"Gustav Hasvord. The Short-Timers " - читать интересную книгу автора

Sunday.
Magic show. Religious services in the faith of your choice-and you will
have a choice-because religious services are specified in the beautiful
full-color brochures the Crotch distributes to Mom and Dad back in hometown
America, even though Sergeant Gerheim assures us that the Marine Corps was
here before God. "You can give your heart to Jesus but your ass belongs to
the Corps."


After the "magic show" we eat chow. The squad leaders read grace from
cards set in holders on the tables. Then: "SEATS!"
We spread butter on slices of bread and then sprinkle sugar on the
butter. We smuggle sandwiches out of the mess hall, risking a beating for
the novelty of unscheduled chow. We don't give a shit; we're salty. Now,
when Sergeant Gerheim and his junior drill instructors stomp us we tell them
that we love it and to do it some more. When Sergeant Gerheim commands:
"Okay, ladies, give me fifty squat-thrusts. And some side-straddle hops.
Many, many of them," we laugh and then do them.
The drill instructors are proud to see that we are growing beyond their
control. The Marine Corps does not want robots. The Marine Corps wants
killers. The Marine Corps wants to build indestructible men, men without
fear. Civilians may choose to submit or to fight back. The drill instructors
leave recruits no choice. Marines fight back or they do not survive. There
it is. No slack.
Graduation is only a few days away and the salty recruits of Platoon
30-92 are ready to eat their own guts and then ask for seconds. The moment
the Commandant of the Marine Corps gives us the word, we will grab the Viet
Cong guerrillas and the battle-hardened North Vietnamese regulars by their
scrawny throats and we'll punch their fucking heads off.


Sunday afternoon in the sun. We scrub our little green garments on a
long concrete table.
For the hundredth time, I tell Cowboy that I want to slip my tube steak
into his sister so what will he take in trade?
For the hundredth time, Cowboy replies, "What do you have?"
Sergeant Gerheim struts around the table. He is trying not to limp. He
criticizes our utilization of the Marine Corps scrub brush.
We don't care; we're too salty.
Sergeant Gerheim won the Navy Cross on Iwo Jima, he says. He got it for
teaching young Marines how to bleed, he says. Marines are supposed to bleed
in tidy little pools because Marines are disciplined. Civilians and members
of the lesser services bleed all over the place like bed wetters.
We don't listen. We swap scuttlebutt. Laundry day is the only time we
are allowed to talk to each other.
Philips-Sergeant Gerheim's black, silver-tongued House Mouse-is telling
everybody about the one thousand cherries he has busted.
I say, "Leonard talks to his rifle."