January Dawn (4 page)

I could feel the hard stares coming from the four of them, each intently expecting an answer.

“He’ll come out of his shell eventually. Don’t pressure him,” Shannon said.

I sighed shallowly, relieved.
Thank you Shannon
.

“So what do you think?” Carrigan asked.

“Think about what?” I asked.

“We were discussing women in the military. Hayes doesn’t think women belong in combat units.”

“Why not?” I said, more as a statement rather than a question. I didn’t see why they couldn’t.

“Exactly, why not, Hayes?”

“Because combat is no place for a woman. It’s dangerous. God only knows what the Yankees would do to you if they caught you. And besides, I’m not trying to sound like a misogynist, but women aren’t as strong as men. If I get wounded in combat, I need to trust the soldier next to me to be able to pick me up and carry me to safety. I’m a big guy, Carrigan, I don’t think you could carry me. Call me sentimental, but it’s a man’s job to make sure women are safe and out of harm’s way,” Hayes said.

“Such a gentleman,” Carrigan said, rolling her eyes.

“That’s who my Mama taught me to be.”

“This is the first year they are letting women into combat roles. The success rate of women in Basic Training is seventeen percent. There are seven of us in this graduating class. The odds are against me, but I will pass Basic and I will be among the first female soldiers to fight on the frontlines for our country,” she said, jamming her index finger into the table as she spoke.

Carrigan was a tough nut. She faced a lot of ridicule from the guys in the platoon, but I had faith in her. With her beauty and her wits and her cunning sarcasm, she could make it all the way. It will take a lot more than a few naysayers to bring her spirits down.

“Take it from a black man. My people share your plight. It took us almost eighty years to be considered full citizens in our own country. Slavery wasn’t abolished until eighteen ninety-nine. Sixty years later, we had the Civil Rights Movement. It took nearly ten years of protests, peaceful
and
violent, mind you, to obtain our most basic human rights. Even then, the Confederacy didn’t fully integrate the military until seventy-eight. Now look at us. We’re all over the place. You got me, Pike, Worley, Rainey over in Second Platoon and Campbell in Third Platoon. We’ve come a long way and my hat is off to you for your passion for change, but I still don’t believe you should be allowed in combat.” Hayes cleared his throat and took a sip of orange juice with his pinky finger high in the air. His theatrics always amused me.

“You mark my words. I’ll beat all these bitches and I’ll be the last woman standing.”

“Are you two married? Because you sure argue like it,” Beauregard said.

Once again, my attention turned to Alex Redman. He was eating his toast, unconsciously. His mind lost in thought.

His concentration was snapped from across the room as Esra Teague made a boisterous presentation at his table in the back of the cafeteria. What it was about I don’t know, but everyone at his table erupted in laughter.

Alex looked on in disgust, slowly chewing a mouthful of food. He looked down at his plate at his empty table and frowned. I felt sorry for him.

He looked up and locked eyes with me. I felt awkward for staring and quickly dropped my gaze, pulling my attention back to the conversation at the table.

Never failing, Drill Sergeant Elroy stomped into the mess hall at precisely the moment the clock struck 1230.

“Chow time is over! First Platoon, fall out!”

As one unit, the platoon stood, snapped to attention with a precise collection of heel clicks and exited.

It was the second full day of Firearm Pre-Qualification. The day before was spent going over firearm basics. We learned safe handling and operation, misfire and malfunction procedures, proper upkeep and range safety. In addition to learning about our own weaponry, we were taught everything there is to know about Yankee firearms. The United States used an entirely unique set of firearms, separate from our own. It was a lot to take in.

This was our first day at the range getting actual hands-on weapon experience. The morning sky was beautiful and blue and crisp. The wind blew sparingly from the south carrying with it a solid layer of wispy clouds. Our tired bodies were warmed by the sun’s rays.

Drill Sergeant Elroy had First Platoon huddled around him as he explained the morning’s exercises. I was kneeling near the far edge. I pulled my soft cover cap down over my eyes to block the sun that hovered directly above and behind Elroy.

“Welcome to day two of Firearm Pre-Qualification Week. Today, our main focus will be the combat assault rifle, the Heckler and Koch G36.” Elroy beckoned for the range officer standing off to the side. The range officer handed Drill Sergeant Elroy an unloaded rifle. “Standard issue service rifle for all Confederate Military branches. It’s made of lightweight, synthetic material, it has a collapsible stock for close-quarters operations and it fires 5.56mm caliber ammunition from a thirty round magazine. Mounted on top is a dual optic sight that combines a reflex sight for short ranges and a three times magnification telescopic sight for ranges greater than one hundred meters.”

