VI. Leader-Reaction
Fort Benning, Georgia.
February 11, 1984.
Getting processed through as an army recruit was a lot like moving through the lunch line at school – if the line was ten miles long and on fire, and all the lunch ladies were yelling at you to move faster. I spent most of my time being handed gear, filling out paperwork, getting vaccines for diseases I had never heard of, and getting measured and tested. I gave out my name over a hundred times, stated my new army ID number, and got shuffled from room to room with the same group of guys until almost midnight every night. We were woken before dawn, given a meager breakfast, and the lines started all over again. It went on for three days.
We were in the barracks, finally, sitting in a half-circle around McKinney, a bunch of wide-eyed boys with fresh-shaved hair, wearing camo pants and big, clunky boots.
McKinney looked like he was born to be a drill sergeant – tall and straight-backed, with a square head that complimented his haircut, and deep-set, beady black eyes. He wore the same uniform as us, but with extra patches on his shoulders and a hat coming halfway down his forehead, occasionally straightened to touch his sprawling ears equally. He spoke gruffly, in a deep voice devoid of any audible accent, looking at no one in particular but somehow managing to stare us all down. He tolerated nothing less of complete obedience.
When he gave out orders, there was no repetition, so everyone leaned in to make sure they got all of it the first time. None of us wanted to be the only one who had no idea what he was doing.
"You will be divided into five teams of seven soldiers each and you will participate in the leader-reaction course. In this course you will be expected to function as a team among your fellow soldiers to overcome an obstacle within the allotted time. The team that completes the objective first will be awarded an extra fifteen minute phone call tomorrow during free walk."
He drew artificial lines through the assembled recruits, diving us into five teams. I was joined with five I had never met, and two I had talked to a little during processing. One of them had been beside me on the bus when I left Miami – his first name was Bryan, but now he had a stamped badge on his chest that read 'Ford.' When the sergeant dismissed us, he turned to grin at me, mouthing something that got lost in the mass of stirring bodies.
We formed lines outside, almost robotically, and I realized some of our training had taken place in processing. We were fast to get in line now, and ready to jog to our next destination.
McKinney looked pleased with our display as he came out. He had his arms folded at his back, that hat perfectly straight, and his breath made a long line of steam as he whipped the lines into shape. "Five-to-five, straighten up. If I see another damn slouched shoulder…"
It was freezing outside, and the coldest I had ever been, but I stood patiently in line behind Ford and gazed across the base, wondering how far we would have to run to get to the training grounds. We had seen a map of the place briefly while we signed our paperwork, but it was too cold to remember anything. A biting wind surged through the ranks and I shut my eyes, shivering. It felt like the wind was slithering into my uniform, dancing on my skin.
"Alright, ladies, we are southbound. Break ranks and make your way. Olsen will be there to direct you to your station – announce your group when you see him."
It turned out the training fields were close to the barracks, and almost directly south of them. I followed a string of recruits on a quick jog across two streets, and one of the other drill sergeants, Olsen, came into view. People shouted their group numbers to him and he flagged his hand in one of five directions, indicating large, walled-off areas with more soldiers standing by them in full uniform, their hands folded neatly behind their backs, their eyes forward.
I rejoined Ford and the others at the second to last area, getting my first look at the setup.
It was early morning, just a few minutes after dawn, so everything was bathed in an extraordinary light – and the fifteen-foot-tall concrete wall in front of us was glittering with dew. On the ground by the wall were two sturdy wooden boards and a length of rope, coiled like a snake. I knew what they wanted us to do the moment I saw it, but the how was lost on me.
McKinney stood back a ways, so that everyone could see him from beyond their dividers, and shouted his orders. "This will be the first in a series of Leader Reaction courses. Your objective is to overcome the obstacle – and no, you are not permitted to walk around it."
His words got a few chuckles.
"You will each have a senior officer monitoring your progress, but they will not help you to advance. Once the first group has cleared their obstacle, the remaining groups will have five minutes to clear their obstacles. You will cycle through all five obstacles, and at the completion of this course, the team who finishes first the most will be rewarded fifteen minutes of phone time to be utilized on the next Sunday, or during the next free walk, whichever comes first."
