Grunt Life (10 page)

Once we have a war there is only one thing to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war.

Ernest Hemingway

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

E
VENTUALLY IT HAD
to happen. One of us finished Phase I training. I’d later find out her name was Ohirra. When the sound of the bars retracting echoed through the facility late one night—at least I thought of it as night, because it was in the middle of a sleep cycle—all of us rose and ran to our own immovable bars.

Her cell was about ten down on the left. I craned my head and watched as she took her first few tentative steps. After a few feet, she stopped and stared at the place where Rodney entered and exited the room, as if she were waiting for someone to realize they’d made a mistake.

We all looked as well. I hoped she would be okay. I also knew that there’d be those who wished her the opposite. I bet Olivares was one of them.

After enough time had passed for even the most doubtful of us to come to the conclusion that nothing was going to happen to her, she straightened and began to do a combination of dance moves, propelling her to the center of the room. There she did a jig, then raised her face to the ceiling and screamed. Those of us who hadn’t been paying attention sure were now. She spun several times in a circle with her arms held out, then sat, her hands folded gently in her lap.

Five minutes went by. Then Rodney came, followed by two men in red jumpsuits. One handed her a set of clothes, and the other began setting up a small table and chair in the center of the room. She ran back to her cell with her clothes, while the men set the table with things provided by Rodney. Soon, the white tablecloth carried plates of fried chicken, steak, French fries, and sushi, along with a tall bottle of Sapporo and a glass.

Ohirra returned wearing her new gear. Urban camouflage with white boots. A strip of white T-shirt could be seen from the V of her camouflage top. I found the color combination odd, especially the boots and T-shirt. We didn’t wear white when we went to war... unless it was meant to blend into wherever we were going.

She sat and began eating. I watched for a moment, then couldn’t take it any longer. With a watering mouth I returned to my tablet and reviewed the curriculum I had yet to finish. It seemed like so much. As it turned out, I finished in about three more weeks. I wasn’t near the front or the back, but in the middle of the pack. Michelle finished right after Ohirra. Olivares, the same man who destroyed two of his tablets, finished a day before me. Soon we were all complete, released from Phase I, and squarely into Phase II: small unit training.

After each of us had our own graduation meal—mine was a double cheeseburger with jalapenos and cucumbers, fries and a tall Belgian white beer—we began an exercise regimen designed to capitalize on cardio. I’d kept in shape in my cell, but my cardio had suffered. They turned the center of the room into an exercise area with a hundred different pieces of equipment. Rubber matting was included for martial arts and yoga. A track was laid around the circumference of the room, allowing for serious running.

So we exercised and learned small group tactics from our tablets, many of which I’d learned already, but wasn’t aware of their origin. We broke into six person groups and got to know each other. I was partnered with Frakess, Thompson, Ohirra, and Aquinas. We’d originally had a Frenchman named Mateusz, but he’d had words with Olivares, who seemed determined to be around Michelle, no matter how much she ignored him. So Olivares forced his way into our group as well.

I thought about trying to change the course of events, but there was always one in every group.

“Grew up in Michigan,” Frakess said. He was tall, with a wide Scandinavian face and piercing blue eyes above cheeks pocked from acne. “My folks were against me joining the military, but I wanted to be in the Navy so bad. Maybe it was all the movies, but it looked like one hell of a life.”

“My father was in the Navy,” Aquinas said. “He was a Navy mess chief. It was how he became a citizen. I would have grown up in Subic Bay instead of Seattle if it hadn’t been for that.”

The rest of us had our sleeves rolled up, but Aquinas and a few others, most of them women, had theirs rolled down. No one commented about them. We all sort of understood.

“501st APR,” Olivares said. “82nd Airborne Division.
If you ain’t airborne then you ain’t shit
, and all that crap they used to make us sing during cadence.” His face was pure hate as he said the words. “They drilled it into us that we could only count on each other. Taught us to hate everyone else. I could live with that. It was how I grew up.”

