Ryan Smithson (16 page)

I have lost nothing in Jim Conklin’s death, but in a way I have lost everything.

These tears for injustice, for impurity, for virtue, for love, for hate, for misunderstanding, for innocence, for guilt, for nothing, and for everything.

O
nly after we have been completely destroyed can we begin to find ourselves.

The drill sergeants do it like this: they break us down, build us up, break us down again, and then build us back up. The first breakdown is the hardest part. It’s the first three weeks, and they call it Red Phase. The second three weeks is called White Phase. And this is when they build us up.

The third three weeks, that’s Blue Phase. It’s nearing the end, but there’s always one more trick up their sleeve, one more breakdown before we can be built into soldiers.

During the second to last week of blue phase there’s an FTX. The first field training exercise we’ll ever conduct in
the military. The whole company camps out in the Missouri woods. It’s December, and we pull security shifts at all hours of the night. There’s a select group of privates called OPFOR (Opposing Force) who try to enter our perimeter. So we have to be aware.

The whole time we wear laser gear: a bunch of sensors attached to our chests, shoulders, and helmet. If they get hit by an opponent’s laser, they chirp loudly until a drill sergeant finds us and sticks a yellow key into the box on our chests.

There’s another box on the end of our weapon. This is how we shoot a laser. The way it works is off of blank rounds: simply gunpowder without a bullet. And the way M16s work is with direct impingement. This means that there’s a tube in the barrel to collect the high pressure gas expelled from a detonated round. The gas is then used to push the hammer back down, thus recharging the weapon. What you get from direct impingement is semiautomatic gunfire.

The box sitting on the muzzle of our M16 needs some of that expelled gas in order to fire. When the trigger is pulled, the box shoots a laser wherever the rifle is aimed. And since it can work only when a blank round actually goes off, this army laser gear is about as real as it gets.

Within the platoon we pair off in battle buddy teams. Each battle buddy watches the other’s back. Each battle
buddy team sleeps in two-person tents called pup tents. And our pup tents line the edge of the section of perimeter for which fourth platoon is responsible. The only other tents on the FTX are a warming tent and a chow tent.

Upon arrival at the site we dig “haste” fighting positions using our E-tools. A haste is a little burrow in the ground, just a spot to lie down and be concealed from the enemy. Then we plant sticks in the ground to mark our “sectors of fire.” At the forefront of my haste, facing outside the perimeter, there’s one stick on the left and one on the right. Picture a 7-10 split in bowling. Picture a rifle between the two pins. The pins, or sticks, keep me from firing too far left or right. This way, we don’t shoot into each other’s sectors and possibly each other’s positions.

My battle buddy and I, we’re smart. We find leaves and fill our hastes with them. Then we lay our ponchos on top of the leaves. See, air is an insulator, and a pile of leaves has a lot of air in it. During the FTX we’ll have to lie for hours in our hastes. So a pile of leaves protects us from the frozen December ground. After all, that’s how we’d do it in war.

Also like in a real combat zone, we don’t just sleep in tents and pull security shifts. A large part of the FTX is running missions.

“B team, bounce forward!” I yell. I am the B team leader for this mission. Our five-man group jumps up from their prone positions and hauls ass for five seconds.

I’m up…. You see me…. I’m down.

Fifteen meters from where we started, we all drop to our knees to our hands to our stomachs. All of this at the same time, dress, right, dressed, and no less than ten meters apart. Ten meters is the proper distancing between soldiers.

In my head the drill sergeant corrects me.
There are no soldiers here. Only lousy privates.

Ten meters because that’s the effective range of a grenade. If we’re too close together when a grenade falls, the private next to me gets wasted, too.

So we’re ten meters apart from each other, and a sniper is taking shots from the other side of the valley. He’s already taken out one guy from A team, who fight from the other side of the shallow ravine. They’re closer to the sniper than we are.

But I see him, that sniper, that single OPFOR guy crouching, taking shots at us. He’s just another private from basic training, but right now he’s the enemy.

There’s a log lying a little ways ahead of me. I can get to it. I can use it for protection. I crawl on my stomach just like we did across The Pit, my belly dragging on the ground, my muzzle out of the dirt and leaves.

