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     © Copyright Gustav Hasvord
     WWW: http://www.gustavhasford.com/ST.htm
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     Dedicated to
     "Penny"
     John C. Pennington, Corporal
     Combat Photographer, First Marine Division
     KIA, June 9, 1968



     Adieu to a Solider

     Adieu, O soldier,
     You of the rude campaigning, (which we shared,)
     The rapid march, the life of the camp,
     The hot contention of opposing fronts, the long manoeuvre,
     Red battles with  their slaughter,  the stimulus,  the strong  terrific
game,
     Spell of all brave and manly hearts, the trains of time through you and
like of you all fill'd,
     With war and war's expression.

     Adieu, dear comrade,
     Your mission is fulfill'd--but I, more warlike,
     Myself and this contentious soul of mine,
     Still on our campaigning bound,
     Through untried roads with ambushes opponents lined,
     Through many a sharp defeat and many a crisis, often baffled,
     Here marching, ever marching on, a war fight out--aye here,
     To fiercer, weightier battles give expression.
     Walt Whitman, Drum Taps, 1871






     The Spirit of the Bayonet



     I think that Vietnam was what we had instead of happy childhoods.
     --Michael Herr, Dispatches



     The Marines are looking for a few good men...
     The recruit says that his name is Leonard Pratt.
     Gunnery  Sergeant Gerheim  takes one look  at  the skinny red-neck  and
immediately dubs him "Gomer Pyle."
     We think maybe he's trying to be funny. Nobody laughs.
     Dawn. Green Marines.  Three junior drill instructors screaming, "GET IN
LINE!  GET  IN LINE! YOU  WILL  NOT  MOVE!  YOU  WILL  NOT SPEAK!" Red brick
buildings. Willow  trees hung with with Spanish moss. Long,  irregular lines
of  sweating  civilians  standing  tall  on  yellow footprints painted  in a
pattern on the concrete deck.
     Parris Island, South  Carolina, the United  States Marine Corps Recruit
Depot, an  eight-week  college  for  the  phony-tough  and the  crazy-brave,
constructed in  a  swamp  on  an island,  symmetrical  but  sinister  like a
suburban death camp.
     Gunnery  Sergeant Gerheim  spits.  "Listen  up, herd. You  maggots  had
better start looking like United States Marine Corps recruits.  Do not think
for one second that you are Marines. You just dropped by to pick up a set of
dress blues. Am I right, ladies? Sorry 'bout that."
     A wiry little Texan in horn-rimmed glasses the guys are already calling
"Cowboy" says, "Is that  you, John Wayne? Is this me?" Cowboy  takes off his
pearl-gray Stetson and fans his sweaty face.
     I laugh. Years of  high school drama classes have made  me a  mimic.  I
sound exactly  like  John Wayne  as I  say: "I think  I'm going to hate this
movie."
     Cowboy laughs. He beats his Stetson on his thigh.
     Gunnery Sergeant Gerheim laughs, too. The senior drill instructor is an
obscene little ogre in immaculate khaki. He aims his index finger between my
eyes and says, "You. Yeah--you. Private Joker. I like you. You can come over
to my house and fuck  my sister."  He grins. Then  his face goes  hard. "You
little scumbag. I got  your  name. I got your  ass. You will not laugh.  You
will not cry. You will learn by the numbers. I will teach you."
     Leonard Pratt grins.
     Sergeant Gerheim  puts his  fists on  his hips. "If you ladies leave my
island, if you survive recruit training, you will be a weapon, you will be a
minister of death, praying for war. And proud. Until that day you are pukes,
you are scumbags, you are the lowest form of life on Earth. You are not even
human. You people are nothing but a lot of little pieces of amphibian shit."
     Leonard chuckles.
     "Private Pyle think I am a real  funny guy.  He thinks Parris Island is
more fun than a sucking chest wound."
     The hillbilly's face is frozen into a permanent expression  of  oat-fed
innocence.
     "You maggots are not going  to have  any fun here. You are not going to
enjoy standing in straight lines and  you are not  going to  enjoy massaging
your own wand and you are not going to enjoy saying 'sir' to individuals you
do  not  like. Well, ladies, that's tough titty.  I will speak and  you will
function.  Ten percent of you will  not survive. Ten percent of you  maggots
are going to  go AWOL or will try  to take your  own life or will break your
backs on the Confidence Course or will just go plain fucking crazy. There it
is.  My orders are to  weed out all nonhackers  who do not pack  the gear to
serve in my  beloved Corps. You  will  be  grunts.  Grunts get  no slack. My
recruits learn to  survive  without slack. Because I am  hard, you will  not
like me. But the more you hate me,  the  more you will  learn. Am I correct,
herd?"
     Some of us mumble, "Yes. Yeah. Yes, sir."
     "I can't hear you, ladies."
     "Yes, sir."
     "I still can't hear you, ladies. SOUND OFF LIKE YOU GOT A PAIR."
     "YES, SIR!"
     "You piss me off. Hit the deck."
     We crumple down onto the hot parade deck.
     "You got no motivation. Do you hear me, maggots? Listen up. I will give
you motivation.  You have no  espirit  de corps. I will  give you espirit de
corps.  You  have no traditions. I will give you traditions. And I will show
you how to live up to them."
     Sergeant Gerheim struts, ramrod straight, hands on hips. "GET  UP!  GET
UP!"
     We get up, sweating, knees sore, hands gritty.
     Sergeant Gerheim  says to his  three junior drill  instructors: "What a
humble herd." Then to us: "You silly scumbags are too slow. Hit the deck."
     Down.
     Up.
     Down.
     Up.
     "HIT IT!"
     Down.
     Sergeant  Gerheim steps over  our  struggling bodies,  stomps  fingers,
kicks ribs with the  toe of  his boot.  "Jesus  H. Christ. You  maggots  are
huffing and puffing the  way  your momma did the first time your old man put
the meat to her."
     Pain.
     "GET UP! GET UP!"
     Up. Muscles aching.
     Leonard Pratt is still sprawled on the hot concrete.
     Sergeant Gerheim dances over to him, stands over him, shoves his Smokey
the Bear campaign cover to  the back of  his  bald  head. "Okay, scumbag, do
it."
     Leonard gets up  on one knee, hesitates,  then stands  up, inhaling and
exhaling. He grins.
     Sergeant  Gerheim  punches  Leonard  in  the Adam's  apples--hard.  The
sergeant's  big  fist  pounds  Leonard's chest. Then  his  stomach.  Leonard
doubles over  with  pain. "LOCK  THEM  HEELS! YOU'RE AT ATTENTION!" Sergeant
Gerheim backhands Leonard across the face.
     Blood.
     Leonard grins,  locks  his heels. Leonard's  lips  are busted, pink and
purple, and his mouth is bloody, but Leonard only shrugs and grins as though
Gunnery Sergeant Gerheim has just given him a birthday present.


