Chosen Soldier - Dick Couch [34]
“You look like crap, soldier. You are to come to every formation in a clean uniform and blackened boots. You are clearly unsat—you hear me! Now drop!”
“Call that a haircut, roster number 133? You come out here tomorrow with that much hair and you’ll wish you hadn’t. If you want to become a Special Forces soldier, you damn well better become a soldier first.”
The students wear their rank insignia on the collars of their camouflaged uniforms, which are called battle dress utilities, or BDUs. Most of them are privates first class—PFCs—or specialists. They are addressed as “PFC” or “Specialist.” There’s a strip of white adhesive tape above their nametags and below the two cargo pockets on either side of their trousers. Their roster number is boldly written in black Magic Marker on the tape. Their names are visible, but they are simply numbers to the cadre—for now.
“OK, ladies,” booms First Sergeant Carter on the bullhorn, “since a decent formation seems to be beyond you, let’s do the caterpillar. Formation, right FACE!” Under Carter’s direction and the coaching of the TACs, the students string out in a push-up position, hands on the road with their boots on the shoulders of the man behind them.
“OK, down ONE!” The sea of camouflage drops to the roadbed. “And UP!” The mass of bodies collectively rises. “Down TWO!”
For the next half an hour, the formation coalesces into ranks, then breaks down into scattered platoon and squad-sized groupings for push-ups, sit-ups, jumping jacks, squat thrusts, flutter kicks, and exercises like the caterpillar, which I had never seen before. It’s still dark. A moist cloud of perspiration and heavy breathing rises from Class 8-04 into the harsh glare of the floodlights. This is 8-04’s welcome to Alpha Company and Special Forces training. Slowly, between the shouting and the calisthenics, a muster of the class works its way up to the podium to Sergeant Jennings.
“Found your lost chicks?” I ask.
“Yep. Seems like two of them just went off to their barracks without getting checked off my list. Or”—he grins—“I just missed them.”
“You do this with every class?”
“Pretty much. If they get in on time, we like to shake them up Sunday afternoon or Sunday evening. Then we can get right into training on Monday morning. This little welcome session’s to get them focused on the work ahead. It helps mold the class. We want to make it hard enough so they have to help each other. These aren’t your average soldiers, and many of them weren’t challenged before they got here. At one time or another here, everyone needs some help from his buddy. We like that to happen early. It also lets them know that if they’re not prepared to give us 110 percent, then they need to be someplace else.”
While we talked, a squad of students was doing flutter kicks in front of us. Jennings called them to their feet. “Too slow, men. Drop!” They all drop but for one man. He remains standing, bathed in sweat and looking miserable. “What’s your problem, soldier?”
“I want to quit, sir. I don’t belong here.”
“Quit? I didn’t ask you about quitting. I told you to drop. Now drop!” The hapless student melts to the pavement under Jennings’s scowl. Jennings bends over him. “Now push ’em out and don’t ever call me sir. You address me as sergeant, you got that?”
“Y-yes, sir—I mean, yes, Sergeant.”
Jennings steps away from the student. “We don’t let students quit until a week from today,” he tells me in a quiet voice. “This is a rough day for them. If we can get them through the first week and into the weekend, some of them who’d have quit under the stress of the moment will hang in there—at least that’s the theory.”
“I notice you call them students. Why is that?”
“Here they’re students or trainees. They don’t become Special Forces candidates until they get out to Camp Mackall for selection.”
With just a hint of dawn