Man Who Says It Cannot Be Done Should Not Interrupt Man Doing It

Today was the Alphaholics last day on the Kerkesner side of our adventures. We awoke after the sun, packed up our stinky clothes, and scarfed down another MRE for breakfast. It's Sunday, and the chaplain was holding a non-denominational Christian service. I often find such things generic to the point of being unsubstantive, but this one was direct and uplifting. It was odd to be the only soprano voice over a crowd of basses and tenors. The seven of us Mormons in Alpha Company escaped into the bleachers for a few minutes in the afternoon to do sacrament. I have to admit, with the schedules we have been keeping this week, it has been difficult to find time to nurture myself spiritually, and the lack of that has been somewhat draining. It's not like we don't have lots of quiet time, but the kind of reflection that goes on when crouched over an M-16 in a security halt is often of a very mundane, trivial nature and usually involves wishing there were some more comfortable position in which to be crouching.

Jason Baumann and Eddie left us in the morning for an OEMS course in England. I found myself almost choking up as we said good-bye.

Our mission for the day was to defeat the other platoons. Like most missions, it began with a lot of standing around, waiting for the people on top to tell us what in the world was going on. We were still pretty high off of yesterday's triumph in the Battle of Day Five, so even when we heard the events--rifle disassembly and assembly, a patient carries relay, a Humvee pull, pugo sticks, grapling, and an MRE eating contest--it couldn't kill our mood.

We started out with a bang--Nicole Baker had disassembled her rifle and run almost three-quarters of the way down the track where Ian McDougall waited before Heather Scheibe and Jeanie Gorlin even started running. I had been a little worried when we saw how long the run was because Nicole's feet are so inflamed she hadn't been wearing shoes for the past almost twenty hours, but she still managed to blast ahead. From the far end of the road, Ian, Brian Pomerantz, and Tim Gotham waited, trying to see who had taken off. The three were convinced at first that it was Jeanie, because of how fast she was running. When they saw it was Nicole, the other two go out of the way and Ian prepared to sprint it. His rifle assembly was smooth and even, and the blank fired into the air sealed our first victory, with Brian coming in second.

The relay was an absolute killer--one huge lap around the road loop with the first quarter a buddy fireman's carry, the second quarter a fireman's carry with roles reversed, the third quarter a litter carry, and the fourth quarter a litter carry in gas masks. All of this in full helmets at noon on a dusty road. Kevin Gray, Dan Bailey, Marion Keehn, and Loren Walwyn-Tross represented Alpha Three Platoon. The run was absoultely brutal--they kept a pace that was hard for me to follow with the camera, even without taking on the weight of an extra real or fake body. Most of the platoon paced with them, cheering them on and absolutely winding ourselves in the process. The first platoon to arrive at the gas masks for some reason left their litter and mannequin, so the next did the same, and the third. Major Burns had specifically not wanted anyone sprinting in gas masks and was ticked that his instructions weren't followed, so the entire even was thrown out.

Next came my event--Humvee pull. Four men and four women, two ropes with hooks, pure bruit strength. But, dude, what other medical students can pull a Humvee fifty meters up a hill? We had Steve Colonna and Lucas Groves in front, followed by Amy Alexander and Alicia Scribner, then Dan Raboin and Jeff Strich, then Jaime Piercey and me. It took absolutely everything my little chicken legs could give to make any progress, and they began to fatigue really quickly. When our bodies crossed the white line, my foot grip began to slip, and they came out from under me a foot before the back of the Humvee crossed the line, just enough to scare everybody except me, who knew I could roll out of the way just fine and was just grateful I hadn't taken anyone else down with me. We missed first place by two seconds.

Then came pugo sticks, first to five hits. A coin-flip gave Nicole a buy for the first round, and Jeanie Gorlin battled with Alli Brinker. Mostly, Brinker just hopped around her, both playing defensive and not actively engaging, but eventually, Megan drew her in and defeated her. Seamus Cobb beat Greg Nishimura soundly, because, well, Seamus is awesome and has a little Tasmanian devil inside of him. Nicole started down against Jeanie, came back, but never fully recovered enough to beat her. I couldn't help but wonder if it wouldn't have been different had she been fresh. Seamus then proceeded to defeat Matt Brown, sealing in the second victory for the Alphaholics.

Next up were Liz Miller and Megan Ginn on grappling. I had absolutely underestimated Liz's viciousness when I had supposed that I might stand a chance against her. Holy cow. She got Megan to the point where she made gurgling sounds and stopped breathing, but Megan still wouldnt'tap out. A few ferocious scrambles later, and Liz was defeated, but not by much. Anthon Lemon represented us for the males, and started up against Mike Cullen. Now Anthon wrestled at the state level in high school, but he wrestled 103 lbs, and is currenly around 145 lbs. Mike cullen weighs about 235 lbs and has prior training in grappling and submissions. Anthon held his own, but after what seemed like an an incredibly long time, Mike finally had him in a position where he had to tap out. Megan then proceeded to defeat Frances Rosario and Mike defeated Ted Steelman, though, again, not soundly.

