Chapter 31: Fire Team Leader

June 2005-March 2006

The next morning, we were back to the Army in earnest. Most everybody had filtered back, and we began with PT, physical training, including calisthenics and a four-mile conditioning run. I was hurting as bad as any of the other troops. Leave had left me soft. It didn’t matter, since I knew I would be back in shape in a few weeks, tops. Montoya and Gonzalez, the fuzzies just out of Benning, were in decent shape. Riley was coming off leave and was in about the same condition as I was. Only Givens had problems, and I explained to him clearly and concisely that he would be in shape or would be buried on the obstacle course.

I learned about PFC Givens by the end of the week. Riley looked me up in my barracks room Friday evening. “I have the scoop on Givens,” he announced.

I tossed my copy of Penthouse on my desk and waved him towards a chair. “What gives?” Givens had been pushing his luck and my buttons for the whole week.

“The bottom line is that he’s simply a fuck-up. He’s lazy and doesn’t think anything is his fault. He’s the kind of guy who has an excuse for everything.”

“He’s been in longer than you and me combined. How come he’s still a PFC?” I asked.

Riley gave me a sly smile. “He hasn’t been. He’s been a Specialist twice and been busted down twice. I don’t know what happened the first time, but the last time he managed to lose his M-4. It took the entire company three days of searching to find it in a Bradley they had been training with, and he got busted down.”

“Christ!” Losing a weapon was one of the ultimate sins. The Army took that sort of thing very seriously. “I’m surprised they didn’t just boot him out.”

Riley shrugged. “Beats the hell out of me. You heard anything? If I was a betting man, I would say this is his final shot. He fucks up again, they’ll kick him out.” He stood up. “I’m going into town. Want to come along?”

I shook my head. “Sorry, I am making a call home and a call to Kelly.”

“Tell her that if she’s looking for somebody to provide a comparison to, she should give me a call. I can teach her about bad boys.”

“Out!”

Bix looked me up over the weekend and basically gave me the same info. Givens had been bounced from unit to unit for a couple of years now. Nobody wanted to take a fuck-up into combat. This was his last chance. If he fucked up again, he would be given an Other-Than-Honorable. “Thanks, Sarge.”

“We’ve still got time, Grim. If he fucks up, boot him quick. We’ll back you. That will give us time to get a replacement in. I’m not completely sold on the idea of a super-sized fire team, but I’ll give it a chance. If we boot him, we’ll need to get a replacement.”

“Give me a couple of weeks, Sarge. Maybe I can reason with him.”

Bixley nodded and left.

Givens was the only weak link on the team. Riley was solid, knew me, knew combat, and wasn’t going to give me any grief. Montoya and Gonzalez were good so far. They didn’t seem stupid (other than the general stupidity in enlisting to begin with) and didn’t know enough yet to be able to get into too much trouble. They were sort of like puppies, Rex the Wonderpup but larger; you had to watch them closely and correct them constantly, but trainable. Givens was poison, however. He made life miserable for the older guys and would teach the younger ones bad habits.

I had enough the following Tuesday. It wasn’t so much anything specific that he did, just a ballbusting attitude. We were on the obstacle course at the time, and I just said, ‘Enough is enough!’

We were approaching a particularly wet and muddy section of the course, so I ran to the side and yelled, “Bravo Three, form on me!” The other team members gathered around. “Specialist Fox, finish the course with Privates Montoya and Gonzalez. Make sure they finish the course without losing any time because of this break. Is that understood?”

“Understood, Corporal!” barked out Riley.

“I will stay behind with Private Givens,” I finished.

“What’d I do?” he complained.

I got in his face. “I did not ask your opinion, so you stand there and be quiet until I give you your opinion!” I turned to the others. “Specialist Fox?”

“Moving out, Corporal!” He looked at the two fuzzies and pointed towards the course. Montoya and Gonzalez looked at each other, and then took off, Riley following.

I turned back to Givens and crooked a finger at him, leading him to a particularly sloppy section of the course. “Drop and give me twenty!” I ordered.

“What for? What’d I do?” he complained.

“DROP AND GIVE ME TWENTY!” I roared into his face.

