Spare Parts

by Buzz Williams

  What would I say? I didn’t even remember how to speak in the first person. Should I tell how proud I was that I could now kill a man with a bayonet? Should I tell them how the heel of my boot could drive the bones in the enemy’s septum through the frontal lobe of his brain, killing him instantly? Should I explain that I had earned this phone call by being the best killer?

  “This is the operator. How may I help you?”

  It was strange hearing a woman’s voice. “Good afternoon, ma’am.” Guarded, as I had been for months, I hesitated to speak.

  Was it a base operator? Civilian? “I request permission to make a collect call to Ms. Mary Jane Williams.”

  “Your name, sir?”

  “Recruit Williams, ma’am—make it, Buzz, ma’am.”

  “And the number you wish to call, sir?”

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  The number? I knew my combination lock number, and my social security number, and my rifle serial number, and dozens of other numbers that had been branded into my memory—but I couldn’t remember my own phone number.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am . . . I just need a minute.” Home seemed so far away and so long ago. Once I got the first digits, the remaining four came easily. The phone rang once . . . twice . . . again, and again.

  My mother wasn’t picking up.

  Finally the operator interrupted. “There is no answer, sir. Would you like to try another number?”

  It was nice being called “sir” for a change. “Yes, ma’am. This number is for Gina.”

  The thought of speaking with Gina rattled my nerves. Although she had promised to be faithful while I was away, and had written to me daily, I was still insecure. I, too, wrote to her daily, hoping that she would still be interested in me when I returned, whoever “I”

  might be at that point. Gina answered on the second ring.

  “Hello.”

  It was unreal to hear her voice.

  “This is the operator. Will you accept the charges for a collect call for Gina from . . . your name again, sir?”

  “Gina Marie, it’s Buzz,” I announced impatiently.

  “Oh, my God! Buzz?”

  “Do you accept—”

  Gina cut off the operator, “Yes! Yes! I accept!”

  “Buzz?”

  “I’m here” was all I could say.

  “How are you? Where are you? When are you coming home?”

  I tried to talk like the person she remembered. “I’m OK. I only get one call, and I tried Mom, but she wasn’t home. Would you tell her I tried?”

  “You sound funny. Are you sure you’re OK?”

  Silence. Neither of us knew what to say.

  Suddenly I froze at the sight of a strange drill instructor approaching me. I could hear Gina’s voice. “Buzz? Are you there?”

  but I put the phone down as he approached. The drill instructor S P A R E P A R T S

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  stood in the threshold of the booth, hands on his hips, eyes burning holes into mine like a magnifying glass focusing the sun’s rays.

  Then he leaned into my face and let loose with a scream that vibrated the glass in the booth.

  “Just what in hell do you think you are doing?”

  I snapped to the position of attention, stretching the phone cord to its limits. I could still hear Gina’s voice in the handset by my thigh, but I did not dare answer her.

  “Sir, the recruit has a chit for a phone call, sir.”

  He snatched the chit from my hand. After he reviewed it he asked, “Did you make a phone call?”

  The son of a bitch, I thought. Gritting my teeth I responded, “Sir, yes, sir.”

  “You’re done! Get off.”

  “Aye, sir!”

  Trembling at the hand and voice, I lifted the handset to my ear.

  There was so much to say, and no time for any of it.

  “Gina Marie?”

  “Buzz, What is going on? Are you sure—”

  Knowing that she didn’t understand my predicament made matters worse. Would she think I no longer cared for her? “I can’t talk any more. My time’s up.”

  “But we didn’t get to talk yet.”

  The drill instructor was inside the booth now. “You got about a heartbeat to get off the friggin’ phone, boy.”

  “I have to go now. I’ll write tonight. Bye.”

  The last thing I heard her say was “I love you,” before the phone was ripped from my ear. Never had I ended a phone call with Gina without telling her I loved her. I regretted not telling her, despite the drill instructor in my face. What could he have done to me that hadn’t already been done?

  As I attempted to scurry away he held on to my sleeve and spun me around to face him.

  “You owe me a thank-you,” he said.

  I stared back blankly.

  “She’s fucking your best friend. You just don’t know it yet.”

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  Snapping to the position of attention, I pulled my arm down to my side and out of his grasp. I forced the words out, “Sir, thank you, sir,” then quickly about-faced and double-timed back to the barracks.

  Afterward I thought that a phone call was the worst possible way to reward recruits. It had been an emotional detour that I really didn’t need. I couldn’t get Gina’s voice out of my head. It kept reminding me of the person I had become at Parris Island.

  After morning chow the next day, just as Drill Instructor Sgt. Talley had explained, I boarded a five-ton truck at 0700 hours for duty in the base laundry facility. We were told that the truck would transport us back to the barracks at 1900 hours and were instructed to report to the drill instructor’s office upon our return.

  Upon entering the laundry facility we were greeted by an old man in civilian clothes. He introduced himself as Charlie, and we learned that each day a small group of recruits from a different platoon are tasked with laundering recruit uniforms.