“My name’s Tim Thompson,” said the quietest of us. Barely five feet four inches, he had elfin features. His normal speaking level was just above a whisper. “I was a drummer in the Marine Corps Band. All I ever wanted to do was play music. I never once thought it would be in Afghanistan.”

I remembered reading in the
Stars and Stripes
about the suicide bomber who took out most of the band. Looking at the scarring on Thompson’s face and hands, it was no mystery where he’d been on that day.

“I’m a Marine, too,” Ohirra said proudly. I’d gotten to know the slender Japanese girl. She wasn’t cocky, but she was confident, and so far she’d been able to back everything up, including being the master of the mat. Her father was a small circle jujitsu master. “I was never in combat, so I don’t have the same stories as the rest of you.”

She said more in that sentence than the rest of us had all day. What was it that had made her try and kill herself? What was in her past? What had she seen or done that made her hate herself enough to want to end it all?

I tried to get out of it, but it was Olivares who cornered me. “And what about you, Mr. Gringo? What’s your story?”

I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at his choice of name. It was stupid, really. How could he expect me to be angry with something so stupid? “U. S. Army. I’m a grunt through and through. Infantry. Until recently, assigned to the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team in Logar Province. Spent time in Iraq and Bosnia as well.”

Thankfully, that was enough. It might have been that they remembered me from our confessionals. It took awhile, but once I was able to hear Ohirra’s voice again, I realized I’d recognized it. She’d never been in combat, but she’d killed a family of five one night drinking and driving. It’d been her twenty-first birthday. She never really drank alcohol, other than a taste here or there. But some friends had met her at a restaurant and proceeded to get her plastered. Ohirra had stayed in her car in the parking lot for hours afterward, trying to sober up. But when it began getting close to time for morning formation, she decided she absolutely had to leave. She’d never once been late to a formation and ‘couldn’t imagine living with the embarrassment of being late.’ That’s how she said it:
the embarrassment of being late
. Thanks to her size, her blood alcohol was still well above the legal limit when she took to the road. Plus, she’d hardly slept, nervous and jittery with terror at merely being in such a condition. Fate being what she was, Ohirra took to the road, and halfway back to base she crossed the center line. She caught herself at the last second and swerved back into her lane, but the damage was done. Bob Willis had decided to miss the traffic by driving at night. Taking his family back to New Jersey from their annual trip to Virginia Beach, he saw the oncoming car and swerved violently. The reaction caused his minivan to flip, and by the time the vehicle came to rest in the front yard of a retired Marine Gunnery Sergeant, the van was half the size it’d been just a few seconds before. The family never had a chance.

And after that, neither did Ohirra.

We couldn’t be more different.

We couldn’t be more the same.

A single event had changed her entire life, reforming her into something she’d never thought she’d ever become. Mine was the culmination of years, each event chipping away, reforming me into a hateful being. And here we were, me, Ohirra, and the rest of us, destroyers of lives.

After introductions, we were given a list of exercises and events we were supposed to do. We started with sparring.

No pads. No rules. We fought until someone gave.

It became very evident that Ohirra was the most talented on the ground. But standing up was another matter. While she had the edge, Olivares and Frakess had the bulk. They also had the strength. Frakess hit her twice in the face, hard enough she was rocked back on her heels. Olivares feinted to her face, then sunk a fist deep into her stomach.

I almost launched myself off the mat, but Aquinas grabbed me and shook her head. “Let her get out of this,” she insisted. I glanced at her hand on my arm, just as she hurriedly pulled it away.

It was clear that both Frakess and Olivares had thought getting her on the ground was to their advantage. Twice they almost managed to tap her out by lying on her. Each time she was able to circumvent what had seemed a sure thing by locking their arms into chimeras and forcing them to tap.

We urged Ohirra to take a break, but she wouldn’t have it. Aquinas was next. She kept her sleeves down and stood awkwardly. Three times Ohirra tried for a takedown, but all three times Aquinas slipped free, looking off-balance and scared. When Ohirra came in next, feinting a takedown and rising to grapple, Aquinas was ready. Her left leg shot out and caught Ohirra on the side of the head, sending her tripping sideways. When she recovered, the small Japanese-American girl gave the lithe Filipina-American a look halfway between surprise and suspicion. But Aquinas gave nothing away. She backed awkwardly, and moved clockwise around the mat. Ohirra held her hands out, ready to grab and attack. This time she feinted to the head and dove for Aquinas’s legs, only to meet a knee dead centre in her face. Ohirra fell hard to the mat, her nose gushing blood.

