A “Becoming” Excerpt: Sergeant Raphael Martinez (PG for language)
The weekly sessions, though, were not too far off from what he’d expected, being comprised of formation and drill, formation and drill, then later in the evening, after a cigarette break, drill and formation.
Remembering his training at Baylor Military School, the execution of the well-remembered drill commands came easy, and although the twenty-five-pound field pack he was made to wear on his back and the eight-and-a-half-pound Garand M1 rifle he was made to carry on his shoulder became heavier and heavier as the session ground on, Mitchell didn’t mind because being, maybe, just a bit overweight, he considered the time spent in the armory as exercise that the government of the United States was paying for.
______________________________________________________
Chicago, Illinois
May 17, 1950
Sergeant Raphael Martinez
“ ‘La-pimp-sky’, ‘Parminter’! Front and center!”
His head snapping forward, Jesus! Mitchell thought, What’d I do now? Stepping out of line he glanced at Norman, four men to the right, who’d also stepped forward.
They marched front and center, halting in front of Master Sergeant Raphael Martinez.
“ ‘Paraade rest’!... ‘At ease’!” Martinez called. “ ‘Dismissed’!”
The formation broke for their cigarette break, and along with them Norman and Mitchell.
“ ‘Whoa’! Not you two fuckin’ clowns! You come with me, I wanna talk to the two’a you.”
Following Martinez outside, they stood at attention.
“ ‘Jesus Christ’! At ease, for Christ’s sake!” Taking a pack of ‘Luckys’ from his tunic pocket, Martinez pushed three upward, took one himself then held the cigarettes forward. “You two guys…” Flicking his Zippo to life, he passed the flame around, “…for a couple’a fuckin’ Jews are pretty good in there!” Nodding his head toward the drill floor. “How’s come you fuckers do drill so good?”
“I’m in R.O.T.C.,” Norman replied.
“My folks sent me to military school during the war.”
Rolling his eyes, “ ‘Military school’! Ain’t that sweet! Her mommy sent her to fuckin’ military school durin’ the war,” mimicking Mitchell, who blushed.
Master Sergeant Raphael Martinez reminded Mitchell of Frank Rizzo a little because he was small and wiry. But that was where the resemblance ended. The sergeant had straight black hair cut into a military brush. He had dark, almost black eyes and thick scraggly eyebrows that jutted in all directions as though he’d purposely brushed them against their grain. His nose was long and thin, with large nostrils overgrown with coarse hair that mingled with a mustache so thick it was impossible to tell where the nose hair ended and the mustache began. A jagged, white scar bisected his left sideburn and ran downward, past his jaw onto his neck. Above the left pocket of his tunic were three rows of combat and campaign ribbons, including a ‘Purple Heart’.
“You know,” Martinez said, “it’s really tough shit when my two best men are a couple’a fuckin’ Jews.” Taking a deep drag on the Lucky, he exhaled through his nostrils.
Fascinated, Mitchell watched the sergeant’s nose hair wave in the twin streams of gray smoke as Norman, not sure what to make of the backhanded compliment, said, “No shit, Sarge, we’re ‘really’ that good, eh!”
Martinez smiled. Obviously capped, in comparison to the rest of his teeth his two front teeth were disproportionately white. “Hey, you fuckers, don’t go gettin’ all swell-headed you ain’t all ‘that’ good! It’s just that the rest’a them shit-heads…” motioning with his head again, “ain’t no fuckin’ good at all!” Taking another drag on the cigarette, “You two guys want to volunteer to be on my mortar squad.”
“Huh?” Not sure if this was a question or an order “Uh, Sarge,” Norman asked, “are you askin’ or tellin’?”
“That’s how it sounded to you, Parminter, like a question?” Not waiting for an answer, “Shit, no!” he said. “That weren’t no question; that were a tell!”
“A ‘tell’? I thought you asked if we wanted to volunteer to be on your mortar squad.”
“Like maybe it sounded like I’m askin’, but you didn’t understand me real proper-like. You two fuckers ‘are’ on my mortar squad.”
