it was due to his leadership. For his trouble, the Guide would graduate Recruit Training as a Lance Corporal. The rest of us would graduate as lowly Private First Classes.
Early on, for no reason that I am aware, they selected me as the Guide.
“Recruit Peters,” Beelzebub shouted, “get your ass over here.”
“Yes, Drill Instructor.” I ran.
“Grab your shit and move it to the Guide’s bed, you just got promoted.”
“Yes, Drill Instructor.”
I had no intention of moving my stuff. I made a show of obeying Beelzebub’s instructions, but didn’t follow through. The Guide was quarter-decked more than anyone else. He was to be an example. When things went wrong, the Guide was singled out and mercilessly slayed. I wasn’t that ambitious. To be the Guide, a recruit had to want it. The Guide was someone who would sell his soul for the Marine Corps. The Guide couldn’t fake it. I intended to slide through Recruit Training without becoming totally brainwashed. But if I became the Guide I would be fully assimilated. The Guide had to become a mini-Beelzebub. In many ways, the Guide was our platoon’s Faustian craving of what Beelzebub had to offer: mortal sacrifice in exchange for earthly power. Let some other poor recruit get his ass kicked.
Dawn came. The Guide’s bed was empty.
“What the hell? Where the fuck is my Guide? Peters!” yelled SSG Nygo. “Did Beelzebub not tell you to take the Guide’s position?”
Shit. “Yes, Senior Drill Instructor.”
“Why the hell are you not moved then, Recruit?”
Play dumb. That might work. “Was I supposed to move in right away, Drill Instructor? I thought—”
“What the . . . you thought, who the hell told you to do that?”
“Well—”
“Shut-up Recruit, you’re not my Guide, you’re a flower. Beelzebub,” he called, “take this recruit to the quarter-deck and kill ‘em.”
What Beelzebub did to me was bad. It was really bad. But I only experienced it one time. The recruit who eventually became our Guide was killed every day.
Our Scribe, on the other hand, was of the Recruit Intelligentsia. He was a University of Chicago dropout who wore military-issued black-rimmed glasses. His name was Recruit Hernandez. He was the administrative nuts-and-bolts of our platoon and, because of his unique position—he did most of the work our DIs should’ve been doing—he wasn’t quarter-decked that often. I envied the role of Scribe, but I preferred my role as a Platoon Wallflower. Blend in and they won’t notice you. If they don’t notice you, then they can’t kill you.
At Recruit Training, each platoon is broken down into four squads of about fifteen to twenty people. A Squad Leader is in charge of the recruits who comprise his squad. The Squad Leader gets slayed for the mistakes made by his platoon. Like the Guide, the job of Squad Leader is for ambitious Marines, and so went to those aspiring young recruits who were vying for the Guide’s position. The buddy I enlisted with—my former roommate, Recruit McDougal—was a Squad Leader, and I didn’t envy him. He embraced that role; he sought the challenge. Whereas the Marine Corps was a shock to my system, for Recruit McDougal it was a blessed break from the monotony of college. We were still friends, familiar faces in a barrack full of cogs, but our relationship had changed. He was a leader; I was his follower.
I had no desire to be the Guide, the Scribe, or a Squad Leader. Both the Guide and the Squad Leaders were singled out too much for my taste, and the Scribe had too many extra responsibilities. Recruit Training was hard enough as it was. My experiences during Recruit Training revealed aspects of my personality I’d never before acknowledged. I discovered I didn’t want responsibility for another’s success. More to the point, I didn’t want to be accountable for another’s mistakes or weaknesses. I was scared of too much attention. I was scared of what it would do to me, of who it might make me, which was strange, because at twenty, I didn’t know who I was. I only knew that, in a sense, the Marine Corps was stealing my opportunity for self-realization, injecting fragments into a plastic casting. But I didn’t want somebody else’s mold. I wanted to find my own path to wholeness, not a prescribed identity found in the Corps’ green book of recruit knowledge.
I was the middle child in a large family riddled by divorce. If there was one thing I craved, it was self-discovery. I think that’s why, after my senior year of high school, I dove into Christianity and, later, the Marine Corps with an on-fire fervor, hoping they would provide me with both a place of belonging and an identity I could call my own. I knew nothing of theology or biblical studies or the dissonance between Christianity and warfare. I knew nothing of paradigms or structures or making decisions rooted in beliefs and values. I felt comfortable within evangelical, conservative Christianity because of what it offered me. I felt comfortable joining the Marine Corps, because it provided me with both a sense of honor and a challenge.
And maybe I was afraid of rejection, too. I didn’t want to be seen as a military derelict—a reject—let alone a Christian failure. There was some trepidation, but certainty is its own comfort. Jesus saved me so I could defend America. Terrorists were infidels; I was the strong shield of the Lord—just not the first shield.
3. Snot and Scabs
If I was mildly conflicted, then my bunkmate, Recruit Mobile, was all Kool-Aid. He craved the United States Marine Corps. According to him, he was destined for USMC greatness. He was also one of the platoon’s lost causes. He was consistently quarter-decked. To this day, whenever I think of Recruit Mobile, I see a skinny southerner with snot running down his scabby nose. He spoke with a thick drawl, had boils on his face, and couldn’t finish a three-mile run in the Marine Corps’ allotted time—twenty-eight minutes or less, practically walking. But because Recruit Mobile couldn’t run, Recruit Mobile was quarter-decked, which translated into me being quarter-decked, because, the DIs reasoned, I was his bunkmate and so I must be a sickly southerner, too. Well, I wasn’t. And I resented Recruit Mobile for being a shitbird. Whenever Beelzebub was in a fit, he usually found his way to our bunk to ridicule Recruit Mobile.
“What the hell, Mobile? You were three-minutes behind on your run today,” Beelzebub would say as he shoved his hands in Mobile’s face.
“Recruit Mobile apologizes—” Mobile would begin before being abruptly cut off by a coughing fit.
“What the hell is wrong with you, Recruit?” Beelzebub, standing inches from Mobile’s face, would sneer at Mobile’s boils, scabs, and snot. “Recruit!” Beelzebub would shout, “Do you have AIDS? Are you a faggot, Recruit?”
Mobile’s coughing fit would momentarily subside. “No, Drill Instructor, I don’t have AIDS.”
“Oh, shit, but you are a faggot? Well, call the President!” Beelzebub would turn his head to me and then back to Recruit Mobile. “Recruit, get on the quarter-deck.”
Mobile would trudge to the front of our squad-bay. As Beelzebub turned to follow, he would call over his shoulder, “You too, Peters. Bunkmates live and die together.”
Shit.
Lying in bed one night—Mobile had the top bunk, I had the bottom—I whispered up to Mobile. “What the hell is wrong with you, man? You’re sick, go to sickbay.”
“I can’t. I have to finish Recruit Training. My Dad was in Vietnam.”