     For the first four weeks of recruit training Leonard continues to grin,
even though he receives more  than his share of the beatings.  Beatings,  we
learn,  are  a  routine  element of life on  Parris  Island.  And  not  that
I'm-only-rough-on-'um-because-I-love-'um  crap  civilians have seen  in Jack
Webb's  Hollywood  movie The D.I. and  in  Mr. John Wayne's The Sands of Iwo
Jima. Gunnery  Sergeant  Gerheim  and his  three  junior  drill  instructors
administer  brutal  beatings  to  faces, chests, stomachs, and  backs.  With
fists. Or boots--they kick us in the ass, the kidneys, the ribs, any part of
our bodies upon which a black and purple bruise won't show.
     But  even having the shit  beat out of him  with  calculated regularity
fails to educate Leonard the way  it educates the other  recruits in Platoon
30-92. In high school psychology they  said that fish, cockroaches, and even
one-celled protozoa can be brainwashed. But not Leonard.
     Leonard tries harder than any of us.
     He can't do anything right.
     During the day Leonard stumbles and falls, but never complains.
     At night,  as the  platoon sleeps in double-tiered metal bunks, Leonard
cries. I whisper to him to be quiet. He stops crying.
     No recruit is ever allowed to be alone.


     On the first day of our fifth week, Sergeant Gerheim beats the hell out
of me.
     I'm standing tall in  Gerheim's palace,  a small room at the far end of
the squad bay.
     "Do you believe in the Virgin Mary?"
     "NO, SIR!" I say. It's  a trick question. Any answer will be wrong, and
Sergeant Gerheim will beat me harder if I reverse myself.
     Sergeant Gerheim  punches me in  the solar plexus with  his elbow. "You
little maggot," he  says, and his  fist punctuates  the sentence. I stand to
attention,  heels locked,  eyes  front,  swallowing groans,  trying  not  to
flinch. "You make me want to vomit, scumbag. You goddamn heathen. You better
sound off that  you love the Virgin  Mary or I'm  going to  stomp your  guts
out." Sergeant Gerheim's  face  is about  one inch  from my left ear.  "EYES
FRONT!" Spit sprinkles  my cheek. "You do love the  Virgin Mary,  don't you,
Private Joker? Speak!"
     "SIR, NEGATIVE, SIR!"
     I wait. I know that he is going  to order me into  the head. The shower
stall is  where  he takes the recruits he  wants to  hurt. Almost every  day
recruits march into the head with  Sergeant Gerheim and, because the deck in
the shower stall is wet, they accidentally fall down. They accidentally fall
down so many times that when  they come  out they look like they've been run
over by a cat tractor.
     He's behind me. I can hear him breathing.
     "What did you say, prive?"
     "SIR, THE PRIVATE SAID, 'NO, SIR!' SIR!"
     Sergeant Gerheim's beefy red  face floats by like a cobra being charmed
by music. His eyes drill into mine; they invite me to look at him; they dare
me to move my eyes one fraction of an inch.
     "Have you seen the light? The white light? The great light? The guiding
light--do you have the vision?"
     "SIR, AYE-AYE, SIR!"
     "Who's your squad leader, scumbag?"
     "SIR, THE PRIVATE'S SQUAD LEADER IS PRIVATE HAMER, SIR!"
     "Hamer, front and center."
     Hamer  runs down the center of the  squad bay,  snaps to  attention  in
front of Sergeant Gerheim. "AYE-AYE, SIR!"
     "Hamer, you're fired. Private Joker is promoted to squad leader."
     Hamer hesitates. "AYE-AYE, SIR!"
     "Go."
     Hamer does an about-face, runs back down the squad bay, falls back into
line in front of his rack, snaps to attention.
     I say, "SIR, THE  PRIVATE REQUESTS  PERMISSION TO SPEAK  TO  THE  DRILL
INSTRUCTOR!"
     "Speak."
     "SIR, THE PRIVATE DOES NOT WANT TO BE A SQUAD LEADERS, SIR!"
     Gunnery Sergeant Gerheim  puts his  fists on his  hips.  He pushes  his
Smokey  the Bear campaign  cover to the back  of his  bald head.  He  sighs.
"Nobody wants  to lead, maggot, but somebody has to. You got  the brain, you
got the  balls, so you get the job. The Marine Corps is not  a mob like  the
Army. Marines die--that's  what we're  here  for--but the Marine  Corps will
live forever, because every Marine is a  leader when  he  has to be--even  a
prive."
     Sergeant Gerheim turns to Leonard. "Private Pyle, Private Joker is your
new  bunkmate.  Private  Joker  is  a  very  bright boy.  He  will teach you
everything. He will teach you how to pee."
     I say,  "SIR,  THE PRIVATE  WOULD PREFER TO  STAY  WITH  HIS  BUNKMATE,
PRIVATE COWBOY, SIR!"
     Cowboy and I have become  friends because when you're far from home and
scared shitless you need all the friends you can get and you need them right
away. Cowboy  is  the only recruit  who laughs  at all my jokes.  He's got a
sense  of  humor, which is priceless  in a place like this, but he's serious
when he has to be--he's dependable.
     Sergeant Gerheim sighs. "You queer for Private Cowboy's gear? You smoke
his pole?"
     "SIR, NEGATIVE, SIR!"
     "Outstanding. Then  Private Joker will bunk with Private  Pyle. Private
Joker is silly and he's ignorant, but he's got guts, and guts is enough."
     Sergeant Gerheim  struts  back to  his "palace," a tiny room at the far
end of the squad bay. "Okay, ladies, ready...MOUNT!"
     We all jump into our racks and freeze.
     "Sing."
     We sing:

     From the halls of Montezuma,
     To the shores of Tripoli,
     We will fight our country's battles,
     On land, and air, and sea.