Taking a deep draw on the cigarette, Martinez began to cough, hawked up some phlegm, turned his head to the right and with a loud Phflett! spit the glob onto the sidewalk where it landed with an audible splat… between a pair of glossy, spit-shined boots, leaving a silver tendril of sputum trailing across a mirrored toe.
“ ‘Wha’the’fuck’?” A hand reached forward, grabbed Martinez by the sleeve of his tunic and pulled him around. “Ya’fuckin’son’of’a’bitch!” The voice deep and gravely, “Wha’ the fuck ya think you’re doin’?”
Astonished! Though the voice had sounded somewhat familiar to Mitchell, there was no mistaking the face and body.
Leaning forward, clasping the soldier’s fist, forcing the hand open. “What the fuck you callin’ me?”Martinez said through clenched teeth. “You fat, fuckin’ prick!” Bending the soldier’s fingers, he jerked upward on the hand forcing the much larger man to step in even closer…
****
Nearing nineteen years of age, Corporal, William ‘Skorp’ Skorupski was 6'1’. Weighed tw0 hundred forty-five pounds and had a noticeable paunch. His shiny, pink scalp showing through closely-cropped, light blonde hair, Skorupski’s complexion was deep red, as though he’d sat too close to a sun lamp for too long a time. His face was pocked with flat red scars, the remnants of a hundred, or a thousand, ruptured pimples.
****
...Black, Mexican eyes stared into pale blue Polish eyes and the faces of both men underwent a startling change: The jagged, white scar became translucent red against the deep crimson of Martinez’s anger-flushed face. Skorupski’s face turned chalk white and the flattened pimple scars appeared to become accentuated, as if refilled with pus.
“ ‘Ey, Sarge, let up, man!” Standing on his toes, Skorupski attempted to go with the pressure being exerted on his fingers. “Oh, ‘come on’, Sarge, le’go! I’m fuckin’ sorry! I didn’t know it was you!”
Releasing him with a shove, causing Skorupski to take two steps backward. “Don’t you ‘ever’ call me a son of a bitch!” Poking him in the chest, standing on tiptoes, attempting to bring his face to the level of Skorupski’s. “ ‘Ever’! You fuckin’ hear me?”
Backed against the steel handrail, “Yeah.” Opening and closing his hand, working the pained fingers. “sure, Sarge. I’m fuckin’ sorry. Like I said, I didn’t know it was you. Okay?”
Looking over the shorter man’s head. Noticing Mitchell. Squinting, staring at him. “Hey, don’t I know you from someplace?”
Rather hoping Skorupski didn’t remember him. “No, I don’t think so,” Mitchell said. “I’d remember if I know you.”
“I d’know! You look real familiar.” Still staring, trying to remember, “Like maybe you’re someone I used to know.”
A loud, shrill whistle signaled the end of the break.
“Come on, time to get back.” Flipping his cigarette with a trailing tail of sparks, “You two guys hang around after drill. I wanna talk to you some more.” Glancing at Skorupski, Martinez rushed into the armory.
Flipping their cigarettes also, the boys followed Martinez inside.
Still working his fist, Skorupski watched Mitchell’s back, then he, too, rushed inside.
****
Nine-thirty. the session over.
“Sarge,” Martinez, Norman and Mitchell, once again outside. “what’s a mortar squad do?”
Enunciating each syllable. Purposely mispronouncing his name, “La-pimp-sky, you sure are one dumb cocksucker, ain’t’j’ya?”
Sighing, bringing his eyes back to Martinez, “Yeah, Sarge, if you say so.”
“La-pimp-sky, a mortar squad carries the mortar and ammo.”
“Yeah, Sarge, I know that. but what’d’they do after that?”
“ ‘Do’? I told’j’ya, they…”
“I mean, yeah, I know they carry the mortar and stuff! But let’s say we’re in a battle, a real battle, where would we be?”
“ ‘Up shit creek’, La-pimp-sky,” he laughed. “Up shit creek!”
“What he wants to know is, would we be functioning as an advance unit or as rear support?”