Aquinas barely reacted. She walked calmly over to a table, grabbed a towel from a stack, and returned.

By the time she was back to the mat, Ohirra was sitting up, one hand cupping her nose. She accepted the towel as I helped her to her feet. I began escorting her off the mat, when Olivares stepped in front of me.

“Not so fast, Mr. Gringo. Let’s see what you got.”

I tried to ignore him and push past, but he shoved me hard enough to knock me back several feet. I felt the steam rise. I knew my face had turned beet red. I could never hide my anger. When I got pissed, it was like a neon sign was flashing over my head, which was one reason I’d gotten picked on as a kid.

Olivares grinned at me and unleashed a string of Spanglish that succeeded in putting my mother and the family pet in an awkwardly symbiotic relationship. Then he began to dance on his feet. I watched the way he carried his hands as his feet moved across the floor. He’d been trained as a boxer. I immediately knew I had no chance with my hands, but I stuck them up nonetheless. In fact, I wanted to see exactly what he could do.

He lunged in and snapped a lead left into my face.

My head rocked back. I felt my lips begin to swell.

He came in again, but this time I covered up. He switched to try and hit me with a kidney punch, I brought my elbows in and let his fist land on the edge of the bone.

He shook his hand. “So you’ve been hit before. Good, Mr. Gringo,” he said happily. “But you haven’t been hit by me. Not really. Not yet.”

All the while he spoke, he danced around me. I stood in one place, light on my feet, turning to meet any attack he might launch.

He had me in weight, but I had him in height. His arms seemed about the same length as mine, the way his shoulders sloped down. But my legs were longer than his. It was all a matter of timing.

He came in again, his cockiness increasing. I ducked a right cross and let him hit me with his slower, weaker left. He caught me in the side of the head and I feigned hurt. Seeing weakness, he came in, first swinging for an uppercut. When that missed, he tried for several left hooks. I leaned into his range and grabbed him around the neck. While he began to punch me in the stomach, I raked my right foot down his shin and slammed it into his instep.

His reaction was immediate. He gave a little squeak and raised his foot. Which is when I did the same to his other foot. He backed away, hopping from one foot to the other.

“That’s right. Dance, motherfucker, dance.”

The Nunez brothers had taught me well. Born to surf and fight, each of them stood just over five foot two. They’d been in daily fights right up until the point their father had put them in martial arts. Six months later, there wasn’t a fight they couldn’t win. Their swift savagery destroyed any opponent’s will to fight.

I stood a little taller as Olivares began to circle counterclockwise. Gone was his smirk, replaced by a grimace. He was tender on his feet. Exactly how I wanted him. He feinted twice with his left hand and I just smiled at him.

He came in quick. I brought my right leg up, but instead of kicking him high, I brought it down on the side of his knee, following through with a yell.

He dropped to the ground as his knee collapsed.

I stepped in to catch him with a right cross, but he blocked his face and head with his arms. Instead of hitting him where he expected, I brought a knife hand down on his carotid artery. He fell to the mat, his eyes rolled up into his head.

I’ll give Aquinas credit. She’d shown professionalism; I didn’t have any right now. I walked back to where I’d been, grabbed a towel, and sat down cross-legged. Everyone stared at me. I didn’t even shrug. I just watched Olivares as the blood once again began to flow to his brain. His legs twitched. His arms spasmed. Then he snapped back to consciousness. Throughout it all, I had a smile on my face.

It was only when I registered the
WTF
look from the rest of my team that I realized that I’d done something wrong. And then it came to me, as my blood settled and my breathing relaxed: I’d let him get into my head. I’d made it personal. And although he was an asshole, there he was laying on the ground.