     If the Army and the Navy
     Ever gaze on heaven's scenes,
     They will find the streets are guarded by
     United States Marines...

     "Okay, herd, readdddy...SLEEP!"


     Training continues.
     I  teach Leonard everything I  know, from how to  lace his black combat
boots  to the assembly and  disassembly of the M-14  semi-automatic shoulder
weapon.
     I teach Leonard that  Marines do not ditty-bop, they do not just  walk.
Marines run; they double-time.  Or, if the  distance to be covered is great,
Marines hump, one foot after the other, one step at  a  time, for as long as
necessary.  Marines  work  hard.  Only  shitbirds try  to  avoid work,  only
shitbirds try to skate.  Marines are clean, not skuzzy.  I  teach Leonard to
value  his  rifle as he  values  his life. I  teach him that blood makes the
grass grow.
     "This  here  gun  is  one  mean-looking  piece of  iron, sure  enough."
Leonard's clumsy fingers snap his weapon together.
     I'm  repulsed by the look and feel of  my own weapon. The rifle is cold
and heavy in my hands. "Think  of your rifle as  a tool, Leonard. Like an ax
on the farm."
     Leonard grins. "Okay. You right, Joker." He looks at me. "I'm sure glad
you're helping  me, Joker. You're my friend. I  know I'm slow. I always been
slow. Nobody ever helped me..."
     I turn away.  "That sounds  like a personal problem,"  I say. I keep my
eyes on my weapon.


     Sergeant Gerheim  continues  the  siege of Leonard Pratt,  Private.  He
gives Leonard extra  push-ups every night, yells at him louder than he yells
at the rest of us, calls his mother more colorful names.
     Meanwhile, the rest of us are not  forgotten. We suffer, too. We suffer
for Leonard's mistakes. We march, we run, we duck walk, and we crawl.


     We play  war in the  swamp. Near the site of the Ribbon Creek Massacre,
where  six  recruits  drowned  during a  disciplinary night  march  in 1956,
Sergeant  Gerheim  orders  me  to climb a  willow tree.  I'm a  sniper.  I'm
supposed to shoot the platoon. I hang on a limb. If I can see a recruit well
enough to name him, he's dead.
     The platoon attacks. I yell, "HAMER!" and Hamer falls dead.
     The platoon scatters. I scan the underbrush.
     A green  phantom blinks  through  a  shadow. I see its  face. I open my
mouth. The limb cracks. I'm falling...
     I collide with the sandy deck. I look up.
     Cowboy  is standing over me. "Bang,  bang, you're dead," he  says.  And
then he laughs.
     Sergeant Gerheim looms over me. I try to explain that the limb broke.
     "You  can't talk,  sniper. You  are dead. Private Cowboy just took your
life."
     Sergeant Gerheim promotes Cowboy to squad leader.


     During our sixth week, Sergeant Gerheim orders us to double-time around
the squad  bay with our penises in our left  hands and our  weapons  in  our
right hands, singing: This is my rifle, this is gun; one is for fighting and
one is for fun. And: I don't want no teen-aged queen; all I want is my M-14.
     Sergeant Gerheim orders us  to name our rifles. "This is the only pussy
you people are  going to  get.  Your days  of  finger-banging ol'  Mary Jane
Rottencrotch through her pretty pink panties  are  over. You're  married  to
this piece, this weapon of iron and wood, and you will be faithful."
     We run. And we sing:

     Well, I don't know
     But I been told
     Eskimo pussy
     Is mighty cold...

     Before  chow, Sergeant  Gerheim  tells  us  that  during  World  War  I
Blackjack Pershing said, "The  deadliest weapon in the world is a Marine and
his rifle." At  Belleau  Wood the  Marines  were  so vicious that the German
infantrymen called them Teufel-Hunden--"devil dogs."
     Sergeant  Gerheim explains that  it is important  for us  to understand
that  it is our killer  instinct  which must  be harnessed  if  we expect to
survive in combat. Our rifle is only a tool; it is a hard heart that kills.
     Our  will to kill must be  focused  the way  our rifle focuses a firing
pressure of fifty thousand pounds per square inch to propel a piece of lead.
If  our  rifles  are not properly cleaned  the  explosion will be improperly
focused and our rifles will shatter. If our killer  instincts  are not clean
and strong, we will hesitate at  the  moment  of truth. We will not kill. We
will  become dead Marines.  And then we will be in  a  world of shit because
Marines  are  not  allowed  to  die  without permission; we  are  government
property.


     The Confidence  Course: We go hand  over hand down a rope strung  at  a
forty-five  degree angle across a pond--the  slide-for-life. We hang  upside
down like monkeys and crawl headfirst down the rope.
     Leonard falls off the slide-for-life  eighteen times. He almost drowns.
He cries. He climbs the tower. He tries again. He falls off again. This time
he sinks.
     Cowboy and I  dive into the pond.  We pull  Leonard out  of  the  muddy
water. He's unconscious. When he comes to, he cries.
     Back at  the squad  bay Sergeant Gerheim  fits a Trojan rubber over the
mouth of a canteen  and  throws  the  canteen at  Leonard.  The canteen hits
Leonard on the  side of the head. Sergeant Gerheim  bellows, "Marines do not
cry!"
     Leonard is ordered to nurse on the canteen every day after chow.


