Once More into the Breech
Jack O'Neil sat in the back row of the classroom and smiled at the young woman in the next chair. She smiled back showing straight white teeth and gave her long blond hair a toss. Teenage boy he was, Jack leaned toward her over the wooden writing panel on the desk and opened his mouth to speak.
"Jack!" a woman's raspy voice interrupted. "Why don't you answer the question for us?"
Jack leaned back.
"Ma'am?"
"Come up to the podium here and tell us what you've learned about the UN."
Jack grimaced and turned his head with a displeased look but rose and went to the front of the class.
Many of the other kids snickered.
Jack pulled his right foot up and slipped the shoe off it. Giving his teacher a sideways look he began pounding the sole of his shoe on the podium and bellowed "We will bury you!" over and over.
The class looked back in shocked silence.
"What?" Jack asked. "No one hear of Nikita Kruschev? Big fake shoe, used the UN for the bully pulpit it is for whacko governments to scream at the rest of us?"
The teacher looked at him oddly.
Jack shrugged and slipped his high top sneaker back on. "Hey, you told me to tell you what I learned…"
"War is stupid. There is never any reason for it and I think whoever fights in one should be put in prison or something."
"C'mon, Ashley, there are some things…" as he walked the school hallway towards his English class.
"Nothing is worth killing anybody for."
"Not even…"
"Nothing. And if you think anything is, you can't be any friend of mine. People are people and everybody hurts when they get hurt."
Jack snorted and looked away. Opening his shades with a flick, he slid them on. "You just don't get it."
"Get what?" Ashley turned toward him and stopped short, almost getting run over by two members of the football team.
"HEY!" one of the jocks bellowed, pushing around her. "Get the fuck out of the way!"
Ashley ignored them.
"You think everyone else will stop fighting if you do?" Jack said as he moved out of the way of the jocks, keeping an eye on them as he did.
"If they have no one to fight with, how can they fight?"
"Ya' think? No, you wish." Jack said looking away. "Two outcomes to not fighting—genocide or slavery—and I'm pretty sure you really wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of either one."
"Didn't you hear? They freed the slaves." She sneered.
"Here, maybe. Try checking out the third world sometime."
"The UN says…"
Jack straightened suddenly and handed her back her books. "You know, maybe you are right. Maybe I can't be your friend." She sullenly took the books. "You have no damn clue what's really going on out there and I am seriously not the man for the job."
He walked away and all she could do was watch him go.
Jack opened his apartment door and pitched his backpack towards the couch.
"I could really use a beer." He said to no one in particular and kicked the door shut with the side of his foot.
Walking to his fridge, he opened it and stood in the door with his arm resting on the top of the door. Three pizza boxes from different companies took up one entire shelf. Some wings, some leftover Chinese food in wax boxes, and a plate with something he thought might be pasta or something noodle-like inhabited the top shelf. Two mostly empty cans of whipped cream, a half gallon of milk, and his last two beers scored off an older buddy finished off the non-condiment fridge contents.
He stared at the two beers.
He sighed.
"Not even worth it. Can't even get a proper buzz off two measly…"
He slammed the door and faced the living room.
Television, VCR, Playstation 2, stereo, and a lava lamp sat on an inexpensive entertainment center along one wall. A couch, one end buried in unfolded laundry, sat on the facing wall. Only the pump-action Mossberg in the corner of the room marked this apartment as an adult's.
"I hate this. I can't even get a beer for myself."
Hands in pockets, Jack walked up to the recruiters' offices and looked at all four doors: Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines. Sighing aloud, he cocked his head and got a faraway look on his face.
"Again." He said and shook his head, then laughed. "Again."
He scanned the front windows of each, noting the huge amounts of college money being offered and noticing the two Navy recruiters in white uniforms sitting inside their office looking at him.
"Nope, no dice Squid-boys. Not that fond of mops and men." He glanced the Marine recruiters' direction and shook his head. "That leaves two."
