One Bullet Away

“The more we sweat in peace, the less we bleed in war. Good night, candidates.” Sergeant Olds always said “we,” never “you.” He flipped out the lights, leaving us at attention in the darkness with the airfield’s rotating beacon flashing across the walls.

I woke up early on August 7. Normally, I was so exhausted I slept until the lights came on. But I was excited. The Crucible would start that night. Only one week left before graduation. We sweated through our morning workout and marched to chow. The platoon functioned as a single organism now, humming along under its own power. We strutted across the parade deck, calling our own cadence. As we crossed the bridge, I saw Staff Sergeant Carpenter watching us from the concrete pad outside the chow hall. He looked stern.

Holding up a hand to interrupt our march, he motioned us toward him.

“Candidates, bring it in and listen up.” I expected to be berated for some imaginary transgression, such as leaving dirt on the squad bay floor.

“Terrorists have attacked the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Blew ’em up. Marines guard those embassies. Some of my brothers — your future brothers — are probably dead. Oughta get your blood up. Y’all are about to be in a growth industry. Go eat chow.”

We lived in an information vacuum — no weather forecasts, no baseball scores, certainly no analysis of the destruction of two American embassies.

Candidates whispered urgent conversations in the chow line.

“What does this mean?”

“War.”

“Bullshit. It don’t mean anything. Not for us at least. The guys in the Fleet might get some play, but not us.”

“Maybe eventually.”

“No way. This ain’t World War Three. Just a couple of bombings. We’ll lob some missiles at ’em, and that’ll be that. Damn. They burned the pancakes again.”

The Crucible started at ten o’clock. After a full day, Sergeant Olds had us sing the hymn as usual. But instead of turning out the lights afterward, we shouldered our packs and left the squad bay for a ten-mile hike through the dark woods. Olds didn’t scream much anymore. He just told us what to do, and we did it. We started off down a gravel road in two columns. I walked next to Dave. He smiled and whistled, relentlessly upbeat. I half expected him to start skipping. When we turned off the road, the platoon stretched out in single file along a narrow dirt path. We paralleled the swamp I’d seen from the bus and passed the airfield where the president’s helicopter, Marine One, was based. Quantico didn’t feel like a prison anymore.

In the dawn light, Sergeant Olds said it was time for the Quigley. I had heard about the Quigley. We had all heard about it. Most of OCS was successfully kept under wraps, so each day brought unwelcome surprises, but this muddy trench had become an icon of Quantico’s training, the sort of thing generals recalled in speeches.

We jogged down a trail through the woods. After a night of hiking without sleep, we stumbled along at half speed. The temperature was already ninety degrees, and sweat soaked my uniform. Canteens thudded against my hips with each step and the pack straps cut into my shoulders. Candidates strung out along the trail, urging one another on. I panted into a clearing and saw the trail disappear into a bog. A wooden pier extended across it, clearly not intended for me. My path lay in the mud beneath strands of barbed wire next to the pier.

I dove under the first strand into the stinking beige water, eager to impress the instructors with my gung ho. It was deeper than I expected, and I sank beneath the water. I recovered and began to crawl, scratching my way forward beneath the banks of mud.

Another candidate struggled along in front of me, and I made it my goal to close the gap between my hands and his boots. Suddenly, he stood straight up, shouting and waving. Something long and black hung from his upper arm: a snake.

Christ, I thought, there are snakes in here. I started to stand.

A boot heel between my shoulder blades drove me, face-first, back beneath the water.

“What do you think you’re doin’, boy? Crawl.”

“Aye-aye, Sergeant Instructor.” It came out garbled because mud stuck to the roof of my mouth like peanut butter. I continued pulling myself forward, past the candidate with the snake on his arm. The instructor who had kicked me was waiting as I climbed out of the Quigley.

“You can’t compromise a mission and get men killed for a harmless little snake. Not even for a poisonous big snake. Discipline always. Now get out of my sight.”