Last Man Out

by James E. Parker, Jr.

  I turned and smiled, possibly for the first time since I had arrived at the induction center in Raleigh. He said his name was Van Pelt and that he had signed on because he had lost interest in college. He was from Cape Canaveral, Florida, where his father worked as an engineer. He said he was doing fine in school until he got a little sports car and then something happened—all those beach parties and hangovers. He forgot to go to class one semester, so he joined the Army. But, finding the experience rather boorish, he was considering asking for the papers he had signed to see if there was an escape clause. Possibly there was a legitimate breach of contract here. He sought a more casual routine.

  Coming into the latrine about the same time was a large black man named Tate [an alias], whom McGee had jumped on that morning for being too slow in reciting his serial number. Another black man going out the door bumped into him and Tate shoved him away, growling. Tate went in the shower room mumbling to himself. Several others came out of the shower quickly, some still lathered with soap, rather than stay in there with that very large, very black, very intimidating man.

  The third day we were issued field web gear that we had to display over our lockers—packs, canteens, ammo pouches, canteen belts, and suspenders. We also received helmets, along with their protective steel outer shells called “steel pots.” I noticed that one man was having difficulty putting his gear together properly and watched him for several minutes. Even with his GI haircut it was apparent that he was balding. He had a large head, a skinny neck, no shoulders, a pudgy middle, big butt, and short legs. He kept pushing his thick glasses up his nose as he tried to adjust his gear. I resisted an impulse to help him. The chore was so simple, and the fellow seemed so helpless. I decided he was exactly the reason why Cottonpicker had told me to mind my own business during basic training. Van Pelt went over later and arranged the man’s web gear for him. He also helped adjust the webbing inside the helmet liner, and with the steel pot encasement in place, Van Pelt put the helmet on the man’s head to check the fit. It fit too low and the man looked silly. His big glasses barely showed underneath, plus his neck was so skinny he had trouble holding his head up under the weight of his steel pot. His head wobbling from side to side, he looked like a turkey. Van Pelt continued to make adjustments until he got the helmet to fit properly. The man sat silently as Van Pelt worked. Van Pelt finally left and, after going to his bunk for a moment, came over to my bunk. Looking the other way, he said that he thought the “Professor,” a draftee, was out of his element. He said the man smelt a trifle rank, too.

  Later we were told to put on our web gear and fall out into formation outside—falling into and out of formation being a large part of our first few days. I noticed that the Professor had his web suspenders twisted in the back. They were the least of his worries, however, because he was having considerable problems as he tried to hold up his head under the steel pot.

  Sergeant McGee came up to the formation from the rear and spotted the Professor’s twisted suspenders. He walked up to the man and said, “How do ya feel, Molly-Wolly? Don’t shake ya head at me, recruit. Do ya hear me, quit shaking ya frigging head!” McGee’s face was contorted in anger. “I said goddammit quit shaking ya frigging head.” I could see McGee’s face soften after a while. “Is ya hat too heavy for ya, Molly-Wolly? Are ya so fucking weak dat ya can’t wear a steel pot? Okay, I can understand dat. I can understand.” McGee stood there for a moment and looked the Professor in the eye. “But ya know ya look like a smart young fellow to me. I gotta question for ya. How come ya fucking suspenders are twisted? Dat don’t take no goddamned strength. Ya got to think, Molly-Wolly, think.”

  The Professor turned his head to one side, still wobbling from the weight of the steel pot, and I could see tears welling up in his eyes. McGee continued to look into the Professor’s face, and he too saw the tears. I quickly turned my gaze to the front as McGee looked around to see who else was watching the man cry.

  “Go inside now, double time, and get ya suspenders fixed, soldier, and come back out shere. Now, move out. Now. Go.”

  My first thought was that McGee was maybe a nice guy. A nasty individual, of the kind he had pretended to be, would have embarrassed the Professor about the tears. McGee told the squad leaders to check each member of their squads to make sure the equipment was on right, and he went into the barracks. The Professor soon came out and regained his place in the formation.

