W E B Griffin - Corp 01 - Semper Fi

by Semper Fi(Lit)

  "That's a little better," Stecker said.

  "I should have split the peg with that one," McCoy said, furiously.

  By that he meant that he was confident of his shot, knew where it had gone.

  That's either bravado, or he means it. And there's only one way to find out.

  "Get out of your sling," Stecker ordered. "And hand me the rifle."

  As McCoy pulled the leather sling off his arm, Stecker turned to the training NCO and signaled that he wanted a clip of ammunition. When McCoy handed him the Garand, Stecker put the strap on his own arm and squirmed into the correct position.

  "Call my shot," he said to McCoy. "I'm going to take out your two-hundred-yard target number."

  McCoy looked at him in surprise. So there would be no confusion about which was the correct target, there were markers at each distance with four-inch-high numbers painted on short, flat pieces of wood. They were not designed as targets.

  Stecker himself wondered why he was going to fire at the target number, then realized that he thought somebody might be fucking around with McCoy's target in the pits. If that was the case, which now seemed likely, he would have the ass of the pit officer.

  You just don't fuck around in the pits. The Marine Corps does not think rifle marksmanship is an area for practical jokes.

  Stecker lined up his sights and squeezed one off.

  "You took a chip out of the upper-right corner, Captain," McCoy reported.

  Maggie's Drawers flew in front of McCoy's target.

  Stecker fired again.

  "You blew it away, Captain," McCoy reported. Stecker snapped the safety in front of the trigger guard on, then slipped out of the sling.

  "The piece is loaded," he said. "Be careful. Have a shot at the target marker. Number eighteen."

  "Aye, aye, sir," McCoy said.

  The target number disappeared with McCoy's first shot.

  "Nineteen," Stecker ordered.

  McCoy fired again. Half of the target number disappeared when the bullet split it.

  "Do you think you can hit what's left?" Stecker asked.

  He saw Maggie's Drawers being waved furiously in front of the target.

  McCoy fired again, and the narrow half remaining of the target number disappeared.

  "At targets of opportunity, fire at will," Stecker ordered, softly.

  McCoy fired the remaining two rounds in the eight-round en bloc clip at other target numbers. He did not miss.

  "Insure that your weapon is empty, and leave the firing line, bringing your weapon with you," Stecker said calmly, reciting the prescribed litany.

  By the time they were both on their feet, the range officer and the range NCO were standing beside the training NCO. Having witnessed not only a captain blowing away the target numbers, but apparently encouraging a trainee to do likewise, they were more than a little uneasy.

  "This young man has a faulty weapon," Captain Stecker announced. "I think he should be given the opportunity to refire for record."

  "Aye, aye, sir," the range officer said.

  The range sergeant took the Garand from McCoy and started to examine it.

  "Don't you think I know a faulty weapon when I see one, Gunny?" Captain Stecker asked.

  "Yes, sir, no offense, sir."

  "I realize that tomorrow is the first day of Thanksgiving liberty," Captain Stecker said, "but as we want to give this young man every opportunity to make a decent score, I think we should have the pit officer back, too. Who is he?"

  Stecker had decided that the pit officer, whoever he might be, would never forget that Marines don't fuck around the pits after he had spent the first day of Thanksgiving liberty personally hauling, marking, and pasting targets for a Platoon Leader Candidate. That made more sense than in writing him an official letter of reprimand, or even turning him in to the battalion commander.

  "Lieutenant Macklin, sir," the range officer said.

  "I don't think I know him," Stecker said.

  "He's the mess officer, Sir. He volunteered to help out in the pits," the range officer said.

  And then Stecker saw understanding and then bitterness in McCoy's eyes.

  "Do you know Lieutenant Macklin, McCoy?" Stecker asked.

  "Yes, sir, I know him."

  Stecker made a come-on motion of his hands.

  "We were in the Fourth Marines together, sir," McCoy said.

  "I see," Stecker said. I'll find out what the hell that is all about. "I think you can get on with the firing, Lieutenant." Stecker said.

  "Aye, aye, sir," the lieutenant said. And then when Stecker was obviously going to walk away, he called attention and saluted.

  Stecker went back to his jeep and was driven off.

  Since there was no point in his firing anymore with a faulty weapon, Platoon Leader Candidate McCoy and Platoon Leader Candidate Pickering were put to work policing brass from the firing line until that relay had finished. Then Platoon Leader Candidate McCoy served as coach for Platoon Leader Candidate Pickering while he fired for record. Platoon Leader Candidate Pickering qualified as "Expert."

  (Two)

  After leaving McCoy, Captain Stecker went to Battalion Headquarters, where he examined the personal record jacket of First Lieutenant John R. Macklin, USMC. The personnel sergeant was a little uneasy about that-personal records were supposed to be personal-but he wouldn't have dreamed of telling Master Gunnery Sergeant Stecker to mind his own business, and Gunny Stecker was now wearing the silver railroad tracks of a captain.

