Chapter 6

Getting up this morning, there was a little bit of soreness left. We were stopped on the quarterdeck by SDI Brooks who informed us that after chow we were going to get dropped off where we would be working for the day. Our time in the mess hall was going as normal, in and out. Once we were all done, we headed out to Battalion headquarters.

Stopping out front, SDI Brooks went inside, and we waited. After about five minutes he came out with a rather large and mean looking Gunnery Sergeant. SDI Brooks rattled off a bunch of names, including mine.

“You recruits are now property of Gunny Hale. Do as he says or you will feel my wrath.” With that he marched off the rest of the recruits leaving us with GySgt Hale, who wasted no time letting us know how things were going to go. I wasn’t really surprised when he had a Barry White deep voice.

“You don’t have to worry about what SDI Brooks will do to you. Be very afraid of what I’ll do to you today and in the future, if you make me look bad. Remember this, the Marine Corps is the smallest branch. We’ll more than likely see each other at some point in your career. I don’t forget or it will bite you in the ass.”

A second voice come from off to the side surprising me.

“Gunny, are you scaring the recruits again?”

I got a look out of the corner of my eyes and had to hide my shock. It was a Sergeant Major, Sergeant Major Concalves who turned out to be the Battalion Sergeant Major. He was a fireplug of a man, about 5’8” and barrel chested. We just stood at attention while they went back for a minute.

“Always ruining my fun SgtMaj.”

“As it should be Gunny. Who’s that tree of a recruit standing in front of you?”

“By the nametape, this is Recruit Badzinski. He sure is a big one.”

“He’s mine. Do as you wish with the others. Just remember, no permanent damage. Let’s go Badzinski.”

“AYE SIR!”

I fell in behind him and followed him to his office. Glancing around, there were a lot of pictures of what looked like Desert Storm. I heard the door close and then he walked around and sat at his desk. I stood at Attention a good five minutes as I was obviously being studied.

“Recruit Badzinski, sit down. I want to have a conversation with you. What GySgt Hale said is true. If you don’t live up to my expectations, you will pay a heavy price. I was surprised the day your company of recruits showed up as I received two phone calls. The first was from MSGT Alvarez, who was a platoon sergeant in my company during Desert Storm. The second was from 1st Sgt Gibbs, who was a MSGT in the same company. I was that companies’ 1st Sgt. Both told me that a recruit was going to be arriving, and if he was going to be in my training Battalion, I needed to keep an eye on him.”

I was shocked. I didn’t know if this was a good thing or not. I just wasn’t sure how to take this. He was studying for my reaction, so I tried to remain as calm and neutral as possible. I saw a slight grin on his face.

“I’d have to agree with 1st Sgt Gibbs, you aren’t a person to play poker with, although it does seem you can show emotions. I heard about your tirade over the last week or so. Now, I’m not condoning the threats of violence. Though you are showing flashes of being a leader, you need to temper your anger. Don’t let those two men’s faith in you be unjustified. Now today you’re going to be my gopher. Take this envelope over to the Commanding General’s office.”

“Aye, Aye Sir.”

With that, I spent the morning running all over the training area. Running envelopes, getting coffee, making copies and any other busy work that could be found. There was a chair outside his office that was my station. It was a normal military day, bursts of activity in between hours of boredom. My biggest problem was trying to stay awake during the times of boredom.

Shortly before we were to be returned to our DIs, SgtMaj Concalves called me into his office.

“Badzinski, you did a good job today. Just remember, keep pushing forward. You have people who believe in you, don’t let anyone hold you back. Don’t let the praise go to your head. Stay humble, be yourself and do your best. Now get your ass out of here.”

“AYE SIR.”

It seemed that I was held in high esteem, and that I needed to live up to it. The biggest thing I had to do was make it through the next eight weeks.

We got picked up by DI Oyono and then went around and picked up the rest of the platoon. Then it was dinner followed by more drill practice. We finished the day with a class on the M-16. Disassembly, assembly, and cleaning. Free time was really quiet, and I wrote a couple of letters.

I had fire watch from 0100 to 0200. I really didn’t care for that shift as it really threw my sleep off and I was always grumpy during the day.

I got shaken awake with a moonbeam in my face just before 0100. I was groggy for a minute or two, then got moving seeing as I was the roamer. About 15 minutes into the shift, I was heading from the back hatch to the front. The guy guarding the front hatch was starting to nod off. I got him kind of walking in place to help out.

As I cruised by the entrance to the head, I heard a noise I couldn’t make out. I stopped and heard the noise again, and then again about 30 seconds later.

Fuck, I didn’t need any bullshit, but I had to check it out. I moved slowly as to make as little noise as possible. The closer I got, the more I thought I knew what was going on. I figured that a guy was spending some quality time with his self-relieving tension. As much as I didn’t want to check it out, I had to. When I got to the head, which was where everyone went to choke the chicken, it was empty.

