Chapter 20

Waking up Monday morning, it was the last day of July. After PT, I was heading over to the Mess Hall when SSgt Sulong grabbed me and pulled me off to the side.

“Badzinski, I honestly don’t know what to make of you. One moment you’re acting like the old man of the platoon looking out for everyone, then you’re acting like an imperious delinquent teen. And then, I witness moments where you are completely ruthless. You need to temper each of those sides, so you achieve what a lot of us see in you.”

“I’ll try Staff Sergeant.”

“Now go out there and don’t fuck up.”

I barely made it into the class with a few minutes to spare. Gunny Harrell stared at me as I made my way to my seat. The lecture started and we were given a refresher on safety.

“Just remember what I said about adhering to the safety protocols that are set for you. I will make sure you are somewhere doing a job that will crush your soul, in the shittiest place I can find if you don’t.”

We spent time before lunch going over the safety protocols and operation of the SMAW. I noticed something that I’d actually missed from the previous lectures. Each rocket came with a six-round magazine for the spotting rifle in the cap of the encased rocket. The round and how the spotting rifle worked were quite odd as well.

The round was basically one shell casing inside of another. The mommy cartridge was a 7. 62x51mm shell casing which had been modified to hold the baby .22 Hornet case in its belly. The smaller case had no projectile and was crimped like a blank. The projectile in the larger case was a large 9mm round that had a tracer charge in its rear so the rounds’ trajectory could be observed by the naked eye.

The operation of the spotting rifle was something I’d never heard of before. Considering that the spotting rifle was engineered by the Royal Ordnance people in the UK, it wasn’t that surprising. The rifle operated semi automatically by means of primer actuation. This means when fired, the .22 Hornet case is propelled out the back of the 7. 62x51mm case. The baby case ends up sticking out the rear of the mummy case about a quarter of an inch. That process unlocks the bolt and starts the action. Weird.

The discussion turned to the backblast area. There were three different backblast areas that we needed to be aware of. The first was the danger area, roughly thirty meters by sixty feet wide behind and fifteen meters by sixty feet wide with the frontal sides of the launcher. This was the “you’re going to die or be maimed” area.

Then there were two caution areas. The first was about thirty meters wide and about sixty meters deep from the danger area. This area was able to induce flying debris and excessive sound pressure injuries. The final area was about fifty meters to each side and ninety meters deep in a hundred- and eighty-degree arc. You really shouldn’t be in the area, although if you had on your helmet, ballistic vest, goggles and hearing protection, you should be OK.

Then they started talking about the detachable sight mount for the optical sight. There were two rotatable drums. One for distance and one for the type of round being used. This was for the fact that the HEDP rocket had an effective range of two hundred and fifty meters and the HEAA rocket had an effective range of five hundred meters.

This didn’t matter for a while, seeing as we’d be using the iron sights for our training. Like all things in the Marine Corps, you had to master the analog before you were promoted to digital. I felt that was a good thing. When shit went wrong, you always fell back to the level of your training.

We finished with the lectures and hit the Mess Hall. Afterwards we marched out to the Tank Hull range where we were then paired up into Fire Teams of two and took turns firing the spotting rifle. I was teamed up with Pothier.

This, like everything else, had a routine. My turn came up and I got online with the launcher. Once I was set, Pothier inserted the magazine and racked the cocking handle loading the first round. We then went through the routine. Pothier went first.

“Backblast clear.”

I then called out, “Rocket, Rocket, Rocket.”

On the third one I fired. You could follow the tracer as it streaked towards the tank hull. The first two went a bit high as I homed in on the trajectory of the round. The last four rounds hit the tank hull square. We spent the rest of the day practicing. There were a couple of times when the fire was stopped, and we were given tips and refresher on our lessons.

I was glad that they weren’t hammering us as a group when somebody messed up. They would pull a Fire Team off to the side and mercilessly beat on them. Pothier and I were able to avoid getting slayed, though Andric and Kabbal got it once.

We took a little detour on the way back which added about ten or fifteen minutes to our march. We got formed up by Gunny Harell before we were dismissed.

“So, you Marines didn’t do too bad today. There weren’t any major breaches of safety. Don’t go stupid on me now. If you thought today’s punishment was bad, just wait. I haven’t even pulled out my good stuff yet.”

The chow was bullshit tonight. The menu was some serious false advertisement. It was supposed to be “breakfast for dinner” and when I saw it listed as Corned Beef Hash, it got me excited. Then they spooned the slop onto my tray.

It was some fucked up shitty beef pieces with potato chunks. I stopped and looked at the Corporal behind the serving line.

“Corporal, what kind of bullshit is this?”

“Corned Beef Hash Lance Corporal, now keep moving.”

“Hell no! I can’t believe y’all are trying to pass this janky shit off as Corned Beef Hash.”

He looked at me like he just didn’t need this in his life right now. Before he could respond I felt a hand on my arm. Turning around, I saw it was Pothier. I knew exactly where this was going to go.

“You know Badzinski, just let it go. It ain’t your day. It’ll probably be as good as the Gumbo they made.”

Well, I deserved that. He was laughing the whole time it took us to make it to the table. He wasn’t going to let this go, and I heard about it throughout the whole meal. He started laughing again when I covered the whole thing in ketchup.

After finishing dinner, we got changed and did our workout. As we were working out, I remembered that Kiku got back today. It was then shower, study and take care of my feet before hitting the rack.

The day began as most did. We got met outside the Mess Hall and directed to get our SMAWs from the armory and march out to the range. Each member of the firing team would carry the launcher on a leg to or from the range.

We had our safety brief and instruction period at the range and then began firing the spotting rifle again. We went through several magazines each. After policing our trash, we made our way back to the Mess Hall.

