The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier's Education Read online

  THE MOST RELEVANT LESSON of basic training was how to kill, but it was seldom described so explicitly. I “engaged targets” and “provided suppressive fire.” My rifle was “my new best friend.” No matter where I went, to the latrine or the field mess, the rifle came with me. If abandoned, cadre members held the rifle hostage for a payment in push-ups. At night I slept with my rifle zipped inside my sleeping bag. The cadre encouraged us to pretend that the cold metal barrels were our girlfriends back home. Even in West Point’s irony-free atmosphere, this was too much. I was still a virgin, but I knew enough about girls to know they didn’t smell like gun oil. In silent protest I refused to name my rifle.

  Target practice was difficult for those of us who hadn’t grown up hunting. At first I missed even the fifty-yard “Ivan” targets that popped up from the brush wearing Soviet overcoats and furry hats. The recoil surprised me, and I scratched my cheek on the rifle sights. Yet after three days of sweltering bouts in the foxhole I could successfully “engage” three out of every four Ivans. In the event that green plastic dummies ever attacked my rifle platoon, I would be ready.

  I kept my rifle obsessively clean by swabbing the barrel with cotton patches and oiling the springs of the ammunition magazines. I practiced the Army’s time-tested techniques: yoga-inspired controlled breathing, balancing a dime on the barrel, and consistent aim. I learned better trigger control. “You don’t pull a trigger, you squeeze it,” emphasized the cadre. I enjoyed shooting. It was like a video game: clean, fun, and almost clinical. I knew, because I had to memorize it, that each bullet was 5.56 millimeters wide—not 5.55 or 5.57 but precisely 5.56 millimeters. I learned the muzzle velocity of the round, its maximum range, and how to strip and reassemble my rifle in ninety seconds. The detachment from reality was complete. Shooting at plastic targets gave me no sense of how a bullet might plow through an actual human torso. That would come later.

  We also tossed live grenades, whose concussive explosions no one mistook for a video game. At the morning briefing they roused us like a crowd at a football stadium.

  “Do you want to blow stuff up?”

  “Hoooah!” we yelled.

  Each of us took turns tossing grenades from behind the protection of a concrete wall. Afterward they brought out one of the Ivans to show us the damage from the grenade shrapnel. It looked like Swiss cheese. The purpose of shrapnel, they told us dryly, was to maximize damage to the target. As each fragment tumbles through a torso, bones splinter upon impact and send secondary projectiles into surrounding soft tissue. Everyone oohed and aahed. Ivan was just plastic.

  The last vestige of the old Army remaining in Beast was the celebrated Bayonet Assault Course, designed for the sole purpose of instilling an aggressive warrior spirit. Standing in an empty field with our rifles, we chanted fierce infantry mottos. Apparently, there was no euphemism at bayonet distance.

  “What is the spirit of the bayonet?”

  “To kill, kill, kill, with cold, blue steel!”

  “What makes the green grass grow?”

  “Blood, blood, bright red blood!”

  “There are two kinds of people in this world. What are you?”

  “The quick!”

  “What are they?”

  “The dead!”

  “I want to see your war face!”

  One hundred and fifty cadets grimaced, “Aaahhh!”

  “Butt stroke to the groin, move!

  “Slash and hold, move!

  “Whirl!” We spun around with our weapons and came back to the attack position.

  “What do you want to be?”

  “Infantry! Hoooah!”

  Armed with giant pugil sticks shaped like oversized Q-tips, the instructors circled our ranks and pitted us against one another for bout after bout of concussions and bruised family jewels. “Honoré de Balzac,” they’d joke when new cadets took shots to the groin. When we finished, we “fixed bayonets” on our rifles and charged through an obstacle course littered with straw dummies and rubber tires. We stabbed, slashed, and smashed accompanied by loud “hoooahs” and stern war faces. As we relaxed on the grass after running through the course, we looked like hell—mud smeared on faces, uniforms torn by barbed wire, and our heads matted with sweat and dust.

