent me spinning to the depths of a chronic depression. One day I got a letter from Sallie Mae-the company handling my school loans. You see I had decided that college was fun, I guess, and lived the student life for way too long. Maybe, say, 8 years too long. The government was still giving me what I perceived as free money, though, so I kept taking it. As it turns out-and this is a lesson everyone should avoid having to learn-you have to pay that money back, and the government WILL get it out of you somehow. Me…well I had maxed it out. $62,000 in 10 years of college. I stayed in college so long they gave me a degree just to keep me from coming back, if that says anything.  So here I was staring at a consolidation proposal from Sallie Mae. 30 years with a total of $112,000 paid in full. My first thought upon seeing this was where I could get some bullets for my pistol. Or just one bullet would do.

My only way to get money at this time was working for the bar/pub I always drank at. It was close to the Air Force base where my Mom works and the owner always had a soft spot for me after I scared the shit out of some guy who was apparently trying to rape one of his female bartenders in the parking lot. I had no idea about that, I thought he had kicked my truck and that’s why I confronted him. I would work there all day sometimes-cooking during the day and bouncing at night when it became a college bar. The best part to me was that I almost always got to drink for free as much as I wanted. Oh yeah and the girls didn’t hurt. The owner-who I’ll refer to as Carl-would pay me cash. When I would get too drunk Carl would either let me sleep it off in the upstairs room or personally make sure I got somewhere safe. I will forever be in debt to him and his place. One night when I was supposed to be working but more likely was getting hammered with my buddies I was overheard lamenting the college loan issue by one of the Airmen from the base. He proceeded to inform me that I could have that paid off in 4 years without ever giving any money back. He said the military had an enlistment plan where they would repay my loans in return for my service. That seed, needless to say, went deep into the soil in the back of my mind.

Football had more to do than anything-my mother and father included-with who I am today. I lived and breathed it for most of my life. Coaches took the place of my absent Dad.  It was my avenue to acceptance and heroism. It was my outlet for the strange, innate lust for combat I would later discover resting in my soul. I learned to test my limits early in life-even if it was through that twentieth wind sprint or that last “up-down” in conditioning. My first 5 years in college were paid for by partial football scholarships. I played at 2 tiny NAIA schools and I will never regret a second of it. In the last game of my freshman year, though, on a day I thought was the end of the world, I tore my ACL in my right knee. It was surgically repaired and I went on to a successful career at another college close to home. I found, though, that when my college athletic eligibility had run out, I was not interested in going to class. Thus began the cycle of academic probation and switching schools and new financial aid checks. Somewhere in there I decided that I would join the Marines. This was not in a time of war-September 11 was only a storm cloud on the horizon. I maintained the middle linebacker physique well-225 lbs of muscle and mean. When the Marine recruiters saw me walk in they acted like your dog acts when you get home from a long day. They had spewed forth no less than 15 stories of “guys that I reminded them of” ranging from one punch knockouts to chicks I could fuck in less than half an hour. When they handed me the medical questionnaire (among other papers they were handing me between stories) there was a slot for prior surgeries. I marked “YES”, and in the PLEASE EXPLAIN ANY ANSWERS MARKED YES field I put that I had a surgically reconstructed anterior cruciate ligament in my right knee. It was like the movie scene where somebody takes the needle off the record with a loud scratch. The recruiters went to dejection in no time flat, and in so many words told me I could never get in any branch of service-even the shitty Army. My feelings weren’t hurt too much. I kind of did that on a whim-and besides I could still get loads more financial aid, so I didn’t pursue the idea anymore.

This time I decided I would visit the recruiting office in the nicest suburb I could drive to. There was one to the south of the city. I knew exactly where it was because it was across the street from one of my favorite mini malls. It was one of my favorites because it had 2 bars and the best strip club in the state. And the office itself was next door to Hooters. What better placement than that? Suffice to say that recruiters for the most part are used to seeking their prey, as it very rarely falls in their lap. Many times when people walk in off the street they are drug-addicts or felons or both. Many times they are the guy that has barely enough rocks rolling around in his skull to pump gas or bag groceries, and he just got fired. I know the latter for a fact, because the Army is FULL of those guys. The recruiters were very suspicious. I even thought I heard them making bets on whether I was dumb, addicted, or a felon. Because of my stature I was pretty sure odds were on felon. Maybe assault. I told them what I wanted. I wanted the loan repayment and an easy job for 4 years, where I could work out and be home every day by 4:00. “Well, you’ll get to work out. Can’t promise the rest…and no job is that easy in Iraq.” With that they all giggled like it was the greatest joke of the day. I figured now was a good a time as any to drop the bomb. I was thinking about how they would never expect this in their little pool about why the Army would reject me.

