No Greater Duty

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 2Marine Recruit Basic Training

Parris Island, South Carolina

June 2016

A Marine Corps drill instructor (DI), Caucasian and tall with chiseled chin, acne scars, and flared nostrils stood ramrod straight at the front of the bus. He was ready to bring a heap of verbal s**t down on the new recruits who just arrived at Parris Island. Tapered like slits, his eyes were ablaze with a wordless warning: You’re mine now, maggots.

“Get your cheese-d**k asses off this bus now!” he thundered at them.

Alex leaped from his seat, joining jittery recruits piled up in the bus’s aisle who couldn’t move fast enough to satisfy the DI’s rapid-fire orders. He finally made it down the bus steps to the street, nearly pushed from behind.

Parris Island’s thick summer humidity smacked him in the face faster than his feet reached the pavement. It was a suffocating heat that felt like he was tied up in a soaking wool blanket and was struggling to breathe. Beads of perspiration broke out across Alex’s forehead, turning into lines of sweat that slid down both sides of his cheeks like rain streaking down a window.

“Get on the yellow footprints!” bellowed a Black Marine DI, a short man with thick, muscular forearms. Hands on hips with his eyes narrowed, he stared menacingly at recruits who stood beneath bright lamp posts under the darkness of night.

Alex joined the other sweating recruits who scrambled to find untaken sets of yellow markings on the pavement. Heels together, eyes straight to the front, thumbs along the sides of their trousers.

“You’re never bored at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, South Carolina,” roared the Caucasian DI. “And you have just taken the first step to becoming a member of the world’s finest fighting force, the United States Marine Corps.”

It was pitch-black beyond the lamp post’s glow. Alex’s eyes followed the DI’s index fingers stabbing the air like a machete. Left hand, right hand. He didn’t dare divert his eyes from anywhere but a point straight ahead in the darkness.

“Starting now, you will train as a team,” said the same DI. “You will eat, sleep, train, and live as a team. The word ‘I’ will no longer be part of your vocabulary.” Alex watched him pace back and forth, glaring at the new recruits. “From now on, the only words that come out of your mouth are ‘Sir, yes sir’ or ‘Sir, no sir’ when somebody asks you a question. Do you understand?”

“Sir, yes sir!” they roared back.

A recruit next to Alex raised a hand to wipe sweat away from his wet eyes. Alex was tempted to do the same until the DI was instantly in the recruit’s face, one foot too-close-for-comfort away from Alex. “Get your nasty face away from your hands, maggot!” the DI shouted. “Why are you eyeballing me?”

Alex felt spittle and the overpowering odor of coffee from the DI’s breath smack him at full force, and he wasn’t the one who raised a hand to wipe away sweat.

The start of Receiving Week at Parris Island was organized mayhem in assembly-line fashion. Still wearing their civilian clothes, recruits shuffled like androids into the barber shop. Barbers sheared the hair off so fast that some recruits walked away with missed patches of hair standing out on a completely shaved head. Alex looked down at his sheared blond locks on the floor when a DI was on top of him in a nanosecond. “Keep moving,” he roared, “that haircut ain’t making you any prettier, you nasty thing.”

With his head now shaved, Alex shuffled in line and grabbed a bag for “bucket issues” such as soap, shaving cream, razor, socks, underwear, towels, and other bare necessities. Next, he and the others tossed uniform gear into sea bags to include boots, ‘cammo’ blouses and trousers, T-shirts, and eight-point covers because Marines never called them hats.

A DI ordered recruits to dress in twenty seconds: underwear, then boot socks, then bottoms, then tops. Many still scrambled when he yelled, “Strip down and do it again!”

The squad bay he’d call home for the next twelve weeks lacked any personal identification except for Marine Corps symbols and words posted in different places. Organized rows of perfectly aligned metal bunk beds, two-foot lockers on the floor at each bunk bed, and wall lockers. It wasn’t scenery from a luxury hotel room on the French Riviera. More like a dressed-up penal colony.

After penicillin pills and anthrax injections at the medical unit, recruits returned to the four-story barracks and their squad bays, always holding up their sea bags, never letting them hang inches from the ground. “Put your stuff on your foot locker, then sit down and shut up!” one DI bellowed at them.

“Stand up straight! Get your eyeballs off me! Nobody cares about you, not even your mothers! You’re pathetic!” DIs seemed to love delivering their words with flying saliva. Alex wondered whether the Marine Corps had a special wing at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center outside Washington, DC where drill instructors went to surgically replace their shredded vocal chords. Then they’d return to the Corps’ two recruit depots ready to scare the living hell out of more recruits.