Elroy handled the weapon with delicate familiarity. “This weapon will become a part of you. It will be an extension of your body. Wherever you go it goes. You are never to be without your rifle, ever. A soldier without a rifle is as good as dead. Now, for this morning’s assignment you will be firing at ranges as high as one hundred fifty meters. You will practice firing from the standing, kneeling, and prone unsupported positions. At the end of the day, we will begin pre-qualification examinations. All scores will be recorded for the platoon’s Leadership Aptitude Examination roster. Any questions? Good. Let’s get started.”

The rifle range consisted of two firing lines with twenty five lanes each. They faced opposite directions and were separated by a patch of grass twenty yards wide that was considered the range staging area or safety zone.

The drill instructors divided the platoon in two. Drill Sergeant Elroy took the half I was in to one firing line and Drill Sergeant Quinn took the other half to the other line.

We each were assigned a lane to stand in. Which were nothing more than an eight by eight box filled with pea gravel. A Range Officer handed me a rifle and three clear plastic magazines filled to capacity with the deadly five-five-six rounds. The rifle was lighter than I thought, easy to wield.

Elroy paced down the firing line with his hands behind his back.

“First practice round. Unsupported standing position. Single shot. Fifty meters. Insert your first magazine.”

I tilted my rifle up, inserted a magazine and slapped it in securely.

“Commence firing.”

I pulled the charging handle back and released it, fully chambering the first round. I settled my left foot out in front of me for balance, nestled the stock snugly against my shoulder, flipped the safety off and aimed down the reflex sight at the paper target, a black human silhouette on a white background.

I pulled the trigger. The sound of the rifle firing and the accompanying jolt was weirdly enjoyable. The shot struck the top right corner, far away from where I was aiming.

I fired again. Same result. It struck a few inches below the first. I fired again. This time the shot went wild, missing the target completely and striking the grassy berm two hundred meters down at the other end of the range.

“Control your breathing and squeeze the trigger, don’t pull it, Tennpenny,” Elroy said from behind me. I didn’t know even he was watching me.

“Yes, drill sergeant.”

I lined up the sights on the center mass of the target, took a deep breath, held it and gently squeezed the trigger. The rifle jolted and barked a metallic click as the empty casing was ejected and a new round was chambered. Dead center.
Bingo.

“Nice shot. Give me twenty more of those,” Elroy said, stepping away down the line.

We practiced the three shooting stances all morning, shooting two hundred rounds in each position. I loved shooting. It was fun and I was good at it…damn good.

The drill sergeants marched us back to the mess hall for noon chow and marched us back again after. I caught up with the guys during mess. They all said they did alright. When they asked me how I did, I said I did okay, which wasn’t entirely incorrect. It was my first time shooting and all.

We had three more hours of practice rounds, and then around 1600, Drill Sergeant Elroy mustered the entire platoon in the staging area. No more practice, it was time for the real thing.

“You’ve had all day to get a feel for the G36, now we will test you on your weapon proficiency. Eight of you will test at a time. The rest will observe from back here in the staging area, sitting in your assigned lanes. Listen for the whistles. Two blows means step up to the firing line. One means commence firing. Three or more means cease fire. Your examination today will test your accuracy in all three stances. Here are your instructions.”

As the range officers walked down range to reposition targets, Drill Sergeant Elroy went through all of the instructions and gave us a visual demonstration, so that there would be no hiccups.

When he finished, they split us into eight groups and sat us down behind our respective lanes. I was stationed in lane four with Shannon and a few others I didn’t really know. Guess who was first in line.

Elroy blew the whistle two times from his perch up on an elevated platform behind the firing line. I stood and stepped forward into my lane. A range officer handed me a rifle and a fully loaded magazine.

He picked up the clipboard hanging from his neck and asked, “Name?”

“Tennpenny.”

He took a pen from his breast pocket, wrote my name down and stepped out of the box.

“Load your rifle and wait for the whistle,” he said.

I loaded and charged my rifle and took a few deep breaths. The range officer waited behind me with a stopwatch in his hand. His face was emotionless, hidden behind his dark sunglasses and cap.

Elroy stood up on his elevated platform, scanned the line to make sure everyone was ready, put the whistle in his mouth and blew one shrieking wail.

I immediately raised my rifle and aimed at the target fifty meters away. I squeezed off the first shot. Miss.
Fix your stance, control your breathing, and squeeze the trigger
, I told myself.

I did exactly that, and squeezed off nine more shots. Each shot sent a reverberation that spread from my shoulder down to my feet. It was an electrifying sensation.
Ten shots, move.

I lowered my rifle, took two giant steps to my right, rolled head first into the next lane, and pushed off the ground into a kneeling position. This target was seventy-five meters away, which made it a little tougher. With my right leg bent underneath me, I sat down gently on the heel of my foot and placed my left leg out in front.

The rifle jolted in my hands ten more times.
Ten, move
. Not enough time to check where they hit.