“Advance unit? ‘Rear support’? Jesus, Parminter, you really did learn something in R.O.T.C. after all, didn’t’j’ya? Parminter, I wouldn’t trust the two’a you fuckers behind me with a pea shooter.” Drawing on his cigarette, becoming serious. “Look, we ain’t a weapons company, but Captain Trainer wants a mortar squad for ‘McCoy’, so’s it really don’t make a flyin’ fuck where the two’a you’d be in a real battle ‘cause this is just for the duration of McCoy. I need six guys for the squad, an’ seein’ as you two seem to have some kind’a half-assed kind’a prior trainin’, I’m gonna make the two’a you squad leaders.”
“ ‘Squad leaders’!” Looking at Norman, Mitchell’s eyebrows went up. “We’re gonna haul the gun!” he said, not unhappily, thinking he and Norman might be exempt from the long marches he knew were a part of maneuvers. “How do we do it,” he asked hopefully. “By truck?”
“First off, a mortar ain’t no fuckin’ gun!” Martinez corrected. “An’ ‘no’, you dumb shit, you don’t go by truck! What the fuck you think? You think the Army’s the fuckin’ ‘Chicago Transit Authority’? You’re gonna march, just like the rest’a them fuckers.”
“The mortar; how much does it weigh?” Norman asked.
“The tube’s twenty-seven pounds and the base, thirty.”
“How’ll we lug it?”
“I figure you’d start off with the tube and Parminter here, the base. Then, if you guys want, you can switch off during the march.”
“The tube? How?”
“Over your fuckin’ shoulder and the base’ll hook onto your buddy’s field pack.”
“Sarge, the tube and base, a full field pack, and an M1? Ain’t that just a little too much?”
“You dumb shit, La-pimp-sky! How the fuck you think you’d be able to march holdin’ the tube and a fuckin’ M1? The two’a you’ll be issued .45s.”
“No shit!” Glancing at Norman, Mitchell’s face broke into a broad smile. “Really, Sarge? I’m going to be issued a .45? A ‘real .45’!”
“Sure a real .45! You think the Army’d give you a fuckin’ toy gun?”
“We get to shoot ’em and everything, huh!”
Thinking these two were underage, now thinking that Mitchell was even younger than he’d first thought. Looking at him quizzically. “They ain’t no fuckin’ cap pistols, but, yeah, you’ll get to shoot ’em.”
Turning to Norman, poking his thumb in Mitchell’s direction, “What the fuck’s wrong with him?”
“Nothin’, Sarge. It’s just that…” knowing it sounded stupid, “...him’n’me were talkin’, before we joined here, and he said that he hoped he’d be able to get a .45, uh, to use.”
Looking skyward, “Jesus,” Martinez said. “Give me strength! What a bunch of fuckin’, baby pussies! La-pimp-sky, if you ever found yourself in a real battle you’d sure want to trade that fuckin’ .45 for an M1 with a bayonet fast enough.” Holding the low burning stub of his cigarette between the darkly nicotine-stained fingernails of his thumb and forefinger, drawing deeply on the last half-inch, he flicked the ember in the air.
“Yeah, well I’m glad we don’t have to worry ‘bout whether or not I’d want an M1 over a .45, ‘cause fortunately there ain’t no war going on now.”
“Yeah, La-pimp-sky, thank God there ain’t no war goin’ on now, ‘cause I don’t know where we’d be if this country had to rely on a bunch’a dumb fuckers like the two’a you!”
****
June 25, 1950: The North Korean Army crosses the 38th parallel.
****
Chicago, Illinois
The Military Disease
A strange, almost immediate phenomenon takes place affecting most men as they cross from civilian to military life.
Within hours of stepping from the comparatively relaxed ease and social structure of life as a civilian into the highly disciplined, well-ordered life of the military, though the man may be well educated, a second-year engineering student or a third-year economics major, single or married, with or without children, a ‘regular’ or merely fulfilling his military obligation, an enlisted man or a draftee… Once that man crosses the line from civilian to military he, almost always, becomes infected with the ‘military disease’.
As warm air rises and bubbles float upward, the new inductee, ‘intellectually’, goes in the opposite direction and literately drops to the lowest possible level.
What is this military disease?
It is not physical.
It’s meaning no longer the meaning, the military disease can best be described in a word, in one word: ‘FUCK’, and the derivatives of that word: FUCKED, FUCKER, and most especially, FUCKING.