Next to Alex, a recruit named Bondurant sat atop his foot locker. Bondurant looked older than the average recruit. His hair was prematurely thinning so there wasn’t much to shear off in the opening and early frantic hours of boot camp. Alex sized him up. He was not just another wide-eyed teenager. Maybe this guy heard a call to patriotism or hearing the Star Bangled Banner gave him goosebumps. Maybe he believed the Marine Corps would hold a mirror up to his face and he’d find out in real time what he was or wasn’t made of. When the DI was momentarily out of earshot, Alex had heard Bondurant whisper to a recruit that he’d left college after three years in to enlist. Why? He could have applied for a Naval ROTC scholarship and earned a commission.

Alex stopped himself. Where do you get off judging another recruit? He hadn’t applied for an appointment to the Naval Academy like his father had wanted. Instead, he’d enlisted and wound up here just like Bondurant.

“Hey buddy, why’d you enlist?” Bondurant’s question interrupted the quiet squad bay.

We’re not supposed to open our mouths, Alex wanted to tell him but it was too late.

The last word was barely out of Bondurant’s mouth when, out of nowhere, a six-foot-plus DI appeared and erupted, “Who’s opening his nasty mouth?”

Innocent or dumb or both, Bondurant stood and raised his hand, “This recruit, sir—”

Alex braced himself. Oh s**t, here it comes.

The drill instructor’s boot exploded against Bondurant’s foot locker, its contents flying across the deck. A bulging vein on the side of the DI’s neck looked like it would burst right through the skin.

Recruits learned right away never to call each other by their first names. Just “recruit last-name.” Nor could they speak to other recruits or all hell would come down on them. But DIs created their own names for different recruits. Nicknames went from harmless to downright crude. Recruits who wore glasses were ‘portholes.’ Another recruit from a farming family in Virginia was ‘cow turd.’ Alex’s name was ‘Navy brat.’ He figured DIs probably got wind of his father’s military status from a note tucked in his recruitment file.

“If you’re not good enough to be a Marine, then you should have enlisted in the Army or the Air Force,” a sneering drill instructor told recruits. “They’ll take anyone.”

All recruits walked on eggshells almost every minute of the day and night except when lights were out. Eyes aimed straight ahead while walking, running, or during drill instructions. Wakened every morning by a DI banging on a trash can and shouting loud enough to shatter glass.

With trim waistlines and muscular bodies, DIs never seemed to sweat even in the dense Parris Island humidity. Their uniform shirts were bedecked with colorful service ribbons from deployments in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and other places as part of the Global War on Terrorism; GWOT. They came from every corner of the Corps: Infantry, Intelligence, Logistics, even Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD). They stood for an eternal principle of the Corps: every Marine was and is a rifleman first.

Recruits endured twelve weeks of constant mosquito bites, sunburned necks and faces, sand in their boots and scalps, and the DIs’ breath at their necks. They didn’t dare breathe a word of complaint.

Every time a recruit was sent somewhere, his ‘battle buddy’ always went with him. DIs drilled that principle into recruits’ heads: Protecting other Marines is a solemn trust. You’ll understand when someone tries to kill you on a battlefield.

On the Sunday afternoon of his third week, Alex scribbled off a note. “Hey Mom, all’s good here so far. Chow sucks but we eat anything they put in front of us because everyone’s always hungry. I’m starting to believe that being a Marine is cool. Maybe Dad will get on board with it someday.”

One morning following a three-mile run in high humidity and early-summer heat, a DI pulled Alex aside.

“Hey, recruit,” the menacing drill instructor said, standing a very uncomfortable three inches from Alex’s face. “Is it true your father’s an officer in the US faggot Navy?”

Alex suddenly felt the raw wound between him and his father split open again, and it stung.

“Yes, Staff Sergeant,” Alex told him, standing rigid at attention, eyes locked straight ahead.

“Why are you here, maggot?” the DI goaded. “Didn’t you want to be a pretty boy sailor like your old man? I bet that pissed him off.”

“I want to become a Marine, Staff Sergeant,” Alex answered, his words strong, beads of sweat forming along his forehead. He figured being a Marine had been among the most prized moments—the proudest—in Gerry Rourke’s troubled life. He wanted the same experience.

The DI took a step back and c****d his head, looking sideways at Alex. “Then prove it, Kramer. One chance is all you get to be a Marine.”

“I will, Staff Sergeant.”

“Oh yeah? We’ll see if you’ve got what it takes,” the DI said and walked away.

When the dramatic finale for every Marine recruit’s boot camp, the Crucible, got underway, Alex couldn’t wait. He joined all the other determined recruits, ready to be tested morally, physically, and mentally until they had each earned the privilege to be called a United States Marine. All of them wanted to start their traditional fifty-four-hour marathon where recruits marched forty-five miles, conducted military exercises, and overcame battlefield challenges together. Filthy, covered with mud, soaked in sweat, deprived of sleep, and eating only bare rations.

