Saturday, July 28, 2012
Marine Detachment
Defense Information School
Fort Meade, Maryland
Private First Class Lennox coughed as he walked down the 2nd deck hallway in his barracks. He had been sick the past three days and needed some rest. Actually, what he needed to do was his laundry and iron his Service uniform but that could wait a little longer. Right now, he wanted to write.
"Sup?" Lennox asked another Marine, this one wearing civilian clothes. Pvt. Jeremy.
"How's it going?" Jeremy responded.
"That's not an answer," Lennox said, not stopping the trudge to his room.
"Whatever."
A door swung open to Lennox's left and a Lance Corporal walked out backwards, caught up in the conversation with his roommate. He bumped into Lennox and then spun around, breathing a quiet apology.
"Not a problem, Lance Corporal," Lennox replied. He hadn't seen the face before, looked down at the name tape on his desert cammies. 'Castle.' Odd name, although then he thought it wasn't any stranger than 'Zappa' or 'Nolasco' or even 'Lennox.' "You just get back from the Fleet, Lance Corporal?"
"No, MCT. I had some college credits that worked in my favor," Castle said. "You a 43 or 46?"
"43."
"Nice! Feed the bird!" Castle stuck his hand out – palm up, fingertips together. Lennox looked down questioningly then raised an eyebrow. "Nevermind, then."
"You choose this?" Lennox asked as Castle lowered his hand.
"What do you mean?"
"We've got guys who got dropped from Recon, Fire and Rescue, all sorts of shit. Me personally, I chose this MOS, I was wondering if you did too, Lance Corporal."
Castle narrowed his eyes. "Why wouldn't I have?"
"No clue. Why wouldn't you have?" Lennox asked as if there was something he should know.
A realization suddenly dawned on Castle. "You've never heard of me, have you?"
"Should I have?" Now Lennox was confused.
Castle shook his head and smirked. "Richard Castle, the journalist."
It was Lennox's turn to shake his head. "Nah, I've never been big on the journalists."
"And yet you're going to be one?" Castle was completely puzzled. Most of the other Marines he'd met since he arrived the day before had heard of him and read his work.
Lennox coughed again. "Sorry," he said, apologizing for the coughing. He sniffled and continued: "That's the plan anyway. When did you get here, if you don't mind me asking?"
"Yesterday at around zero-nine."
"Ah, I was helping the Gunnery Sergeant, that's why I haven't seen you befo- Wait." Lennox narrowed his eyes, but he wasn't sure if it was because he was thinking or because he had to sneeze. "Oh, nevermind, we didn't have PT this morning."
"Yeah," Castle really had no idea what Lennox was talking about, but he decided just to roll with it.
"What squad are you in?" Lennox asked. "Do you know?" Castle shook his head. "You said 'college,' right?" Castle nodded. "How old are you?"
"Turned 29 in boot camp," Castle replied.
Lennox smiled. "Definitely 4th Squad." When Castle seemed not to understand, Lennox explained, "4th Squad is the Old Squad."
"How old are you?" Castle asked with a smile. "'Cause you look-"
"-like I'm twelve?"
"I was gonna say 14."
"Yeah, most people do," Lennox sighed. "I'm twenty."
"The fuck?"
"At least when I'm 50, people will think I'm 30." Lennox shrugged and smiled a little. Castle laughed. Lennox frowned. "Unfortunately, I'll be carded until then."
"I wouldn't worry about it." Castle said, patting Lennox's shoulder.
A voice from down the hall interrupted their conversation, not that it would have lasted much longer anyway. "Get outside your hatches!"
Lennox pulled back the sleeve of his track suit from his watch. 2356. It was a little late; normally they had to be out at 15 til. "Well, Lance Corporal, I guess I'll see you around." Castle smiled and nodded.
"Get in formation downstairs!" that same voice called, met by groans of Marines who would rather stand at their rooms for three minutes and then hit the rack.
"Or that," Lennox said, sniffling again and then coughing. "Fuck my life."
"Yeah, you do look like hell," Castle said, sympathetically.
Lennox glanced sideways to the L/Cpl. as they began walking down the hall in the direction Lennox had come from. "Fuck that shit, I don't give a damn how I look, I feel like shit."
Once downstairs, Lennox and Castle moved to the back of the formation, 4th Squad. After the detachment was formed, the Guide called 'at ease' and the Duty NCO began calling names. Castle's wasn't on the list, he was still too new. Lennox remembered when that was him. "Here!" Lennox tried to shout when his name was called, but he was too sick and it came out as a quiet rasp.