Normally intelligent men whose harshest expletive in civilian life might be a reserved ‘Damn’, find themselves saying, without being aware, or if they are aware, without the slightest qualm, ‘Oh, fuck! That fucker just stepped on my fuckin’ shoe and I’ll be fucked if I didn’t just polished ‘em’!”
Usually, with most men, the corrective remedy is a short dose of civilian life, or a few minutes with the opposite sex.
When there is no mixed company or a hint of civilian life the military disease runs rampant.
June 27 Through August 3, 1950
Camp McCoy
Sparta, Wisconsin
The gray brick building housing the armory and the 33rd Infantry Division covered a full quarter-block on the southwest corner of Chicago’s Madison and Rockwell streets.
At precisely 0730 hours on the hot, muggy morning of Saturday, July 27, 1950, the drivers of a convoy of thirty-seven khaki and field-green camouflaged troop carriers turned the keys and stepped on the accelerators starting their Ford and International Harvester motors amidst a roaring and spewing of noxious gray exhaust. Thirty seconds later, the lead vehicle pulled away from the curb with a jerk, jolting the eighteen National Guard troopers sitting on wooden benches on either side of the canvas-covered truck.
The early morning trip through the West Side of Chicago into the Loop encountered minimal traffic and arrived at Union Station at 0817 hours.
With another jolt, the trucks stopped in their assigned disembarkation area.
Jumping from his seat in the cab, the corporal assigned to each truck went behind the vehical and, with an echoing clatter, “Fall in!” dropped the tailgate.
Swinging their olive-green, canvas duffel bags before them, the troopers lowered themselves off the tail-gate and, facing the corporal, formed a double column.
“Tench, hup!”
Bodies straighten. Heels snap together with toes at a 45-degree angle.
“Dress right, dress!”
Heads turn to the right, right arms extend touching the shoulder of the next man.
“Tench, hup!”
Arms drop, heads snap forward.
“Ri-ight face! Grab your bags!”
Lifted off the ground, the troopers hoist the bags to their left shoulders.
“For-ward harch! ‘Hup, two, three, four! Hup, two, three, four’!”
Approximately 672 soldiers formed 56 squads of 12 men each that comprised platoons ‘Able’, ‘Baker’, ‘Charlie’ and ‘Dog’, which comprised about fifty percent of the ‘Third Battalion of the First Regiment of the 33rd Armored Division’, which merged with the second half of the battalion—from a south side armory—that at this time were marching from the opposite end of the parking lot into the train depot, through the gates and onto the outer platform.
Shoe leather slapping on concrete echoed as almost three-thousand boot-clad feet marched in place until they could file through the two bottleneck entries on either side of forty coaches of the train going northward… Through Chicago… Past Rockford… Out of Illinois… Into Wisconsin, where…
****
Two-hundred, forty-eight miles later, the train stopped to unload its military cargo at ‘Sparta, Wisconsin’, where the entire corps once again was loaded into troop carriers for the final twenty-eight-mile ride to the ‘U.S. Army’ training facility at Camp McCoy… Where the convoy aligned along white-painted, concrete curbs. Ignitions turned off and, as though echoing, the clattering tailgates dropped in a semblance of unison.
Disembarking, the troops gawked at their new surroundings for a moment… until they’re called to…
“Shit!” Dropping his duffel bag off the rear of the truck, Mitchell squatted a moment looking about, then followed it down. “I’m glad that’s over. What a trip!” Bringing his arms together in front of his chest, making fists, he tightened then relaxed the muscles of his arms, back, chest and legs.
“Yeah, me, too!” Following Mitchell, Norman stretched, then pressed his fists into the small of his back.
The entire movement, from the armory on the west side of Chicago to this place in southern Wisconsin, had taken slightly under six hours, and now they might as well have been on the moon as here in this camp, in their neighboring state.
From where they stood they could see row upon row of Quonset-like barracks. Each structure separated from side to side by ten feet of well-maintained grass and by 12 feet of black macadam that went from the front of each row of structures to the rear of the next row of structures. Turning about, looking in the opposite direction was an enormous parade ground with a wood-tiered, white-painted review stand and beyond, what appeared to be endless miles of plushy wooded, rolling hills.