Givens dropped down to the mud and gave me twenty pushups, as I squatted down next to him. Around us the rest of the company trotted past, watching a miscreant being disciplined. When he finished his twenty, he gave the proper response, which was, “Permission to recover?”

“Permission denied.” Givens stayed in position, his arms extended. I waited half a minute, and then began speaking to him in a calm and conversational tone. “Givens, I don’t know why you joined the Army, and I don’t particularly care. Maybe it was a burst of patriotism after 9-11. Maybe it was a desire to get out of the house. Maybe you just didn’t have a fucking clue. I just don’t care. That’s not important anymore. Now, give me another ten and then return to this position.”

I waited out Givens next ten pushups and then continued, “You’re a fuck-up, Givens...”

“Hey!” he began protesting.

“When I want your opinion, Givens, I will give it to you. Until then, you do not speak. Now, give me another ten and return to this position.”

Givens gave me another ten, and I was able to resume. “Now, where was I? Oh yes, Givens, you’re a fuck-up. I know all about you, Givens. Nothing is ever your fault. Everybody is against you. People are conspiring against you. Sound about right? Do not respond. I don’t actually care what you think. Give me another ten. You know the routine by now.”

I waited until he was finished. “Let me explain something, Givens. Your attitude needs to change, and today is the day it will change. Up until now, people have been willing to give you a break, in the hope that you would someday grow up and learn how to be a soldier. That day has arrived. There are no more places for you to run off to and no more sergeants and officers willing to send you someplace else. Bravo Three is your final stop. You only have two choices. You will either get your shit together and become a real soldier, or you will be discharged from the Army on an Other-Than-Honorable. There will be no third choice. Now, give me another ten.”

I just squatted there while Givens did pushups in the mud. By now he was probably feeling the burn in his arms. His uniform and arms and face were covered in mud. It must have felt miserable. When he resumed his position, I made my final points. “That’s right, we will kick you out with an Other-Than-Honorable. An Other-Than Honorable does not get you VA hospital benefits. You don’t get any benefits, period. When you go to fill out a job application and it asks if you had an Honorable Discharge, you are required to say NO. Good luck getting a job with that. Now, maybe you think you can fight this. Maybe you think that you know all the tricks and can get around this. No. This is it. The Army has had it with you. I am your last chance. The United States Army has given me final judgment on your future. Feel free to ask Bixley, or Levi, or Southerland, or the fucking Chief of Staff for all I care. Every single one will point you back to me. Maybe you think you can try to get me on a racial discrimination charge. Fine, go ahead and try. It won’t work. My record is flawless. Yours is a disaster. You fight me on this, and you will just waste your time. No JAG lawyer will even want to talk to you. No civilian lawyer will talk to you. Now give me twenty!”

I stood up and waited until Givens finished. When he was done, I ordered him to his feet. He was covered in mud. He just stared at me sullenly, but kept his mouth shut. It was the most intelligent thing I had heard from him all day. “So now you know your choices, Private Givens. There are only two ways out. One runs through good and honorable service in combat with Bravo Three. The other is an Other-Than-Honorable Discharge. There are no third choices. Now, finish your run. You are a Private First Class. I expect you to teach Privates Montoya and Gonzalez how to act. That is part of your job, to be a role model for those less experienced than you. Understand this, Private Givens, you will be a perfect role model.” I pointed towards the finish line of the obstacle course. “Now, run!”

That wasn’t the end of it, of course, but slowly Givens began to behave. I heard from Bixley that Givens had complained to him that I was racially discriminating against him. That was a big deal in the Army and could torpedo a career even if it wasn’t true. With me, the Army had a perfect fall guy, since I had no intention to go career. The complaint went nowhere in a hurry. For one thing, Bix Bixley was as black as the ace of spades, and Lieutenant Southerland wasn’t much lighter. Southerland still was generally clueless, but the word around the NCO barracks was that he seemed to be learning, and they had high hopes for him in another ten to twenty years. In any case, the racial discrimination complaint wasn’t going anywhere.

More amusing was when the platoon was on the firing range, training on machine guns. Givens was firing an M-240 medium machine gun from the prone position, probably the easiest position to shoot from, and was not doing well. As I had promised the fire team, I expected every single member of the team to qualify as an Expert with every single weapon we might possibly encounter. Givens was the only member of the team that was at the Sharpshooter level, the second rating. Worse, he was complaining, “This thing is a piece of shit! The sights are off!”