Jack walked in to the office. Two rows of desks, one row of four along each wall, faced the door. Half were occupied and two of the recruiters were already talking to potential recruits. The other two, a black staff sergeant wearing an expert mechanic's badge and a Hispanic female sergeant were talking across the aisle. The female rose to greet him. "Can I help you?" she asked. Jack craned his neck to make out what who was sitting in the glass-front office in the rear of the room.
"I would like to talk to him." Jack pointed to the station chief in his office.
"Do you have an appointment?"
"No, but trust me, sergeant, he's going to be getting involved quite a bit before we're through."
"Well, let me try first."
Jack shrugged. "First, sergeant, I want one of those Special Forces initial entry contracts."
"There's no guarantee…"
"I'm quite aware of that, sergeant. Second, when you run my prints through the NCIC and DOD you're gonna' come back with a little problem. Third, you don't have the security clearance to handle my case."
"We'll just have to see about that." The sergeant said.
Jack chuckled and sat down at her desk.
"Let's see what you have already." The station chief said, taking the folder from a very frustrated female sergeant. A grizzled veteran wearing a small enameled badge on his dress shirt reading "Special Forces" next to a set of Master Parachutist Wings. He looked over the top of a pair of wire-framed reading glasses at Jack and paused. "Are you just being a pain to my NCO, son, or are you serious?"
"Quite serious, sergeant."
The NCO nodded. "You have a contact number?"
Jack handed over the card he kept in his wallet. The card that read "In the event the bearer cannot answer questions due to security reasons contact the duty officer at…"
The NCO dialed the first number on the card.
"Yes sir, my name is Sergeant First Class Peter C. Kelly and I'm an Army recruiter in Colorado Springs. I have a Jonathan O'Neill here who's attempting to enlist." The recruiter paused. "I'll hold, sir."
"There we go, son. You have an 18-x-ray contract with 11-bravo one-station unit training in Fort Benning followed by airborne school. Are you sure this is what you want?"
"Yes, sergeant, for reasons I can't begin to explain."
The recruiter laughed. "I have two sheets of paper vouching your background information and your security clearance countersigned by two separate Air Force Major Generals." He stapled the sheets into a folder and sat them on the desk. Interlacing his fingers, he rested his scarred hands on the folder and stared directly at Jack.
Jack, slouched in his chair, stared back.
"I'm not going to ask, son, but I have a feeling you have a good idea what you're getting yourself into. Do I need to suggest a training regimen for you?"
"No, sergeant."
"Good enough. The day after you get your GED, come see me and we'll get you back down to MEPS(1) to swear in and ship out."
"I'll see you in two months, Sergeant. Oh, and thank you."
"Don't mention it." The recruiter said grimly.
Jack leaned over the surplus store display case and caught sight of some old plastic handled M7 bayonets.
"Real Vietnam issue."
Jack looked up at the chubby shop keeper with a round face with a 'Do I look stupid?" look.
The shop keeper seemed blissfully ignorant of the look.
"Let me see them."
"Just one?"
"There are six there, I'd like to see them."
"Okay."
The man opened the back of the counter and laid them out like someone displaying jewelry.
Jack picked up the first, drew it out of its plastic sheath and put it back on the counter. He set each of the six out.
Four were almost new, the phosphate finish worn only where the sheath rubbed leaving the rest looking like very very fine sandpaper. The other two were worn almost shiny overall with bare metal along the back of the blade where the false edge lie.
He picked up each, hefted its weight in his right hand.
He set aside one of the blades and the shopkeeper reached for the others.
"Na-na-no!" Jack said and put his hand in the way.
He picked up one, hefted it, and with a flick of the wrist, spun it so his fingers pinched the sides of the blade. Then he flipped it back into his hand. He did it two or three times with each bayonet, setting aside two more.
"I'll take these three." Jack said, pointing at the survivors.
"Can I see some ID?"
Jack grimaced and reached for his wallet.