The broiling sun shone in a cloudless sky. Countless swarms of gnats circled in mindless formations and the oppressive, mid-afternoon air fairly steamed with humidity and seemed to be alive with the urgent buzz of flies and mosquitoes.
Disembarking, the troops gawked at their new surroundings for a moment… until they’re called to…
“Fall in! Fall in! This ain’t no fuckin’ vacation! Fall the fuck in!”
Within minutes each contingent was marched to their assigned barracks and throughout camp thousands of men were issued the same orders:
“Take your bunks in the same order as parade formation; column one to the right and column two to the left. Stow your gear under the bunk. Take a piss if you gotta, and reassemble for chow in ten minutes. ‘Dismissed’!”
Before this weekend was over, the first and second battalions of the 33rd Division, U.S. National Guard, consisting of approximately four thousand enlisted men, officers and equipment, will arrive and occupy Camp McCoy for two weeks of field maneuvers and military training.
KOREA…
‘Korea’ was constantly on the minds of the officers and older enlisted men, most of whom were World War Two veterans.
Rumors abounded and scuttlebutt ran rampant.
“Hey, j’ya hear? We’re goin’ to fuckin’ Korea!”
“ ‘Bullshit’!”
“Ain’t no bullshit! I heard it from a guy that knows a guy that’s a clerk for Captain Thompson who’s on Colonel Black’s staff, who’s best friends with General Penston’s valet.”
“ ‘Bullshit’! We got better’n four-hundred-thousand troops in the regular army and before they’d send this fuckin’, half-assed know-nothin’ greenhorn division they’ll pull some’a them fuckers outta Japan an’ West Germany and send them!”
“ ‘Bullshit’!”
“Hey, j’ya hear? They’re extendin’ this here trainin’ exercise to fuckin’ three months an’ then they’re shippin’ our asses right over to fuckin’ Korea! I wouldn’t bullshit ya, man!”
“ ‘Bullshit’!”
“We’re getting’ activated!”
“Hey, ‘dip-shit’, even if fuckin’ Eisenhower did activate us, by the time they finish trainin’ this here fuckin’ ‘weekend warrior’ army, the fuckin’ Marines’n’regulars’ll mop the place up with them fuckin’ gooks an’ it’ll be over before we even get there.”
“ ‘Bullshit’!”
“Yeah, man! We’ll bomb the livin’ shit outta them yella, mother-fuckin’, nip bastards an’ never even have’ta step foot in the fuckin’, stinkin’ place.”
“They ain’t no fuckin’ ‘nips’, they’re fuckin’ ‘Koreans’.”
“ ‘Japs’, ‘Koreans’, same fuckin’ difference! They’re all ‘nips’!”
“Hey, I hear ol’ ‘Ike’s’ gonna drop a fuckin’ A-bomb on them fuckin’, slanty-eyed, commie, gook, sons’a’bitchin’ bastards.”
“ ‘Bullshit’!”
“G’bye good ol’ U-S-of-A an’ hello fuckin’ South Pacific!”
“ ‘Bullshit’!”
“How the fuck ya say ‘fuck’ in Korean?”
“Dumb, asshole, shit: ‘fuckee, fuckee, suckee, suckee’.”
For the younger troops.
The kids who turned the radio dial when the news came on. The punks whose only interest in the newspaper was the sports and movie section, the radio schedule and funnies.
Korea and the real concept of war was still a comic book and a movie where the good guys always win and the bad guys always lose and God, ‘God’ is always on the side of us ‘good, red-blooded Americans’.”
Norman Parminter and Mitchell Lipensky certainly fell within the ‘punk’ category. They didn’t want to be activated, but if it did happen?
“What the fuck can we do about it?” Norman had said.
“And really,” Mitchell had replied, “it is the ‘South Pacific’, after all! And what could be so terrible? It might even be fun. No more school for a while and soldiers in uniform always have girls to fuck around with. And when it’s over, say in, oh, about six months on the outside and we do come home and go back to school, well ‘fuck the football team’! You’n’me, pal, we’ll be ‘real’ heroes.
‘Oh, yeah’!
And once again, a vigorous, emphatic…
‘Bullshit’!
Next “Becpmomg” excerpt in sequence….
"Camp McCoy"