  “In the old days,” he explained, “recruits would spend hours cleaning their own uniforms—by hand! These days, recruits can spend their time training while only a handful of recruits run the machines. The machines do all the hard work!”

  Charlie was amused when I explained how Drill Instructor Sgt.

  Talley had made a game out of bagging our laundry. Back at the barracks, we were required to count aloud as we stuffed each garment into the giant mesh bags. All the while though, Drill Instructor Sgt. Talley hovered over the bags, leaned into our faces, and screamed out random numbers to confuse us. Then, when our final clothing counts were wrong, he would punish us in the pit for being too stupid to count correctly. Sometimes it took us all afternoon to fill our laundry bags.

  Charlie explained the procedures for each of our stations in the assembly-line laundering process. I was positioned at the drying station, where I put giant carts the size of commercial Dumpsters in S P A R E P A R T S

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  front of the dryer door. At the end of its cycle the dryer would tilt forward using hydraulics, and eject the bags of dry clothing into the carts. I would then push the cart to the next recruit’s station, where he would sort the bags for shipping by platoon. Because of the drying time, my station afforded me the most “idle time” of the bunch, and Charlie spent a good part of the day talking with me. By the end of the day I would think of Charlie as the Laundry Sage.

  “So what’s your name?” asked Charlie.

  “Sir, the recruit’s name is—”

  “No,” Charlie interrupted, “I’m not a drill instructor. Hell, I’ve been retired for twenty years, young man. Just talk to me like you do back on the block.”

  There was silence from me.

  Charlie laughed. “I know you think I’m fucking with you. I’m for real. There aren’t any drill instructors hiding around the corner to punish you for talking to me.”

  The whole exchange reminded me of the time I found a wild dog running the streets back home. He visited occ
asionally, waiting under my dad’s Chevy pickup truck. Every time I tried to pat his fur he would back away and posture in a defensive crouch. I didn’t know how to communicate that I wouldn’t hurt him. He just didn’t trust people, period. The closest I ever got to him was an arm’s length. That was when he was busy eating food that I brought him.

  Charlie interrupted my memory, offering me a Baby Ruth candy bar. “I bet it has been a while since you had one, huh?”

  “Yes, sir.” I took it but held him at an arm’s length.

  As I chewed, Charlie took advantage of the silence.

  “It’s amazing to me how you boys all come in here the same way, day after day . . . spouting off to me like I’m gonna send you to the pit if you fuck something up. I get paid to run a laundry shop, not to train recruits. It’s a hell of a lot nicer to work here if you just drop the recruit act.”

  I shot a pissed-off look his way.

  He disarmed me with a chuckle. “Well, go ahead and say what’s on your mind.”

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  Again, there was silence from me.

  “Let me guess. You didn’t like that I used the word act, right? You might be one of them hardheads that would rather keep his head in the sand about the truth. Life on the Island could be a lot different for you if you understood.”

  As he walked away he added, “By the way, you’re welcome for the candy bar.”

  I sat and listened to the hypnotic rattle and hum of the dryer and wondered what Charlie meant by “the truth.” I thought I understood what was happening on the Island. I had entered into a contract when I hit the yellow footprints. The drill instructors agreed to provide emotional and physical stress. We agreed to take it. The payoff for the drill instructors was the satanic pleasure of making life hellish for recruits. The payoff for recruits was the hatred that fueled a desire to kill that would make a man into a Marine. What more was there to understand? That old man, I thought to myself, has been out of the Corps too long.

  At midmorning Charlie passed by, checking on my progress. As he passed, my guilt from my past absence of manners kicked in.

  Just slightly louder than the dryer noise, I called out, “Mr. Charlie.”

  He stopped and turned around.

  “Thanks for the candy bar.”

  I wanted him to stay, but he simply acknowledged me with a nod and kept on his way. Months had passed since I’d been able to have a normal conversation with anyone on the Island, and I really did want to hear what he had to say.

  At 1200 hours Charlie brought me my brown-bag lunch. He had a lunch, too, and he sat down on an empty crate beside me. I prepared myself for more awkward tension. As I opened my bag he began to tell me a story. Years later, in college, I would learn that Charlie’s story was a version of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. This is how I remember him telling it:

  “There were four people, imprisoned since childhood, who lived in a cave below the ground. Their bodies were chained so that they could only look at a blank wall straight in front. There was a fire at a disS P A R E P A R T S

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  tance behind them, and a low parapet between the fire and the prisoners backs. Behind the parapet were puppeteers who moved statue figures along its top and spoke in echoed voices. Reality for the prisoners was limited to the shadows of the puppets on the wall before them and the echoes that they heard from a distance. One day the prisoners were released and left free to explore the world of the cave. One was prompted by an instructor to examine the fire. Along the way he observed the parapet and was asked to identify the statues that he had known formerly only as shadows. And the instructor then dragged the reluctant caveman up a steep ascent to the mouth of the cave and forced him to look at the brightness of the sun. The caveman’s eyes were irritated and he was confused. Just as his eyes grew accustomed to the brightness, his mind grew accustomed to the realities that existed beyond the shadow world—and he was enlightened. He was different.”