  That night at retreat, the Professor fell out of the barracks with his shirttail out of his pants. McGee hesitated as he saw the man awkwardly run by to get in formation, but when he saw the Professor fall in without tucking in his shirt, McGee walked up to him. He told him that he was a disgrace to the platoon, the U.S. Army, and the human race and, because of that, he was number one on McGee’s list of people to watch.

  Before lights out that night Van Pelt sat on my bunk and polished his shoes. He said, “Life’s relative, you know. It’s a proven scientific theory—the theory of relativity. You are judged against your peers. Like, for example, two men in the woods, surprised by a bear, were running away, the bear at their heels, and one man said he sure hoped he was faster than that bear and the other man said, ‘I only hope I’m faster’n you.’ That guy understood the theory. Wasn’t necessary to be the fastest man in the universe there, only the faster of the two of them. The bear got the slow one. You see what I mean, things are relative. Life’s relative to the situation. Here at Fort Gordon, it don’t help if you’re smart or rich, look like a movie star, or got the greatest little sports car in the world back home. Not relative. Takes primitive instincts here. Semideveloped playground skills and the muscle tone of a marathon runner don’t hurt either. Don’t think the Professor, relatively speaking, is packing the right gear here. He ain’t playground material.”

  The Professor was sitting on his bed, awkwardly bent over, shining his shoes. He stopped often to push his glasses back up his nose. “You know,” Van Pelt said with a smile, “it makes me feel better about myself here when I see how out of place the ol’ Professor is over there. Relative to him, I’m okay.”

  I told Van Pelt that it was because he was basically a blunt instrument—primal man, comparable to Tate, the Neanderthal-looking black man. Van Pelt said that was a clever observation. “Not correct,” he added, “but a good comment anyway, about a three on a scale of one to five. Above average. Maybe you should be the one dealing with the Professor since you’re so clever.”

  “No,” I said, “you are the one with the mother instinct. I’m here to learn to kill.”

  “You, my friend,” said Van Pelt, “are the blunt instrument, but I like you anyway.”

  The next morning when we fell out for reveille, Sergeant McGee inspected the barracks. He came out and addressed us from the top of the stairs before we marched off to the mess hall.

  “Okay, slimeballs, I walked into da barracks just now and hit smelt like a urinal. Like a goddamned piss pot. Ya hear me. A fucking piss pot. Someone peed in dere bed last night!”

  McGee was talking so loud that people standing in formation by other barracks could hear.

  “Then goddammit made da bed up on top of da stinking piss!” He walked down the stairs and up to the platoon. “My fucking platoon. We got ourselves a bed wetter. In da fucking Army.” Softer, meaner, he asked, “Guess who it is?” He walked through the first squad line to the Professor. “Who Molly-Wolly? Who?” McGee fixed a hard, steady look at the man.

  “Me, Sergeant,” said the Professor softly.

  “Ya go in dere while da rest of us are in da chow hall and ya get dat stinking mess and ya exchange it for clean stuff and ya have yar bed made before we get back. And ya take a shower. And, Molly-Wolly, I ain’t finished.” McGee grabbed his arm. “I am going to help ya get over dis. I’m going to stop ya from wetting da bed. Tonight. Ya’ll stop. I’ll show ya. I done it before.”

  That evening, Sergeant McGee walked into the barracks and everyone quickly braced to attention. The drill serge
ant’s footfalls were loud as he walked toward the Professor’s bunk. McGee scowled at him a moment, then went down the line to Tate’s bunk. He told the man who slept on the bunk over Tate to trade places with the Professor.

  Van Pelt was standing across from me. He pursed his lips and squinted his eyes, as if in pain, when he realized what McGee was doing. Tate was possibly the most ill-tempered individual in the world. Not only did people leave the shower room when he entered, they were reluctant to stand behind him in the chow line for fear they might accidentally bump into him and set him off. He was an animal. No one even tried to get along with him.

