Trees all around, everywhere I looked, there were so many trees. I won't lie, I love nature more than I will ever love a city or a building, but I was so tired of seeing the same fucking trees. Maybe it was because I didn't have the ones I loved so close that I couldn't enjoy this scenery. Don't get me wrong, it's beautiful out here, but I'm so sick of it. We are coming up on our last month of training, today is rifle marksmanship qualification. My goal was expert, I'd told my wife in a letter that I would shoot 40/40 for her. No pressure. We couldn't speak on the bus, our senior drill sergeant, Sergeant First Class Roberts, forbade it. So, we sat, quietly waiting for the bus to pull up to our destination. We were fully dressed up, OCP uniforms, digital print IOTV's (bullet and shrapnel resistant vests), ACH without cover that looked to be twenty years old or more, and magazine pouches clipped to our FLIK vests. We weighed a good fifty pounds more than normal fully dressed.
I leaned my M4 against my shoulder, barrel facing the floor of the bus. Another rule Senior Drill Sergeant imposed, we learned quickly to follow this one to a T. I wasn't nervous about this, but I could see a lot of my battle-buddies were. I'd gotten to meet a few new people that I surprisingly care about enough to socialize with. There was Private First Class Mayor, a young man who joined the Army to take care of his mother who had just had a stroke, there was Specialist Johns, someone who joined the army to quit being a piece of shit and for the most part was succeeding, but struggled for a bit because people don't realize that the uniform doesn't change you, it just gives you an opportunity to do so. It took him almost a month to start that process. Then, my single favorite person, surprisingly enough, a female Private First Class Jane Papatonis, or just Pap. I saw a lot of myself in her. She was young, she was nice, and she was a great soldier. She joined the Army because her father sacrificed everything for them, and this was her way of doing his name justice. One of the things that got her to stand out among the rest, the fact that no matter how she felt, she always made it a mission to put all of us first. I was rooting for her, for sure. We even had the same MOS and we're going to AIT together. It'll be nice to have a friend there. Not too many of these people are really the kind I would hang out with. The bond, however, somehow makes it to where I would kill or die for any of these people in a heartbeat. That much, I could only narrow down to the fact that we all hated life together as of the last month. I guess nothing unites people like a common enemy.
I remembered my wife and I and how we'd had a common enemy once too. We'd bonded quite well before we had this enemy, but our bond strengthened after. There was a man, some Tony guy who always had a thing for my wife, but he wasn't a good guy. He liked hitting women and people smaller and weaker than him. I don't get along well with guys like that. She and I were shopping together when I needed to use the restroom, and apparently this Tony guy thought it would be a good idea to come and try asking her out. When she declined, I could hear a commotion out there. I came out of the restroom to see he was grabbing her by the arm and pulling her in close, squeezing her arm and getting her to react in pain. He was a decently large guy, a little over six feet tall and built like a boxer. That didn't stop me from attacking him after I saw what he was doing to her. I admit, I may have lost control because I blacked out after getting him on the ground, and the last thing I remember from this encounter was being pulled off of him and seeing his bloody face. His jaw bone was completely unhinged and sticking out of his face, he couldn't open either of his eyes, and parts of his forehead bone were exposed. He didn't even resemble the Tony I saw once. I remember wishing I could feel bad for losing control, but all I could think of was how unfortunate it was that he survived. I looked at my hands, the tell tale sign of that fight was the scar tissue covering my knuckles. That day, I saw my own knuckle bones exposed. It was painful once the adrenaline went away, good times. My wife never freaked out about what happened. As a matter of fact, when the charges were dropped, we got engaged. I was sure I would be going away for a while on that one, but there were enough witnesses that said he was assaulting her, and somehow, I got let off on self-defense. Even I had to admit, that seemed a little backwards. I did lose control. He had it coming.
The bus made its final turn, revealing a gravel road with a gravel parking area, a large shack where I am sure they kept the ammunition and magazines, and about 350 meters of green, grassy hills with markers showing where the targets would pop up. How cruel of them to add green men to a green field. They didn't want to make this too easy I suppose.
We went through every rehearsed brief they had to give. I'd call them pointless, but there were some people around here just dumb enough to convince me that we needed a brief that said not to eat the bullets. I paid as much attention as I could, but I never was a fan of boring speeches.
Some time went by, I zoned out for a good deal of it. A natural talent I am proud to have, I can act normal, talk normal, and look as though I'm paying attention, but my mind is elsewhere. You'd never know whether I was actually invested in you or whether I was zoned out somewhere else. Time flies when I shut down. Before even I knew it, I was sitting on a bench in front of lane 12, next in line to qualify. My carbine lay, aimed downrange on a stand with all three magazines next to it. One, the only one with red tape, was loaded with 20 rounds, the other two with green tape were loaded with 10 rounds. I made sure to memorize this detail as we were firing from three positions, prone supported, prone unsupported, and kneeling. Prone supported was a twenty round fire, the other two were ten round fires. Mixing them up would surely spell failure. I wouldn't break my promise to her.