His instructions were clear, and his words rang out in the quiet morning air. I listened and got the gist of it, but I was still trying to wrap my head around this wall. It was glorious, a mighty slab of concrete with a smooth texture, no handholds, and a strange set of supplies with which to climb it. It reminded me of when I was a kid, when Andre and I would scale buildings in the city.
A fog horn signaled the start of the competition.
Five of my teammates rushed forward, toying with supplies, and touching and tapping the wall, and I stayed back with one other recruit – Hart. He was shivering so hard that his teeth clacked together, but he had sweat stains already forming at the pits of his new gray T-shirt.
Our officer, Tully, came a little closer and leaned in to look Hart in the face, frowning, "You sick?"
Hart shook his head, crossing his arms, hard, and pressing his hands into his sides.
"Oh, I get it. Where are you from, recruit?"
"California."
Tully snorted, looking up at me, "You feeling homesick, too?"
"No, sir," I responded, a little quiver in my voice. "Just looking at his wall."
"How long you plan on standing there, just looking at it?"
"Until I figure out how to climb it, or how to use those boards and that rope."
He shrugged, stepping back to lean on the divider. His eyes slid to the others, who were tying the ropes ends to the boards, and trying to get it to stick on the other side of the wall.
"Sir," Ford said at one point, "Do all of us have to get over, or just one of us?"
"Think on that really hard."
Ford nodded, disappointed by the answer, and advised the others to stop trying to climb it. It was pointless if some of them were strong enough to run and grab the top, pulling themselves up. I was standing next to a guy who was sweating just standing still. Hart had to weigh the bare minimum. He looked like a skeleton in that uniform, and he lacked the muscle or the fat to keep himself warm. He also looked daunted by the wall, and he was a little on the short side. Everything added up against him and it made using sheer strength seem futile.
"We have to get Hart over the wall," I said, finally moving up with them. I tested the rope in my hand, deciding it could hold the weight of any of us, individually.
Another recruit, James, tried again to toss the tied board over the wall, to get it to stick to something on the other side so he could use it to pull himself up, but it just fell back over and bonked him in the head, giving Tully a good laugh.
"Hart, come here," Ford beckoned, patting the wall. "We're gonna hoist you up."
"That's no good," James said. "If we all hoist each other up-"
I could see where Ford was going, and I stepped in to hand one of the boards to Hart. It had the rope attached, with the other board tied at the end. "Hold onto this. Can anybody tie a really good knot? Fix the other end so it stays level when you hold the rope up like this…"
We worked for another minute or so, tying knots, and making sure Hart understood what he had to do. He was the lightest, after all, and the easiest for us to lift to the top of the wall.
He stood on our hands – me and Ford – and we hoisted him up. He got a leg over the top and scrambled to sit up, panting out steam, and his face was suddenly cast in shadow, because the sun was rising behind the wall. It was like we were fighting to get to the sunlight.
Hart sat nervously, sliding the rope down between his legs, and it began to tug. Ford and I were already holding James up, ready to put him on the board as soon as Hart provided the counterweight. He jumped suddenly, and we hoisted James, and he made it onto the board and got his arms on the other side, but then Hart hit the ground, the board James was standing on slipped from under him, and he was dangling by his arms on the wall. I grabbed a foot and tried to push him the rest of the way up, but the guy was heavy. Despite the cold, sweat broke on my forehead.
James slid back down our side of the wall, landing ungracefully in the grass.
"Okay, do me." I pulled the rope back down, holding the far board in my arms. Ford gave me a doubtful look, but one of the others joined him in hauling me up anyway.
I was not as light as Hart, but not as heavy as James, either. My only trouble was that I was unsure of my own upper body strength, and I struggled when I got my arms over the wall. I strained and scrabbled, and eventually got myself, panting, to the top.
I lay across it, looking down a moment at the other side – a plain patch of grass with the scrawny recruit Hart sitting shamefacedly by himself.
I repeated the process, sliding the wood down, turning on the concrete, and lowering myself so that my feet were planted on the board and the rope came up in front of me, went over the edge, and supported the board on the other side. I put all my strength and focus into my arms, keeping the board on the other side lower, and then put my weight down as the first guy climbed on.
