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  our uniforms, and our bodies. Every recruit had a job, and every recruit worked with life-and-death urgency.

  First squad worked especially hard under Morrison’s badgering:

  “That’s not how to make a rack, stupid—”

  “Are you blind? That mirror’s still smudged—”

  “We’ll be up all night if that’s the best you can do—”

  Drill Instructor Sgt. Talley got off on Morrison’s antagonism and enjoyed fueling his fire. “If we don’t pass the senior’s inspection, Morrison, it’ll be your squad’s fault!”

  It is this passion that visitors to Parris Island observe in awe.

  They see recruits busting their asses because of supposed pride and commitment, but few know the real reasons for our motivation—survival. Our drill instructors watched as we worked like dogs to make our deadline. By 2000 hours the squad bay smelled as sterile as a hospital. We were proud to earn the privilege of sleep. We remained still, lying in our racks at the position of attention, waiting for the senior to pass judgment.

  The lights clicked off, leaving the barracks dark, with only a glimmer of light from the head reflecting on the polished tile floor.

  The concentrated smell of Aqua Velva saturated the air, as it was both every recruit’s mandatory splash-on, as well as the secret ingredient to the mop water. A hard summer rain pounded the cinder-block walls, the asphalt streets, and the metal awning covering the stairwell just outside the rear hatch. Around the squad bay’s perimeter the sound of boot heels striking the deck continued in a monotonous hypnotic way for several minutes before we heard his voice.

  Recognizably the senior, but mysteriously sinister.

  “Tonight’s the night . . . dark and rainy . . . the perfect night for killing. They won’t expect us tonight. They’ll just hear the rain. But we are ready. Swift. Silent. Deadly. Your rifle is loaded and locked. Your bayonet is fixed. Your eyes study the shadows. Tread lightly. Watch the Marine in front. Repeat the signal. We will make the first move. It’s a rush just before it happens. Muzzle flashes and the crack, crack, crack, of rounds. It’s a beautiful thing—a fire-team rush. Face-to-face with the enemy. Get up close if you can. Thrust the bayonet in. Don’t 26

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  forget to twist on the way out. Once you grate ribs you’ll know he’ll drop. The rainwater mixes with the blood. Dark red at first . . . then diluted to runny lines of cloudy pink. The smell of wet gunpowder . . .

  Ahhh, you gotta love that. Savor it. You’ve done your job. It was him or you. That is what we do. Listen to the rain. Stare into the night.

  Move on. There are others waiting to die tonight.”

  He spoke with calm conviction. Our fatigue made his message seem cultlike.

  As the senior walked to the quarterdeck and clicked on the squad-bay lights, we snapped out of the trance.

  “Some of you may have heard that the Marine Corps builds men,”

  he began. “That’s a line of bull that some recruiter made up to tell your mommies and sweethearts. The reality is that we build warriors. Make no mistake here, recruits. You are here to learn to kill. Embrace the way you feel right now. Savor the taste of hatred you have for Drill Instructor Sgt. Talley. Remember it. Anger and hatred are necessary tools of the trade. And our trade is killing.

  “So from now on when anyone asks you why you joined the Corps, you sound off loud and proud, ‘Sir, to kill, sir!’ And when anyone asks,

  ‘What makes the grass grow?’ you sound off, ‘Blood! Blood! Blood!’ ”

  Then he ordered us out of our racks to the position of attention.

  He told us he was proud of our effort. As a reward he taught us a good-night ditty he had made up just for us. Each recruit waited for the command.

  “Readyyyyy, face!”

  Sixty bodies robotically pivoted and stepped adjacent to each rack. Each pair of recruits faced off with arms outstretched and palms down on the taut green blankets. It was as if we were learning a new religion, with a new god, and new prayers.

  On the senior’s cue—“Who are we?”—we began the ritual.

  We slammed our arms down on the rack three times— boom, boom, boom, echoed throughout the empty corridor and down the stairwells. Then we professed our faith:

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  Marine Corps!

  We romp and stomp, bringing death and destruction!

  We’re ass-kickin’, Woman-lickin’, tough as nails and hard as steel!

  And the best senior drill instructor on the Island is—our senior drill instructor, Staff Sgt. Parsons.

  Following our chant the senior called, “Prepare to mount. . . .

  Mount!” We clambered to our backs into the position of attention.

  Under the cover of darkness we lay still and licked our emotional wounds.

  As the sound of the senior’s boots disappeared into the distance, I could hear the muffled sounds of young men attempting to silence their tears as they, too, cried themselves to sleep.

  TWO

  THE FIRST ROUND FROM my rifle traveled straight through the heart—

  a confirmed kill. Round two drilled the forehead—another kill.

  Rounds three through six all in the chest—all kills. Round seven pierced the neck. Eight and nine were abdomen kills. The last round I fired found its mark in the heart.

  Ten shots.

  Ten kills.

  I was proud to be a killer. I was different.

  All was quiet until the safety officer’s voice echoed through the rifle range loudspeaker, “Cease fire! Cease fire! All clear on the firing line. Shooters keep your muzzles pointed downrange and clear your weapons. Instructors, check ’em!”