"I don't have anything," the Guide said, then turned to the DNCO and asked, "do you have anything?"
The DNCO, Cpl. Harrow, nodded. "PFC Michaels, what was it you had?"
"The second Batman movie, Corporal," Michaels answered.
"Alright," Harrow began. "I don't have a problem with you guys in the TV room watching the movie, but if we're going to be stupid, I'm going to secure it. Also," he said, turning to the formation. "The smoking deck is disgusting; there are cigarette butts… just… all over the place. Someone needs to clean that shit up or I will secure that as well."
"Aye, Corporal!" the entire room shouted, followed by enthusiastic 'I'll clean its.' Smoking was taken very seriously by the smokers.
"I don't have anything else," Harrow told the Guide.
"Do you have anything for me?" Guide asked the formation. Silence. "Nothing? Detachment, atten-hut!" The Marines snapped to attention. "When given the command, carry out the plan of the evening. Fall out!"
"Rah!"
"Kill!"
"Fourth Squad or die!" Someone shouted.
"Rah!" Lennox returned.
Castle turned to Lennox. "Hey, man, I'm gonna go watch Batman."
"Good to go," Lennox replied. "I'm gonna go write, chat with someone, and then pass out on my rack."
"Alright, nice to meet you, Lennox."
"Same here, Lance Corporal."
Castle followed the crowd into the TV room and took an open seat in the front row of recliners and sofas. He loved Batman, but he missed his daughter and as ashamed as he was to admit it, he missed his mother as well. And then he missed the girl he met at MCT that he never spoke to. She always looked sad, but he never tried to cheer her up because she always bit the head off anyone else who tried.
What was her name? He knew that he stared at her nametape long enough; he should be able to remember it. Beckham? Beckett? That sounded right. Lance Corporal Beckett. He never found out where she was from or what her MOS was. She was a rarity in the Corps – someone who had made it through boot camp and MCT without any friends. It took a certain kind of special to do that and a certain kind of stupid – not that he thought she was stupid; she had aced all the tests, after all.
What would the next day bring? That's what he had to think about. The next day.
The next day was mostly uneventful. Castle sat in the Marines Awaiting Training day room on his laptop typing and made some phone calls home. He saw Lennox in line at afternoon chow and was going to say something but instead got caught up in a conversation with a sailor about… something. He wasn't really paying attention.
Fifteen minutes before the 2000 formation, Castle walked into to TV room, 4th Squad's meeting place. Lennox was playing Mario Kart with L/Cpl. Holmes and PFC Giorgio on the Nintendo. Holmes had already won and although Lennox had spent the entire race in third, he had somehow made a comeback thanks only to Giorgio's stupidity at the end of the race.
"Lennox or die!" Holmes shouted as Lennox passed the finish line second. Castle quirked an eyebrow. Holmes stood and greeted Castle, then asked him to say something about himself, this being his first night officially in 4th Squad. Of course, Lennox was really the only one there who hadn't already known who he was.
After formation, Lennox once again disappeared into his room, and Castle once again headed back to the TV room. After texting everyone at home, he slid his phone into a pocket and delved back into the world of racing Italians and mushrooms.
"Fuck that," Corporal Bale said as she entered the room minutes later.
"What, Corporal?" Holmes asked, eyes still glued to the TV.
"We've got a motivated three-mile run in the morning," she answered.
"That's gonna suck ass!" Fidel whined.
"Not a problem," Holmes said confidently. "We've got a motivated Lennox."
"Lennox or die!" Bale erupted.
Castle raised an eyebrow. "I don't get it, what's so special about Lennox?"
Holmes dropped his controller and stood up, quickly falling into last place. He didn't care. Fists clenched, he marched over to Castle and clenched his jaw. "Lennox or die," he whispered. He turned away and saw the screen. "Son of a bitch! You distracted me, Castle."
"That was my plan the whole time?" Castle was completely lost. What the fuck was so special about Lennox?
"Good job on the cadences, Lennox," Bale said as the sweaty MARDET walked back into the barracks. For two months, it had gone without saying. The other Marines would just smile and nod as Lennox walked by. He was, at least in the opinions of the students, the only private who was good at calling cadence, and most of the other non-fleet returnees were so nervous when they called, they stumbled over the words or couldn't think of a cadence to call.
This morning's cadences from Lennox had motivated the shit out of the detachment, but fuck did his legs hurt and was he hungry… but fuck did he have to throw up. And he expressed this to the corporal before pushing his way through the rabble and running up the stairs.