That was total bullshit, and I knew it. Montoya had just finished firing at the Expert level with the same gun. I glanced over at Levi, who happened to be standing behind me and was rolling his eyes. I raised my voice so he could hear me over the fire of the guns. “Permission to give a demonstration, Sergeant?”

“Permission granted! Cease fire, cease fire!”

It took a few seconds, but the firing line went silent. I ordered Givens to Safe the weapon, and then bent down and picked it up. I put a fresh belt of ammunition in it and prepared the machine gun for fire. I turned to Levi and asked loudly, “Set me up a mixed bag, medium range, please.”

Levi turned to the Range NCOIC, who had come up and was holding a radio handset. We were on the medium distance range and had steel pop-up targets out there. They could be controlled from a booth to pop up individually at different ranges and all over the place. They wouldn’t drop down unless hit center mass. “Make it interesting,” he said, smiling.

“Making it interesting.” The other sergeant spoke into his radio, and then announced, “Begin!”

I twisted around, still standing, to find a target popping up at about the 200-meter mark. I didn’t even think about it, but simply got the sight picture, let out half a breath, and caressed the trigger. BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! The target flopped backwards, and another target popped up, twenty meters to the right and forty meters back. For the next five minutes I serviced individual and multiple targets that popped up all over the place. I never missed once.

Finally, Levi called it quits. “You’ve made your point, Corporal Reaper.”

“Yes, Platoon Sergeant!” To Givens, who was staring at me in disbelief, I loudly said, “This is an excellent weapon! It is in perfect condition! I would be pleased and proud to carry this weapon into combat! Any soldier who cannot score Expert with this weapon or any weapon here today cannot blame the weapon! He needs to become a better soldier! Does Bravo Three understand this?”

I received a resounding, “UNDERSTOOD, CORPORAL!” from my team, which Levi then demanded of the entire platoon.

I handed the machine gun back to Givens, for a barrel change and reload. Then I saw Riley standing next to the Range NCOIC, holding out his hand. The sergeant shook his head and smiled and handed over four $5 bills. Riley smiled and thanked him. I went to Riley and asked, “Are you for real?”

“He bet me that you’d miss one of them. I knew better. How many hajjis did I see you smoke at Camp Custer?”

I grabbed one of the fives and stuck it in my pocket. “Gambling on an Army post is illegal.”

Riley smiled. “That wasn’t gambling. That was a sure bet!”

“Next time get better odds.”

Mom asked me one time how I liked being a team leader. I replied, “Mom, when did you grow the eyes in the back of your head?”

“What?”

“Remember when we were little, you always told us you knew what we were doing, because you had eyes in the back of your head? Were they a special order or something because I could sure use a pair myself!”

My mother laughed at that. “They come as standard equipment when little boys are born. You and your brothers were always getting into trouble!”

“We couldn’t have been any worse than this bunch I have now!” She just laughed at me.

That was the real trick to running the fire team. You had to watch the guys every single second because they were bound to fuck up. It was a guarantee! Montoya and Gonzalez screwed up because they didn’t know better. Givens fucked up because he knew better and didn’t care. Riley fucked up because he was lazy and thought he already knew it all. The only way to keep them out of trouble was to watch them like a hawk every waking moment of the day. When somebody screwed up, you wanted the next words out of his mouth to be, “The Grim Reaper’s right behind me, isn’t he?” at which point I could clear my throat and deal with the criminal.

I remember one afternoon we were practicing disassembling and cleaning our weapons. First, we did this the normal way, and then I had each of them sit down on a ground cloth. I went to the door and turned off the lights, plunging the room into black. “Now, do it all over again. Sing out when you have it taken apart.”

There were loud protests at this, and it took about twice as long to disassemble each weapon as it should have. I turned on the lights and found they had the pieces scattered willy-nilly. “Bravo Three, you need to be doing a better job than that! You want to know why?” I turned the lights off again. “Now, put it back together again!”