I don't even want to think about the MRE eating contest. That food is hard eough to choke down slowly. The entree was cheese and vegetable omlette. There were also scones and crackers and other horribly dry carbs. Robbie Wetzler and Fred Nielson didn't stand a chance against Matt Feist, who ripped off his shirt at one point and just snarfed and horked down the whole package, filled with water. Robbie snarfed but did not hork, and sometimes it came back up into the bag and he had to choke it down again. In his black warpaint, Matt was beyond ridiculous, spilling everywhere, like cookie monster, but then scooping it off the table and shoving it into his mouth. The level of disgusting was incredible. I never wanted to eat another MRE again. To pronounce his victory, Matt chased Major Burns to give him a big, wet, shirtless omlettey hug. Major Burns understandably ran. Fred was next to finish. Robbie kept trucking away, but at one point he looked around and made a mad dash to the woods to give it all back. We were proud of him for even trying. Has Jason Baumann been here, or maybe Dolo, they might have tried, but I really think Matt was pretty unstoppable at this.

After lunch, Major Burns held an award ceremony where we recognized the excellence of the cadre who had contributed to the successful week. I realized that the combination of my real-world gun bite and a bruise on my palm made it painful to clap, so I just hooted more. Major Burns read a piece about a special leadership award--an American flag--and what it represents and what it has been through. I was starting to tear up before he even finished explaining the award, and they started trickling down my face when he announced that it went to Steve Colonna. To me, there's no question that he deserves it--the smoothness with which he has run the platoon, the willingness to use the best that everyone has to contribute and to mentor and support to compensate for our weakness, the lack of desire for personal attention and glory--I've said before, but it's a joy and a comfort to follow his lead.

Then came the after action report and the buses bearing Bravo company. And then we loaded back onto the buses and left. For the next five days, we'll be at the barracks out in Bushmaster. An unsuccessful walk showed the shoppette to be closed, so we ordered pizza and Chinese, and settled in. I probably spent a half-hour in the shower. I couldn't get over how good it felt to shave my legs and actually touch my scalp. When I had to make a quick run to the garbage to throw away a soaking band-aid, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I didn't even recognize my body--the traps were too tight, and there were bumps and bruises all over the surface of my body, and my hair had become a disaster.

Tomorrow, we take on a leadership reaction course and finally get to do laundry. And tonight I tuck a clean body into clean clothes in a clean bed. Life is wonderful.

Take-off

Morning came too early. My body registered the darkness and the softness of my bed as I lay there, hand on snooze, negotiating with myself for an extension. Finally, my mind hit on a convincing argument to get out of bed--hygiene. I still had time for one last shower. Stink avoidance is a powerful motivator. As is one last real meal. Like many of my classmates, I've been trying to finish all my perishable food before we go, but I'd saved two eggs, a vanilla yogurt, and a cup of Amish blueberries to settle my protesting, sleep-deprived stomach.

It was stil dark when I arrived on campus, hunching under the weight of a pack that could have fit me. How in the world did I pack all this stuff? I felt like the only place I deviated from the list was in doubling the recommended underwear quota. Whoever thought three bras would last six days of field exercises until we could do laundry has clearly never worn them.

Most of the men had cut their hair super-short over break to decrease required maintanance and looked slightly smaller and more vulnerable with their extra exposure. Even with that, and beneath their enormous packs and camelbacks, I was surprised at how many of my classmates were distinguishable just by their silouettes--how a year of living in these conditions, sharing cadavers and Tom Smith's famous Monday morning chocolate bundt cake, makes it feel like we've been together forever. Well, maybe not forever. In fact, definitely not forever.

Hmmmm. The producer of the Lord of the Rings films is an alumnus of my undergrad. Sometime after the release of the third one, he came to campus and gave a convocation, in the which he described some of the massive logistical obstacles required in transplanting a whole city worth of set builders, make-up artists, camera workers, extras, and all the people required to feed and house them into the New Zealand countryside. He also described some of the special effects that had been designed specifically for some of the battle scenes in LotR. One of them was about computer-generating large armies of computer-animated soldiers that moved as individual entities within a larger movement. The trick was to start with a prototype skeleton and give it parameters in which to raise knees to lift feet to project leg motion forward to project body motion forward, etc., etc.. Then, once they had created this almost self-directing animated entity, they made the movements individual by tinkering with the dimentions, making small changes in the proportional heights of femurs to tibias or width of shoulders. Suddenly, rather than a uniform crowd, there was a sea of unique soldiers.