Bale and Castle looked at each other with a mixture of horror and amusement. "Well, he was certainly motivated," Castle chuckled.
"Lennox or die!" Holmes called from the rear.
"I think he might be doing both right now," Castle said, half-turning to Holmes.
Holmes narrowed his eyes and nodded slowly in quiet understanding. Well, it was Lennox's last day and he'd been sick for a few days. It was probably just nerves, he'd be fine in a few minutes.
"Who's forming?" the Guide asked, pacing in front of the formation. A hand raised. "Giorgio, good. Marching?" It took longer, but eventually, another arm went up. "Vega, good. Moto?" Lennox's hand shot straight up into the air. "Roger that."
The formation dismissed to reform outside to march to the school. Castle and Lennox stood next to each other in the back end of the formation and waited for the march to begin.
"PFC Vega, center!" Giorgio shouted. Vega marched out in front of the formation, made a right face, then left face, then two more quick rights. Giorgio and Vega saluted each other and exchanged words that Castle couldn't hear. Giorgio marched to the rear of the formation and waited with the rest.
"Detachment!" Vega called. "Right! FACE!"
The formation marched to the main building to Vega's cadence. Not quite as motivating as Lennox's running cadences, but it was pretty good. The formation halted in front of DINFOS and made a left face.
"PFC Lennox, cen-TER!" Vega shouted. Lennox performed the same action Vega had before the march over. There were more silent words and Vega retired to the back of the formation.
Lennox took a deep breath. "Good morning, Marines!" he bellowed.
"Good morning, PFC Lennox!" the formation blasted back.
"Blood!"
"Makes the grass grow!"
"Marines!"
"Make the blood flow!"
"My Corps!"
"Your Corps!"
"United States!"
"Marine Corps!"
"Oorah!"
"Oorah!"
Lennox took another deep breath and began a loud shout that lasted until he needed another breath, then he repeated before barking like a "Devil Dog." The rest of the Marines did as he did.
"Babies! Oorah!" There was a smile behind Lennox's eyes that Castle noted as very mischievous.
"Oorah!"
"We're gonna make 'em! Oorah!"
"Oorah!"
"Because that's what we do! Oorah!"
"Oorah!"
"Good morning, Marines! Oorah!"
"Oorah!"
"This is a very special day! Oorah!"
"Oorah!"
"This is my last day! Oorah!"
"Oorah!"
"I'm going to Italy! Oorah!"
"Oorah!"
"It's been a pleasure, Marines! Fall out!"!
"Kill!"
Castle looked around at the dispersing Marines. He had no clue what he was supposed to be doing. About half were forming up, facing south, half were walking toward the front hatches, and the rest were lazily walking off the road in the same general direction.
"Lance Corporal!" Castle's head darted over to the source of the raspy voice. Lennox was jogging over to him. "You're a MAT, right?"
"A what?" Castle raised an eyebrow.
"Marine awaiting training."
"Oh, yeah," Castle said, rubbing his hands together. "What do we do now?"
Lennox smiled. "Come on, follow me." Castle nodded and followed as Lennox started back to the barracks.
It was 1300 and no one was doing much of anything. Castle and Lennox were sitting on opposite ends of the TV room with their laptops up. "What the hell?" Castle heard Lennox say. "What is 'the coming Storm?'"
Castle thought for a moment, trying to remember why that sounded so familiar. "Oh!" he said when it came to him. "That's my wi-fi network."
Lennox's eyes widened. "You've got wi-fi?"
"Yeah, I've got a hotspot on my phone," Castle said nonchalantly. He was too deep in thought, staring at a picture on his phone to really pay attention to Lennox. "Why? You want on?"
"If you don't mind, Lance Corporal."
"Sure, go ahead, the password is 'stormfall,' one word."
"Where do you get these?" Lennox asked, quickly typing the letters into the password box.
"Get what?" Castle asked dryly.
"Your pass-" Lennox looked up, curious about what was distracting Castle so much. He looked so concerned and deep in thought that it worried Lennox a little. "What's her name?" Lennox asked.
"Hmm?"
"The girl you're thinking about." Lennox stood and walked across the room to the other Marine. He tried to see what was on Castle's phone, but Castle put it to sleep and dropped it back in his pocket. "It's either a girl or family member, who is it?"
"She's a Marine who was in my platoon at MCT – at least, half of the time." Castle lowered his eyes sadly. "She always seemed so sad – never smiled or talked to anyone unless she had to."
Lennox smiled a little. "What was her name?"
"Beckett," Castle said, certain he remembered the name.
