One Bullet Away

Three weeks later, I made the trip to Portsmouth. The office was hidden in a nondescript professional center. An efficient receptionist greeted me and sat me on a couch. The waiting room was neutral, softly lit, almost corporate — not what I expected. I stood when the door to the inner office opened. Captain Ettien was trim and fit, looking in his dress blues like every recruiting poster Marine in my mind.

“So you think you have what it takes to be an officer in my Corps.” It was a statement, almost an accusation, not a question.

My first hurdle would be passing the Marines’ physical fitness test. Three hundred was a perfect score, and officer candidates were expected to score better than 275. There were three events: pull-ups, crunches, and a three-mile run. A score of 300 required doing twenty dead-hang pull-ups without dropping off the bar, followed by one hundred crunches in under two minutes, and then completing the run in under eighteen minutes. Like a triathlon, none of the individual events is especially difficult, but in combination they test overall fitness. I had played football and lacrosse in high school and was a strong bicycle racer at Dartmouth, so I left Portsmouth that afternoon intent on conquering the fitness test.

Captain Ettien greeted me on my next visit by asking in what order I’d been training for the three events. Grateful that he was taking my preferences into account, I told him I relied on pull-ups, crunches, run.

“Great.” He grinned. “Then we’ll start you with the run, followed by crunches, and then pull-ups.” It was my introduction to the Marine Corps way.

I must have blanched, because he added that he’d come on the run to motivate me. Two minutes later, I sprinted out of the parking lot with Captain Ettien behind me at the wheel of a government van, honking the horn and shouting to pick up the pace. I ran three miles in 17:30. Moving over to the grass, I lay on my back with the captain on my feet. At his whistle, I started crunching. Ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred. Ten seconds to spare. Another perfect score. I was rolling. We moved over to the pull-up bar. Every breath formed a cloud of condensation. My body was sore from the run and the crunches, but my arms felt good. Jumping up to the bar, I started curling my chin over the metal pole as Captain Ettien counted aloud.

“Thirteen, fourteen, fourteen, fourteen.” What am I doing wrong? “Stop kipping — fourteen, fourteen.” What the hell is kipping?

By now, I’d done twenty pull-ups but his count stuck at fourteen. My arms shook, and despite the cold, sweat dripped into my eyes. I dropped off the bar, buckled at the knees, and poured my breakfast into the grass. When the heaves stopped, I asked, “What’s kipping, and why did you stop counting at fourteen?”

“Swinging your body back and forth. You have to move up and down in a straight line. I’m tempted to give you one for effort because of the puke.” Ettien paused and looked at his clipboard. “Two-seventy — not bad. Just keep working on it and you’ll qualify for OCS.”

By the time I stood in front of the color sergeant that morning, I was a machine. I could run three miles in sixteen minutes and do twenty-five dead-hang pull-ups. Unfortunately, OCS rarely tested what we’d already trained for.

“This morning you will do the log run. Give me a squad to demonstrate.”

Twelve candidates jumped up and jogged to the front of the group. In unison, they snapped to parade rest.

“Pick up the log.”

The candidates hoisted a full-size telephone pole onto their shoulders. It was twenty feet long and weighed six hundred pounds. The pole reeked of creosote and rubbed off brown on their hands and shoulders.

“Now run,” the color sergeant ordered.

They trotted in a circle around the field.

“See, it’s simple. Even you wankers should be able to figure this one out. Each squad grab a log. Catch me.” He took off down the trail.

We strategized. “Tallest to shortest — otherwise the short guys won’t be bearing any of the weight. Tall guys in front will keep the pace high.” Dave and I were the tallest guys in our squad, so he stood at the front of the pole, with me a foot behind.

A dozen squads of a dozen men each struggled off down the trail, looking like millipedes beneath their logs. Legs moved quickly, but progress was slow. We slopped over muddy roots and banged between trunks. Once or twice, the log threatened to roll off our shoulders and crush our feet. I wrapped one arm up over the log and used the other to wipe sweat from my eyes.

Ahead of us, the color sergeant bounced along in his running shoes and white tank top, bemoaning the future of the Marine Corps. “Your Corps has been around for two hundred twenty-three years, right? Not a bad run. A respectable try, really. The Army will pick up your slack.” He reached a fork in the trail and turned left.