  After McGee left, Tate grabbed the Professor’s T-shirt and told him in words that were hard to understand but whose tone was expressively clear what would happen to him if he peed in the top bunk. One of the black men suggested that Tate kill the honky “right now” rather than later, because he was sure to piss in his sleep again.

  The last thing we heard that night after lights out was Tate’s muttered warning, “Okay, mudder fucker, wet da bed and I’ll knock ya fucking head off, ya hear?”

  The next morning the Professor was up and dressed before anyone else. He looked tired. Van Pelt guessed he had not slept at all that night. And he did not sleep the next night. The Professor went on sick call the following morning after breakfast. When we returned from training before lunch, his equipment was gone. We never saw him again.

  A couple days later we drew our rifles, the venerable M-14s. As we gathered outside the armory, I inspected my issue and tested its balance. It was an older rifle that had probably been handled by young recruits for years. Its stock had been restained and revarnished many times; the butt plate was scratched from hard landings in the manual of arms. The trigger mechanism was worn from a thousand training disassemblies and assemblies. The weapon looked like a tired old piece of rental equipment with no character, and I remembered the love affair I had with the Springfield at Oak Ridge Military Institute. The shoulder strap was old, tattered webbing, and I tightened it as much as I could so the strap would slap smartly against the stock when I handled it.

  McGee called us into ranks and talked about the value of the rifle, the main tool of our trade. He said that before we learned to shoot it, we had to learn to respect it and handle it correctly. Our training for the next couple of days would be in the manual of arms—moving the weapon from the ground at our side, as we stood at attention, to “port arms” and then to “right shoulder arms” and “left shoulder arms” and finally back to the ground, “order arms.” I stood in the middle of the platoon and thought about going through the manual of arms a hundred thousand times at Oak Ridge. McGee’s description was like explaining the fundamentals of walking to an experienced hiker.

  Taking a rifle from a man in the first squad, McGee demonstrated the movements. He gave himself the commands and brought the weapon up and then back to the ground again, with a bit too much waggle in his movement, I thought; he would have been reprimanded at Oak Ridge. Then he talked us through them slowly—count one, port arms; count two, right shoulder arms; count three, back to port arms; count four, left shoulder arms; count five, order arms—before giving the commands at regular speed.

  The rifle movement felt familiar, and I slapped the rifle strap as I brought it up and down. I also snapped the butt plate with my thumb as I went to right shoulder arms so that it twisted quickly into the crevice of my shoulder. I was careful to move only my arms and to keep the rest of my body absolutely still, as we had been taught on the drill team. With some pleasure, I noticed that the men in front of me were awkwardly moving their shoulders and heads as they lumbered through the drill. McGee was counting cadence as we repeated the movement. He abruptly stopped counting in mid-movement, and the platoon finished with the random clamoring of metal butt plates hitting the company street.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw McGee looking in my direction. Without a word he came through the first two ranks and stood directly in front of me. He cocked his head to one side and eyed me quizzically.

  My face flushed. I had been found out. I had not stayed out of sight, and I had come to McGee’s attention. He looked at my name tag, then down at my M-14, and slowly up my uniform back to my face.

  “Parker,” he said, “do dat again.”

  I brought the weapon back to my right shoulder, but I did not slap the strap or snap my thumb on the butt plate. McGee told me no, do it again and make it pop, and I did. He told me to come out in front of the platoon and gave me the manual of arms orders there. When I returned the rifle to the ground, he came around in front of me and got very close to my face.

  “What’s going on here?” he asked. “Where’d ya learn to do dat shit?” I told him military school, and he said, “Huh.”

  He stepped away and ordered me to do a left face, right face, about face, and then the manual of arms again. I moved with precision. McGee moved in front of me and again said, “Huh.”

  It was altogether a grand moment, enhanced, I realized, by Van Pelt’s explanation of “the theory of relativity.” I forced myself not to smile. In the hot Georgia sun that day I had done a simple thing very well, and I felt good about myself.