Lennox furrowed his brow. "East Coast or West?" he asked with a sense of… urgency? Curiosity?
"East."
"Lance Corporal Beckett?" Lennox asked. Castle looked up at him. "Dropped for pneumonia?"
"How did you-" Castle had no need to finish the question.
"Lima Company," Lennox answered. "But that's not the Lance Corporal Beckett I know."
Castle sat up straight and motioned for Lennox to sit down. "What do you mean? She actually said something?"
"Not at first, no." Lennox sat down on the arm of Castle's chair. "When I got there, she'd just cry or sit silently in the back." Castle shifted uncomfortably. "No one knew why because she never told anyone. It was Sgt. Lo who told us what had happened."
"All I know about was pneumonia, it didn't seem that bad," Castle said matter-of-factly.
Lennox shook his head. "Sgt. Lo told us that she had almost died because of it. I mean, who the fuck could relate?"
"Not a lot of people," Castle said, closing his eyes and shaking his head.
But Lennox smirked. "I could." Castle's head shot back up. "So I sat down and we talked – well, I talked and she sat silently, but she listened." Lennox regarded Castle, he was listening so intently, trying to take in everything he could about this female Marine who had captured his imagination weeks ago. "You remember the 20 K hike?" Castle nodded. "Heat stroke. 108.6."
Castle whistled. "Did she say anything? You know, when you told her you almost died? I'm assuming you did, anyway." Lennox nodded, but Castle understood that he was nodding about almost dying. "Well?"
"Yes, she said something."
Come on! "Well what was it?"
"'I want to go home.'"
The Lance Corporal cleared his throat. "Did she?" he asked, shifting again.
"Nope, she left the day before I did, off to MOS school."
"What's her job?" Castle asked, suddenly excited again.
Lennox shrugged. "Dunno. Didn't ask, didn't tell." They both smiled a little then Lennox narrowed his eyes. "Wait a second, if you just got here, how could you have been in her platoon, I've been here for three months?"
Castle's turn to shrug. "They said school was backed up here so they put me on recruiter's assistance for three months."
"Makes sense," Lennox said, nodding.
"But what doesn't," Castle picked up. "Is that you said they sounded like different people, what you described doesn't sound that much different."
"Like I said, at first. The next day I said hey and she said hey. Then we both said a sentence, and pretty soon we had conversations going."
"You know," Castle said in a low voice. "That's kinda cute." He smirked, mocking Lennox.
"And a motivated oorah!" Lennox wasn't going to take the bait, he'd roll with it. He rubbed the back of his head, the stubble scraping on his palm as it moved against the grain of his hair. "Anyway, after we started talking - boot camp stories and shit, you know? – well, she started smiling and then started laughing."
Yep, Castle thought. I'm a little bit jealous. "So do you know why she was so… I don't wanna say depressed… at MCT?"
"Wouldn't get into it with me," Lennox replied.
Castle's phone rang. "Hey, sweetie," he answered. Lennox stood up, feeling like an intruder in the clearly personal phone call. "I'm just sitting here with one of my friends, his name's Lennox. No, pumpkin, that's not one of the animals that jumps of a cliff… wait. Where did you hear that?"
Lennox's eyes widened and his mouth drew into something that was half frown, half disgusted smile. "Disney," he whispered.
Castle nodded, telling Lennox he already knew about Disney and their lemmings. "Alright, tell you what, you put Gram on and I'll tell her to let you have a cookie." Suddenly, the smile dropped of Castle's face. "What do you mean you already had one? I fail to see the relevance." Slowly, the smile came back. "Alright, love you pumpkin, can you put Gram on now?"
Castle rolled his eyes and Lennox continued to watch, highly amused. "Are you making her mature like that, Mother? I don't care, I want a cookie but I can't have one right now, so I'm trying to live through my daughter. Is that so wrong?"
Lennox quirked a smile and pointed toward the kitchen area. 'Vending machine,' he mouthed. Castle's eyes opened wide. "Never mind," he said into the phone. "We've got cookies here."
"Fuck yeah, we do!" Lennox said, a little too enthusiastically.
Castle's face straightened. "That was just another Marine, Mother… yes, they all swear. Yes, I do too. Alright… I love you, bye." Castle glared at Lennox, who stood there embarrassed.
"Sorry," Lennox apologized. "That happened to me the first time I Skyped with my parents. So, I know how you feel."
Castle nodded and stood. "You mentioned a vending machine…"
The two Marines stood there, staring at the vending machine. It was mocking them. "Nope," Lennox said after a beat. "No one else has change for a five, either."
"Fuck."