“I have a surgically repaired ligament in my right knee. It has 2 screws in it.”

I would even enjoy their dejection a little, because I didn’t really like these guys much already.

“Uh, ok…and?”

It’s funny how a prolonged political war changes things. Soldiers want out and equipment is destroyed and repaired over and over again. Soldiers, as I would learn, ARE equipment-right down to a serial number. 45 days later I was having my head shaved at Ft Knox, Kentucky.

There are some stipulations on the SLRP (Student Loan Repayment Plan) enlistment. Recruits must enlist “needs of the Army”; meaning whatever job the Army is short on people for is your new field specialization. For me this was somewhat tragic. I had gotten one of the highest GT (military aptitude) scores my recruiter had ever seen, and that is normally how your career field is designated. I could have done any job the Army offers.  As it was, I got to choose from cook, infantryman, artillery, and something along the lines of washing dirty clothes. I imagined bombs going off around me while I screamed to my men “Don’t let ‘em get the dirty underwear! Protect the skivvies!” with a wad of t-shirts in my arms. While entering the recruiting station I saw a propaganda poster depicting the mighty M1 Abrams MBT (main battle tank). It struck me as ominous and powerful; an indestructible monster. I asked if I could drive a tank like the one on the wall outside. The recruiter snorted and mumbled something to the effect of “fat dirty tankers”-the exact snort and comment I would hear hundreds more times when any non-tanker was presented with “tanker stuff”. He got me a slot in the 19K OSUT (One Station Unit Training) Armor School in Ft Knox. I was becoming a tanker.

Apparently you have to take the Army’s means of transportation to basic training. I lived only 3 hours away from Ft Knox, but had to ride a bus through St Louis and back to Louisville to get there for training. I remember this as the first numbskull, pointless, and dullard act in an ever continuing stream of them that occurred all throughout my Army career. When I arrived at the Louisville bus station I saw uniforms. They were herding recruits on to an Army school bus. I followed the herd, had some Sergeant inspect my papers, and climbed on the bus. I could smell and feel sheer terror. So much it felt like it even saturated me a little. I was never scared or afraid on my own accord, though. I was never afraid of a uniform or a hat or a loud voice. I was 29 years old-probably older than many of the drill sergeants themselves.  I was still very physically imposing as well, which helped me with my confidence. I did learn very quickly when to fake fear. I learned what responses were demanded of me much quicker than the horrified kids around me.

The 35 miles to Ft Knox was dead silent. At the front of the bus sat a drill sergeant identified by his “brown round” hat and the golden crest placed meticulously in the front center of it. I noticed the razor thin creases in his sleeves and pants. His uniform was crisp and spotless and his boots shined like patent leather. His appearance seemed more like it had been assembled by a machine, not a person. The fear he created on the bus was immense-and he never even twitched for the whole 35 mile ride. I expected him to explode and call somebody something like “shit stain” or “cum guzzler” any second, but never so much as a deep breath. He just stared out the front window. He was sitting on the corner of his seat with his left leg out in the isle, and he was leaning forward with his right arm resting on the seat back in front of him. His back never touched his seat. I studied him for the full 45 minute ride. The strangest part of the whole ride to me was when we arrived, and he got up. He turned around and I was ready for the whole “shit stains” thing, but he spoke in a soft, calm tone and told us to line up outside the building we had parked in front of. That was the last time I saw this particular drill sergeant.

 

There was a brief period of a few days where we kind of had it easy. We were stripped of everything civilian and forced to wear, eat, and use whatever the Army decided to give us. When I think about it now it strikes me as humorous, but in the moment I was feeling pretty besmirched. Here I was in a PT uniform consisting of a gray t-shirt and black running shorts with a black stocking cap on my head. I had black knee high wool boot socks on and running shoes. This was our required uniform. It was the first of June in Kentucky; 89 degrees and sticky.