  “I would equate your little majorette act today as the high point so far in our little adventure here,” Van Pelt told me. We were sitting on the barracks steps and smoking after the dinner meal. “Life will not be the same for you around here, my friend. McGee actually said something nice to you. Who knows the consequences.”

  “What did he say? Tell me again.”

  “He said, ‘Huh,’ like in ‘Huh, that’s pretty good.’ He’s never said ‘Huh’ to anyone I know.”

  At the end of the second week we received classroom instruction on guard duties and the eleven General Orders. We had the weekend and most of the next week to memorize all of the orders. A test was scheduled for the end of the following week. McGee talked to us before we were dismissed that day and said that platoons in the company would be ranked against each other based on the test scores. The General Orders were just simple English sentences. He wanted the platoon to make the best scores in the company, and he ordered everyone to learn the General Orders perfectly. He walked up to Tate and said, “Even ya, fat lips, perfectly. I’m going to call ya out da morning of da test and ya going to recite ya General Orders. And if dis man can do hit—and he’s going to do hit—each and every one of ya can learn dese eleven very simple little sentences.”

  It did not take long to memorize the orders, and I sat on my bunk during study time over the next week and read other manuals. I noticed Tate slowly, painfully reading his General Orders, over and over again. He moved his lips and occasionally squinted his eyes as he focused on a particular phrase or word. After supper the night before the test, he returned to the manual with dogged determination, but his efforts remained the same—slowly reading the orders over and over again. I walked down to his bunk.

  “How’s it going?”

  He looked up quickly, angrily. “Ain’t none of ya fucking business,” he said. “Why ya wanta know?”

  “I know that learning the General Orders can be tough, but there are tricks to memorizing things for tests.”

  “Fuck ya,” he said flatly.

  “Listen.” I sat down on the end of his bunk, which I got away with because Tate was desperate. “Number one, you got to play games with your mind, Tate. Take General Order number one, for example. I say to myself, what’s the first thing I do in the morning? I charge—Charge—out of bed and take a shit on government property. First General Order? To take charge of this post and all government property in view. The second thing I do is to walk—walk back to my bunk by that post near the head and look at everybody. That’s the second General Order: to walk my post in a military manner, keeping always on the alert and observing everything that takes place within sight or hearing. First General Order, I charge. Second General Order, I walk. First thing I do in the morning, charge—government property. Second th
ing I do in the morning, walk—observe.”

  Tate looked away, but he was listening to me.

  “First General Order, to take charge of this post and all government property in view. Come outside in the back and we’ll go over the rest. I’m going to smoke a cigarette anyway.”

  I got up and walked out by the latrine. The only light outside came from the barracks door. I sat on the stairs and lit a cigarette. Tate soon appeared at the door and walked down the few stairs to where I was sitting.

  “What’s the first thing you do in the morning?” I asked without looking his way.

  “I charge out da bed for a shit on government property.”

  We went over each order, making nonsense out of them, but connecting them in sequence. Slowly at first and then with confidence he repeated them in order, then randomly as I called out the numbers. I told him he would do fine the next day and went inside and went to bed.

  The next morning McGee called Tate in front of the platoon and asked him to give the fifth General Order. Tate hesitated a moment, then spoke clearly and loudly, “To quit my post only when properly relieved, Sergeant.”

  McGee asked him the seventh and Tate responded quickly, “To talk to no one except in the line of duty, Sergeant.”

  McGee said “Huh” as he backed away from Tate and looked at him. He sent Tate back into ranks and walked up to Van Pelt. “OK, Molly-Wolly, what’s da fucking tenth General Order?”

  Van Pelt hesitated. Then in a short burst he said, “To give the alarm in case of fire or disorder, Sergeant.”

  “Asshole, dat’s da eighth fucking order, you jack shit Molly-Wolly idiot!” Out of the corner of my eye I could see Tate smiling despite himself, as he rocked back and forth slightly on his heels.

  At breakfast Van Pelt asked me if I thought being a “jack shit Molly-Wolly idiot” was hereditary.