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

I turn away. "That sounds like a personal problem," I say. I keep my
eyes on my weapon.


Sergeant Gerheim continues the siege of Leonard Pratt, Private. He
gives Leonard extra push-ups every night, yells at him louder than he yells
at the rest of us, calls his mother more colorful names.
Meanwhile, the rest of us are not forgotten. We suffer, too. We suffer
for Leonard's mistakes. We march, we run, we duck walk, and we crawl.


We play war in the swamp. Near the site of the Ribbon Creek Massacre,
where six recruits drowned during a disciplinary night march in 1956,
Sergeant Gerheim orders me to climb a willow tree. I'm a sniper. I'm
supposed to shoot the platoon. I hang on a limb. If I can see a recruit well
enough to name him, he's dead.
The platoon attacks. I yell, "HAMER!" and Hamer falls dead.
The platoon scatters. I scan the underbrush.
A green phantom blinks through a shadow. I see its face. I open my
mouth. The limb cracks. I'm falling...
I collide with the sandy deck. I look up.
Cowboy is standing over me. "Bang, bang, you're dead," he says. And
then he laughs.
Sergeant Gerheim looms over me. I try to explain that the limb broke.
"You can't talk, sniper. You are dead. Private Cowboy just took your
life."
Sergeant Gerheim promotes Cowboy to squad leader.


During our sixth week, Sergeant Gerheim orders us to double-time around
the squad bay with our penises in our left hands and our weapons in our
right hands, singing: This is my rifle, this is gun; one is for fighting and
one is for fun. And: I don't want no teen-aged queen; all I want is my M-14.
Sergeant Gerheim orders us to name our rifles. "This is the only pussy
you people are going to get. Your days of finger-banging ol' Mary Jane
Rottencrotch through her pretty pink panties are over. You're married to
this piece, this weapon of iron and wood, and you will be faithful."
We run. And we sing:

Well, I don't know
But I been told
Eskimo pussy
Is mighty cold...

Before chow, Sergeant Gerheim tells us that during World War I
Blackjack Pershing said, "The deadliest weapon in the world is a Marine and
his rifle." At Belleau Wood the Marines were so vicious that the German
infantrymen called them Teufel-Hunden-"devil dogs."
Sergeant Gerheim explains that it is important for us to understand
that it is our killer instinct which must be harnessed if we expect to