I waited about three times the proper length of time, as my team loudly complained, before I hit the switch again. Only Riley’s M-4/M-203 combo was back together again properly. The three privates were in various states of disassembly, mostly because they lost track of the pieces. Givens protested, “This isn’t fair, Corporal!”

“Fair? Since when is combat fair? The first time I ever had to do this for real it was pitch black and the only light I had was from the tracers going over my head! Would you prefer that I take you down to the firing range tonight, so we can practice this there, while I shoot live rounds over your head?”

“Been there, done that, got the t-shirt!” replied Riley. He turned to the others. “Now listen, this is simple. Each weapon has only a certain number of pieces. You already know how to take them apart. Simply lay each piece out in the exact same way, every time, and then reverse the process.” He closed his eyes and began to take apart his weapon again. He began giving a running dialog, naming each element and how he was placing it specifically. When he was finished, he announced that, and then reversed the process. “That’s all there is. Do it slowly but pick up the pace. I personally have no interest in having somebody firing a machine gun full of tracers over my head tonight.”

“And once you have your weapon figured out, we’ll practice on other weapons, too!” I added. That earned me some more groans. I just smiled.

On a personal note, college proved interesting, in that it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. I took two classes, English Composition and Geology, also known as ‘Rocks for Jocks.’ Both were freshman classes. English Comp was required, and Rocks was supposed to be the easiest Science class, and you needed one Science class to graduate with almost any degree. I had no idea what I wanted to study, but the freshman classes were supposed to be able to apply to almost any degree. I just needed to keep Platoon Sergeant Levi off my ass. If I was taking something, almost anything, he would quit his bitching. The classes were held on the base in an unused lecture hall after hours. It was like being back at Matucket High, only without the football, which was about the only part of high school I enjoyed. Oh well.

Levi was right about one thing, though, and that was that it wasn’t too hard. The teachers who came over from Jefferson seemed to appreciate students who didn’t give them any crap and who did the work assigned. That seemed a novel experience to them. We were all relatively junior - privates, specialists, and the occasional corporal or buck sergeant - and none of us wanted to fuck around and face the consequences. Our English professor commented that it wasn’t difficult to study when you’re not fucking off half the time. Well, she didn’t use those specific words, but that was the overall idea.

The one big thing I was looking forward to was the Fourth of July weekend, which was when Kelly was coming up. She debated driving up, but didn’t want to waste two days, so she would fly in and rent a car. I sighed to myself just thinking about that. Her family had money, or at least her father did, and while Kelly didn’t flaunt it, she didn’t think twice about a trip that would cost her thousands of dollars. When I got out, I hoped she could adapt to living on whatever an ex-corporal made out in the real world. In that world, you drove, and hoped gas prices weren’t high.

Still, everybody was looking forward to that weekend. Most of the guys hadn’t taken any serious leave since reporting back, and they wanted to cut loose. The Fourth was on a Monday, so the Army made Friday, July First, into a Division Training Holiday. That made it a four-day weekend, which wouldn’t count against our accumulated leave time. I would be staying in Watertown with Kelly and could be back in fifteen minutes to come in as needed. Riley was doing the same thing; he didn’t have much family back in Kentucky, at least none that he wanted to visit. He was saving leave for Christmas, like I was. Givens, Montoya, and Gonzalez were all heading home, either by bus or plane. Most of them were taking off after duty hours on Thursday.

Bravo Three had started to gel properly, though you needed two sets of eyes on them at all times. Givens hadn’t done anything stupid enough yet for me to shit-can his ass out of the Army, though he still wasn’t what I would consider a good soldier yet. Still, the last thing I needed was for any of these assholes to get out from under my watchful eye and do something truly stupid back home. I ran across them in the common room off the barracks, talking trash about what and who they would be doing on their leaves, and decided to brace them. “Bravo Three, front and center!”

Eyes popped wide, but the four of them straightened up and came over to me. “What’s up, Corporal?” asked Private Montoya.

“I want to talk to you about your upcoming leaves. I want you guys to have fun, I really do, but I don’t want you to do anything stupid. By that I mean getting into trouble, any trouble, whatsoever. You may be on leave, but you are still members of the Army, and I expect you to act like it. That means, do not try to drink the town dry and if a girl says no, it means no. Understood?”

