Boot Camp
Awoken by a garbage can crashing, banging, and rolling between the cots, I scramble out of the bunk, causing a picture of my family to fall onto the bed below.
“Here, Howard.” Richard, my Navy boot camp bunk buddy, remarks as he hands me back the photo. “You all look like the Jackson Five.”
“Miss my ‘fro.’” I run my palm over my shaven head.
He shows me his high school photo album page, “My Beatle bangs.” I don’t see any non-whites.
I shower and don my U.S. Navy dungaree enlisted uniform. Each item is folded and stowed as instructed by the Drill Sargent. We lined up outside. Cone-shaped light beams down from the rows of streetlamps on the marching field pavement penetrating the pre-dawn fog. The thick blanket testifies to the hot day forecast for this boot camp in tropical Central Florida. The insects chirp out a rhythm sounding primeval. More felt than seen, the faint profiles of hundreds of young men aligned in columns, each wearing the same enlisted uniform and cap, appear as rows of tombstones silhouetted by the streetlamps. Standing close to each other with not a word or a whisper audible, they stand at parade rest.
Appointed Platoon command, I lead my troop to join the others. The sound of our marching resounds in the humid air. Each step reverberates in synch. I sing a soulful, timing tune, “Your left, your right, your left, your right, your left, your left. You left your ma; you left your pa, you left that girl you never had, you left, you left.”
The blue of first light brightens the marching field, as we, like a freight train rolling into a rail yard with trains on all lines, align between the other companies.
“Company, prepare to halt.” I call out, and then three steps later, “Halt.”
My company snaps to a stop with the precision of a professional marching band. However, they have not halted at attention in the normal upright position but frozen in the half-swing of the soulful, comic way in which we were marching. I hear laughter from the other rows of newbie recruits.
“Company: right face.”
My command turns their heads in a precise snap to the right instead of spinning the entire body. Chuckling breaks the discipline of silence in the other ranks. My squad, still frozen in the half-step marching position, hear me order, “Company, forward face.” They spin back their heads to look forward. “Company, prepare to march in reverse.” A fresh burst of giggles from the troops, as I call out, “Company, reverse march.”
In the crouched position, they halted in the young men march in reverse, looking very much again as a train, this time chugging back. They go back a few yards in perfect step until I order, “Company, halt.”
We stop. “Company: forward march.”
They chug forward again. “Company, prepare to halt.”
“Halt.”
They slam to a stop. The other columns remain silent for some reason.
Under a streetlight, I call out, “Company, attention.”
Snapping to attention in the normal standing position, I order, “Company, right face.”
I spin to a right face.
My nose lands just inches away from the Navy Drill Instructor’s nose: he growls.
Struggling to stay calm, I shout out, “Company, parade rest.”
The seamen snap to parade rest, as do I, still just inches in front of the angry man. The ranking Chief Petty Officer questions, “So you think you’re funny, eh?”
“… ah, yes, sir?” I say meekly.
“Well, let’s see if I can wipe your smile off you.”
I glance over at Richard, who holds second in command of the unit. He grimaces.
The instructor takes charge. “Attention.” The troops snap into position. “Now, beginning with the last man and moving up the column, I want to hear every general order. If one of you screws up, the whole company runs. Understood?”
In unison, they respond. “Yes: sir.”
“Begin.”
One by one, we repeat a general order. The Chief gets distracted by the other units moving into the chow hall and backs off a bit as he checks off roll call on his clipboard, but still where he can keep an eye and ear alert for any screw-up. Richard whispers to me, “I’ll never get it right, Howard.”
“Just move your lips. I’ll do the rest.”
“What’da ya, mean?”
The guy next to Richard delivers a general order.
“Trust me. Just move your lips.”
Richard’s turn, he panics but opens his mouth. I project my voice and read off the order; my voice sounds as if coming from Richard.
The drill instructor looks, but he sees Richard’s lips moving and the sound emitting from him, so he looks away. The other units have all moved into the chow hall.
I keep my lips as tightly closed as possible, afraid the slightest movement will betray me. Then, after Richard’s order, I call out on my own.
The Chief, disappointed that he didn’t catch us screwing up, retorts, “You’re all lucky. Now get in the chow line and get back out here in thirty minutes, or I’ll get a run out of you yet.”
We move into the chow hall and press ass to elbow in the doorway. “You saved me, Howard. How did you do it?” Richard asks.
“Ventriloquism. My father taught me.”
“That’s a brilliant talent for getting out of the trouble.”
“Yeah, it’s gotten me in and out of a lot of jams. What’s your specialty?”
“Medical corpsman.”
“Me, too, maybe we’ll deploy to ’Nam together.”
“That’d be great. Maybe we could form a buddy system and get each other through the war.”
“Great, man. I’ll be there for you.”
“And I’ll cover your butt.”
“They can’t get to us if we stick together.”
“Yeah, we’ll show ’em. We’ll come back. I know it.”