  Then Captain Stecker got back in the jeep and had himself carried to the Platoon Leader Course orderly room.

  Word had already gotten back that Captain Stecker had been out on the range, and that he had ordered the re-firing for record of one of the candidates. And that the pit officer be in the pits when he did so. The sergeant-major had been sort of a pal before Stecker took a commission, and he knew there was more to it than he had been told.

  He came to his feet and stood at attention when Stecker walked in.

  "Good morning, sir," he said.

  "As you were," Stecker said.

  "How may I help the captain, sir?" the sergeant-major said.

  "You wouldn't happen to have a cup of coffee, Sergeant-Major?"

  "Yes, sir," the sergeant-major said.

  "And if you have a minute, Sergeant-Major, I'd like a word with you in private."

  "We can use the commanding officer's office, sir," the sergeant-major said. "He went out to check on the range, sir."

  A corporal followed the two of them into the commanding officer's office with two china mugs of coffee, and then left, closing the door behind him.

  "Tell me about a kid named McCoy, Charley," Stecker said.

  "That's the one was a China Marine?" Stecker nodded. "What do you want to know, Jack?"

  "How come he's been sanding decks?"

  "I don't know," the sergeant-major said. "He fucked up, I guess."

  "What do you know about Lieutenant Macklin?"

  "Not much, Jack," the sergeant-major said, after thinking it over. "The cooks hate his ass. But that always happens when there's a new broom. And he's an eager sonofabitch. The scuttlebutt is he's got a lousy efficiency report and is trying to make up for it."

  "So he volunteered to be pit officer?"

  "And he takes Saturday inspections for the officers. That kind of stuff."

  "I want a look at McCoy's records," Stecker said.

  "Anything in particular?"

  "Just say I'm nosy," Stecker said.

  The sergeant-major went into the outer office and returned with a handful of manila files.

  "He's more of a fuck-up than I thought," the sergeant-major said. "Jesus, he's been on report at every fucking inspection. He's given lip to the DIs. Even Macklin wrote him up twice for failure to salute. He'll be scrubbing decks again over the Thanksgiving liberty. He's right on the edge of getting his ass shipped out of here. He's going before the elimination board (A board of officers
charged with determining whether or not a platoon leader candidate has proved himself unfit or unworthy of being commissioned) on Friday."

  Stecker grunted.

  He took McCoy's records from the sergeant-major and read them carefully.

  "Very odd," he said. "His last efficiency report says his 'personal deportment and military bearing serves as an example to the command.' I wonder what turned him into a fuck-up here?"

  The sergeant-major raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

  "It says here that he's an Expert with the Springfield and the.45, and the light and water-cooled Brownings. I was on the range before..."

  "So I heard," the sergeant-major said.

  "He could barely get a round on the target, much less in the black," Stecker said. "I found out he had a faulty weapon. He could hit target numbers with it. It was just that he was all over the target when he fired at a bull's-eye."

  "Jesus, was he fucking around on the rifle range, too?" the sergeant-major asked.

  "He wasn't fucking around on the rifle range, Charley," Stecker said.

  "And Macklin was the pit officer, right?" the sergeant-major said, finally putting things together.

  "Was he?" Stecker asked, innocently.

  "Jesus Christ!" the sergeant-major said.

  "I'm sure you know as well as I do, sergeant-major," Stecker said, "that no Marine officer is capable of using his office and authority to settle personal grudges."

  "Yes, sir," the sergeant-major said.

  "And under the circumstances, Sergeant-Major, I can see no reason for Platoon Leader Candidate McCoy to refire for record. It would be an unnecessary expenditure of time and ammunition. If he had a properly functioning rifle, I'm sure that he would-since he has been drawing Expert marksman's pay since boot camp-qualify with the Garand." "Got you," the sergeant-major said. "Further, it would interfere with his Thanksgiving liberty. Platoon Leader Candidate McCoy is shortly going to be commissioned..."

  "He'll have to get past the elimination board," the sergeant-major said. "With this record, he has to go before it."

  "What record do you mean,' Sergeant-Major?" Captain Stecker said, as calmly and deliberately he tore from the manila folder all the official records of misbehavior and unsatisfactory performance Platoon Leader Candidate McCoy had acquired since beginning the course. He shredded them and dropped them into the wastebasket.

  "What do I tell the old man, Jack?" the sergeant-major asked.

  "Three things, Charley," Stecker said. "First, that if there is some reason McCoy can't have Thanksgiving liberty, I want to hear about it. Second, that the colonel has taken two evening meals in the mess and found them unsatisfactory. And third, that I politely and unofficially suggest that maybe the chow would be better if the mess officer stayed where he belongs, in the kitchen."

  The sergeant-major nodded.

  "I'm sorry about this, Jack," he said. "I feel like a damned fool."

  Stecker did not let him off the hook.

  "When I was the gunny, Charley," he said, "the colonel expected me to know what was going on in the ranks. I found the best way to do that was get off my ass and have a look at things."