  As I moved from my belly to my knees, marksmanship instructors surrounded me. I stood at the position of attention with my eyes down-range.

  The primary marksmanship instructors wore campaign covers like drill instructors, but their relationship with us was educational; we were students and they were our teachers. In fact, drill instructors were not permitted on the range while recruits possessed loaded rifles. The rationale was that recruits with loaded M16s, filled with first-phase hatred, might shoot their drill instructors. Unexpended rounds were accounted for individually to ensure that none found its way back to the barracks and into a rifle chamber. Every recruit was searched individually by a handheld metal detector before 29

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  leaving the range. The Marine Corps understood that our hearts and minds were hardened, and it was possible that a recruit with a bullet might very well kill a drill instructor if given the chance.

  First I felt a pat on the back. Then I received a handshake from my marksmanship instructor. Then smiling, happy faces approached from all sides. Then a captain extended his hand to me. Recruits do not speak with captains. Officers were off limits to recruits. He was smiling too. He grabbed my hand and squeezed it tightly, nearly shaking my shoulder out of its socket.

  “Congratulations, Recruit Williams. You are the high shooter for your platoon!”

  “Thank you, sir!” was my simple response. The significance of my accomplishment was sinking in gradually.

  I had successfully mastered the paramount task of Marine basic training—to train riflemen who specialize in the “one-shot, one-kill”

  doctrine. Marine rifle training is unmatched worldwide. Prior to Parris Island I had never touched a firearm. After only fourteen days on the rifle range I was able to put ten rounds in a man’s trunk and head from a distance of five football fields.

  I was singled out from the platoon and paraded around the rifle range with the other high shooters. We were treated like royalty that afternoon. In retrospect we were actually only treated like human beings, but in comparison to the standard treatment on Parris Island it felt like royalty.

  Once we returned to our platoons, we fell into formation and marched off from the safet
y of the rifle range and back into the hands of our drill instructors for the evening. Drill Instructor Sgt.

  Talley met us, clipboard in hand, studying what I assumed were our rifle qualification scores.

  “Get up here, Guide!” snapped Drill Instructor Sgt. Talley.

  “Guide Carey reporting as ordered, sir!”

  “You’re fired. Fall in at the end of formation,” Drill Instructor Sgt.

  Talley commanded, surprising everyone in the platoon.

  I wondered if he’d failed rifle qualification. It had to be something extreme for him to lose the guide position this late in training.

  He was a model recruit.

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  Recruit Carey, confused, sounded off hesitantly, “Aye, sir,” and turned in his guidon.

  Carey’s demotion was as sudden and unexpected as what happened next.

  “Morrison! Take the guidon and assume the guide position,” ordered Drill Instructor Sgt. Talley.

  What had Morrison done to take the guide position from Carey? He must have scored high on the range, I thought. But then again, if rifle scores were used to determine billets, then I would have been promoted to squad leader. After facing right and marching off to the barracks I guessed I was wrong about being promoted. There must have been some other reason for the leadership change. But what?

  Back at the barracks Morrison was reveling in his new role as guide, delegating work and barking orders. While the other recruits were scrubbing rifles, I was scrubbing toilets. That wasn’t surprising to me. Morrison and I had become rivals, so I knew he wouldn’t let my accomplishment as high shooter go unpunished.

  Morrison had assigned me to permanent head-scrubbing duty early in first-phase training, when he was my squad leader. It was payback for my telling him that scrubbing toilets sucked, and that he should rotate us through different jobs. That was the beginning of our mutual dislike—and with help from our drill instructors and a few twists of fate it would grow into hatred.

  During our first-phase physical fitness test Morrison padded his sit-up score to make it appear as if he earned the maximum eighty repetitions. When the drill instructor called for Morrison’s score, I reported it, which was my role as his test partner. But while I was calling out, “Seventy,” Morrison was calling out, “Eighty.” Drill Instructor Sgt. Wagner berated us with an integrity lecture and then counted as Morrison repeated the sit-up part of the test. Because he performed fewer than eighty sit-ups during his second trial, Drill Instructor Sgt. Wagner made Morrison dig in the pit while screaming repeatedly, “I am a cheater! I am a cheater!”

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  As squad leader Morrison had been able to use his authority to get even with me, which he did every time I bested him. My punishment for having embarrassed him during the fitness test was being sentenced as permanent “late-chow recruit.” As late-chow recruit I was required to stand guard in the squad bay until the designated early-chow recruit returned to relieve me from guard duty. Because I was required to fall into formation whenever our drill instructor dismissed the platoon from the chow hall, I seldom had time to finish my meals, and occasionally I’d be called to formation before making it through the food line.

  Morrison and I would continue to clash throughout the eight weeks of first-phase training. While the majority of this phase was spent mastering close order drill, the monotony of marching was interrupted every few days for specialized physical training. This was the training that most people associate with Marine boot camp—

  obstacle courses, confidence courses, assault courses, and hand-to-hand fighting.

  This training required us to compete against each other in groups or as individuals. Drill Instructor Sgt. Talley humored himself by pitting recruits against their rivals, so Morrison and I battled frequently. Fortunately for me I usually faired better than Morrison.