     During bayonet training  Sergeant  Gerheim dances an aggressive ballet.
He knocks us down with a pugil stick, a five-foot pole with heavy padding on
both ends. We  play war with the pugil  sticks.  We beat each other  without
mercy. Then Sergeant Gerheim orders us to fix bayonets.
     Sergeant  Gerheim demonstrates effective attack techniques to a recruit
named Barnard, a soft-spoken farm boy from Maine. The beefy drill instructor
knocks out two of Private Barnard's teeth with a rifle butt.
     The purpose of the  bayonet training, Sergeant Gerheim explains, is  to
awaken our killer instincts. The killer  instinct will  make us fearless and
aggressive, like animals. If the meek ever inherit the earth the strong will
take it  away from them.  The weak exist to be devoured by the strong. Every
Marine must pack  his own  gear. Every Marine must be the instrument  of his
own salvation. It's hard, but there it is.
     Private  Barnard,  his  jaw   bleeding,  his   mouth  a  bloody   hole,
demonstrates that he  has been paying attention. Private Barnard  grabs  his
rifle and, sitting up, bayonets Sergeant Gerheim through the right thigh.
     Sergeant Gerheim grunts. Then he responds with  a vertical butt stroke,
but misses. So he backhands Private Barnard across the face with his fist.
     Whipping  off  his web belt, Sergeant  Gerheim ties  a crude tourniquet
around  his bloody  thigh. Then  he makes the unconscious Private  Barnard a
squad leader. "Goddamn it,  there's one  little  maggot who  knows  that the
spirit of the bayonet is to kill! He'll  make a damn  fine field Marine.  He
ought to be a fucking general."


     On the last day of  our sixth  week I wake  up and find  my rifle in my
rack.  My rifle is  under my blanket, beside me. I  don't  know  how it  got
there.
     My mind isn't on my responsibilities and I  forget to remind Leonard to
shave.
     Inspection. Junk on the bunk. Sergeant Gerheim points  out that Private
Pyle did not stand close enough to his razor.
     Sergeant Gerheim orders Leonard and  the recruit squad leaders into the
head.
     In the head,  Sergeant Gerheim orders  us to  piss  into a toilet bowl.
"LOCK THEM HEELS! YOU ARE AT ATTENTION! READDDDDY...WHIZZZZ..."
     We whiz.
     Sergeant Gerheim grabs the back of Leonard's neck and forces Leonard to
his  knees, pushes his  head down into the yellow pool.  Leonard  struggles.
Bubbles. Panic gives Leonard strength; Sergeant Gerheim holds him down.
     After we're sure that Leonard has drowned, Sergeant Gerheim flushes the
toilet. When the water stops flowing, Sergeant Gerheim releases his  hold on
Leonard's neck.


     Sergeant Gerheim's  imagination is  both  cruel and  comprehensive, but
nothing works. Leonard continues to fuck up. Now,  whenever  Leonard makes a
mistake,  Sergeant  Gerheim does not punish Leonard.  He punishes the  whole
platoon. He excludes Leonard from the punishment. While Leonard rests, we do
squat-thrusts and side-straddle hops, many, many of them.
     Leonard touches my arm as we move through the chow line with our  metal
trays. "I just can't do nothing right.  I need some help. I  don't want  you
boys to be in trouble. I--"
     I move away.


     The  first night  of  our seventh  week  of  training the platoon gives
Leonard a blanket party.
     Midnight.
     The fire watch stands by.  Private Philips,  the  House Mouse, Sergeant
Gerheim's "go-fer," pads barefoot down the squad bay  to  watch for Sergeant
Gerheim.
     In the dark, one hundred recruits walk to Leonard's rack.
     Leonard is grinning, even in his sleep.
     The squad leaders hold towels and bars of soap.
     Four  recruits  throw a blanket over  Leonard. They grip the corners of
the  blanket so that Leonard can't sit up and  so that  his  screams will be
muffled.
     I hear the hard breathing of a hundred sweating bodies  and I hear  the
fump and thud as Cowboy  and Private Barnard beat Leonard with bars  of soap
slung in towels.
     Leonard's  screams are like the braying of a sick mule, heard far away.
He struggles.
     The eyes of  the platoon are on me. Eyes  are aimed at  me in the dark,
eyes like rubies.
     Leonard stops screaming.
     I hesitate. The eyes are on me. I step back.
     Cowboy punches me in the chest with his towel and a bar of soap.
     I sling the towel, drop in  the soap, and then I beat Leonard,  who has
stopped moving.  He  lies in silence,  stunned,  gagging for air. I beat him
harder and harder and when I feel tears being flung from my eyes, I beat him
harder for it.


     The next day, on the parade deck, Leonard does not grin.
     When Gunnery  Sergeant  Gerheim  asks,  "What  do  we do for a  living,
ladies?" and we reply, "KILL! KILL! KILL!," Leonard remains silent. When our
junior drill instructor asks, "Do we love the Crotch, ladies? Do we love our
beloved Corps?" and the platoon responds with one voice, "GUNG HO! GUNG  HO!
GUNG HO!." Leonard is silent.


     On  the third day of our seventh week  we move  to the  rifle range and
shoot holes in paper targets. Sergeant Gerheim brags about  the marksmanship
of ex-Marines Charles Whitman and Lee Harvey Oswald.


     By the end of our  seventh week Leonard has become a  model recruit. We
decide  that Leonard's silence is a result of his new intense concentration.
Day by day, Leonard is more motivated, more squared away. His manual of arms
is flawless now, but his eyes are milk glass. Leonard cleans his weapon more
than any recruit in the platoon. Every night after chow Leonard caresses the
scarred oak stock with linseed oil the way hundreds of earlier recruits have
caressed the same piece of wood. Leonard improves at everything, but remains
silent. He does what he is told, but he is no longer part of the platoon.
     We can see that Sergeant Gerheim resents Leonard's attitude. He reminds
Leonard  that  the motto of  the Marine  Corps  is  Semper  Fidelis--"Always
Faithful."  Sergeant Gerheim reminds Leonard that "Gung ho"  is  Chinese for
"working together."
     It is  a Marine  Corps  tradition, Sergeant Gerheim says, that  Marines
never abandon their dead or wounded. Sergeant Gerheim is careful not to come
down too hard  on Leonard as  long as Leonard remains squared away.  We have
already lost  seven recruits on  Section  Eight discharges.  A Kentucky  boy
named Perkins stepped to the  center of the squad bay and slashed his wrists
with his bayonet.  Sergeant Gerheim  was not happy to see a recruit bleeding
upon his nice clean  squad  bay. The recruit was ordered to police the area,
mop up the  blood,  and replace  the  bayonet in  its sheath. While  Perkins
mopped up the  blood,  Sergeant Gerheim called a school circle and poo-pooed
the  recruit's  shallow  slash  across  his  wrists  with   a  bayonet.  The
U.S.M.C.--approved method of  recruit suicide is to  get alone  and  take  a
razor  blade  and  slash deep and  vertical, from wrist  to  elbow, Sergeant
Gerheim said. Then he allowed Perkins to double-time to sick bay.
     Sergeant Gerheim leaves Leonard alone and concentrates  on  the rest of
us.