Fortunately I had managed to fly well under the radar. We still had only seen one drill sergeant and he was actually kind of…cordial. We were given a guide of sorts, though, who was making plenty of noise. His name was SGT Burr. I assessed him to be in his early 20’s, maybe, and he was in the final stages of pattern baldness. His pattern turned out to be the one that is the whole top of one’s head with the nice hair ring around the sides. He was overweight and had a blaring speech impediment. It was the impediment that causes a person to slur anything that starts with an “s”, because they force the air across the sides of their tongue instead of over the top of it. I’m sure there’s some sort of technical name for it, but I have no idea what it is. Oh…and he was cross-eyed. I know this sounds contrived, but as I said before, anyone in the active Army has seen hundreds of guys just like this, and they will surely back me up. For some reason he reminded me of a retarded, cross-eyed goose. I noticed the special pleasure he took in lining a reception recruit platoon up and berating them for not knowing anything about how “the Army works” and stating how especially stupid we all were. Sometimes I almost laughed at the things he said. How the hell would I or any of these horrified kids next to me know anything about how “the Army works”?  We had been here for 3 days. Armor is a relatively small community. Remember that.

After 4 days of droning issue lines, shots, inspections, paperwork and being cursed by a slurping, bald goose, we were herded onto a bus to move to the training area. Still, we had seen no drill sergeants. I continued to stay as inconspicuous as I could. My size and demeanor sometimes drew attention, but not for long. We had two large green duffel bags of strange smelling new basic issue items. One of those new items was a set of bdu’s (battle dress uniform), which we were now allowed to wear. I was 2 ranks ahead of most of my piers because of my college, so I was allowed to wear Private First Class rank on my collar and patrol cap. Later on I discovered that I should have been given Specialist rank, but as with many details in the Army’s giant paper shredder, that didn’t happen. We were instructed to load one bag on our backs, and the other on the front-“frontloading”. Needless to say this configuration really sucked when stuffed into a school bus seat. The bus ride took about 30 seconds. Those unlucky recruits who were treated to a window seat-of which I was one-could stretch their necks around enough to see outside. The buses stopped, and as if in a choreographed movement, two drill sergeants had placed themselves perfectly on either side of the each door. Everyone sat paralyzed as the doors opened. We heard the steps up the stairs leading to the door.

“GET YOUR ASSES OFF THE DAMN BUS.”

There was maybe another second of paralysis, and then all at once 40 recruits stuffed on a school bus with 2 huge duffel bags strapped to them began to stampede. It was textbook chaos. Bags were dropped. Hats flew off and were lost in the melee. Somebody fell in the aisle and was trampled. I was probably responsible for that. When I made it out the door the chaos turned to madness. There were 8 drill sergeants yelling and pointing and charging. The recruits looked like a huge flock of spooked turkeys. They fell all over each other and fell all over themselves. Some of them cried. I moved around, but observed what was going on, and focused on keeping my cool. One drill sergeant would charge up to a group of the horrified and confused turkeys, his eyes wide and neck veins bulging. He would boom out a direction for them to run and the mass would fall down and stumble around until they got moving in the direction he had told them to go. As soon as they were moving another drill would charge in.

“WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING?! DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE ENGLISH?! THAT WAY, DICK!”

And of course, when they changed directions, there was another drill sergeant there waiting for them. I stayed in the back of the mass and thus moved as little as possible. This went on for about 10 minutes, at which time we were arranged into a formation. The duffel bags were getting heavy and a lot of the guys were exhausted from the herding incident. I was sweating. We were instructed to pass our military ID cards that we were given in reception down to the end of the formation. They were handed off to some of the drill sergeants and they walked away. A few remained. They conferred in the shade for a short time while we stood in our formation sweating and struggling under the increasing weight of the duffels. They approached us in a fashion that reminded me of an offense breaking their huddle.

“Who wants to quit raise your hand.”

Nobody dared move.

“Aw come on now. I know somebody’s out there thinking ‘holy shit I what did I do’ right now.”

They were surveying us. I could see them doing it. They were looking for a victim…an example. I stared ahead hoping that by not looking at them I wouldn’t draw their attention.

“Do you want to go home to Momma?”

It was one of the ones that cried. His face was red and soaked with sweat and tears. He was a kid, no older than 18 for sure, and I was positive that he did in fact want to go home to his Momma. He squeaked out a reply.