  The first time I went head-to-head with Morrison was pugil stick fighting. I knocked Morrison onto his back and drove the padded end of the pole into his chest, ending the fight with a simulated kill.

  “You call yourself a squad leader, Morrison?” Drill Instructor Sgt. Talley said. “I ought to fire your lame ass!”

  Following that win Morrison assigned me to fire-watch duty for three consecutive nights. Although missing an hour of sleep to walk guard was not difficult, doing it repeatedly had a cumulative fatigue effect. As squad leader Morrison had the power to make my life miserable. He was the reason I was constantly hungry, and now sleepy.

  But beating him was always worth the punishment that would follow. No victory over Morrison was sweeter than the one during our day on the confidence course.

  It was a special day because it marked the end of first-phase, and was one of the few times when the entire company—all 240 recruits—

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  had come together to train. Morrison figured a public victory would be just the thing to avenge his honor, and challenged me to race him on the centerpiece of the confidence course—the slide-for-life obstacle.

  The slide-for-life is a high-wire obstacle on the confidence course that features a single steel cable stretched from a platform several stories high, over a body of water. Recruits are required to slide along the top of the cable, headfirst and belly down, until they reach land (finishing dry) or fall into the water (finishing wet). Those who finish wet are nabbed by the drill instructors and harassed as prisoners of war.

  Morrison and I lay on parallel cables, before hundreds of recruits and dozens of drill instructors. When we reached the midway point, though, drill instructors began shaking the cables to make us lose our balance. We both slid off the top, left hanging under the cable by our hands. I managed to swing my legs up and hook them over the cable. Morrison wore himself out trying to do the same, and eventually dropped. I pulled myself along the cable like an inch-worm, until I made it to land. I knew that any retaliation I would later face from Morrison would have been worth the sight of him, humiliated, hands over his head in surrender, being led away to dig in the muddy pit with the other prisoners.

  After I finished scrubbing toilets I sat on my footlocker and started writing a letter home about my good fortune on the rifle range.

  No sooner had I started writing it Guide Morrison’s voice interrupted. “Williams! Report to Drill Instructor Sgt. Talley’s office!”

  I knew the good times on the range that afternoon would have to end sometime, and it looked like that time was now. I loathed knocking on his hatch.

  Pounding the wall outside his door with my open palm, I screamed, “Sir, Recruit Williams reporting as ordered, sir!”

  And I waited. Nothing good ever came of being sent to see Drill Instructor Sgt. Talley. Punishment . . . games . . . sarcasm . . . looks of disgust . . .

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  “Get in here, Williams.”

  “Aye, sir!”

  I executed three pivots upon entering and stood tall before his large oak desk, staring through the sergeant chevrons on his collar. I was unflappable.

  “Sit down, Recruit Williams.”

  I hesitated. Recruits did not sit down in the drill instructor’s office. I thought I must have heard the command wrong.

  “Sir, the recruit requests to hear the direction again, sir.”

  He smiled. I didn’t know the bastard could smile.

  “Williams, just sit down.”

  Robotically, I eased myself to the edge of the seat. My elbows formed perfect ninety-degree angles as my forearms rested along the top of my thighs. My fingers were together and pointed with palms down just over my knees. I was ready for anything.

  Drill Instructor Sgt. Talley pushed a white piece of paper, called a chit, across his desk.

  “Congratulations, ‘High Shooter.’ Read the chit.”

  It read, This pass authorizes Recruit Williams to make a phone call home.

  I r
ead it, and read it again.

  “Sir, the recruit does not understand, sir.”

  “A phone call home is a privilege reserved for the high shooter.

  You’ll find the phone booth just outside the rear hatch. Dial zero and ask the operator for help placing a collect call. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  I could tell there was more.

  “Williams, you and the other recruits enter third-phase tomorrow.”

  The two weeks on the rifle range had flown by. I couldn’t believe second-phase was over so soon.

  “Life on the Island is going to change for you,” he said. “Things will be different.”

  Different? I didn’t understand, but I knew better than to ask.

  That would be conversational, and way out of bounds for recruits.

  He continued, “Tomorrow morning you will be part of a detach-S P A R E P A R T S

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  ment for a one-day duty assignment in the base laundry facility. Do you understand?”

  I didn’t. Was it a punishment? Was it a privilege?

  “Sir, the recruit will be ready for instructions in the morning, sir.”

  “Good. Make your phone call and turn to personal time.”

  “Aye, sir. The recruit requests permission to leave the drill instructor’s office.”

  “Get out!”

  I left reassured that our relationship was back to normal because he was screaming again.

  I walked out of the rear hatch, clutching my phone chit and deal-ing with emotions that had been stirred from hibernation. Remembering my family meant dredging up feelings and memories of life before the transformation. The simple act of making a phone call was stifling. My fellow recruits would be jealous that I could make a phone call, but they didn’t realize the dilemma.

  I stood in the booth, staring blankly at the receiver. I considered just turning around and going back to my safe recruit world. I felt suddenly vulnerable in the booth. I was about to hear a voice that would transport me back home, and I wasn’t ready. I had spent ten weeks being distanced from everything I was.