I wasn’t barking at them and in their faces, so they all just agreed with me that they understood. I wasn’t done, though. “Givens, who is the most important person, or persons, you are going to visit back home?”

He blinked in surprise being singled out, but answered, “My folks, my parents.”

“Montoya?”

“Mi familia, Corporal! My family.”

I nodded in understanding. I looked at Gonzalez and he said, “My Aunt Rosa. She raised me.”

“Okay, good. Family is important. Listen, here’s my order to all of you. Make sure you pack your dress uniform, ribbons, badges, beret, the whole nine yards. You’ve all got a few bucks saved by now, or you should, anyway. One night while you are home, you are to take your family out to dinner, and I do not mean burgers and fries at Mickey Ds. I mean dinner at a dress-up sit-down tablecloth-and-napkins restaurant where your family will be able to show you off to their neighbors and friends, and you pay for it, not them. Your families are proud of you. All I want is just one night while you are home that you show them that the United States Army has been good for you and you are no longer a little boy, but a grown man. Understood?”

They all looked surprised at that. Gonzalez smiled and nodded, and said, “Understood, Corporal!”

“Si!” agreed Montoya. He used a lot more Spanish than Gonzalez but spoke very good English. I wouldn’t be surprised, however, to learn his family had not gone through the proper immigration channels when they first came to this country, and they probably only spoke Spanish at home.

“Understood, Corporal,” agreed Givens. He actually looked a bit thoughtful, which was all I could ask for.

I smiled and looked at Riley. I shook my head and said, “Please, just don’t try to drink the town dry!”

He laughed. “You don’t ask for much, do you? Hey, Kelly or your family coming in?”

“Kelly will probably be here Thursday afternoon,” I admitted.

He smiled at that. Looking at the rest of the team, he said, “Gentlemen, I hope you haven’t left by then. As ugly as our fearless leader here is, his fiancée is gorgeous.” He turned to me and added, “You know, Grim, if something happens to you back in the Sandbox, as your Number Two, I am duty-bound to step up and take care of all of your duties!”

“Riley, that’s a job that takes a real man, and you just don’t qualify! Dismissed.” I snorted in laughter and left them talking.

As it happened, none of them saw Kelly. Riley gave the other three rides down to the Syracuse airport and bus stop Thursday afternoon, and Kelly showed up around half an hour later. She made quite the entrance, though, showing up in the lobby and asking the Specialist on duty to call for me. When I came down, she was wearing a very short denim miniskirt, a tank top that looked to be about three sizes too small, and high-heeled sandals. From the lack of any underwear lines, I suspected that was all she was wearing. I came into the waiting room, and she scampered over to me and jumped into my arms, and I am sure that the guys behind her, all of whom were staring, saw more than she had planned on them seeing.

I gave her a very thorough kiss, and then set her back down. As I did so, I received a round of whistles and applause from the rest of the guys in the room. Kelly turned bright red and smoothed her skirt down, and I gave the room my most withering look, a look that was ignored. “Can we go?” asked Kelly.

“Pretty much. Give me a few minutes and I’ll grab my bag and sign out. Where are you staying?”

“I booked a suite at the Hilton. I don’t think it’s a real Hilton, though. It’s the Hilton Garden Inn, probably an economy version. We’d probably have to go back to Syracuse for something nice,” she told me.

I chuckled. “Babe, your version of nice and my version of nice are a little different. I am sure it will be just fine.”

“Are we taking your car or mine?” she asked.

I had offered to drive down and pick her up, but Kelly didn’t like being stuck without wheels in case I had to go to the base for any reason. “What’d you rent?”

“I got a Camry. It’s not my Miata, but it’s probably a lot nicer than a Subaru,” she answered.

“Don’t knock my Subaru. I hear they measure the snowfall around here in feet, not inches. No reason for both of us to drive around. I’ll grab my gear and leave my car here. You stay here and fight off the wolves.”

Paulie Kowalski, the Specialist running the desk, piped up and said, “It’s okay, Reaper. I’ll take care of your girlfriend for you.”

I looked over at him and replied, “Kowalski, would you like to learn just why they call me the Grim Reaper?”