  Running that course was pure exhilaration, an explosion of power and speed that unleashed an instinct for aggression. I liked the rush; I liked the mud and sweat; and I enjoyed pushing my body to the limit. In testing my endurance I also tested my spirit and the ability of my mind to transcend pain. Of the various career paths available in the Army, from logistics and intelligence on one end of the spectrum to infantry and armor on the other, the infantry hewed most closely to this raw display of physical aggression and mental fortitude. The cadences that accompanied our running were infantry cadences for a reason. Infantry, we were told, was where warriors were made.

  I wasn’t sure, though, that I wanted to be a warrior, a professional trained to kill. Screaming “kill” was a theatrical stunt, and none of us presumed it was anything other than false bravado. The bayonet course was a different matter. It disturbed me that I could plunge a bayonet into a straw dummy with ease (and even pleasure). Sitting on the grass, watching classmates emerge from the course in pairs, I did not question whether I had the will to get through Beast but whether I wanted to. I struggled to reconcile my moral code with what I had just done. The aggressive instinct channeled into a straw dummy was just as capable of putting a seven-inch steel blade into another soldier’s stomach. Should I have found the exercise invigorating? What did that say about me?

  My faith as a Catholic had formed my values in adolescence. At one point I had even considered becoming a priest. (Poverty and obedience, I understood. Chastity was a different matter.) Attending Mass every week taught me to love ritual and the rich symbolism of the Church. The Irish Christian Brothers who administered Bishop Hendricken, my all-male high school, ruled with clear standards, a code of honor as inviolable as the requirement to wear coats and ties. Although our classes were tough, the brothers were far tougher on our souls. “Be your best self,” they must have told us a thousand times. Guilt was a constant companion and a concept that incorporated everything from missing a homework assignment to losing a wrestling match. Before confession every week I added those shortcomings to a bundle bursting from false witness, parental disrespect, and an adolescent’s constant coveting of the fairer sex. The brothers admonished us to live lives of sacrifice, charity, and service. There were prayer vigils for disaster victims, fasts to remember the hungry, and requirements to serve in our communities without complaint. Above all we learned to sanctify others, seeing even in our enemies the image of God. After the bayonet course, when I doubted continuing at West Point, I made an appointment to see one of the Catholic chaplains.

  His office was tucked between the mess hall and MacArthur barracks. After knocking on the door, I entered. Slashes of light from the window blinds cut across his desk and striped the dark wood paneling around me. An Army bible in camouflage was open on the desk. A silver-haired priest looked up at my uniform and spotted my name tag.

  “Mullaney. Good Irish name.”

  “Thank you, Father,” I said with a smile.

  “Have a seat. How can I help you? Do you need a salvo of prayers to get through the week?”

  “No, Father.” I gulped. “I wanted to talk to you about whether I belong here.”

  “Why wouldn’t you?”

  “Father, I was at the bayonet course, and I got really confused. I liked the challenge, but I don’t know how I feel about being an officer who has to inspire others to attack the enemy. I just can’t see myself cheering while we kill. Can I serve in uniform without that enthusiasm?”

  He leaned back and swiveled in his armchair. I was hoping for an answer but received a question instead: “It depends. Do you believe in a just war?”

  “I think so, Father. Like World War II?”

  “Sure, that’s a good example.
Do you think Hitler could have been stopped without war?”

  “Of course not, Father.”

  “So you agree that war, although always horrible, is sometimes necessary to stop a greater evil?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “And those soldiers, were they killers in your mind?”

  “No, Father. They had to kill, but I don’t think they were killers. They had to kill in order to stop a greater evil.”

  “Did those soldiers deserve good lieutenants?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “Well, don’t you think today’s soldiers deserve good lieutenants?”

  “Well, yes, I guess. But I’m still not sure that I’m the kind of officer they need. I’m not as gung ho as everyone else.”

