Loon - Jack McLean [16]
He pushed me until I was pinned against the steel slats of my bunk. Then he pushed harder. All at once he released. As I gasped frantically for air, he unleashed a blow to my gut with the full force of his two hundred twenty pounds. I hit the deck hard. My rifle clanged to the floor and slid to the middle of the squad bay. Instantly, his hand came down again to my throat. He pulled me up and repeated the process. The third time, he hit me square in the jaw. Although I had seen it happen to others, I had no clue about what was happening or why.
“You’ll NEVER be a marine, you worthless piece of shit! Get off my beautiful deck, maggot. You’re getting it dirty. And for chrissakes, pick up your fuckin’ rifle before I have you court-martialed!”
With that, he moved on.
I slowly stood and retrieved my rifle from the floor. I did not see any blood. As I came back to attention, I caught the eye of Tony Petrowski directly across from me. He was silently, ever so slightly, nodding toward his right side and down. Then I understood. I had been holding my rifle in my left hand, mirroring those across from me.
That afternoon I learned, in no uncertain terms, that when standing at attention with an M14 rifle, it is held firmly and securely on the right side of the body.
Nine days later, I heard my name yelled down the barracks squad bay with instructions to report to the drill instructor’s office at the far end.
“Private McLean, report to the drill instructor’s office immediately!”
The order was given by the recruit with the bunk closest to the office and on the drill instructor’s direct command. (“Jenkins, tell McLean to get his sorry fuckin’ ass down here on the double.”)
This was a first for me. I had never been so called. I ran down the squad bay immediately, juggling a thousand instructions in my mind—how to stand at the door of Staff Sergeant Hilton’s office (perpendicular to the right side of the opening), how to knock (swinging the left arm in a high arc over the head and slapping the top of the molding), what exactly to say (“Sir. Private McLean reporting as ordered, sir”), how to enter when instructed to do so (one step forward, right-face, two steps forward, attention, silence). The smallest slip could be disastrous.
“Sir. YES, SIR,” I screamed, in a voice loud enough to peel paint off the cinder block walls.
“Oh, shut the fuck up; quit yelling at me, for chrissakes.”
Stunned, I murmured, “Sir. Yes, sir.”
“What do you put in those letters home that you write?” Hilton quietly asked in a manner that was more rhetorical than quizzical. “I knew I should have been keeping a closer eye on you.”
Letters home?
My mind raced.
What could I have said in a letter that might have gotten back here somehow? Surely nothing that I wrote to my parents. Although I endeavored to be forthright, I did try to protect them from some of the more graphic horrors of Parris Island, particularly the physical abuse under Staff Sergeant Hilton that was a fact of our everyday life. I didn’t necessarily feel that way when writing others, though, and may have mentioned the rifle incident to someone, but I was at a loss to recall.
So I didn’t answer.
We were often told that what went on inside the barracks of Platoon 3076 stayed inside the barracks of Platoon 3076. When we wrote home, we were to speak only of how good the food was or how magnificently our boots were shined. Occasionally we would be drilled on this. After a particularly severe beating of a hapless recruit, Staff Sergeant Hilton might look around and ask, “Any of you fuck heads see that?” We would all shake our heads. The message was clear.
We were not to discuss physical abuse by drill instructors outside of the barracks.
“Colonel Jameson wants to see you. You know who he is?”
Colonel Jameson?
Familiar.
Let me think.
Colonel Jameson was a name in the chain of command.
That’s right.
The chain of command.
We had had to memorize the chain of command during our first week. I think