Alex finished marching the final stretch to a replica of the historic Iwo Jima flag-raising statue. He and other recruits stood in close formation with eyes straight ahead. They were physically spent and chock-full of pride.

“Good morning, Charlie Company!” called out a gunnery sergeant, standing atop the base of the replica Iwo Jima statue amid breezy winds. The early morning sun’s orange glow rose on the horizon.

“Good morning, sir!” the chorus of recruits thundered back.

“In a few moments your drill instructors will issue you the Marine Corps’ most respected emblem of honor: the Eagle, Globe, and Anchor,” the Gunny announced with a loud voice and spirited tone. “Think about those who came before you and the proud tradition you now join. You are Marines. Welcome to the Corps. Semper Fidelis, Marines. Always faithful!”

The platoon DIs moved down their squads’ assembled lines one recruit at a time. Gunnery Sergeant Kellerman, Alex’s DI, presented a hardened gaze that reflected a life dedicated to preparing young men for war. The veteran NCO handed Alex his hard-earned badge and shook his hand. “Congratulations and good luck, Kramer.” Kellerman’s words were barely audible but his intent clear.

“Semper Fi, Gunnery Sergeant,” said Alex. He tried to look serious but couldn’t resist a small smile. The DI saw it and nodded. Alex was a Marine now. He had arrived at Parris Island an individual. In short time there, he had become part of something greater than one. All of the recruits looked the same, thought the same, spoke the same because a fighting force had to operate as one team together or it would break down.

On graduation day before heading to the parade field, Alex took one final check of himself in the squad bay mirror. Basic training left him twenty-five pounds leaner than when he arrived. He was now a taut 175 pounds with a thirty-two-inch waist and in top physical condition. He smiled seeing himself in enlisted blue dress uniform with a scarlet stripe down the outer seam of each leg of blue trousers. Firm creases ran down his short-sleeve open collar khaki shirt, and a white enlisted Marine Corps cover sat on his head. “You did it!” Alex shouted and grinned at his reflected image.

He had excelled in so many areas of basic training that he graduated E-2, the uniformed military rank of Private First Class (PFC) in the Marine Corps. The majority of recruits graduated as E-1, or Marine Private.

David and Olivia Kramer waited with hundreds of other parents and family members on the parade field’s grandstands. After the final company of graduating recruits marched sharply under brilliant sunshine past the commanding officer and his staff, families and friends streamed down onto the parade field to greet their new Marine.

“I am so proud!” Olivia said and hugged Alex. He held his mother’s embrace for a few seconds. Alex loved her for standing by him when others disapproved of his enlisting. Carolyn Hardesty, his girlfriend, had abruptly broken off with him right after his enlistment. “You’ll regret not going to college,” she had said, scolding him like a stern nun at parochial school. Says you, Alex now thought to himself.

Olivia pulled away and smiled at him. “You’re handsome in your uniform,” she gushed. Alex’s smile shone as bright as the white cover he wore on his head.

“Congratulations, son,” said David. He shook Alex’s hand and nodded with more self-control than Olivia’s enthusiastic reception. “You proved your point about enlisting.”

Alex’s jaw clenched. “Dad, did you think all this time I was trying to prove a point?”

“Where’s that coming from?” Olivia’s head spun toward her husband in confusion. “This is his day, not yours.”

David raised one hand, ashamed of what he had said at this extraordinary moment in his son’s young life. “You didn’t deserve that. I’m sorry.”

“This is about Alex defying you, isn’t it? All because he didn’t want to earn an appointment to the Academy just like you?” Olivia said, visibly upset.

“Let it go, Mom,” Alex said and draped an arm around her shoulder. “It’s okay.”

“No, it isn’t,” she replied, glaring at David.

“He’s apologized, okay?” Alex replied, taking his father’s defense.

David Kramer’s disappointment that his only son didn’t choose to follow him to the Naval Academy now became Alex’s burden to bear. The comment moments before had cut deep. Yet Alex still loved his father. Maybe someday they would patch up their differences.

Alex gazed across the parade field, his eyes taking in hundreds of new Marines with proud smiles brimming on their faces. Cell phone cameras were everywhere, taking scenes of family photos, mothers with wet eyes hugging their boys, and fathers shaking their sons’ hands. It could have been scenes on post cards at the base gift shop. He pressed his eyes closed and saw the words printed on an old recruiting poster displayed at the National Museum of the Marine Corps that day in April when he and Gerry Rourke were there:

If everybody could get in the Marines, it wouldn’t be the Marines.

No, it wouldn’t, he had told himself. Today he became part of the Corps. But somehow his victory felt incomplete. Didn’t he still have a point to prove to anyone who doubted his resolve? His father among them?