Jack carefully drilled holes into the grip material, saving the shavings, and poured melted lead fishing weights into the appropriate holes. Using epoxy and the shavings, he filled in the rest of the holes after some quick testing into a piece of plywood across the room to verify the trim on the blades.
He marked the three across the grip with one, two, or three small grooves and then began to practice.
Getting up for breakfast, he would let fly with one across the room between bites of Fruit Loops. While watching the news, he would get in a few throws then recover them when he got up on commercials. While studying, he tied a piece of fishing line to each so he could pull them back without getting up.
After a few weeks, they felt like he remembered they should in his right hand.
He started working left handed.
Eventually, they started to feel right, like the set he had before the Libyan mission in '75. Yet, on some level he understood that it was not the bayonets adjusting but the feel of them in these hands to the memory of hands that were no longer his.
"Hey pussy boy, get the fuck out of my way." A jock built like a pro linebacker growled and reached out with a pair of meaty arms.
Jack's head spun his way and the next moment the Jock was on the ground clutching his gut. Jack had dodged the boy's arms, caught the back of the jock's head with his hands and bent him into a knee driven up into the ribs, then spun out of the way as the bigger boy fell.
"I'm gonna' kill you!" the jock choked out and rolled onto his knees and then up, lunging into a charge Jack sidestepped except for a booted instep to the jock's shin.
The jock face planted onto the sidewalk, scraping his face and arms.
Still a huge athlete trained to endure punishment, the jock pushed up onto his knees and then feet. He turned to face Jack, a few feet away with hands out in a posture that read "I'm sorry".
The jock sneered and reached into a jeans pocket to produce a Spyderco knife with a long serrated edge.
"Hey! No need for that!" Jack said, watching the boy's hands.
"Fuck you!" the jock sprayed, blood tinged spittle erupting as he spoke.
Jack shrugged and stayed loose.
The jock lunged forward with one foot and a straight arm trying to spear Jack.
Jack caught the arm around the wrist with both hands and pulled, turning the lunge into another face plant without turning the wrist loose. Jack folded the boy's arm back towards his shoulder putting the knife right across his throat and held his arm there.
In spite of a huge physique, the jock could not force the knife in his own hand away from his throat. He could only stare out of the corners of his eyes at the blade.
Leaning close, Jack said "Get the point?"
"Yeah." The jock whispered.
Jack stood up and back, leaving the boy flat on the ground, knife still in hand.
The ring of students parted, letting a sheriff's deputy through, ASP baton in hand.
"Break it up! What's going on here?" Catching site of the knife, he drew his AirTaser and aimed at the jock. He looked sideways toward Jack.
Jack stood with his hands, empty and palm out, for the deputy to see and explained. "I'm just looking to tell a few friends good bye, Phil. I'm going to be gone a while."
Jack sat on the river's bank and tossed pebbles into the water.
It was here that Sam, Daniel, and Teal'c found him after he had woken up younger. Woken up not him.
He adopted it as a surrogate for his lake.
Today, he was alone.
He looked it over slowly, closed his eyes, and inhaled deeply of the cool mountain air.
Sighing, he dropped the last of the pebbles on the shore, stood, and brushed the seat of his jeans with his hands.
"Nothin' left to it but to do it." He said and walked the short distance to his '69 Camaro. He tossed his jacket on top of the OD green duffle bag on the back seat of the car. Got in, looked around one more time, and opened his shades with a flick of the wrist. Putting them on, he reached for the ignition switch in the dash with his key then turned it.
The engine rumbled to life and he put it in gear. Suddenly grinning, he opened it up and the fat rear tires screeched in protest as the tried to cope with the fresh new torque. Leaving tracks, the car fishtailed and headed for the I-25 northbound.
(1) MEPS – Military Entrance Processing Station. Where recruits receive their physicals, aptitude tests, initial records check, and get sworn in prior to the actual enlistment and shipping for training.