It worked. One-by-one, regardless of their physical ability, we were able to teeter-totter all of the recruits to the top of the wall. For the short ones, or the weak ones, I brought the wood lower in the first place, and the another recruit helped me put weight on it to get him closer to the top, so he only had to shimmy over. Ford came last, pulling himself over without much help from me, and dropped with a soft thud. He and James grabbed my legs to help me down, so the board on the other side wouldn't fly over and knock me out.
As soon as my feet hit the ground, Tully blew his whistle.
I sat on my knees, letting the cold, dewy grass ease the tension in my legs. Tully came around, making sure we were all there, and blew his whistle again. He waved for us to come back to the other side, and we walked around this time.
McKinney came over, and Tully gave him a brief description of our contraption. He looked at his watch, nodded, and said, "Seven minutes. Excellent time." He stepped back, shouting, "First round goes to Group Four! You have five minutes to overcome your obstacles." He stepped back into their divider, and said, "You have five minutes, or until they all finish. But stay here."
Hart laid out in the grass, and James started trying to scale the wall on his own, convinced he needed help from no man. I sat against the barrier and kneaded my shoulders, surprised I had had the physical strength to hold myself up like that, and then a little proud. Ford sat with me, doing his best impression of a dead body, falling into a deeper and deeper slouch until time was up.
It turned out each obstacle was a test of teamwork, and as we progressed, my group became more cohesive. Our second obstacle was a stretch of water, with concrete slabs on either side, and we had two fifty-pound barrels of water, two long, flimsy boards, and some rope with which to get them across. We went swimming several times, but learned to plan better while we stood bouncing, freezing from head-to-toe. We came up second in that one. We bested the others in the next two obstacles, and failed miserably at the fifth, almost getting time called on us.
Even when we had cycled through all of them, McKinney switched up the materials provided for some of them and sent the struggling groups back through. We returned to the dreaded moat, and McKinney hovered, instructing us on weight distribution and posing questions about our methods.
When it was over, and half of Echo Company was soaking wet and miserable, he ordered us back to the barracks, briefly, to change into dry uniforms, and then to return for physical training.
Running was easy for me. I enjoyed the jogging, thrived on the rush of adrenaline it gave me, on the lovely, aching sensation in my calves. But I hated suicides. McKinney had us all stand on a white line, about twenty feet from another white line, and run to it, ducking down, tapping the line with our hands, and dashing back as fast as we could. It burned the first time, and every time after that, working my thighs, my arms, and my back in alien ways. Some of the recruits fell far behind in the count and we were all forced to keep going until they had completed their sets – but we weren't allowed to slow down at all. I found myself cheering for Hart, breathless, as he made it to the line the last time. McKinney blew the whistle and everyone collapsed.
We exercised long into the afternoon, until every muscle ached and my ears were ringing from the persistent cold. The sweat on my body turned against me, making the wind much harsher, making me feel like there was ice on my forehead.
At five, we hit the showers, a crowded, noisy, smelly affair, and then the mess hall, where I shoveled food down my throat without caring what it tasted like or where it came from. We were given three hours of free time, from six to nine, and I spent it sitting in my bunk, stretching my arms meticulously from side to side.
All of the beds were identical, steel bunkbeds with dark sheets, each with a locked closet built into the wall next to it. The floor was smooth, light-colored tile, and the ceiling was dotted with soft fluorescent lights. It was a big room, with lots of open space, but it was strangely warm. Recruits lounged in their bunks, talked excitedly to one another, or dug through their backpacks, lamenting how little they had to do in their free time.
He had been chattering all day, but for once Ford was quiet. He sat up on his bunk, the one next to mine, and read silently from a small, well-worn paperback book.
Everything became strangely peaceful around eight. We had all been up very early for training, and spent the whole day running around, so a lot of the recruits turned in early. I watched them go, one at a time, and let my own exhaustion sink it. It felt good, like I had accomplished something.
McKinney came in at nine, announced lights out, and shut the overhead lights off.
It was easy to sleep despite my throbbing shoulders, the pinching pain in my back, and the constant knowledge that I was in an alien place – I was over a hundred miles away from dad, away from those hooded red eyes, away from my responsibilities at home.
It was the first glimpse of real peace I ever had.