“No.”

“NO WHAT, YOU SON OF A BITCH?! WHO AM I YOUR FUCKIN PAL FROM BACK ON THE BLOCK?! HEY LETS GO HAVE A DRINK TOGETHER, PRIVATE. WE’LL BE BUDDIES! YOU CAN SCREW MY SISTER HOW’S THAT?!”

“No, Drill Sergeant. Sorry, Drill Sergeant.”

“HOLY SHIT, PRIVATE. HOLY FUCKIN SHIT. I SURE HOPE FOR YOUR SAKE THAT YOU’RE NOT SAYING I’M A SORRY DRILL SERGEANT. I HOPE-FOR YOUR SAKE-THAT YOU ARE STATING THE OBVIOUS, BECAUSE I ALREADY KNOW YOU ARE SORRY AS SHIT.”

This kind of stuff went on for about another 10 minutes. It moved to a few other guys, but I was successful in my plan to hide in plain sight. About 200 yards (I’ll use yards here, because I haven’t been programmed to think in meters yet) away the other drill sergeants who had taken our ID’s were grouped in a parking lot. We were instructed to fall out of formation and go to the drill sergeant that had our ID. Of course, we had no idea which one had our ID. Again, turkey madness. I figured I would be systematic about it, and ran to the closest drill sergeant. When I got to him he looked appalled.

“What the…Hey battle! (Meaning ‘battle buddy’-they referred to each other as ‘battle’)Battle look at this shit! It’s a meathead! Hey meathead the Army tests for steroids, you know…”

They fell all over themselves laughing. I felt fury explode in my chest. As a civilian, any insult like this from another adult man would have triggered a right hook that would knock out a full grown bull. Besides, I hadn’t taken steroids in over a year. Being 29 years old served me well here. The drill sergeant told me he didn’t have my ID card, but he knew for sure the other drill sergeant across the parking lot did. When I turned to run one of the straps on my front duffel bag busted and it flopped to the ground. For some reason this made me so furious I couldn’t control the hoarse “FUCK!” that shot out of my throat. This marked the first time of many that my temper became an issue in the Army.

I had been doing pushups for approximately 5 minutes with a full duffel bag on my back. Three drill sergeants were standing around me yelling about my abuse of bad language. I say “abuse of bad language” instead of just “use of bad language”, because much of my yelling lecture had to do with how I had not earned the right to use the word “fuck” yet. I also learned that apparently, and this isn’t just an Army thing, the general consensus is that having big muscles correlates directly with a tiny penis. Again, my years served me well. I would beat these guys because I would beat their game. Or at least that’s what I thought at the time. When I was instructed to “recover” (if they tell you to ‘get up’ and you stand up you will be on your way back down. You get up in the morning, dick!) I was face to face with one of the drill sergeants. I was sweating profusely, very angry, and very exhausted. He was skinny, and even with his huge “brown round” on he didn’t look very tall. He, along with the other drill sergeants, was either not wearing a nametape on his uniform or had it covered. I saw what was either the end or the beginning of a deep scar snaking out from under the right side of his hat to the middle of his forehead.

He moved closer, bumping my forehead with the brim of his hat, and hissed “Platoon guide. Your platoon is over there, Private. Get them in formation.”

At the time I had no idea what “platoon guide” meant. What I discovered was that I had just been handed a shit sandwich, and it was lunch time. I managed to arrange the 20+ guys into a formation and fell in with them. No, this was wrong. No. Get my ass out in front and march these guys up the sidewalk to the barracks. Turkey madness forthcoming.

EASTER

My Mom always wanted me to write about this. She saw it as such a touching story, but in all reality it is only a look into how unforgiving and intolerant the world of a soldier can be.