Kelly laughed and I went to my room. I had a bag already half packed with stuff for the weekend. I threw a few last items in and headed back downstairs. I trusted my buddies on the battlefield with my life. Back in the real world, with a babe like Kelly around, I didn’t trust them as far as I could throw them!

“Let’s go, babe. Sorry, Kowalski, you can go back to dreaming.”

Kelly laughed and reached out to take my hand. “Let’s go, Grim.”

We headed out the door and down to her rental Camry. It was black and certainly looked a lot sportier than my Subaru station wagon. I tossed my stuff in the back and Kelly drove us off the base and over to Arsenal Street, about a dozen miles or so. “Your stuff in the trunk?” I asked.

“No. I dropped it off earlier. My flight landed just before lunch, so I drove up, stashed it, and had lunch before coming over.”

I eyed her legs, which looked extra-long and delectable as her very short skirt pulled upwards. “You wore that skirt on the plane?”

Kelly grinned and blushed at the same time. “No! I wore jeans. No, I changed after I got to the room. You don’t think it’s too short, do you?”

“Kelly, there is no such thing as a skirt that is too short!” I assured her. “By the way, the same applies to low-cut and thin tops. Tighter is better.”

“Grim! Seriously!”

“Well, if you go back to the post, I can probably find five thousand guys who will agree with me. You want me to take a poll?”

She swatted at me and giggled. “I figured you’d like it, but I hadn’t planned on what would happen when you lifted me up.”

“I didn’t hear any complaints, so I don’t think anybody was offended.”

With that, Kelly pulled off the street and into the driveway for the Hilton. We were almost at the entrance ramp to I-81. As soon as I saw the place, I realized it wasn’t a real Hilton, but a more economy version. Still, considering where I had been sleeping a year ago, this place was the Taj-fucking-Mahal! Since Kelly had already checked in, we didn’t have to go through that nonsense. She simply parked it and we got out. I grabbed my bag, and she took my hand. “I have your key card up in the room.”

“Lead the way.” I followed along, eyeing Kelly’s legs and rear as she walked towards the elevator.

When she pushed the UP button and turned to look at me, she asked, “What are you smiling about?”

“Nothing. I simply missed you. Why?”

She came closer and hugged me. “I missed you, too!” There was a DING and the elevator door opened; we had to break apart as a middle-aged couple got off the elevator. We got in and went up to the third floor, and Kelly pointed me down a hall to the left. Halfway down the hall she stopped and pulled out a key card. She swiped it and waited for the lock to click open. She pushed it open, and I followed her inside. The door silently closed behind me and clicked shut.

Once I was inside, I looked around and shook my head in amusement. Once again, I was struck by the difference between what I thought was nice and what Kelly thought was nice. The room was a small suite, with a sitting area, a huge bed, and a hot tub off to the side. “Babe, I don’t know what you think would have been nice, but this place has got everything I could imagine in a hotel room! A hot tub?”

She grinned at me. “It’s big enough for two people, Grim, you know, in case we need to relax.”

I tossed my bag on the floor and came over to her. “Just how relaxed do you think we’ll need to be?”

Kelly threw her arms around my neck. “Very relaxed!”

After that, we didn’t talk much. A couple of hours later, lounging contentedly on the bed in our birthday suits, I asked, “So, what’s the plan for the next few days?”

Kelly sighed happily, and said, “More of the same!”

“Ambitious, you are nothing if not ambitious! That’s it? Room service morning, noon, and night?” I teased. “What about when the maids have to clean the room?”

“We can hide in the shower and do it there.”

“Ambitious!” Just then my stomach growled. “Listen, the one thing I’ve always wondered about room service is whether the food gets up here late and cold. There’s a restaurant downstairs. Let’s go eat and then come back and try out that tub. I’ve never been in a hot tub before.”

“Never?”

“Babe, you and I live in different parts of Matucket, remember? My part is where we have to work for a living.”

She sniffed disdainfully at that. “For a boy toy, you’re being awfully judgmental. Maybe I need to trade you in on a younger model. Your brother Jack has volunteered a few times.”

“Jack? Jack won’t be much use to you in a full-body cast! And I will have you know that us older models still know a few tricks that the younger ones don’t!”