“Yeah,” said Schrenker lurching to his feet and pacing between the steel-framed bunk beds. “That’s what I mean. I mean, we can’t train here, we didn’t get to train ’cause we had to get ready for EIB, we didn’t get a fuckin’ ARTEP, to show ’em we’re fucked and there’s no way we’re gonna be able to train on the ships, right? So it’s like somebody wants us to fuck up! Why the fuck are they sending us, huh? Why not send the fuckin’ armor or the goddamn cav? Why fuckin’ Airborne? We’re like, lightweight assault troops not plodders. I mean, what? They gonna drop us from orbit?”
“The Airborne and Marines are all getting the suits,” said Bittan, studying the sergeant’s king at length.
“Come on, any day now. Get up or go home. Where’d you hear that?”
“My buddy in S-4. They’re gonna group us together as some new group. An’ he said we’re gonna get some hotshot from GalTech Infantry to help us train up.” He finally tossed a low trump on the king. “I think I’m startin’ to get the hang of this game.”
“Thank fucking God,” said his partner.
“Yeah,” said Duncan, pulling out the recently issued field manual and flipping to the second page. “O’Neal, Michael L., First Lieu… nah.”
“What?” said Schrenker.
“There used to be an O’Neal with the One Five-O-Five. Come to think of it he was Horner’s driver and Horner is the head of GalTech. I wonder if it’s the same guy?”
“What’s he like?” asked Schrenker.
“Short, hasn’t got much of a short guy’s attitude though, ’cause he’s built like a fuckin’ tank, big-time lifter. Ugly as sin. Quiet, but kinda wise guy when he opens his mouth. Doesn’t give ‘no-brainers’ much slack. Gotta punch like a mule.”
“When’d you meet him?” asked Schrenker.
“ ’97? ’98?”
“Where’d you find out about his punch?” asked Bittan, fascinated.
“Rick’s.” Duncan answered shortly, naming off an infamous topless bar in Fayetteville. “There’s some interesting shit in this,” he continued flipping through the field manual.
“Like what? How to play tiddlywinks while wearing a suit?” asked Brecker, taking the last trick with a ten of diamonds. “Shit, gotta sandbag.”
“No, shithead, how to fuckin’ survive,” snapped Duncan.
“Hey, asshole!” snarled Brecker, tossing aside the trick and surging to his feet, pointing his finger like a knife. “If I wanna hear shit from you, I’ll squeeze your head ’til it pops!”
“You’d better at the fuck ease, Sergeant,” snarled Duncan in turn, his teeth drawn back in a rictus. The rest of the squad was frozen watching the arguing NCOs. The long-awaited clash had taken everyone, including the principals, by surprise. Duncan slammed the field manual to the floor when the other sergeant refused to back down. “And you better at ease right fuckin’ now,” he continued. “If you have something to say, we need to take it outside,” he ended, sounding nearly normal, but the hard lines of his face were unchanged.
Brecker’s face worked, his anger and pride driving him into a corner, but the discipline that had enabled him to reach his current rank forced the words out, “Okay, let’s take it outside, Sergeant.” The last word was a spat epithet.
The two NCOs stalked outside with the hard eyes of the squad trailing after.
“Okay,” snapped Duncan, stopping and spinning to face the shorter NCO as they turned the corner of the barracks, “what the fuck is eating your ass?”
“You, you fucked up son of a bitch!” growled the junior NCO, restraining a shout with difficulty. They were standing just off the company street and both recognized the danger they were in. Overt conflict would mean instant punishment from the present chain of command. “This was my goddamn squad before you got shoved down our throat and it’s fallin’ fuckin’ apart! Get your shit together, dammit!”
Duncan’s face was as cold and gray as the skies but he could not find an immediate rebuttal. Given the silence, Brecker continued his attack.
“I could give a fuck how we got you. If you got off your ass. But I can’t order the fuckin’ squad around while you pout, they won’t listen. So quit your cryin’ you shit and lead! Lead, follow or get out of my fuckin’ way!”
“Oh, so you know all there is about bein’ a squad leader?” whispered Duncan, clenching his fists convulsively. He was on the defensive, knowing the truth of the accusation.
“I know I gotta do more than sit on my ass and mope!”
“Oh, yeah?…” Duncan suddenly turned away from the hot eyes on him and looked at the blank wall of the barracks. He felt tears welling up and abruptly changed the subject. “Ten fuckin’ years Brecker. Ten fuckin’ years in this shit-hole. I can’t get away from it. I put myself on levee to Panama or Korea or any other shit-hole just to get out and get graded as vital or talked into staying by the CO. Then the fuckin’ chain-of-command changes and the new CO thinks I’m uselesser than dirt. But then there’s no levees. I re-up for something else and get classified as critical so I can’t change my MOS. The only fuckin’ way out of Bragg would be to terminate my airborne status, but that’s just another word for quittin’. Finally, finally I get my fuckin’ staff stripes, like four years after I should have gotten ’em and now this. I just cannot fuckin’ face it, I can’t.”
“You gotta. At least they left you some rank. I would’ve sent you to Leavenworth.”
“They couldn’t have.”
“You cut Reed’s legs off, you bastard! Of course they could have!”
“Yeah, you knew him, didn’t you?”
“We were in the same Basic fuckin’ platoon, yeah I knew him.”
“They couldn’t have court-martialed me and won,” Duncan muttered. “I mean, it wouldn’t have even gotten past the JAG. I didn’t know that at the time. I should have let ’em. It was experimental equipment, all of it is. It would be the same as court-martialing a test pilot for punching out of plane or us for not jumping. I should not have been able to do what that thing did. You just don’t issue equipment like that, you don’t. If it was anybody’s fault, it was GalTech’s for issuing that piece of crap.”
“We’ve still got ’em!”
“They re-issued ’em, remember? You can’t get them to generate the same field; I tried.”
“What?”
“I was careful this time. It won’t do it, anyway. But the point is, you can court-martial someone for not following proper regs, but when an accident is not covered by training or experience there are clear regulations that state that an individual cannot be prosecuted for it, no matter what the consequences. So should I be a sergeant now? You tell me?”
“You should be a fuckin’ civilian,” snapped Brecker, but it was without heat. He could see the logic of the argument, whatever his personal dislike. “But this isn’t about whether you should be a sergeant, it’s about whether you should be a squad leader. Are you gonna get it together or not?”
“I don’ know,” admitted Duncan wearily. He slumped to a squatting position and leaned against the sodden barracks wall as the runoff soaked into his beret. “Every other time I felt crapped on I was able to shake it off, but this time it’s so hard.”
“You didn’t get crapped on, you idiot, they gave you a walk.”
“No, I got some pretty good scuttlebutt that the colonel was aware of the reg. He could have let me walk on the basis of it, and I could request a review, probably, and get my stripes back, that’s what I’m trying to work out. But while I’m thinkin’ about that, I’m not thinkin’ about the squad.”