So this morning, in the shadows, it was striking that just by the tilt of a head, by a small wave, I could distinguish most of the class when it was too dark to actually see anyone's features. We've kinda become a part of each other by now. Our bags, however, do not have such obvious distinctions, and calls could be heard from various corners of "is this one my duffel?" and "if you see a helmet with a muffin in it, that's mine."

The sun was just beginning to peak out over the trees when we pulled off. The buses for Bravo Company would be late, so our platoon got a bus almost to ourselves. The ladies set to work immediately, Lieutenant Nicole Baker french braiding Lieutenant Alicia Scribner's hair tight enough to last a month and Ensign Jaime Piercey wrapping Lieutenant Jesse Schoener's hair into two similarly tight plaits. Somewhere in the process we developed a new hand-motion to refer to Marion Keehn, called the "french weave." I wanted to catch up on sleep, but my book was too gripping, and the AC of the bus was on way too high. Instead I got to hear alternating jelly fish stories. The newest addition to our platoon, Ensign Jason Baumann, added to our long line of Kerkesner aphorisms: "There's not really a difference between thirty jellyfish stings and a hundred jellyfish stings."

We drove through a mountain pass to arrive in the valley that is Fort Indiantown Gap-Jazeeristan, Pennsylvania. We're camped out at the edge of a rather large clearing, surrounded on all sides by woods that are high enough that we can't any terrain features beyond the immediate tree-line.

After some introductory yelling to get us in the mood, we assembled our tents, or rather, we all assembled someone else's tent, and then went around helping fix the last details. Our company of three platoons had six gender-integrated tents, filled to the brim with comfortably wide and sturdy cots and little personal misquito nets. After some shuffling to create a partition-able sleeping order, we put up Old Glory to add some color and a jury-rigged string of ponchos to be rolled down for changing and wet-wipe bathing.

Then came the M-16 issue. This is the first real gun I've ever touched in my life. If it were up to me, we really wouldn't have a second ammendment (but since it's not up to me, I respect that it's there). But I have to say, it was kinda anti-climactic. An M-16 is a whole lot like a fake M-16--heavy, awkwardly long, and kinda clunky-looking. I had read an article in the New Yorker maybe four years ago about the history of Kalashnakov and his namesake invention, and one of it's main points was that the AK-47 has become the weapon of choice for mobsters and terrorists because it's coarse and kinda abuse-proof. An M-16 has much more accuracy, but requires the kind of disciplined care that can only be assured with a more organized, structured force. An AK can go through swamps, can get filled with desert sand, and can almost never be cleaned and still operates with relatively the same efficacy. So I had built up some expectations, maybe even some hopes, for the M-16 I was to have glued to my person for the next five days. So far I'm kinda unimpressed that technology hasn't brought us something more elegant and ergonomic. We'll see if something more satisfying comes out of actually firing it once they finally give us blanks.

After boxed lunch and MRE issue, there was the business of digging "hygiene ditches" in which we are to spit our toothpaste and shave. When you assign an entire platoon to dig a ditch, and when your platoon has no greater entertainment than to whack the bottom of that ditch with a pick-axe and catcall at each other while waiting for the pick-axe, you get a mighty impressive place to spit toothpaste.

A rumor came down from leadership that, in searching for a suffienciently imposing name for the shadowy general heading our enemy forces, the cadre accidentally named him Gargomel, who also happens to have a side-job playing on the opposition force for the Smurfs. There is no word on whether the requested name change has been approved.

We awoke from our quick break to find Eddie crouched in front of our tent, maintaining security while the rest of us got up for further M-16 training. "Chuck Norris doesn't sleep, he waits." "Eddie is our Chuck Norris." In true Chuck Norris style, he went on eBay a few weeks ago and bought us a dozen Cingar radios, which proved invaluable strategically for the afternoon's movement rehearsals. They also helped us discover that Lieutenant Loren Walwyn-Tross has a wonderfully rich radio voice. It's a pitty that as Platoon Seargent he has more responsibilities than any of us, because it would be much easier to make him our permanant Radio Transmission Operator.

After rehearsals, we retired for a dinner of MREs. The vegetarian ones are not really all that horrible. The problem is, since I've become a grown-up, I've been remarkably good at being a selective enough eater that my usual standards are much higher than "not really all that horrible." But I absolutely admit that there are worse things one could eat than dry crackers and peanut-butter. Things like dry crackers and jalapeno-cheese spread. Or barbeque gardenburger on hardtac.
Tomorrow the mission begins.