as it happened, but as you remember it. That’s what we need to work through.”
“Alright,” I nodded. “I can do that.”
“You said you wanted to feel whole again, right?”
“Yes.”
“That can happen, Benjamin. I promise. But it’ll hurt.”
“I know.”
1. John Dominic Crossan, The Birth of Christianity: Discovering What Happened in the Years Immediately After the Execution of Jesus (HarperOne: San Francisco, 1999).
Part One
1. Beelzebub
I’m not a natural killer; I’m a trained killer. I sat on a school bus at the San Diego airport. The seats were synthetic leather and crackled with shifting movement. The bus, filled with thirty young men dressed as civilians, was weighted in silence. We were Asians, blacks, whites, and Latinos. We were different, but united—we were not elite. We were workers, simpletons, recovering addicts, lawbreakers, and patriots. We were college dropouts. We were ordinary.
Light from a street lamp spilled through the windows. A recorded woman’s voice ran on a loop through a speaker, “Please do not leave your luggage unattended.” It was both firm and motherly. It made me anxious. I would have closed my eyes, but they’d told us to stay awake and sit up straight, head forward. I was too nervous to let my mind wander. I was twenty-one, a college dropout, and on my way to Marine Corps Recruit Training. Jet airliners had crashed into New York, and it was my duty to respond. Well, that, and I wanted to pay off credit card debt. What the hell, I thought, I’ll join the reserves and make some money. It’s only eight years of my life. I won’t see combat. I probably won’t even be deployed.
I felt a nudge from the guy sitting next to me. “Hey, what’s your name?” he whispered.
“I’m Benjamin.”
“Right,” he stared at me like a lost cause. “My recruiter told me to address the other recruits by their last names. So best get started. What’s your name?”
“Uh, Peters.”
“Yep, I’m here to kill sandniggers. How ‘bout you?”
I fumbled for a response.
“C’mon on now, how ‘bout it? Why you here?”
“I don’t know, not really sure. I guess it’s ’cause I want to defend my country.”
“Yeah, all that shit, too.” He turned his head forward, bored with me.
It wasn’t long before we saw a campaign hat, also known as a Smokey the Bear hat, bobbing towards us. An angry man with a shiny shave and a closely cropped haircut boarded the bus. There was no turning back.
“All right, shitbirds, whose got my files?”
At the San Diego USO, both our personal and medical data had been collected and assigned to an unwitting recruit. He was from Canada—not that any of us knew. But, later, it was strange to learn that a non-American had enlisted in the United States Marine Corps.
“Me, sir,” the Canadian said.
“What the hell! Do I look like your father? No, goddammit,” he screamed, answering his own question. “I’m enlisted. From now on, you will refer to me as such. You will,” he pitched his voice to include us, “refer to me as, Drill Instructor. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir . . . I mean, Drill Instructor.”
“Give me that shit.” He held out his hand.
I was aware this had gone too far and wanted off the bus. The Canadian, stiff and glistening, handed over the goods.
After taking one look, the Drill Instructor—DI for short—threw the stack of folders down the length of the bus. “Pick ’em up recruit and they’d better be organized by the time we get to the depot.” The DI stalked to the front of the bus and sat. “Move out.”
The bus driver turned the ignition.
Wait, can’t we talk this through?
The bus pulled away from the curb and towards our training.
It was a dark ride through San Diego before we arrived at the Recruit Depot.
‡ ‡ ‡
On September 11, 2001, I was living in Denver and working as a mattress salesman. I had left the ivy-laden bricks of higher education for the high-pressured world of commission sales. There was a problem, however. I was a terrible salesman. “Hi, welcome to The Mattress Company,” I would recite. “Nice weather outside. Would you like to get in bed with me?”
My boss would call me into her office every Monday to discuss my goals, numbers, and ambitions. I didn’t have any, nor did I want any. I was a twenty-year-old dropout. To me, it was simple: I needed the money.
One fall morning, instead of calling me into her fluorescent-whitewashed office, my boss, Elaine, was nervously pacing. She was distraught. “I say kill ’em, that’s what I think. I can’t believe it. When I was in the Navy—” she stopped.
I nodded my head and smiled. She regularly told tales of her time in the Navy, and I often feigned awareness. I was daydreaming about snowboarding.
“Are you listening to me?”
“What? Yeah! The Navy, right?”
“Go in back and turn on the television,” she commanded.
Cool. “Okay,” I said.
I turned on the television.
Smoke.
People running.
New York.
I was confused.
Was it an attack, an accident? Why would anybody do this? Well, a strong response is necessary. They started it.
When my roommate came home that night I told him I had a plan. We would join the United States Marine Corps—they were the best—and would defend our country. It was our duty, our responsibility. We would enlist together.
He said that he thought it was a great idea.
The next morning we drove to the recruiter’s office, signed our papers, and joined the Marine Corps’ “Buddy Program,” which promised us a place in the same platoon throughout Recruit Training. We would live together, train together, and become Marines together.
Two months later I found myself on a bus with thirty-odd new recruits and one terrifying drill instructor, winding through the gray and empty streets of San Diego.
‡ ‡ ‡
Both patriotism and a heroic ideal had driven me to
