When inanimate objects hit the floor, there’s a crashing sound. When human beings hit the floor, there’s a thud. Thud. Private after private was yanked from his bed by drill sergeants who paced through our barracks like predators. They grabbed soundly sleeping bodies from top bunks and hurled them and their mattresses to the floor — a six-foot drop below. With every thud I said a silent prayer of thanks for my bottom bunk.
“Toe the fucking line!” shouted a drill sergeant.
Our entire platoon was up and in line in less than a minute. In my sleep-induced stupor, I tried to get a sense of the time. It was pitch-black outside and still hot as hell — that muggy, choking heat of a Georgia summer night. There was no air-conditioning in our barracks, so we toed the line in as little clothing as possible — physical training (PT) shorts or army-issued, shit-colored underwear.
Fort Benning was just outside the city of Columbus, about a hundred miles from the Alabama border. The average temperature in July was a punishing 92 degrees. Thick, still air hung above flat, wet plains that gave way to rolling hills — the perfect setting for grueling midday marches. With a forty-pound rucksack, a sweat-soaked uniform, and rust-colored mud that practically swallowed my boots with each step, marching in the Georgia heat was almost enough to make me regret joining the army altogether.
It was spring 2003, and I was about eight weeks into basic training — a thirteen-week boot camp to turn soft, selfish teenagers into trained killing machines. On March 19, 2003, just weeks after I’d started basic, the United States and its allies declared war on Iraq. The threat of being sent to war felt vague, distant, and less like a threat than a chance to put my training to good use. The possibility of war felt especially unimportant when two sour-breathed drill sergeants were screaming in our faces in the middle of the night.
We were in trouble for something. Big trouble. We had fifteen seconds to get fully dressed, downstairs, and into formation to hear about whatever we’d done wrong. It was an impossible order, and they knew it. We sprinted to our lockers and scrambled into PT uniforms amid a never-ending chorus of Hurry UP Hurry UP Hurry UP Hurry UP Hurry UP Hurry UP Hurry UP.
Ninety seconds later, a hundred and sixty privates from four different platoons stood at attention before eight fuming drill sergeants in the yard below. Every private from Charlie Company 2-19 had been pulled from his bunk in the middle of the night. On the rare occasions when we’d been woken up like this, it’d never been with the entire company. Someone must have fucked up big-time.
I made a frantic mental dive through the maze of the previous day, trying to remember if I’d screwed up. PT was fine — I was the third guy done with push-ups. I shaved and made my bed and put on the right uniform. I locked and relocked and re-relocked my wall locker. A few days before, I’d accidentally left it unlocked, and a hysterical drill sergeant had tossed the whole locker across the bay, my underwear and shaving kit flying like shrapnel, my tightly rolled socks rolling across the floor like severed heads. Even worse, our platoon had to do a shit ton of push-ups because of me, which was not the best way to make friends.
This wasn’t about me . . . was it?
It couldn’t be. I had the perfect temperament for military service. Head down. Mouth shut. The quiet one who was a good team player. I was like my dad, who dedicated his life to helping people who needed help but usually didn’t want it. I was like my Bampa, who risked his life to protect the lives of the men he commanded during war. If called on to do something like that, I was pretty sure I’d be ready.
But not everyone came to basic ready to take one for the team. Like this kid from the Bronx, Ferraro. Where I kept my head down and my mouth shut, Ferraro kept his chin up and mouth open. He was constantly getting punished because of it. Ferraro was stumpy and muscular. He had straight, archless eyebrows that make him look like Bert from Sesame Street, and a silhouette of black stubble on his head that never quite disappeared, no matter how often he shaved.
Ferraro took a lot of pride in being the platoon clown and didn’t seem to care if it got him — or the rest of us — roasted. His favorite prank, the Pinkeye Nightmare, required a top bunk, a loose pair of pants, and a sleeping private. Ferraro would climb up onto the bunk, straddle the sleeping guy’s face, pull down his pants, and shout “WAKE UP!” at the top of his lungs. When the sleeping private awoke with a start, the guy’d slam his face right into Ferraro’s waiting asshole. Maybe, instead of a family who valued service and restraint, Ferraro hailed from a long line of court jesters or reality TV stars. Maybe, in his family, it was a sign of character to indulge in humor that only you found funny. Or maybe Ferraro was just kind of a dick.
As my eyes adjusted to the darkness of the yard, I noticed a private who wasn’t standing in formation with the rest of us. Instead, he was standing apart from the entire company, as if he’d been put on display. He was surrounded by drill sergeants who leaned in toward the private like they were ready to pounce. In the darkness, I strained to see who it was. When one of the drill sergeants stepped away from their circle of shame, he revealed a private with a stumpy, muscular physique, straight, archless eyebrows, a silhouette of black stubble, and surely an anus clenched in fear.
It was Ferraro, the face sitter. The butthole bandit.
My heart did a little heel kick — this jerk was finally going to get what was coming to him. Then my heart sank — Ferraro was from my platoon. If Ferraro was going down, we were all going down with him.
“Cum stains!” shouted a drill sergeant.
In the darkness, the drill sergeant paced back and forth in front of Ferraro, his white skin gleaming against the blackness of the night. He looked like a ghost floating toward a condemned prisoner and spoke in sharp, infrequent barks, with pauses so long you could drive a truck through them. Drill sergeants lived for this type of shit.
“It SEEMS,” shouted the drill sergeant, “that Private FERRARO here thought it would be a good IDEA to take a little midnight FIELD TRIP!”
Silence. No one moved. No one breathed. Ferraro’s chin quivered above his heaving chest. In his hand he clutched a small, oblong object that I couldn’t quite make out in the dark. He looked like he was ready to shit his pants, vomit, or both.
“Apparently, Private FERRARO thought it would be a good IDEA to sneak out to BRAVO Company,” said the drill sergeant.
We were Charlie Company. Charlie Company was never allowed to leave our barracks without permission, and definitely not to sneak out to Bravo Company, and most definitely not in the middle of the night.
“APPARENTLY Private FERRARO thought it would be a good IDEA to help himself to a little midnight SNACK!”
A few audible groans rippled across the company. Ferraro’s entire face rippled and twitched at the sound of them.
“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” yelled the drill sergeant.
He spat in Ferraro’s general direction before continuing:
“PRIVATE FERRARO so desperately wanted a CANDY BAR, that he LEFT HIS BARRACKS PAST CURFEW, SNUCK OUT TO BRAVO COMPANY, BOUGHT HIMSELF A SNICKERS FROM THE VENDING MACHINE, GOT CAUGHT BY A DRILL SERGEANT, LIED ABOUT WHERE HE WAS FROM, RAN AWAY, and GOT. CAUGHT. AGAIN.”
You have got. To be fucking. Kidding me.
The sergeant’s white skin turned a familiar shade of purple in the dim light — it was the look they got when they were about to burst a blood vessel from screaming so loud.
“PRIVATE HOT DOG HEAD!” yelled the drill sergeant.
“Yes, Drill Sergeant!” shouted Hot Dog Head, so named for the rolls of skin that bulged at the nape of his neck and made him look like a human shar-pei.
“WHAT PLATOON DOES PRIVATE FERRARO BELONG TO?” asked the drill sergeant.
Hot Dog Head paused a split second too long.
“I CAN’T HEAR YOU, HOT DOG!”
“Private