  I thought I understood the message of the story.

  “I’m wondering what you meant earlier when you said I need to understand the Island,” I said.

  “Son, I have spent my entire adult life in the Marine Corps. I served in Korea and Vietnam. I understand what happens when boys go to war. And I understand how to prepare boys to go to war.

  I was a drill instructor in 1975 just after my tour in Vietnam.”

  Jesus, I thought. He was a drill instructor when Lenny was in boot camp here. He had my full attention now.

  “What is the worst thing the drill instructors have done to you?”

  he asked.

  I immediately flashed back to our forming night. There was so much to choose from.

  “We were forced to drink water until we puked, and then we exercised in it.”

  “And why was that so bad?” he asked.

  “It seems like abuse, not training. Our drill instructor knew that we could not hold three canteens of water. And then to make us exercise in it . . .”

  “You’re still wearing your chains, I see,” he responded, taking another bite of his sandwich.

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  After he finished chewing he added, “Everything your drill instructors do for you and to you has a purpose. More than that, every minute of the day is calculated and planned on a training schedule. Drill instructors follow very specific objectives, and are held accountable by the series commander for everything they do—

  everything.”

  “So you are telling me that drinking until we puked was on the training schedule.”

  “Every drill instructor on the Island understands the physiology of dehydration, and they are trained on techniques for increasing your body’s ability to use water.”

  I gave a blank stare.

  “By the time you leave this Island, your body will be accustomed to consuming three gallons of water per day. Most of the military hot spots in the world are in jungle or desert climates. If you dehydrate, you can’t fight. And isn’t that why you are training?”

  It was taking me a while to process the logic. “OK. What about the vomit?”

  “Know what happens when you get seasick?”

  “I get nausea, but I don’t get seasick.”

  “Then you’ve never been on a troop carrier making a beach landing. Inside, a squad of Marines sits shoulder to shoulder—all squeezed together in a floating metal box. When that thing hits the waves, Marines will start to puke their guts up. If the waves don’t get to you, the vomit in your lap will. Dealing with stench is just the beginning of being ready for combat. Your drill instructors are giving you the tools you will need to survive. It would help you to graduate if you started thinking of the drill instructors as doing things for you instead of to you.”

  This was not the kind of information that I could digest and accept without a great deal of reflection. I just sat and thought about our training schedule, the endless games, the rote drills, and the mindless repetition. Were there reasons for it all? Did the tasks lead us to accomplish objectives?

  “What about sitting on the deck for hours of classes instead of using chairs?” I asked.

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  “Did you sit in a chair on the rifle range?”

  “No.”

  “The cross-legged position used for classes helps to prepare your legs and trunk for the muscle tone and control necessary to make a steady firing platform for your rifle.”

  “They tell us we need our sleep, and then wake us up to play games in the middle of the night.”

  “Do you think the enemy sleeps when you sleep? Nobody gets regular sleep in combat.”

  “What about digging us in the pit for punishment?”

  “You say punishment, we say conditioning. There are no showers in the field. You get filthy, and you live with it. Physical comfort is a commodity that you need to learn to live without.”

  Our dialogue continued
throughout the afternoon. It was fascinating to hear the rationale that placed my experiences on the continuum between torture and training. In only one afternoon of dialogue I had developed a new appreciation for the work of our drill instructors.

  When the workday ended, Charlie pushed a button on the wall, which started the whine of an electric motor. As the overhead door of the loading dock shook, a stream of daylight flashed across the floor. As the door rose, the darkness in which we had worked all day gave way to the blinding light of the setting sun.

  As Charlie shook my hand he looked me in the eye. “Consider yourself unshackled.” And he sent me off into the uncomfortable sunlight. Like the caveman in the story I, too, was excited about the realities that existed beyond my recruit world. I was becoming enlightened.

  The twenty-minute ride home in the bed of the five-ton truck was liberating for me. I listened to the woes of the recruits as they lamented the return to hell. I, however, was anxious to get back to the platoon and enjoy my new status as high shooter. The paradigm shift that I was experiencing gave me confidence and optimism that set me apart from the others. While the others were complaining of the inevitable three-mile run in the morning, I was thinking of how I couldn’t run a mile before boot camp, and now I was looking 44

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  forward to proving I could do it faster than ever. They bitched about being sent to the pit for calisthenics, while I saw definition developing in my biceps and abdomen for the first time in my life.

  Most of all they traded horror stories of the cruelty of their respective “heavy” drill instructors.

  Before my time with the laundry sage I would have joined right in. Instead I was feeling the pride of emotional hardening to the point where I did not think that Drill Instructor Sgt. Talley could bother me anymore. I understood, with amazing clarity, that the heavy drill instructor, more than any other factor on the Island, was what gave newly graduated Marines their steely look.

  The squeal of the air brakes interrupted my thoughts. I was the first to jump from the bed of the truck and sprint to the rear hatch of our squad bay. Just before entering I collected myself mentally and squared away my uniform. I was prepared to report to the drill instructors’ office and show them the new Recruit Williams . . . the unchained Williams.