  “Really?” He leaned forward and put his elbows on the desk. “Do you think they’re any less conflicted than you? How many cadets do you think I see in the course of a week?” He arched his eyebrows. “Maybe the Army isn’t for you, but I don’t think you can make that determination without finishing the summer and spending time in the classroom. I think you’ll be surprised to find your peers and your instructors are less ‘gung ho’ than you presume.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “And you might also find that leading men in combat has more to do with duty than bravado.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  3

  Falling Gracefully

  The far object of a training system is to prepare the combat officer mentally so that he can cope with the unusual and unexpected as if it were the altogether normal and give him poise in a situation where all else is in disequilibrium.

  S.L.A. MARSHALL, Men Against Fire

  “THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT YOU’VE SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED Beast. The bad news is that you’ve just started Plebe year.” We stood in formation with our summer platoon for the last time, and our cadre bid us farewell as we girded ourselves to join the companies we would stay with for the next four academic semesters. Behind them was a host of upperclassmen frothing at the mouth for fresh meat.

  “On the command of ‘fall out,’ fall out and find your assigned company.”

  My lips mouthed the Lord’s Prayer in silence: “Deliver us Lord from every evil.”

  “Fall out!”

  For two months we had outnumbered cadre six to one. Now that the upperclassmen had returned from their summer training away from West Point, the ratio was reversed. Our new tormentors wanted nothing more than the satisfaction of watching Plebes stammer, stumble, and sweat for the next nine months. Officially, the rigors of Plebe year existed to inure us to stress and to teach us how to follow before we learned how to lead. In practice, however, Plebe year often seemed to be a nine-month spectacle of humiliation that afforded unhappy sadists an opportunity to project their misery onto us. There was also the cosmic law of Plebe karma, which demanded that upperclassmen revisit the trauma of their own Plebe year onto each new litter of freshmen. Each class believes that theirs was the last “real” Plebe year and is equally sure that they must reverse West Point’s liberalizing slide. The sophomores (“Yearlings,” like horses, or “Yuks,” pejoratively), juniors (“Cows,” so named because when they returned to campus from summer training, it was like cows coming home from pasture), and seniors (“Firsties,” as in first class) in Company D-4 were no exception.

  An hour after marching to our new barracks opposite Arvin Gym, the thirty Plebes assigned to my company packed into the tiny ground-floor room of another Plebe. We stank of sweat and fear. Outside on the front stoop were seventy-five fervent upperclassmen waiting impatiently for us to emerge from our impromptu headquarters. There was no way around them; the stoop they stood on formed the only connecting path between each of the twenty-room towers in Scott Barracks. Our task was to deliver over one hundred cellophane-wrapped laundry packs and an equal number of dry-cleaning bundles to every room in the company. As the thermometer spiked in the sauna we had created, it became clear how difficult this first mission was going to be. Problem one: We didn’t have a roster of who lived in each room. Problem two: We were expected to know by sight the name of everyone in the company. Problem three: Any attempt to deliver a bundle had to be aborted if (a) you were stopped for a uniform infraction such as a smudged shoe, a misaligned belt buckle, or an imperfectly creased shirt tail; (b) you failed to recognize an upperclassman on sight; or (c) you were unable to instantaneously and correctly recite several dozen items of required knowledge.

  Two knocks on the door preceded Cadet Aram Donigian’s entrance into the room. A farm boy from rural Oregon, Donigian filled every square inch of his uniform with a wrestler’s build. His nose was a hawk’s beak, and his ears had the crumpled and puffy marks of cauliflower. He was the Company First Sergeant, the senior-ranking Cow in the company and the chief disciplinarian. Donigian was the bane of our Plebe existence.

  “What is taking you Plebes so long?” He said Plebes as if it were a dirty word.

  “No excuse, sir,” I volunteered.

  He lifted into the room a full-size cutout of John Wayne in The Green Berets. “This is ‘the Duke,’ Company D-4’s mascot. Whenever you see the Duke, I want you to salute him. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He left the room with his cardboard cutout. Another two knocks rapped on the door, and a Plebe called the room to attention.

  “Enter, sir.”