I kept moving down the hall and the noise was no more frequent. When I made it to the Rain Room there was no need for the moonbeam as an overhead light right outside cast light inside. As I popped my head around the corner, I couldn’t believe what I saw. It was something that would haunt me for years to come.

There were two guys fucking in the Rain Room. My only saving grace was due to the angle, I didn’t actually see any penetration. I do believe if I’d actually seen penetration, I’d have lost my lunch. It was also creeping me out that the guy who had the other one bent over was the meat watcher. My stomach was starting to turn as I headed towards the Duty Hut.

As I pounded on the announcement board, the guy at the front hatch piped up.

“What’s going on?”

“Just go back to studying. You don’t want to be a part of this. I sure as fuck don’t, but I’m already screwed at this point.”

DI Oyono finally opened the door to the duty hut.

“What the fuck do you want Badzinski, it’s 0030?”

“Drill instructor needs to check the Rain Room.”

“Just tell me what the hell is going on. I don’t have time for this shit.”

“Drill instructor needs to go check the Rain Room.”

The look he gave me could have raised the dead and killed them again. “You’re going to regret this bullshit.”

With that, he stormed off. The guy in the front hatch looked at me again with a questioning look. I shook my head and he just shrugged. It was at this point it all started. We could hear DI Oyono.

“JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, YOU NASTY MOTHERFUCKERS!!!”

Had those two been in a locked bedroom or something like that, I wouldn’t have given a shit. Doing it here and like this, I had no choice. DI Oyono came flying out towards the Duty Hut. He took one look at me.

“Get your ass in the Duty Hut.”

I followed him in. “Sit your ass in the fucking corner and don’t say a word unless you’re spoken to.”

He started making phone calls. The first was to SDI Brooks, then to the Platoon Commander and Company Commander. He turned back to me.

“Sit there, shut up. Unless you’re asked a question, be a statue. There’s going to be a lot of NCOs and Officers in here. Just stay in that chair.”

“AYE SIR.”

The minute comment wasn’t that far off. Di Oyono brought in the two recruits. I looked at the meat watcher and he winked at me. I wanted to smack the shit out of the fucker. At least they had clothes on at this point.

About a couple minutes after they came, SDI Brooks and Lt Lott came in. I started nodding off and got shaken awake. When I looked up, things had gotten serious.

Kilo Company’s top brass was standing in the Duty Hut. 1st Sgt Chapman and Cpt Sharpe were next to the desk, and both were on the phones. The only thing I could gather was they were talking to people at Battalion. Things went from bad to worse when the Battalion commander Lt Col Vargas walked into the Duty Hut. He took control as soon as he walked in.

ìLt Lott please head outside and meet the Shore Patrol. Shut the door on your way out.î He then turned to the two Rain Room humpers.

“You two realize that you’re completely done with the Marine Corps or any branch of the military. Before this happens, you both will make a phone call to your parents. You’re going to explain exactly why you’re going home. Just so you don’t lose your nerve, I’ll be listening in.”

The meat watcher actually started sobbing. In all this I learned that they both had enlisted in Denver with the buddy system. When the calls were made, they were complete train wrecks and when the calls were over, they were then marched out of the Squad Bay. LT Col Vargas and I were the only two left in the Duty Hut, he stood in front of me and leaned down whispering to me.

“You did the right thing in this incident. If I hear you have spoken a word of what happened tonight. I’ll make sure your nuts are on the chopping block. Do I make myself clear?”

I answered. “Aye Sir.”

“Good. Now get yourself out of here and in your rack.” With that I was dismissed and made a hasty retreat.

Once I got in my rack, it was still a while before I was able to fall asleep. The image of the whole thing kept popping up in my head. No matter how much I tried to will it away, it kept coming back.

When I woke back up, I was super grumpy. Only about 4hrs of sleep will do that to you.

Nobody said anything about the two guys missing and Di Oyono simply said they had been released for lack of performance.

As was per the norm, there was no slack given. After chow a group of us were being dropped off at the base laundry. The day was mind numbingly boring and also hard work at the same time. It was pushing carts full of laundry from the washer, to drier and a folding station.

I just wanted to climb into one of the carts and take a nap. That wasn’t going to happen as the Staff Sergeant who was in charge wasn’t going to give us any type of a break. She seemed to take a sick pleasure in trying to run us into the ground. There was no let up and only one short break. She was almost worse than our DIs, we were all glad when it was time to leave.

We went and retrieved our rifles before heading to the Mess Hall. All the recruits were thinking about what we were going to do next. I’d never seen a lot of the recruits eat as fast as they had. Getting formed up, we were marched over to the building where we were going to take our boot camp photos. The big thing that everyone was looking forward to was getting to wear the Marine Corps dress blues. Five guys would go in and get the photo taken while the rest of were drilling.

I was in the third group that went in. I was kind of curious as the first group came out. I figured that they would smile but instead, they just kind of looked indifferent.