I get behind the log. Safe. The other four members of my team are lying on their stomachs, ready for the chance to take this guy out. I see him pointing his weapon at them. I make my move.

I crouch behind the log and take a kneeling position.

He sees me.

I point my weapon at him. He points his at me.

BRASS. It stands for Breathe, Relax, Aim, Sight picture, Squeeze. And it’s the only army acronym that matters right now.

Breathe.

Breathe methodically. Time the breaths. Figure them out. This is harder than it sounds. Ever consciously think about blinking? Drives you crazy trying to control it. You can hardly tell when it needs to be done. Too much? Too little? Too automatic. There’s a natural pause at the end of an exhale. That’s when you shoot.

Relax.

Muscles fatigue quickly in one position. Rest the back of the elbow on the knee. A pointy elbow can’t balance on the point of a knee without wiggling around. And more important, pull the weapon into the shoulder. Don’t try to hold it in the air. Pulling the weapon snug is easier than trying to fight gravity. Fight gravity and you’ll lose every time.

Aim.

Aim low. Keep the sides of the front sight post flush with his body. Bullets arch like baseballs. The round will climb for the first hundred or so meters. Put the front sight post where the target meets the dirt. Even if
the bullet skims the ground in front of him, it’ll bounce upward.

Sight picture.

Put the front sight post in the middle of the rear aperture. The black circular opening of the rear aperture is fuzzy, because the focus is on the target. Then it’s on the front sight post. When they’re lined up, move the back of the weapon so the front sight post sits in the center of the fuzzy hole. Smack dab in the center.

Squeeze.

Don’t pull the trigger. If the penny falls, it’s ten push-ups. Squeeze, control the trigger, and feel the hammer fall. The hammer should surprise you every time. Shouldn’t know it’s coming. Neither should the bad guy.

*BANG*

The hammer should surprise me. It does. But not my hammer.

His
hammer.

The bad guy, OPFOR, has a better shot, a faster shot than me. I am hit, and B team has no leader. There’s a loud chirping noise to remind me.

“Fall down,” says the drill sergeant, sticking a yellow key into my chest. “You’re dead.”

My laser gear stops chirping, and I lie in the leaves. I shouldn’t have kneeled. I was fine behind the log. I was safe. I should have stayed in the prone and aimed over the
log. I exposed too much by kneeling.

The drill sergeant looks at me, pulls out a CS gas grenade, tear gas, and winks as he pulls the pin.

“Your team is screwed, private,” he tells me.

He throws the canister next to the private who’s taken over my command. The private rolls to his right, yells “Gas! Gas! Gas!” to his teammates, and undoes the protective mask carrier on his hip. He tries with shaky hands to get the mask on before the gas hits him. He’s coughing as he puts it on.

“You’re dead,” the drill sergeant tells him.

I put my mask on. Then I sigh. I watch the losing battle continue like a spirit would after leaving its body.

Another one of us gets shot. And another.

Laser gear chirping all over the place. It fills the once-quiet woods.

“You’re all dead,” says the drill sergeant. He cuts the exercise short. “Friggin’ embarrassment.”

He keys the rest of the dead privates and the chirping stops. The Missouri woods go quiet again, and he rallies us together for an AAR (After Action Review). We sit in a semicircle facing him. These Missouri leaves we sit in, they’re not orange and yellow like New York leaves. They’re ugly and brown. The trees look down on us. Our whole squad was taken out by one guy. One guy and a “mustard gas” mortar round.

The drill sergeant kicks the CS canister toward the edge of the woods, and the OPFOR member who was shooting at us runs the other way, getting ready for another bunch of privates to come strolling through. Getting ready to show them just how underprepared for war they are.

The drill sergeant asks us what went wrong. We sit in silence because we have no idea. The execution of war looks so easy in the movies. The reality of war, though, is much more complicated.

If this were real I’d be dead,
I think.

I wasn’t even taken out by a soldier. It was one of the privates of my basic training company. Some GI Joe Schmo who’s not even a GI yet. The gas expelled from his blank round set a laser shooting from the OD green box on the end of his rifle. The blank ejected into the Missouri leaves, and the laser raced across the small valley toward me: the target. The laser landed in one of the receptors on my chest, helmet, or shoulders. And he killed me before I had a chance to shoot.