Again, I lurched to my feet, took two steps to my right, dove to the next lane and rolled to a prone shooting position aiming downrange. The last target was one hundred meters away, even harder than the last.

I lined up my eye with the telescopic sight. The target appeared in the lens larger and closer than it really was. I lined up the crosshair and fired the ten remaining shots in the magazine.

When it was over I breathed a sigh of relief, flipped the safety on and went to the range officer for my results. A few others were still finishing up. Their shots rang loud, and hopefully true, for their sakes. I didn’t want to see anyone fail.

“Seventy-two seconds,” the range officer said, as he marked down my time. He picked up a pair of binoculars on the table and looked downrange at my targets. “Eight. Nine. Eight. Twenty-five out of thirty.”

Twenty-five out of thirty!

I managed a little smile as I went back to wait at the end of the line. Shannon and the others patted me on the back to congratulate me.

I sat down in the soft grass and watched as Shannon went up to shoot next. Alex Redman approached his lane a few rows down. The whistle blew. Right off the bat Shannon struggled to hit his targets. I could see him getting frustrated, cussing to himself as he failed to recover from his missed shots.

Alex, on the other hand, was superb. His phenomenal shooting and movement between stances was graceful and fluid. He was a natural.
I bet I look pretty clumsy when I shoot.
My attention fluctuated back and forth until they both finished.

Shannon frowned when the range officer told him his scores.

“Fourteen in two minutes and four seconds,” he said, taking a seat behind me.

“That’s alright. You have a few weeks to work on it before the Final Qualifications,” I told him.

“I was never any good at shooting,” he said, ripping up blades of grass in frustration.

Alex Redman had a smug smile on his face as he walked back to his line. I didn’t hear what he got, but he was clearly happy with his results. Nobody congratulated him or shook his hand as he took a seat in back of the line.

Elroy blew his whistle and managed the pre-qualifications like clockwork. Once everyone had a chance to qualify the drill sergeants got together to count the results. We all waited anxiously.

“That was some mighty fine shooting I saw there boys,” came a booming voice from behind us. It was General Gammon. He was wearing plain gray fatigues and a cap. Nothing about him indicated he was a general besides the black stars on his hat. He made his way through the crowd shaking hands.

Gammon was a very intimidating man. He was tall and barrel-chested and had a personality that matched his legendary status. Everything he said was always carefully thought out and spoken with pure emotion.

He had a reputation for being one of the harshest men in the army. He held himself to high expectations and expected as much from his soldiers. Some of the finest divisions in the C.S. Army can be attributed to his go-get-it mentality. He led by example from the front and soldiers loved him for it. He even did PT with us one morning and led us in a couple old school cadence rhymes.

“Drill Sergeant Elroy, tell me I’m not too late,” he said.

“Too late for what, sir?”

“I’ve been stuck in my office all morning with an itchy trigger finger. I was hoping I could get a little range time with some of your men. Huh, how about it, men?” He said, clasping a few of the recruits by the shoulder. The creases on his leathery face deepened when he grinned.

“I think we could arrange that, General,” Elroy said, picking up his clipboard and running his finger down the paper. “Best-on-best competition. Teague. Redman. Carrigan…and Tennpenny.”

Me?

First Platoon went into an uproar as the four of us took our positions on the firing line alongside the General.

Gammon rolled up his sleeves and said, “How about we spice things up a bit?” He signaled for the range officers, who ran down the range to change the targets. They replaced the bland black and white silhouette targets with a red, white and blue caricature of Uncle Sam. The grisly old caricature wore a star studded hat with a blue coat and he was pointing his finger at all of us. “There that’s much better.”

Elroy blew the whistle and we opened fire. The contest lasted no longer than two minutes. The panel of range officers surveyed the results through their binoculars and recorded their findings.

“Teague. Twenty-seven. Redman. Twenty-seven. Carrigan. Twenty-nine. Tennpenny. Twenty-eight. General Gammon. Twenty-four.”

“I demand a recount, Drill Sergeant Elroy,” Gammon said with a hearty laugh. “I’m sure I was beat fair and square. I’m getting old and I can’t shoot as well as I once did.” The General walked down the line shaking hands with his competitors and smiling over his celebrity status.

I took the chance to go over and talk with Alex Redman in the lane next to me.

Here goes nothing.
“Hey, nice shooting,” I said.

“Thanks, you too.” I could tell by the look on his face that he was confused as to why I was talking to him. In the barracks it was considered social suicide to talk to him. I didn’t care.

“Where did you learn to shoot?” I asked him.

“My father taught me. You?”

I shook my head. “This was my first day.”

“Really?”

“Alex Redman, how are you son?” The General asked as he approached.

“I’m doing well sir,” Alex said, shaking the man’s hand.

“Good, good. It’s nice to see you in uniform finally.” The General looked Alex up and down and then turned to offer me his hand, “Tennpenny, is it?”