As we were sitting down to eat, the discussion turned to liberty.

“So, what are your big plans for when we get liberty Badzinski?”

“Well Andric, remember that we can only go fifteen miles from base.”

“Yeah, I know, that kinda sucks.”

“Well, my liberty days are pretty much planned out. My girlfriend is planning on coming down from Stanford.”

Pothier had a weird look on his face.

“How did a big ass idjit like you catch a smart girl Badzinski?”

“Well, unlike you Pothier, I don’t have to wait for a family get together to try and pick up women.”

“Well, at least I’m not paying them to be seen with me.”

I just laughed and then asked.

“You know what you call a virgin in the Bayou?”

There was an apprehensive look on his face.

“I’m going to regret this, but no, so tell me.”

“A girl that can run faster than her brothers.”

“You ain’t right in the head.”

“Could be.”

We marched back to the range where there was a deuce and a half with several wooden crates waiting on us. The crates held training rockets and we had to unload them. We were only going to have two firing stations during the afternoon, so the crates were split between them.

SSgt Specht and Cpl Groves were in charge of the firing stations with Gunny Harrell floating between the two. I noticed there were also a couple of ammo cans with more spotting rifle magazines, so we were able to fire a whole magazine from the spotting rifle.

After we finished, Gunny Harrell gave us a safety refresher and a lesson on the training rocket. The training rocket used the exact same motor as the offensive rockets, the only difference was the turning rocket had no explosive but had a white powder. It was similar to the 40mm training grenades, though the powder was white rather than orange.

We were there for the rest of the day. Everything went really slow at first, due to firing actual rockets for the first time. They watched closely as each team went through the process and fired each rocket. Every little detail was scrutinized. As the day progressed, the yelling was less and less.

It was interesting to feel the concussive force from the different angles as the rockets were fired. The firing was really interesting, as you had to lean a little forward, so the launcher didn’t push you ass over teakettle. Then there was the fact that you were feeling the concussive force of the front and the back. It was fucking awesome.

Watching the big puff of white smoke when the rocket impacted was pretty cool, though nowhere near seeing the explosion and hearing the whomp of a real rocket. The last hour of the day was more instruction on cleaning and performing general maintenance on the launchers.

We made our way back and headed to the gym after changing. There was an incident at the gym, as Kabbal tried to do too much when we weren’t paying attention. Somebody on the side of the gym away from us left a bunch of weight on the bench press. We didn’t know anything was wrong until we heard weights crashing on the floor. I looked at the bench, the bar was across his chest at a steep angle.

We all ran over there, and as I got there it was obvious that he wasn’t dead or severely injured. I knew we were all going to get blamed for this. We got the bar and weights moved then checked on Kabbal. He was probably going to be sore, hurting and having trouble breathing for a while.

“You good Kabbal?”

He wasn’t breathing deep, and you could hear the strain and the pain in his voice.

“Ah, I’m not sure.”

“Andric go to the gym office and tell them we need a Corpsman here. Tell them we’re not sure that it’s an immediate emergency, though it could be.”

He took off running, while I tried to keep Kabbal calm. Next thing I knew, the civilian employee working at the desk came back with Andric.

“What the hell is going on here?”

I now had to keep Kabbal calm and settle this guy down. It took a minute or two for the guy to realize it was just an accident. He was just worried they were going to fire him for this.

The EMTs from the base fire station showed up as well as SSgt Sulong and Gunny Harrell. This was a seriously fucked up situation.

The EMTs examined Kabbal while the rest of us got intrigued. They were taking Kabbal to get an X-Ray just to be safe although they figured the same thing I did. He’d be bruised for a while, hopefully this wouldn’t set him back in his training. We got sent back to the Squad Bay where SSgt Sulong gave us a dressing down along with a gym safety lecture.

We all hit the Mess Hall where the only topic of conversation was Kabbal. Those that weren’t in the gym were throwing around all kinds of speculation as to what happened. Those who had been there were wondering how Kabbal was doing and when he’d be back.

Getting up, Kabbal hadn’t made it back to the Squad Bay yet. We got our normal morning stuff out of the way, and then Gunny Harrell took us into the classroom and gave us a lecture about being our brother Marines keeper.

This was obviously about last night, though he started tying it into our safety protocols. It was how everyday things could end your life if you weren’t mindful of what you’re doing. Then if simple stuff could end your life, just think what explosives and things of that nature could do.

It was during the last few minutes of lecture time that Kabbal came in. You could tell from how he was walking that he was in a bunch of pain. I saw a wince as he sat down. Gunny Harrell wasn’t going to let a golden opportunity like this go by.

“Nice of you to join us Private Kabbal.”

“Aye Gunny.”

“You are going to do some stupid shit like that again?”

“No Gunny.”

“Remember that answer. I’ll have your ass if you don’t.”

We got released to lunch, and we questioned Kabbal while we ate. It seemed they deemed him to have a bruised sternum and gave him some pain and anti-inflammatory meds. They put him on light duty for the remainder of the week, although Kabbal was adamant that he was going to participate in the live fire drill on Friday.

We finished lunch and made our way to the range. We were still using training rockets and I could only imagine that they were a lot cheaper than the actual explosive rockets. They did not allow Kabbal to fully participate and instead, he was basically their gopher. You could hear him moan and groan anytime they made him do something. As the day progressed you could see he was getting slower and slower.

The march back went better than expected, as I didn’t have much pain in my feet. Hopefully, that would hold out until the 20K road march.

As we made it back to the Squad Bay everyone was checking the Mail Tray. I didn’t have anything, so I went to get my stuff ready for tomorrow.