I was sorely disappointed when we went in to get changed. There was a rack of the Dress Blue Jackets. They went on like a hospital gown and closed with Velcro in the back. My shoulders were so wide they used a Velcro extension to make it fit. Finding a Barracks cover was a whole lot easier.

I was amazed at the amount of photo packages they offered. There was one that had 110 photos. I mean, who really needs that many, unless you’re building as a shrine to yourself. I didn’t need a shrine to myself. I went with a package that had four 8x10s and eight 4x5s.

The rest of the day went by pretty smooth after all the activities in the last 23hrs, I was falling asleep pretty soon as I laid down.

Waking up, I was a lot more refreshed than yesterday, though I was surprised. All four DIs were here, and the three junior DIs were in their element, running around yelling at everyone.

This was only about the second or third time that all four were together. We were the first platoon at the Mess Hall; it was actually earlier than usual. After we formed up eight of us were taken by DI Faamate back into the Mess Hall. We were left with a Staff Sergeant. He seemed like he was disillusioned with recruits helping in the Mess Hall.

“All you recruits follow me. I don’t want any questions. Do as you’re told, or I’ll let your DIs know and probably make some stuff up as well. You’re going to serve breakfast, and then take care of the dishes.”

We then got instructions on how to serve food. We got admonished to make sure that we checked for Diet and Dbl Rat tags. SSgt Bullrich was going to be watching us to make sure we were serving recruits in the proper manner. It was a few hours of dishing out sausage and bacon that I couldn’t eat. The smell was driving me crazy.

Once the service was over, we moved into the washroom. The operation was a fairly simple process. Scrape any food left on the tray into a trash can and then you placed the trays, glasses, and silverware into an appropriate wash rack. The racks were then slid into a washing machine for about five minutes. Then they were stacked to dry.

Things were going pretty well while the SSgt was there directing how things were to go. When he left, I saw something that was just disgusting. Three guys were eating leftover food off the trays. It was just mind boggling.

ìWhat the fuck are you assholes doing? That shit is fucking disgusting. On top of that, y’all are going to get us all in hot water for this.î

ìDude, shut up! Nobody is going to find out. Iím always hungry, and food is food.î

ìDo what youíre going to do. If I get fucked over so you can eat a couple of sausages. Iím going to be pissed off. You guys are on diets for a reason, show some will power.î

With that I dropped it. I had that uneasy feeling that something was going to go horribly wrong.

Nothing happened while we were in there. The SSgt came back, got us and we were set to cleaning and mopping while lunch was being cooked. We actually got to eat before everybody else. After serving lunch we were put back in the hot and humid washroom to get lunch service cleaned up. The three idiots were back at it again. Eating cookies and whatever else they could find.

“You jackasses are going to get us hemmed up. You ran your luck at breakfast. Hiding behind the washing machine isn’t going to fool anyone.”

“Shut up. Weíll be fine, just worry about yourself.”

“Don’t say that I didn’t warn you idiots.”

I hadn’t been back at doing the dishes for a few minutes when the hammer dropped. A voice suddenly sounded behind me.

“What the fuck are you morons doing? You have lost your ever fucking mind.”

Well shit, it was DI Faamate. I kept my head down and continued doing my job. Two of the idiots were behind the washer, eating pudding with cookies. It was amazing that they couldn’t see it was a bad idea. I just hoped that they didn’t drag me down with them.

“So, what did you other recruits know about this?”

“This recruit knows nothing. This recruit was too busy getting work done to notice the other recruits.”

I was just trying to keep from getting lumped in with the idiots. The other recruits who hadn’t eaten anything had a similar line as mine.

“Everybody get outside into formation. You two fat bodies get at the front of the formation. I’m going to spend a lot of time with you two.”

With that, we went and got into formation. Luckily, I was towards the back, though I could hear those two getting yelled at.

We marched out to the hand-to-hand pit. SDI Brooks and DIs Pugh and Oyono were already there waiting on us. The pugil sticks and equipment was there as well. They got the first ten recruits suited up. Those bouts went well, and the second batch all went pretty much the same - larger recruits overpowering smaller recruits. They then had the final to see who would advance to the platoon finals tomorrow.

All the other bouts for the most part followed the results from earlier. My bouts would be tomorrow. Freeman and Becker made it to the finals for today. Beckerís fight was the exception to the rule. His opponent was a good three inches shorter and pulled off the win. Freeman won his though it was a slug fest and a mistake by his opponent allowed the victory. His opponent crossed his feet and went down, allowing for Freeman to gain the victory.

All the equipment got packed up and we got into formation and headed back. We retrieved our rifles from the Squad Bay and spent hours drilling. We hit the Mess Hall and went back to the Squad Bay. SDI Brooks then spent until free time going over all that was going to happen next week. It was going to be a week that was completely packed and a very important week.