Loon - Jack McLean [19]
8
DURING THE LAST WEEK OF SEPTEMBER, WE CAREFULLY folded and stowed all of our gear into seabags that were loaded onto a waiting truck. Equipped with our rifles and field marching packs, we fell into formation and with a resounding “Platoon 3076, FO’ARD HUUUH,” bid farewell to the 3rd Battalion area for the first time, and headed, double-time, several miles to the rifle range. I was excited. Certainly the toughest part of boot camp was over. Now would come the serious and sober business of the rifle.
As we left the area, the envious eyes of the newer recruits focused on us as we marched past the parade deck, obstacle course, and physical training fields. We were on our way to the range. We stood tall. We were proud. We were becoming marines. The drill instructor sang what would be our unending cadence for the next two weeks:
We don’t want no Maggie’s drawers.
All we want is fives and fours.
Left-right-left.
Left-right-left…
Fives and fours were the highest scores for each target. Maggie’s drawers, on the other hand, represented a total miss of the target. On such occasions, the spotter would wave a red flag on a long stick from beneath the target bunker.
As it turned out, I was completely wrong about the rifle range. The new tone set upon arrival was all too familiar. We moved into the barracks, removed our gear from the seabags, stowed it in footlockers, and were immediately informed by Staff Sergeant Hilton that we had five minutes to prepare for a “junk on the bunk” inspection. This hideous drill involved laying all of our gear on the bunk in a perfectly predetermined order with no margin for error.
Each bunk would be identically laid out, as we had exactly the same gear—not a toothbrush more, not a pair of socks less. The slightest wrinkle on a uniform, the tiniest flaw on a spit-shined shoe, the smallest corner of unpolished brass, were all cause for unimagined castigation. One flaw with one person’s gear, and we all would suffer. That was the way it worked.
It was, of course, a setup.
One hundred ten mostly teenage boys had been given five minutes to take everything they owned from a footlocker, stuff it into a seabag, and throw it onto a truck. At the other end, we’d been given five minutes to find our seabag, unload it into a footlocker, make up the new bunk, and then, upon it, display perfectly all that we owned. Someone would be missing a facecloth or a shoelace. Someone, God forbid, would have a piece of contraband—perhaps a stick of chewing gum sent by a girlfriend, or a cigarette, or a small box of cereal purloined from the mess hall.
Staff Sergeant Hilton slowly strutted down the squad bay, uniform perfectly creased, beady eyes perfectly focused, Smokey the Bear hat perfectly tipped forward.
We were fucked.
He randomly stopped in front of Private Darnell’s bunk. Nothing. Then Garcia’s. Nothing. He turned toward me, and my heart leapt into my throat. He walked over and saw something on the bunk next to mine. I have no recollection what it might have been, but Staff Sergeant Hilton went nuts. He tipped the entire bunk over, threw the mattress out the open second-floor window, and then picked up the footlocker and threw it down the squad bay. He mirrored the same exercise with three other displays before he began to regain his composure. His final insult was to empty several cans of talcum powder over all in sight.
“This place looks like a shit hole, you maggots.”
He was pissed.
“Get this dump squared away. Sanchez, you’d better get that fuckin’ mattress back up here before the captain sees it or you’ll really be in a world of shit.”
So began our fortnight at the rifle range.
The following morning we had PT and drilled just as though we were back at battalion. We then attended our first class—we called it Snapping-In 101. Before we could shoot the rifle, we had to learn how to hold the rifle. Preparation was everything.