  An arm appeared and then the cutout of John Wayne.

  “Are you saluting the Duke?”

  Was he serious?

  Thirty salutes snapped at our mascot. “Yes, sir.”

  Yes.

  “Good.” He entered the room. “Carry on, Plebes. The laundry isn’t going to deliver itself.” He looked at my name tag. “Mullaney, I want to see you out here with laundry in exactly one minute.” He looked down at his stopwatch and began the timer.

  Ten Plebes began tucking, buffing, and adjusting my uniform as another Plebe counted off the seconds remaining. Cooperate and graduate.

  “Thirty seconds,” he called out as my heart pumped faster.

  “Someone tell me the days,” I pleaded urgently.

  “The Days” was one of our required knowledge items, an exact count of days remaining until the next football game, Christmas leave, graduation, and a half dozen other important dates on the cadet calendar. Given the newspaper headlines and mess hall menus we also had to memorize, every Plebe eventually gained the ability to “spec and dump,” studying rote knowledge and clearing the memory bank as soon as the knowledge became irrelevant. It was a useful skill in some circumstances but intellectually problematic for most. Right now it was a skill in high demand. Another Plebe shouted the numbers. Here goes nothing.

  Before I made three steps on the stoop, five cadets surrounded me and began yelling simultaneously, each infuriated by my inability to focus on their eyes. My brain began to shut down from sensory overload. Sweat dribbled down the inside of my shirt, the water I had been guzzling to stay vertical was about to burst through my bladder, and the blend of voices sounded to my ears as though someone were speaking in tongues. My lips mouthed my four possible responses in various combinations, but nothing satisfied the mob surrounding me. Then suddenly the door opened and a second Plebe emerged to draw fire from me. Then another and another—a swarm of Plebes trying to force safe passage for at least a couple of lucky ones. The strategy worked. One by one we built a multilayered picture of the company we had joined: names, rooms, favorite questions, and uniform pet peeves. During the four days we had before classes began that August, our company of Plebes persisted in a dozen similar missions, from surreptitiously delivering copies of the New York Times at dawn to running messages between Donigian and the battalion headquarters.

  It is funny how some of the stupid things we did as Plebes would come in handy later. Our battalion would use the same intelligence-gathering techniques in Afghanistan to piece together a better picture of our enemy. Even the simultaneous hazing by upperclassmen would
be useful in a firefight as a dozen different crises vied for my urgent attention. Most of the knowledge we memorized, on the other hand, was useless outside West Point’s walls. Knowing the number of lightbulbs in Cullum Hall or the names of the four Army mules was less relevant than the things we should have committed to memory, such as the range of a howitzer or the number of minutes you could expect to shoot a machine gun before its barrel melted.

  AS IF THE NORMAL trials of Plebe year weren’t enough, there remained my attempt to make the wrestling team. After making the first cut at the end of the summer, only one opponent stood between me and my goal of walking onto a Division I team: Trent, the Iowa wrestler who had clobbered me at first sight. We started every day with morning conditioning practice. Arriving just a few minutes early in the dark wrestling room, I would lie on the mat and close my eyes for the most peaceful moment of the entire day. At precisely 5:30 a.m. a pair of wrestling shoes creaked across the mat, flicked a dozen light switches, and turned on the stereo, always to the same song—Led Zeppelin’s “Black Dog.” And then the pain began. As Robert Plant belted his promise to make us sweat, to make us groove, to make it burn, and to make it sting, a six-foot, two-hundred-pound man we referred to as Satan followed through with our punishment. Trent was my partner. One morning we would run seven stories of stairs a dozen times. On another we would sprint on the indoor track, stopping to do pull-ups between laps. We would have to take turns running while carrying the other person’s weight in a fireman’s carry. After an hour and a half of hell, practice concluded with our bodies at total muscle failure. Eight hours later we returned to drill takedowns and thirty-second mini matches. I enjoyed this: Struggle for struggle’s sake, a principle my father respected without ever stepping on a mat. I fight, therefore I am.