Private Richard Starbuck, formerly a star forward on the Center High basketball team, looked at his watch and wondered, as he waited, if being shot in the gut would be anything like cutting your head on the pavement. It was funny he should have thought of that now. He hadn’t thought of the Martins for months. He wondered if they would be watching. He wondered, if they did, if they would recognize the sixteen-year-old boy who had bled on their living room couch four years ago. He wondered if he recognized that sixteen-year-old boy himself.
Professor Carl Overmann had finished explaining the marvels of the NSB computer system; a mousy little man from the sociology department of a second rate university had spent ten minutes assuring the TV audience that one of the important psychological effects of the TV coverage of the games was that it allowed the people to satisfy the innate blood lust vicariously and strongly urged the viewers to encourage the youngsters to watch; a minister had spent three minutes explaining that the miniature war could serve to educate mankind to the horrors of war; an economics professor was just finishing a short lecture on the economic effects of victory or defeat.
“Well, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen,” Bill Carr said when the economics professor had finished. “You all know there’s a lot at stake for both sides. And now— what’s that? You what? Just a minute, folks. I think we may have another NSB first.” He looked off camera to his right. “Is he there? Yes, indeed, ladies and gentlemen, NSB has done it again. For the first time we are going to have—well, here he is, ladies and gentlemen, General George W. Caldwell, chief of the Olympic War Games training section. General, it’s nice to have you with us.”
“Thank you, Bill. It’s good to be here.”
“General, I’m sure our audience already knows this, but just so there will be no misunderstanding, it’s not possible for either side to communicate to their people in the arena now. Is that right?”
“That’s right, Bill, or I could not be here. An electronic curtain, as it were, protects the field from any attempt to communicate. From here on out the boys are strictly on their own.”
“General, do you care to make any predictions on the outcome of the games?”
“Yes, Bill, I may be going out on a limb here, but I think our boys are ready. I can’t say that I agree with the neutral-money boys who have the United States a six-to-five underdog. I say we’ll win.”
“General, there is some thought that our defeat in the games four years ago was caused by an inferior battle plan. Do you care to comment on that?”
“No comment.”
“Do you have any explanation for why the United States team has lost the last two games after winning the first two?”
“Well, let me say this. Our defeat in ‘42 could well have been caused by overconfidence. After all, we had won the first two games rather handily. As I recall we won the game in ‘38 by four survivors. But as for our defeat in ‘46—well, your estimate on that one is as good as mine. I will say this: General Hanley was much criticized for an unimaginative battle plan by a lot of so-called experts. Those so-called experts—those armchair generals—were definitely wrong. General Hanley’s battle strategy was sound in every detail. I’ve studied his plans at considerable length, I can assure you.”
“Perhaps the training program—?”
“Nonsense. My own exec was on General Hanley’s training staff. With only slight modifications it’s the same program we used for this year’s games.”
“Do you care to comment on your own battle plans, General?”
“Well, Bill, I wouldn’t want to kill the suspense for your TV audience. But I can say this: we’ll have a few surprises this year. No one can accuse us of conservative tactics, I can tell you that.”
“How do you think our boys will stack up against the Russians, General?”
“Bill, on a man to man basis, I think our boys will stack up very well indeed. In fact, we had men in the drop-out squads who could have made our last team with no trouble at all. I’d say this year’s crop is probably twenty percent improved.”
“General, what do you look for in selecting your final squads?”
“Bill, I’d say that more than anything else we look for desire. Of course, a man has to be a good athlete, but if he doesn’t have that killer instinct, as we say, he won’t make the team. I’d say it’s desire.”
“Can you tell us how you pick the men for the games?”
“Yes, Bill, I think I can, up to a point. We know the Russians use the same system, and, of course, there has been quite a bit written on the subject in the popular press in recent months.
“Naturally, we get thousands of applicants. We give each of them a tough screening test—physical, mental, and psychological. Most applicants are eliminated in the first test. You’d be surprised at some of the boys who apply. The ones who are left—just under two thousand for this year’s games—are put through an intensive six-month training course. During this training period we begin to get our first drop-outs, the men who somehow got past our screening system and who will crack up under pressure.
“Next comes a year of training in which the emphasis is on conditioning.”
“Let me interrupt here for just a moment, General, if I may. This conditioning—is this a type of physical training?”
The general smiled tolerantly. “No, Bill, this is a special type of conditioning—both mental and physical. The men are conditioned to war. They are taught to recognize and to hate the enemy. They are taught to react instantly to every possible hostile stimuli. They learn to love their weapons and to distrust all else.”
“I take it that an average training day must leave the men very little free time.”
“Free time!” The general now seemed more shocked than amused. “Free time indeed. Our training program leaves no time free. We don’t coddle our boys. After all, Bill, these men are training for war. No man is permitted more than two hours’ consecutive sleep. We have an average of four alerts every night.
“Actually the night alerts are an important element in our selection as well as our training program. We have the men under constant observation, of course. You can tell a lot about how a man responds to an alert. Of course, all of the men are conditioned to come instantly awake with their rifles in their hands. But some would execute a simultaneous roll-away movement while at the same time cocking and aiming their weapons in the direction of the hostile sound which signaled the alert.”
“How about the final six months, General?”
“Well, Bill, of course, I can’t give away all our little tricks during those last six months. I can tell you in a general sort of way that this involved putting battle plans on a duplicate of the arena itself.”
“And these hundred men who made this year’s team—I presume they were picked during the last six months training?”
“No, Bill, actually we only made our final selection last night. You see, for the first time in two years these men have had some free time. We give them two days off before the games begin. How the men react to this enforced inactivity can tell us a lot about their level of readiness. I can tell you we have an impatient bunch of boys out there.”