check.”
Without taking a breath I reeled off the details: “Break the weapon apart, pull out the pin, release the bolt, pump the arming mechanism twice, insert the pin, connect the weapon, and send the bolt home.” I was lying.
“Stand,” barked Gunny.
I stood.
The captain looked me over. “Dismissed.”
I saluted, about faced, and marched out of the boardroom. Mexico was waiting for me in the lobby.
“How did it go?”
“I have no idea. I didn’t know the answers to half their questions. I guessed.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, the max effective range of an M-16, who knows that shit? We’re in Intel for a reason.”
A few days later Gunny found me hanging over by the barracks. “LCPL Peters, congratulations! I wanted to be the first to tell you that you earned Marine of the Quarter.”
I shook his hand.
“I’ll tell you though, you didn’t answer a damn question right, but you said the answers so convincingly I had to double check the manual after you left.” He was chuckling to himself. “I figured if any Marine could get me second guessing my knowledge, then he deserved Marine of the Quarter. There’ll be a banquet next Thursday, so get your dress Blues ready.”
“Yes, Gunny.”
“Oh, and tell Mexico you both start school on Monday. Congratulations, Devil Dog, you’re about to become an Intel Marine. Don’t let me down.”
14. Class 070502
On the first day of class, Mexico and I arrived at the schoolhouse fifteen minutes early. It was six o’clock when our other classmates arrived. The intelligence school was a joint command, and so our class consisted of airmen and airwomen, as well as Marines. There were ten of us in class—five Marines and five Air Force pipeliners (the slang term for an airman or airwoman who has recently graduated from boot camp). In the military, service men and women are segregated by both officer and enlisted, and rank. The rank structure is simple. Officers are O-1 through 9; enlisted men and women are E-1 through 9—the higher the number, the higher both the pay and responsibility. In San Angelo, all of those students from the Air Force were E-3 or below; but on the Marine Corps side we had two E-5s, or sergeants. There was Airman Rat, a short skinny guy with a shaved head and a weak mustache; Airman Louisiana, a tall and thin black woman; Airman First Class Hobbes, a mid-thirties balding man looking for a second career; Airman First Class Church, the son of a pastor from Virginia; and Airman First Class Nevada, a cute girl in her mid-twenties. On the Marine Corps side there was me; Mexico; and Sergeant Indiana, a hardworking Marine who was not only our class leader but also capable of the things Marine Corps commercials advertised; Sergeant Dick, a mid-forties stall-out (a Marine whose next promotion has eluded him or her) who was constantly cheating on his wife; and Corporal Jacksonville, a black man with a dripping jerry curl and manicured nails.
Our class was named after the day we started our training: 070502. Our class advisor, Staff Sergeant Wilberson, was tall, gangly, and pasty. His forehead was enormous, and he had the annoying habit of covering his mouth when he laughed. He was a lifer in the Air Force whose specialty was imagery analysis. In his mid-thirties, he was married with two kids. It was six-fifteen in the morning when he walked into our classroom.
“Atten—tion,” Sergeant Indiana barked. We all stood upright and jerked to attention.
“At ease,” Wilberson said, “Jesus. I might be your advisor, but I’m still enlisted. Cool it.” He chuckled while covering his mouth.
After four months of training with the Marine Corps, our advisor’s nonchalance was jarring. Mexico and I gaped at each other before hesitantly relaxing.
“Better,” Wilberson said while eyeballing Mexico. “Remember, this is an airbase and you Marines are attending an Air Force tech school. This isn’t combat.”
I noticed Wilberson wasn’t properly shaved and was horrified by this maleficence. Should I say something? I didn’t. Sergeant Indiana would speak up if necessary.
I sat down as Wilberson continued his introductory lecture.
“You are here to learn. You are here to learn how to learn. And throughout this learning process you will become a more intelligent service member capable of autonomously learning.”
What?
“070502 will be the best class I have ever advised, because I will it to be so.” Wilberson stopped and looked each one of us directly in the eyes. I tried not to laugh. “If you need anything,” he continued, “ask me. I want this to be a successful journey for you. The next six months will be both academically rigorous and physically challenging. Now—” he stopped talking.
We waited.
He bowed his head and left the room.
“What the hell was that?” Sergeant Dick asked.
“Welcome to the Air Force, sergeant,” Hobbes said.
“Everyone can’t be a locked-on charger,” Sergeant Indiana said. “We’ll continue to do what we do—as Marines,” he was looking at the Marines and refusing to acknowledge the airmen and airwomen.
“Jarhead,” one of the airmen said.
Sergeant Dick stood up and pointed his hands, forefinger and thumb perfectly aligned, at the Air Force pipeliners. “You will only speak when spoken to, Airman. Check?”
Silence.
“Do you follow?” Sergeant Dick’s face was turning red and splotchy.
“Sit down,” Sergeant Indiana said. “Don’t waste your time.”
He sat.
Twenty minutes later the instructor of our first section came into the room and started her lecture. It was on the art and history of both imagery analysis and intelligence gathering.
Our new life had begun.
15. Jus in Bello
We had eight sections of study. Each section was capped with a three-hour final. You passed, you moved on; you failed, you picked up with the class behind you. We studied everything from Russian air defense to the technological capabilities of the American DOD. We practiced gathering intelligence, stripping it down to its bare essentials, drafting reports on our findings, and briefing our classmates both on our research and our predictions. As weird as Staff Sergeant Wilberson was, he was right about one thing: they were teaching us to draw logical conclusions, often times from disparate sources. In this way, we were learning to think, make connections, and venture semi-reliable courses of action.
Just as our progression of study was predestined, so too was our daily schedule. We woke each morning at five in order to PT with our Marine platoon. From there we showered, ate, and arrived at the schoolhouse at six-thirty. Class, thereafter, commenced until eleven-thirty. After a break, class restarted at one. The day usually ended somewhere between four and four-thirty. Our nights were spent studying, unless for security reasons
