to San Diego for the graduation. They watched as Sergeant Beelzebub pinned the EGA on my collar. After, my father hugged me and said he was proud. My mother and stepmother told me how well the uniform fit. My sisters and brothers took pictures.
“Congratulations, you did it.”
“You’re gaunt,” my mother said.
“Yeah, what’d they feed you?”
“Can you kill me with your pinkie?”
I’d never accomplished something so difficult.
As families from all over the western United States milled around the Parade Deck, Sergeant Beelzebub found me.
“You’re a fine Marine, Peters,” he said, shaking my hand.
I looked him in the eyes for the first time. “Thank you.”
After graduation my family and McDougal’s family ate at the Hard Rock Café, San Diego. It was the first real food I’d eaten in thirteen weeks. It tasted delicious. As our families sat around the table—McDougal and I in uniform—we told them our tales of Recruit Training. We did our best to stay true to the events. But who can say with any honesty that, after Recruit Training, they remember it perfectly? I certainly don’t. But I remember the truth of it. It’s like war that way. Those of us who have experienced Recruit Training and war remember the strangest things. Like the way an M-16 feels against your cheek or the way a head looks without a skull.
Before graduation, in our last week at Recruit Training, Beelzebub decided we should join the hazing of a week-one platoon’s Black Sunday. He ran us up into their barracks and called us to attention. The other platoon’s recruits were standing next to their bunks, their gear in front of them. Beelzebub commanded us to choose a new recruit and stand nose to nose with him.
We did.
“Pick up their seabags, Recruits.”
We did.
“Turn it over and dump it out, Recruits.”
We did.
“Now, put all that shit in the middle of the squad-bay, and mix it up nice and good.”
We did.
It was a mess. The issued gear of seventy recruits was strewn across the floor.
“Now, kindly remove the sheets of these new recruits’ beds.”
We did.
As I passed the recruit whose bed I had destroyed I whispered, “It gets easier.”
I lied. I figured it wouldn’t hurt.
“Get out, Recruits,” Beelzebub ordered. “Hit the parade deck and form it up.”
We did, but not before we heard the other platoon’s DI remark: “Recruits, I have you for twelve long weeks. I doubt you have what it takes to become Marines. Yet, it’s my job to train you, to turn you into fierce machines—machines that kill. Do you understand what I’m saying? In twelve short weeks, you’ll be a different person. You’ll be a Marine. As such, you’ll have a duty to defend this great nation. You’re the first and the last, Recruits. I’ll teach you honor, courage, and commitment. I’ll teach you to always be faithful—Semper Fi. Till the day you die, you will remember me. May the Devil spare your souls, because you’re mine now. You have two minutes to sort through this gear and make my squad-bay shiny. What the hell, Recruits? Do it now, move!”
My platoon formed up on the parade deck and marched back to our barracks.
“Halt,” Beelzebub said. “Get inside and get on line.”
Our squad-bay was on the third floor. As I made my way up the stairwell I began to walk. We graduate in three days. What can he do to me now?
It was a poor decision. Beelzebub saw, he always saw.
“What the hell? Recruit Peters, are you walking?”
I was caught and I was graduating in three days. “Yes,” I said.
Beelzebub took me to the quarter-deck and slayed me one last time.
He died two years later in Fallujah.
12. San Angelo
It was hot when I arrived. I had completed Marine Combat Training—a four-week course in the skills of the general infantryman—before landing in San Angelo, Texas. Leaving behind the Marines I had trained with for the last five months, I was traveling to Marine Corps Intelligence Training at Goodfellow Air Force Base. My military occupation specialty was Intelligence. I was in uniform, standing on a curb in the humid mid-day sun. Trickles of sweat rolled down my back. With one seabag full of gear, I was boot green.
“Hey!” a cabbie yelled. “You need a ride, Marine?”
“I’m headed to Goodfellow.”
“Hop in.”
I’d never ridden in a cab before. I shut the door. My alphas, a Marine uniform consisting of a green coat, green trousers, and a khaki shirt with tie, were tight and uncomfortable.
“I make this trip two or three times a day,” the cabbie started. “It seems the Marines and airmen are always comin’ or goin.’”
“Oh.” It was hot, and I didn’t feel like chatting.
“Now, by the looks of you, you’re comin’ straight from combat school. You take that uniform off, and I’ll get you outta here—not a word to anyone.”
I looked at the cabbie in the rearview mirror. Our eyes met. He had greasy dark hair and stubble. “No,” I said. “But thanks.” We rode the rest of the way in silence.
When we pulled up to the Marine Corps Detachment building on the airbase, a young Private First Class was waiting for me. I exited the cab, paid my fare, and grabbed my seabag. The cabbie didn’t say anything as he pulled away.
“You, Peters?” the PFC asked.
“Lance Corporal Peters? Yeah, that’s me.” I had been promoted during MCT
“Sorry, Lance Corporal. I meant to say that. Lance Corporal Peters, then?”
“Yep.”
“I’m PFC Mexico. Let’s get you checked in.” PFC Mexico was shorter than me. He had a crew cut. His uniform was cared after.
All I see is a uniform and a haircut.
We walked inside to a blast of air-conditioned coolness. A muscular sergeant was standing behind the desk.
“Orders.”
I handed him my folder. He signed my papers and checked me in. Both Mexico and I stood at attention.
The sergeant ignored me. To him, I was paperwork. “You’re in barracks 3–307. Supply has your bedding. Go to medical tomorrow and turn in your records. PT is at zero five-thirty.”