     Sunday.
     Magic  show. Religious services  in the faith  of your  choice--and you
will  have  a  choice--because  religious  services  are  specified  in  the
beautiful full-color brochures the Crotch distributes to Mom and Dad back in
hometown America, even though Sergeant Gerheim  assures  us  that the Marine
Corps  was  here before God.  "You can give your heart to Jesus but your ass
belongs to the Corps."


     After  the "magic show" we eat chow.  The squad leaders read grace from
cards set in holders on the tables. Then: "SEATS!"
     We spread  butter on slices  of  bread and then sprinkle  sugar  on the
butter. We smuggle sandwiches out of  the  mess hall,  risking a beating for
the novelty  of  unscheduled  chow. We don't give a shit; we're  salty. Now,
when Sergeant Gerheim and his junior drill instructors stomp us we tell them
that  we love it and  to do it some  more.  When  Sergeant Gerheim commands:
"Okay,  ladies,  give  me fifty squat-thrusts.  And some side-straddle hops.
Many, many of them," we laugh and then do them.
     The drill instructors are proud to see that we are growing beyond their
control.  The Marine  Corps does  not want  robots. The Marine  Corps  wants
killers. The Marine Corps wants  to  build indestructible  men, men  without
fear. Civilians may choose to submit or to fight back. The drill instructors
leave recruits  no  choice. Marines fight back or they do not survive. There
it is. No slack.
     Graduation is only a  few days away  and  the salty recruits of Platoon
30-92 are ready to eat their own  guts and then ask for seconds. The  moment
the Commandant of the Marine Corps  gives us the word, we will grab the Viet
Cong guerrillas and  the  battle-hardened North Vietnamese regulars by their
scrawny throats and we'll punch their fucking heads off.


     Sunday afternoon in the sun. We scrub our little  green  garments on  a
long concrete table.
     For the hundredth time, I tell Cowboy that I want to slip my tube steak
into his sister so what will he take in trade?
     For the hundredth time, Cowboy replies, "What do you have?"
     Sergeant Gerheim struts around the table.  He is trying not to limp. He
criticizes our utilization of the Marine Corps scrub brush.
     We don't care; we're too salty.
     Sergeant Gerheim won the Navy Cross on Iwo Jima, he says. He got it for
teaching young Marines how to bleed, he  says. Marines are supposed to bleed
in tidy little pools  because Marines are disciplined. Civilians and members
of the lesser services bleed all over the place like bed wetters.
     We don't listen. We swap scuttlebutt. Laundry day is  the only  time we
are allowed to talk to each other.
     Philips--Sergeant  Gerheim's  black,  silver-tongued   House  Mouse--is
telling everybody about the one thousand cherries he has busted.
     I say, "Leonard talks to his rifle."
     A dozen recruits look  up. They  hesitate. Some look sick.  Others look
scared.  And some  look  shocked and angry,  as though  I'd  just slapped  a
cripple.
     I force myself to speak: "Leonard talks  to his  rifle."  Nobody moves.
Nobody  says anything.  "I don't think  Leonard can hack it anymore. I think
Leonard is a Section Eight."
     Now guys all along  the table are listening.  They look confused. Their
eyes seem fixed on some distant object as though they are trying to remember
a bad dream.
     Private Barnard  nods.  "I've  been having this  nightmare.  My...rifle
talks to me." He hesitates. "And I've been talking back to it..."
     "There it is," says  Philips. "Yeah. It's  cold.  It's a  cold voice. I
thought I was going plain fucking crazy. My rifle said--"
     Sergeant Gerheim's  big fist drives Philip's next word  down his throat
and out of his asshole. Philips is nailed to the deck. He's on his back. His
lips are crushed. He groans.
     The platoon freezes.
     Sergeant Gerheim puts  his fists on his hips. His  eyes glare  out from
under the brim of his Smokey  the Bear campaign cover  like the barrels of a
shotgun. "Private  Pyle  is a Section Eight.  You hear me? If  Private  Pyle
talks to his piece it is because he's plain fucking  crazy. You maggots will
belay  all  this  scuttlebutt.  Don't  let  Private  Joker  play  with  your
imaginations. I don't want  to hear another word. Do  you hear me?  Not  one
word."


     Night at Parris  Island. We stand  by  until Sergeant Gerheim snaps out
his last order of the day: "Prepare to mount....Readdy...MOUNT!"  Then we're
lying on  our backs in our  skivvies, at attention, our weapons held at port
arms.
     We say our prayers:

     I  am a United States Marine Corps recruit. I serve in the forces which
guard my country and my way of
     life. I  am  prepared  to give my  life  in their defense, so  help  me
God...GUNG HO! GUNG HO! GUNG HO!

     Then the Rifleman's Creed, by Marine Corps Major General W.H. Rupertus:

     This is my rifle. There are many like it but this one is mine. My rifle
is my best friend. It is my life. I
     must master it as I master my life.

     My rifle, without me, is useless.  I must  fire my rifle  true.  I must
shoot straighter than my enemy who
     is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me.

     I will.