Routine became the only comfort in the first 3 weeks of basic training. I think the hardest part for me to get used to was what I perceived at the time as sleep deprivation. Performance without sleep is a skill that is demanded of all soldiers. Other than that, I was more than capable of handling anything the drill sergeants could throw at me. The “smoke” sessions and PT were laughable compared to the three-a-day training I had endured in football practices years ago. By observing, though, I found it best to at least act distressed under the circumstances. Drill sergeants were never short on an array of torture, and it didn’t have to be physical. I remember one kid who couldn’t let go of his ‘hood mentality. I guess he watched too many rap videos to be fooled into such conformity. He was in especially good physical condition, as I witnessed the daily attempts to physically stress him with exercise. One day he stood on the walkway in front of our barracks for 4 hours dancing like Michael Jackson. The sideways knee kick, the finger snap, and then he would turn his head and grab his crotch. For 4 hours. Eventually he wasn’t around anymore. I was surprised by the ruthless deviousness of the drill sergeants sometimes. They were even a bit cunning. Their art was obviously refined.

This is the only story I will tell about basic training, in part because it was just the fraction of my Army career that is basic training, and because it is one of the only things I remember well. To this day there are very few if any soldiers from my basic training class whose names I remember. One guy from my cycle has somehow followed the same path as myself and I still saw him every day, but most others have either been kicked out, reached their separation date and left the Army, or are floating around somewhere. I do remember faces and personalities, though, and one name in particular. PVT Easter.

I was keen on inspecting the demeanors, reactions, and personality traits of the guys around me. I surveyed their physical traits as well, just because I had always been a people watcher. I noticed one guy was obviously gay. He was more effeminate than most women I have ever seen. And all of his teeth were rotting out of his head. I was actually alarmed at the number of guys who had horrid rotten tusks in their mouths, or remnants of horrid rotten tusks. I noticed a Korean guy who was out of his mind terrified. I remember feeling sorry for him a little, because he thought screaming and going crazy was what his environment demanded of him, but in actuality he was looking pretty insane. Later on in the cycle I would have to actually physically restrain this weirdo, but I didn’t know that then. I saw a few cases of shocking acne. They were those acne cases where even though it disgusts you, you have to stare at it. Some guys had to be literally blind. I had never seen glasses of such thickness, and to make it worse they were Army “BCG’s” (birth control goggles).When we had to sound off with name and rank, I noticed one or two guys with speech impediments that were no less than debilitating. I began to wonder if I had arrived on the isle of misfit recruits.

As I watched and gathered information on what to do and what not to do I began to notice social trends. Some of them were quite alarming. The first was the state of some guys’ teeth, as I said before. I couldn’t imagine how or why any adult would allow their teeth to actually rot out. I was oblivious at the time to the fact that in many cases it is a by-product of drug addiction, so I was simply horrified. I began to notice deeper and more disturbing trends. From talking to some of the other recruits I found that approximately 70% came from poverty. Even more than that came from broken homes. For many of them the basic training life was significant improvement to their living conditions at home. Few had graduated high school; most had endured what upper-middle class people would consider some kind of physical or emotional abuse in childhood. I had remembered from one of the sociology or psychology classes I took in college what to look for in physical traits associated with certain mental deficiencies or disorders. The most alarming trend I noticed among any of them was from what I had learned to look for in one of those classes. I assessed that about half of these recruits around me suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome. I am by no means a professional, which means I could be way off. I would be very interested in the results of an independent study done on any random group of combat arms Army recruits.

I noticed a quiet kid who always seemed to have a lazy grin on his face under wide, empty eyes. He was mildly buck-toothed and looked malnourished. He was definitely one of the ones I assessed as suffering from fetal alcohol syndrome. His eyes were spread wide apart and he had a large, flat forehead. He also had a bit of a speech problem, coupled with a distinct southern drawl, but his words were discernable. His name was PVT Easter, and he was mildly retarded. The more I talked to him the more distressed I became that there had been some kind of mistake; that he shouldn’t have been sent here. I had learned already about the unforgiving nature of the drill sergeants. I will attempt to describe why their actions are nothing less than absolutely necessary later. I decided that I could care for PVT Easter and help him along until someone realized the mistake and sent him home. I would protect him as best I could. The Army had not yet destroyed my ability to generate sympathy.