  And then he walked out of the office.

  (Three)

  Inasmuch as ceremonies are an integral part of the life and duties of young officers, and because the Marine Corps Schools believed that "doing is the best means of learning," ceremonies of one kind or another were frequently on the training program of the Platoon Leader's Course.

  One such ceremony was scheduled for 1700 hours, 19 November 1941. It was a formal retreat. The platoon leader candidates would be returned from the Known Distance Firing Range in plenty of time to clean their rifles, shave and wash, and change into greens. The training schedule allocated all of thirty-five minutes for this purpose.

  Waiting for Corporal Pleasant to blow his whistle, McCoy was pretty well down in the dumps. At first, he had been almost thrilled that Macklin had been caught sticking it to him. He'd thought that luck was finally falling his way. It hadn't taken long for the old-gunny-now-a-captain to figure out that somebody was fucking him in the pits, or even that the sonofabitch sticking it in him was Lieutenant Macklin.

  But the good feeling soon dissipated. For one thing, officers took care of one another, and the captain, if he said anything at all to Macklin, wasn't going to jump his ass. Stecker believed that Macklin was either sloppy in the pits, or that he thought what he was doing was funny. Stecker had no reason to think that Macklin was personally doing his best to get him booted out of the Platoon Leader's Course.

  All the whole incident had meant was that he was going to get a chance to fire for record again. That was all. And Macklin was being taught not to "fool around" when he was pit officer by having to spend Thanksgiving morning on the range. It was possible that he would pull the same shit all over again. Why not? There would be nobody there to watch him.

  When he came off the rifle range, the sand and the bricks would be waiting for him, and he would spend Thanksgiving afternoon on his knees scrubbing the decks. For "disrespectful attitude."

  And on Friday morning, he would go before the elimination board. Pleasant had told him about that. He could get out of it, Pleasant said, and probably get the whole Thanksgiving weekend as liberty, if he would just face the fact that they weren't going to make him an officer and resign.

  He had told Pleasant to go fuck himself. Which is why he would be sanding the deck.

  McCoy didn't believe he was ever going to get a gold bar to put on his shoulder. Not really. Not inside. But he was going to take the one chance he saw: Sometimes the elimination board wouldn't bust people out, but would instead "drop them back," which meant that you went through part of the course again with a class that started later. That happened when somebody bilged academics. He had never heard of somebody being dropped back for "attitude" or "unsuitability," which is what they called it when they sent you before the elimination board for fucking up.

  But that's what he was going to ask for. He had come this far, and he wasn't just going to belly up for the bastards. He probably wouldn't get it, and next Monday he would probably be on his way as Pvt McCoy to Camp LeJeune, or maybe Diego, as a machine-gunner.

  And it was a real pain in the ass to get all shined up for a retreat parade knowing that they were going to read your name off on two lists, one for "extra training" which is what they called the deck sanding, and the other to go before the elimination board. And when they had done that, knowing that while everybody else was off getting beered up at the slop chute, he would be on his fucking hands and knees sanding the deck.

  "If I helped you with the deck," Pick Pickering said, as if he was reading his mind, "maybe we could get done quicker."

  "Pleasant would get you your own deck," McCoy said. "But thanks, Pick."

  "Let's give it a shot," Pickering said.

  "When they hold formation," McCoy said, "they're going to read off names of people going before the elimination board. Mine is on it."

  "You don't believe that," Pickering said, loyally.

  "I know," McCoy said. "It's not scuttlebutt."

  "That's not right," Pickering said. "Christ, it's goddamned unfair.''

  "It's an unfair world," McCoy said. "This is the Marine Corps."

  "There ought to be some way to register a complaint," Pickering said.

  McCoy laughed at him, but then, touched by Pickering's loyalty, punched him affectionately on the arm.

  Pickering was a good guy. Dumb, but a good guy. Even after McCoy had told him that he was on everybody's shit list, and that if he kept hanging around, some of the shit they were throwing was bound to splatter on him, he'd hung around anyway. Pickering was going to be a good officer.

  "Turn around, asshole," McCoy said. "Let me check you out."

  There was nothing wrong with Pickering's uniform or equipment. But a pin on one of McCoy's collar point "oxes" (Platoon Leader Candidates wore brass insignia, the lette
rs OC (hence "Ox"), standing for Officer Candidate, on shirt collar points and fore-and-aft hats in lieu of insignia of rank) had come off, and the ox was hanging loose. Pickering fixed it.

  What the fuck difference does it make? McCoy thought bitterly. This is the last time I'll wear it anyway. I'll go before the elimination board in dungarees.

  Corporal Pleasant blew his whistle and all the freshly bathed and shaved young gentlemen rushed out onto the company street, where they formed ranks. Corporal Pleasant then issued the appropriate order causing the young gentlemen to open ranks so that he could more conveniently inspect their shaves, the press of their green uniforms, and the cleanliness of their Garand rifles.