     Leonard is speaking for the first time in weeks. His voice booms louder
and louder.  Heads turn. Bodies shift.  The platoon  voice fades. Leonard is
about to explode. His words are being coughed up from some deep, ugly place.
     Sergeant Gerheim has  the night duty. He  struts to  Leonard's rack and
stands by, fists on hips.
     Leonard doesn't see Sergeant  Gerheim.  The veins in Leonard's neck are
bulging as he bellows:


IT AS A
     BROTHER. I WILL LEARN ITS ACCESSORIES, ITS SIGHTS, ITS BARREL.


WILL
     BECOME PART OF EACH OTHER.




OUR
     ENEMY. WE ARE THE SAVIORS OF MY LIFE.

     SO BE IT, UNTIL VICTORY IS AMERICA'S AND THERE IS NO ENEMY BUT PEACE!



     Sergeant Gerheim kicks Leonard's rack. "Hey--you--Private Pyle..."
     "What?  Yes?  YES,  SIR!"  Leonard  snaps  to  attention  in  his rack.
"AYE-AYE, SIR!"
     "What's that weapon's name, maggot?"
     "SIR, THE PRIVATE'S WEAPON'S NAME IS CHARLENE, SIR!"
     "At ease, maggot." Sergeant Gerheim grins. "You  are becoming one sharp
recruit,  Private Pyle.  Most motivated prive in my  herd.  Why,  I may even
allow you to serve as a rifleman in my beloved Corps. I had you figured as a
shitbird, but you'll make a good grunt."
     "AYE-AYE, SIR!"
     I look at the rifle on my rack. It's a beautiful instrument, gracefully
designed,  solid  and symmetrical.  My  rifle  is  clean,  oiled, and  works
perfectly. It's a fine tool. I touch it.
     Sergeant Gerheim marches down the length of the squad bay. "THE REST OF
YOU ANIMALS COULD TAKE LESSONS FROM PRIVATE PYLE. He's squared away. You are
all squared away. Tomorrow you will be Marines. READDDY...SLEEP!"


     Graduation day.  A thousand new Marines stand tall on  the parade deck,
lean and tan in immaculate khaki, their clean weapons held at port arms.
     Leonard is selected as the  outstanding recruit from Platoon 30-92.  He
is  awarded a free  set  of dress blues and is allowed to wear the  colorful
uniform when the graduating  platoons pass in review. The Commandant General
of  Parris  Island  shakes Leonard's hand and  gives him a  "Well done." Our
series commander  pins a  RIFLE  EXPERT  badge  on  Leonard's  chest and our
company commander awards Leonard a citation  for shooting the  highest score
in the training battalion.
     Because of a special  commendation  submitted by Sergeant Gerheim,  I'm
promoted  to  Private First  Class. After our series  commander pins  on  my
EXPERT'S badge, Sergeant Gerheim presents me with two red and green chevrons
and explains that they're his old PFC stripes.
     When we pass in review, I walk right guide, tall and proud.
     Cowboy receives  an EXPERT'S badge and is selected to carry the platoon
guidon.
     The Commanding General of Parris Island speaks into a microphone: "Have
you seen the light? The  white light? The great light? The guiding light? Do
you have the vision?"
     And we cheer, happy beyond belief.
     The Commanding General sings. We sing too:

     Hey, Marine, have you heard?
     Hey, Marine...
     L.B.J. has passed the word.
     Hey, Marine...
     Say good-bye to Dad and Mom.
     Hey, Marine...
     You're gonna die in Viet Nam.
     Hey, Marine, yeah!

     After  the graduation  ceremony  our orders  are  distributed.  Cowboy,
Leonard, Private Barnard, Philips, and most of the other Marines  in Platoon
30-92 are  ordered to ITR--the Infantry Training Regiment--to  be trained as
grunts, infantrymen.
     My orders instruct me to report to the Basic Military Journalism School
at Fort  Benjamin Harrison, Indiana, after  I  graduate  from ITR.  Sergeant
Gerheim is disgusted by the fact that I am to be a combat correspondent  and
not a grunt. He calls me a poge, an office pinky. He says that shitbirds get
all the slack.
     Standing at  ease  on the parade deck, beneath the  monument to the Iwo
Jima flag raising,  Sergeant Gerheim says,  "The  smoking  lamp is  lit. You
people are no longer maggots. Today you are Marines. Once a Marine, always a
Marine..."
     Leonard laughs out loud.


     Our last night on the island.
     I draw fire watch.
     I stand by in utility trousers, skivvy shirt, spit-shined combat boots,
and a helmet liner which has been painted silver.
     Sergeant Gerheim gives me his wristwatch and a flashlight. "Good night,
Marine."
     I march up and down the squad bay between two perfectly aligned rows of
racks.
     One hundred young Marines breathe peacefully as they sleep--one hundred
survivors from our original hundred and twenty.
     Tomorrow at  dawn we'll all board cattle-car buses for the ride to Camp
Geiger in North Carolina. There, ITR--the  infantry  training regiment.  All
Marines are grunts, even though  some  of us will learn  additional military
skills. After advanced  infantry training we'll be allowed pogey bait at the
slop chute and  we'll be given weekend liberty off the base and  then  we'll
receive assignments to our permanent duty stations.
     The squad bay is as quiet as a  funeral parlor at midnight. The silence
is disturbed only by  the  soft creak-creak  of bedsprings and an occasional
cough.
     It's  almost time for  me to wake my relief when  I hear a voice.  Some
recruit is talking in his sleep.
     I  stop.   I  listen.  A  second  voice.  Two  guys  must  be  swapping
scuttlebutt. If Sergeant Gerheim hears them it'll be my  ass. I hurry toward
the sound.
     It's  Leonard.  Leonard is  talking  to  his  rifle. But there  is also
another voice. A whisper. A cold, seductive moan. It's the voice of a woman.