Time in basic training seemed to drag out to forever to me. I hadn’t the pleasure of a combat deployment yet, and the closest I had come to this was some football camps I had attended when I was younger. 16 weeks felt like it would break my soul. I wondered if this is what prisoners in the state penitentiary felt like. At least they weren’t charged with the care of a 19 year-old operating on an 8 year-old mentality. Caring for PVT Easter was beginning to tax me with each passing week. I would spend hours trying to teach him to shine his boots, and when I tried to get him to do it himself he would just say “I forgot how.” He would forget a lot. He would frustrate me, but I surmised that frustration and anger towards him was a norm in his life. Sometimes I would wake up at the usual time-0400-after having slept only an hour or two. I had spent the small hours of the night quietly instructing Easter over and over again until exhaustion, at which point I just did his work for him. He became utterly dependent on me for everything he did. I would listen to him while he spun lavish tails about his home and conquests with his wide eyes blazing like a child relating some new discovery. The other recruits would roll their eyes and ask sarcastic questions exposing the lack of truth in the epic stories. I just listened. He would finish a whopper, maybe about killing a bear with his bare hands or something, and look to me with a child’s pride for just having presented to me a crayon masterpiece. I would generate a generic and contrived comment…”wow”, or “man you’re lucky to have lived through that”. I wouldn’t be able to carry him for this whole cycle, and I knew it. My efforts began to curb.

 Soon the state of Easter’s uniform began to draw negative attention. I tried to help him…I tried to show him, but I could no longer do it for him. One day he showed up for formation in a uniform that looked as if it had been wadded up and thrown in a corner (it most likely was), and his boots were covered in clumps of black shoe polish. It was his child-like attempt to shine his boots. He was descended upon by drill sergeants like vultures over carrion. They were yelling and berating him with their hands laid out flat pointing in his face. He, to my relief, was expressionless. Part of me thought maybe he didn’t understand what was happening; maybe he thought this attention was actually positive. Another part of me-and probably the more correct part-reckoned that he was used to this type of admonishment. Maybe this wasn’t even as bad as what he was used to. We were sent to our barracks and he was kept outside for “corrective physical training”. I could hear him sobbing a few minutes later.

I had not expected to be tried in basic training. I knew the physical training could never compare to the conditioning I had endured on the football field. I was intelligent and wise enough to resist the mind games. This, though, was trying me.

Unbeknownst to almost anyone but my family and my closest friends, I was-and still am-an emotional person. The state of my emotions currently is confusing even to me-sometimes pouncing on me out of nowhere. This is the product of 2 combat tours I am sure. I am still sympathetic, I guess, but I know where my sympathies lie. They most definitely DO NOT lie anywhere close to the enemy. I could, and have, killed men without emotion. If there was any emotion for me to describe, I guess it would be fulfillment that my enemy has been destroyed. I killed a man whose only crime may have been being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don’t care, and to this day I am glad he is dead. I hope the bullets hurt. I hope he was terrified. I can think this way, and then the sight of a baby makes me feel like I want to cry (as long as it’s not the enemy’s baby, then I would be indifferent). Welcome to the mind of the Soldier.

At the time, though, emotional short circuitry had not taken place. I wondered how anybody could let a retarded kid from West Virginia come here. How could his recruiter have been such a snake? How could these drill sergeants pick on a mentally handicapped person and call themselves men? I was questioning my own decisions to join an organization where this was allowed. If the men doing this were what they called “the top 10% of the NCO’s in the Army”, then I wanted nothing to do with it.

With the drill sergeants, attention is bad. If they know your name without even looking at your name tape, it’s really bad. Easter was tops on the attention list. No matter how much I tried to help him he was just too incapable. His torture was a daily occurrence now. Fortunately, he wasn’t the only one who had made his name known for all the wrong reasons, and that was all that kept him from constant scrutiny sometimes. If anything I did admire his resiliency. He would be drenched in sweat, red-faced and out of breath for the better part of every day, but he still displayed child-like pride for just being able to be there. His breaking point would be soon.

A big portion of the first few weeks of basic training, as I remember it, was spent in a classroom environment. This posed another trial I hadn’t expected: trying to stay awake during 4 hour classes designed for people of below average IQ to understand easily. You couldn’t prop your head up with your hand, which I found was a habit I had I didn’t know about. Both feet had to stay on the ground and you had to keep your eyes forward. Any deviation would result in either the whole classroom being “smoked”, or maybe just you doing a battery or core exercises for a while led by a bored drill sergeant over on the side. I actually found that being smoked was beneficial. I would literally have to do things like hold my breath or pinch the hell out of my own leg to stay awake. Holding myself up with my hands on the sides of my chair and the heels of my outstretched legs on the ground for 10 or 15 minutes, though, that got my blood flowing. I was good for at least a half an hour after that. Easter was another story. I wondered how God allowed him to have narcolepsy on top of all the other ailments. He probably didn’t have narcolepsy, but he would lose the fight with sleep quite often. One day, just as I looked over to see him with his chin buried in his chest drooling, I heard his name blasted out by the drill sergeant on the side of the classroom.