We’re playing laser tag with blank rounds and cool army gear. If someone had told me this when I was six, I would have looked at them in marvel, wondering how I could possibly be so cool. I would have seen my future self as a hero. I would have thought of myself as one of those valiant, stone-jawed warriors in World War II and Vietnam flicks. Maybe Matt Damon or Mel Gibson.
Maybe Willem Dafoe or Charlie Sheen.

“What went wrong?” the drill sergeant asks me.

“I got shot, Drill Sergeant,” I say.

“No shit, Einstein,” he says. “But why?”

“I kneeled.”

“That wasn’t the problem,” he says. “You shouldn’t have bounced forward.”

“It was only one guy.”

“You should have bounced back, private,” he says. “You didn’t know if there were fifty guys lined up around the next curve. Your soldiers’ lives were more important than the mission.”

I forgot all about the original mission. We weren’t supposed to be looking for and killing OPFOR. We were supposed to locate a nearby road. We were supposed to be doing reconnaissance so the army could move tanks. But finding the road was not important enough to die for.

I got caught up in winning
(The bad guys always lose)
. I got caught up in destroying him
(gooks in Vietnam flicks),
in being a soldier
(No soldiers here, only lousy privates)
. I shouldn’t have bounced forward
(Didn’t I see that in a movie once?).
I got caught up in avenging 9/11
(That’s why I’m here)
, in being…

“A hero,” says the drill sergeant. “You were trying to be a hero.”

“Yes, Drill Sergeant,” I say.

Think of the FTX as a breakdown: the final test before we can become soldiers.

In Red Phase we’re screamed at, told we’re worthless. We learn hand-to-hand combat and marching basics. We learn how to eat a full meal in three minutes and how to ignore the stresses of having no self-expression. The lesson, really, is freedom.

In White Phase we learn how to shoot an M16 and how to work as a team. We learn how to work under pressure and strive toward a goal. We learn to believe in ourselves and our abilities. The lesson, really, is faith.

In Blue Phase we learn that no one is ever prepared for war. We learn that no matter how many drills you run or how many push-ups you do, you’re never good enough. There’s always someone better; there’s always another trick up a sleeve. The lesson, really, is humility.

And then we graduate. We walk tall across the stage but not too tall. Our families come down to watch us, to say they’re proud. Us in our Class A uniforms, amazed at the nine-week journey we’ve taken. Proud of our accomplishment but not too proud. The best part is not when our families congratulate us or when we walk across the stage. The best part is after the ceremony when the drill sergeant shakes our hands.

“Congratulations, soldier,” he says.

I stay at Fort Leonard Wood for AIT where, for nine
more weeks, I learn how to run heavy equipment. In March when I graduate, I finally return home to my family.

After they graduate basic training new soldiers have an opportunity to do what’s called “hometown recruiting.” About 99 percent of all basic training grads are highly motivated to be a part of the American defense system. And hometown recruiting is the army’s chance to let these soldiers flaunt their spirit in hopes it will catch others in its wake.

Plus, it’s a couple more weeks of active duty pay, and since I have nothing better to do, I figure why not?

The recruiter with whom I work is a ranger. He’s a sergeant first class, and he is authorized to wear four different combat patches. He has been shot twice, once in each leg, and quite literally fits every stereotype associated with the American soldier.

His uniform is decorated with medals I didn’t even know existed. His exterior, the way he carries himself, is hard and unforgiving. In fact, upon receiving his request for drill sergeant school, the army decided he’d make a better recruiter because, my hand to God, he “is too mean.”

Despite how the army labels him, I find the ranger to be one of the most interesting and insightful people I’ve ever met.

“I’ll tell you what, Smithson,” he says as he drives us to a
local high school. “I would much rather be a drill sergeant. I hate this recruiting shit.”

“This doesn’t seem so bad, Sergeant,” I say.

He shakes his head.

“These kids at these high schools,” he says. “These kids for whom you gave up your future and put on that uniform, they don’t even deserve it. They hardly respect you. They think you’re some brainwashed grunt who has nothing better to do than join the army.”