     Leonard's rifle is  not  slung  on his rack. He's  holding  his  rifle,
hugging it. "Okay, okay. I love you!" Very softly: "I've given  you the best
months of  my life. And now you--" I snap on my flashlight.  Leonard ignores
me. "I LOVE YOU! DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND? I CAN DO IT. I'LL DO ANYTHING!"
     Leonard's words reverberate  down the squad bay. Racks  squeak. Someone
rolls over. One recruit sits up, rubs his eyes.
     I watch the  far end of the  squad bay. I  wait for the light  to go on
inside Sergeant Gerheim's palace.
     I touch  Leonard's shoulder. "Hey, shut your  mouth,  Leonard. Sergeant
Gerheim will break my back."
     Leonard  sits up.  He looks at me. He strips off his skivvy  shirt  and
ties  it around his face to blindfold himself. He begins to field-strips his
weapon. "This is the first time  I've ever seen her naked." He pulls off the
blindfold.  His  fingers  continue to break down the  rifle into components.
Then, gently,  he  fondles  each piece. "Just  look  at that  pretty trigger
guard.  Have  you ever  seen a  more  beautiful piece  of  metal?" He starts
snapping the steel components back together.  "Her connector assembly is  so
beautiful..."
     Leonard continues to babble as his trained fingers reassemble the black
metal hardware.
     I  think  about Vanessa, my  girl back home. We're  on  a  river  bank,
wrapped  in  an old  sleeping  bag,  and  I'm fucking her  eyes out.  But my
favorite fantasy has gone stale.  Thinking about Vanessa's thighs,  her dark
nipples, her fully lips doesn't give me a  hard-on  anymore. I guess it must
be the saltpeter in our food, like they say.
     Leonard reaches under his pillow and comes out  with a loaded magazine.
Gently, he inserts the metal magazine into his weapon, into Charlene.
     "Leonard...where did you get those live rounds?"
     Now a lot of guys  are  sitting up, whispering,  "What's happening?" to
each other.
     Sergeant Gerheim's light floods the far end of the squad bay.
     "OKAY, LEONARD, LET'S GO." I'm  determined to save my own ass if I can,
certain that  Leonard's  is  forfeit  in any case. The  last  time  Sergeant
Gerheim  caught  a recruit with a live round--just one round--he ordered the
recruit to  dig a grave ten feet  long and ten feet deep. The whole  platoon
had  to fall out for the "funeral." I  say, "You're in  a world of shit now,
Leonard."
     The  overhead lights  explode.  The  squad  bay  is  washed with light.
"WHAT'S THIS MICKEY MOUSE SHIT? JUST WHAT IN THE NAME OF JESUS H. CHRIST ARE
YOU ANIMALS DOING IN MY SQUAD BAY?"
     Sergeant Gerheim  comes at me  like a mad dog. His voice cuts the squad
bay in half: "MY BEAUTY  SLEEP HAS  BEEN INTERRUPTED, LADIES. YOU  KNOW WHAT
THAT MEANS. YOU HEAR ME, HERD? IT MEANS THAT ONE RECRUIT HAS VOLUNTEERED HIS
YOUNG HEART FOR A GODDAMN HUMAN SACRIFICE!'
     Leonard pounces from his rack, confronts Sergeant Gerheim.
     Now  the  whole platoon  is awake. We all  wait to  see  what  Sergeant
Gerheim will do, confident that it will be worth watching.
     "Private Joker. You shitbird. Front and center."
     I move my ass. "AYE-AYE, SIR!"
     "Okay, you little maggot, speak.  Why is Private  Pyle out of his  rack
after  lights out?  Why is Private Pyle  holding that weapon?  Why ain't you
stomping Private Pyle's guts out?"
     "SIR, it is the Private's duty to  report to  the drill instructor that
Private...Pyle...has a full magazine and has locked and loaded, SIR."
     Sergeant Gerheim looks at  Leonard and nods. He sighs. Gunnery Sergeant
Gerheim  looks more than a  little ridiculous in his pure white skivvies and
red rubber flip-flop shower shoes and hairy legs and tattooed forearms and a
beer gut  and a face the color of raw beef, and, on his bald head, the green
and brown Smokey the Bear campaign cover.
     Our senior drill instructor focuses all of  his  considerable powers of
intimidation  into his  best John-Wayne-on  Suribachi  voice: "Listen to me,
Private Pyle. You will place your weapon on your rack and--"
     "NO! YOU CAN'T HAVE HER! SHE'S MINE! YOU  HEAR  ME?  SHE'S MINE! I LOVE
HER!"
     Gunnery Sergeant Gerheim  can't  control himself any longer.  "NOW  YOU
LISTEN TO ME, YOU FUCKING  WORTHLESS LITTLE PIECE OF SHIT. YOU  WILL GIVE ME
THAT  WEAPON OR I'M  GOING TO  TEAR YOUR BALLS  OFF AND STUFF THEM DOWN YOUR
SCRAWNY LITTLE THROAT! YOU  HEAR ME, MARINE? I'M GOING TO PUNCH YOUR FUCKING
HEART OUT!"
     Leonard  aims  the  weapon  at Sergeant Gerheim's  heart, caresses  the
trigger guard, then caresses the trigger...
     Sergeant Gerheim is suddenly calm. His eyes, his manner are  those of a
wanderer who has found his home. He is a man in complete  control of himself
and of  the  world he lives in.  His face is cold and  beautiful as the dark
side surfaces. He smiles. It is not  a friendly smile, but an evil smile, as
though Sergeant Gerheim were a werewolf baring its fangs. "Private Pyle, I'm
proud--"
     Bang.
     The steel buttplate slams into Leonard's shoulder.
     One   7.62-millimeter  high-velocity  copper-jacketed  bullet   punches
Gunnery Sergeant Gerheim back.
     He falls.
     We all stare at Sergeant Gerheim. Nobody moves.
     Sergeant  Gerheim sits  up  as  though  nothing has  happened.  For one
second, we relax. Leonard has missed. Then dark  blood squirts from a little
hole in Sergeant  Gerheim's  chest.  The  red blood blossoms  into his white
skivvy  shirt  like a beautiful  flower.  Sergeant  Gerheim's  bug eyes  are
focused  upon the  blood  rose  on  his chest, fascinated.  He  looks  up at
Leonard. He squints.  Then he relaxes. The werewolf  smile is frozen on  his
lips.
     My menial  position of authority as the fire watch on duty forces me to
act. "Now,  uh,  Leonard, we're all  your bros, man, your brothers. I'm your
bunkmate, right? I--"
     "Sure," says Cowboy. "Go easy, Leonard. We don't want to hurt you."
     "Affirmative," says Private Barnard.
     Leonard doesn't hear. "Did you see the way he looked at her? Did you? I
knew what he was thinking. I knew. That fag pig and his dirty--"
     "Leonard..."
     "We can  kill you. You know  that."  Leonard caresses his rifle. "Don't
you know that Charlene and I can kill you all?"
     Leonard aims his rifle at my face.
     I don't look at the rifle. I look into Leonard's eyes.
     I know that Leonard is too weak to  control his instrument of death. It
is  a  hard  heart  that  kills, not  the  weapon.  Leonard is  a  defective
instrument for the  power that  is flowing through him.  Sergeant  Gerheim's
mistake was in not  seeing that Leonard was like a glass rifle  which  would
shatter  when fired. Leonard is not  hard enough to harness the power of  an
interior explosion to propel the cold black bullet of his will.
     Leonard is grinning at us, the final grin that is on the face of death,
the terrible grin of the skull.
     The grin changes to a look of  surprise and then  to confusion and then
to  terror as Leonard's weapon moves  up and back and then Leonard takes the
black metal barrel into his mouth. "NO! Not--"
     Bang.
     Leonard is dead on the deck. His head is now an awful lump of blood and
facial bones and sinus fluids and uprooted teeth and jagged, torn flesh. The
skin looks plastic and unreal.
     The  civilians  will demand yet another investigation,  of  course. But
during  the investigation the recruits of Platoon 30-92  will  testify  that
Private Pratt, while highly motivated, was  a ten percenter who did not pack
the gear to be a Marine in our beloved Corps.
     Sergeant  Gerheim  is  still  smiling. He was a fine drill  instructor.
Dying, that's what we're here for, he would have said--blood makes the grass
grow. If  he could speak, Gunnery Sergeant Gerheim would explain to  Leonard
why the guns that we love don't love back. And he would say, "Well done."
     I turn off the overhead lights.
     I say, "Prepare to mount." Then: "MOUNT!"
     The platoon falls into a hundred racks.
     I feel cold and alone. I am not alone. All over Parris Island there are
thousands  and  thousands of  us.  And,  all around  the world, hundreds  of
thousands.
     I try to sleep...
     In my rack, I  pull my rifle  into my arms. She talks to me. Words come
out of the wood and metal and flow into my hands. She tells me what to do.
     My rifle is a solid instrument  of death. My  rifle is black steel. Our
human bodies are bags of blood, easy to puncture and quick to drain, but our
hard tools of death cannot be broken.
     I hold by weapon at port arms, gently, as though she were a holy relic,
a  magic wand  wrought with interlocking  pieces of silver  and iron, with a
teakwood  stock,  golden bullets,  a crystal bolt,  jewels to sight with. My
weapon  obeys me. I'll hold Vanessa, my rifle. I'll hold her. I'll just hold
her for a little while. I will hide in this dark dream for as long as I can.
     Blood pours out of the barrel  of my rifle and flows up on to my hands.
The blood moves. The blood breaks up into living fragments. Each fragment is
a spider. Millions and millions of tiny red spiders of blood are crawling up
my arms, across my face, into my mouth...