“PVT EASTER COME ON DOWN!”

He said it like on The Price is Right, of course. Usually the one not teaching was the “monitor” type, sneaking up on unsuspecting recruits asleep in the classroom. Sometimes it was funny when their sleepy eyes would roll open to see a drill sergeant, eyes wide and smiling, as close to their face as the brim of their hat would allow. Easter jumped and wiped his mouth, then realized what was happening. He looked confused for moment, and then figured it out. He got up and walked over to the drill sergeant standing on the side of the classroom with his arms crossed. Easter reported at “parade rest” with his arms behind his back, in front of the drill sergeant. In the interest of not interrupting the class the exchange was kept at low volume. Easter had a strange look on his face. I couldn’t hear what they were saying. The drill sergeants exchanged a quick glance, and we were told to file out of the classroom and get in formation on the sidewalk outside. The classroom was an old cafeteria, by the way, and didn’t have air conditioning. I didn’t know of any building on Ft Knox that did. The windows were the kind that has the turning handle lock in the middle and fold in, and they were all open. I could hear every word of the following exchange, as well as everybody else.

“It’s real easy, PVT Easter. All you have to do is say you refuse to train. You don’t want to do this shit just say you refuse. It could all be over.”

He began sobbing again, which I had almost gotten desensitized to at this point. His crying made his speech impediment worse. The drill sergeants began to tag team him.

“What are you going to do PVT Easter? It doesn’t get any easier, dick. You’re crying now what the hell do you think is going to happen when your ass goes to Iraq. Oh and by the way you will go to Iraq.”

“Oh I know-you’ll cry and say you can’t do it and everything will be ok, right, dick? I’ll let you in on a little something, asshole. When your pussy starts to hurt and you lock up when the shit hits the fan guess who gets killed? Nope, not you. Never you, dick. It’s me! Or my battle buddy or your squad leader! They get killed because you want to be a pussy and cry when shit gets hard instead of soldiering up and doing your GOD DAMNED job!!”

Easter emits some sort of cry of frustration during this. He is broken, and I know it.

“I REFEWSE TO TWAIN!”

The drill sergeants tell him to recover and join our formation. Every recruit standing outside had expected nothing less than a severe beating for these words. There was silence as Easter exited, the drill sergeants trailing behind him. We were marched in cadence back to the barracks, where business as usual resumed.

Easter wasn’t seen until later that night. He approached me to tell me it was his last night there-he would be leaving in the morning. He presented me with a crudely folded letter and told me not to read it until he was gone.

I opened the letter the next day after Easter had left. It was hand-written in a blue ballpoint pen. The handwriting was worse than I had imagined it would be, and I thought his grammar and spelling was on a third grade level at best.  The words were scrawled across the paper, sometimes with no regard for the lines they were in. When I read it, though, I found that the writing was not the most appalling part. He began by thanking me for trying to help him, blaming himself for always being “to dum” to keep up. He went on to talk about going home and about his family. He lived with his grandmother, as apparently both of his parents were somehow in dispose-he never explained where they were. From what I gathered she only tolerates him. He then went on to describe his life to some extent. Parts of the writing were not discernable, but I did my best to try to decipher it. He said that he was not always so dumb; that he had been almost normal when he was younger. His consciousness of his retardation indicated to me that he was constantly reminded of it by someone other than himself. He said that his mother tried to kill him when he was four by tying rope around his neck and smothering him with a pillow.  In his own words he said that the only reason he lived was because someone caught her and stopped her. He had been rendered unconscious, though, and was not revived in time to avoid the brain damage that is an effect of oxygen deprivation. This wasn’t his explanation, but it is what I believed happened. He just said that this incident was what made him the way he is. I was trapped in a painful introspection for quite a while after reading that letter.

Slowly I began to understand the necessity of the drill sergeants’ actions. He was stern but fair and he performed his job to perfection. PVT Easter didn’t belong where he was. The Army is as unforgiving and unaccommodating as combat itself. It has to be.