     Silence. In the dark, a hundred men are breaking in unison.
     I look at Cowboy,  then at Private Barnard. They understand. Cold grins
of death are frozen on their faces. They nod.
     The newly minted Marines in my platoon  stand to  attention, horizontal
in their racks, their weapons at port arms.
     The Marines wait, a hundred young werewolves with guns in their hands.
     I lead:

     This is my rifle.
     There are many like it, but this one is mine...


Body Count



     I saw the  best  minds of my  generation destroyed by madness, starving
hysterical naked...
     --Allen Ginsberg, Howl



     A psychotic is a guy who's just found out what's going on.
     --William S. Burroughs




     Tet: The Year of the Monkey.
     Rafter  Man and I spend the  Vietnamese lunar New  Year's Eve, 1968, at
the  Freedom  Hill PX near  Da Nang.  I've  been ordered to  write a feature
article on  the Freedom  Hill Recreation Center on  Hill 327 for Leatherneck
magazine.  I'm a combat correspondent assigned to the First Marine Division.
My job is to write upbeat news features  which are distributed to the highly
paid civilian news  correspondents who shack up with their Eurasian maids in
big hotels  in Da Nang.  The  ten  correspondents in  the  First  Division's
Informational Services Office are reluctant public relations men for the war
in  general  and  for  the  Marine  Corps  in particular.  This  morning  my
commanding officer decided that  a  really  inspiring piece could be written
about  Hill 327,  an  angle being  the  fact that  Hill  327 was  the  first
permanent  position occupied by American  forces. Major  Lynch thinks I rate
some slack before I return to the ISO office in Phu Bai. My last three field
operations were real shit-kickers;  in the field,  a Marine correspondent is
just another  rifleman.  Rafter Man tags along  behind me like a kid. Rafter
Man  is a combat photographer. He has  never been in the shit. He thinks I'm
one hard field Marine.
     We go into a movie theater  that looks like  a  warehouse  and we watch
John  Wayne in The  Green Berets, a  Hollywood soap opera about the love  of
guns. We  sit way  down front,  near some  grunts. The  grunts are  sprawled
across their seats and they've  propped muddy jungle boots onto the seats in
front of them. They  are bearded,  dirty, out  of uniform, and look lean and
mean, the way human  beings  look after they've survived  a long hump in the
jungle, the boonies, the bad bush.
     I prop my boots on the seats and we  watch John Wayne leading the Green
Beanies. John Wayne is a beautiful soldier, clean-shaven, sharply attired in
tailored tiger-stripe jungle utilities, wearing boots that shine  like black
glass.  Inspired  by  John Wayne,  the  fighting  soldiers  from the sky  go
hand-to-hand with all of the Victor Charlies in Southeast Asia. He snaps out
an order to an Oriental actor  who played Mr. Sulu on "Star Trek." Mr. Sulu,
n