My turn, I stood as the other recruit was checked, cleared and stepped away. I took up my prone supported position, moving the sandbags in front of me to a spot where I could comfortably aim the carbine downrange and have full maneuverability to hit every target. I lay there, feeling my weapon and getting used to the feeling of moving with it. No surprises when it was game time, I cleared my thoughts as I was given the go ahead to load my weapon. The way they said it over the speaker was, "Go Amber, go Red." Amber was code for a magazine being locked, no round in the chamber, and the weapon on safe. Red was almost the same thing, but with a round in the chamber. I waited, finger on the trigger, breath steady. I was lucky enough to have the Drill Sergeant on my lane read off the order in which the targets would pop up. Funny they did that, there would be no warning in the battle field. Oh well, I guess they just have to push everyone through.
The first few targets to pop up were easy to see, they never went past 150 meters and if anyone missed those, they didn't need to be holding a weapon. The 300 meter targets were admittedly harder to see, and definitely harder to aim for, but I hit them. I hit all of them in prone supported position. Too easy. I locked my bolt to the rear and ejects my magazine, propping the stock of the weapon and waiting for Drill Sergeant to check my weapon. When he cleared me, I moved the bags our of the way and locked my elbows on the ground, making sure to dig them in a little so I wouldn't lose my sight picture. I had a goal, and I wanted to tell my wife I did it for her. Prone unsupported was tougher, but there were fewer targets going past 200 meters, so I hit all of them too. Kneeling was the position of relative freedom. You could either kneel like you'd see in Call of Duty, you could sit back on your foot, or you could do the most practical for range, least practical for war position and lock your front leg in front of you as far as it could go, twist your supporting wrist so it locked in place, and lean back. This makes your kneeling position so solid, you couldn't even be pushed over. It was practical here, but took so long to set up, I couldn't see it used in battle. This made it easy as hell for me to drop every target. It helped that 150 was the furthest target. I didn't shoot 40/40, but I did shoot expert with 38/40, and I was damn proud of that fact. The medal would look nice in our pictures on Graduation Family Day.
I was excited on the bus ride back, we were out at the range all day, now we just had dinner and our final check for the rest of the night. I had time to write a letter for my wife and get it dropped in the mailbox in the morning. Pap sat next to me, bragging to me about how she shot expert. I was proud of her, but even her friendly voice and words wouldn't distract me from the look on my wife's face when she saw me at family day. So close, yet so far. I closed my eyes and saw her face every time I did. She was all I saw, all I wanted to see. My child too, I always wanted a girl first, my wife wanted a boy, but was equally happy when she found out we were having a girl. I'll never forget the first time I heard her cry, it changed me. What changed me even more was her touch for the first time, feeling her warm, tiny body in my arms. Something inside me was destroyed completely and a new thing I didn't know how to describe replaced it. I wasn't an angry man anymore, I wasn't the dark shell of a person I remember being when I first met my wife, but I was a sensitive, caring man after. Sometimes, here at least, I thought that was my disadvantage. That and being an older man coming through with a bunch of kids fresh out of high school. I never liked thinking too much about these things until I was in bed, under the covers where I could feel human without anyone else seeing. Nobody but my wife and child would see the human side of me. I guess it's some kind of twisted defense mechanism to keep people at a distance, but it works for me. I shook my thoughts off through the rest of the bus ride and engaged in small talk with Pap and a few of my other battle-buddies. I kept my thoughts on hold through a shitty dinner at our dining facility, and I kept them shut off up until we were in our room where I sat between my bunk and a friend's, writing to my wife in peace. I didn't have music to listen to while I wrote, but I did have my ear-plugs from the range. They worked just fine to drown out the sound of a room full of young guys. I wrote at least four pages, front and back for her. Two of them were about my time since I last wrote her, two were just random poems for her. She loved my poetry, so I always made sure to include some for her. That was one thing I learned from her that I hadn't learned from previous relationships, it isn't about the fancy shit, fine dining, and big money, it's the little moments that make something like us shine so bright. She was right when she told me this, I knew because of the ridiculous smile I made whenever I wrote to her. I sometimes spoke the words I was writing out loud, it almost made me feel like I was speaking to her directly. I kept every letter she sent, pulling them out every time I wrote. They smelled so faintly of her, but enough that every time I smelled them, I could almost feel her long, blonde hair on my face. It was enough to warm even the coldest of hearts. My heart was cold throughout every portion of my life that she didn't exist in.
I sealed the papers in an envelope, signing my name and address as well as hers. The amount of people who I had to teach to do this was unbelievable. These were surely different times. Most of these people didn't even know how to read or write cursive. The pessimist in me joked that this world, or at least this country, was fucked. Private Murphy, one of three including myself, sat down in front of me as I sealed the envelope. The optimist in me knew that guys like this were why I was a soldier and not a serial killer here.
"What's up, Murphy?" He asked, reaching out for a fist bump, hand shake combo.
I hated these, but hey, I've got to be social too sometimes. "Not much, Murphy."
Somehow, people found it amusing when you shared last names. Every sentence was ended with Murphy as though it was comedy gold. I'll never understand people.
"Writing to the wife?" Murphy asked.
"Yep, gotta tell her the good news." I said.
"PVT Expert over here." Murphy was very joking in his manner of bragging about me, to me. Funny combination.
I faked a chuckle, "Soon to be Specialist Expert, hopefully."
"Ah, you're going for that early promotion." Murphy chuckled and patted me on the back. "You've only got about five months to go for a waiver."
"I'm ambitious." I said.
Murphy relaxed, "God, I could go for a smoke and some pussy right now."
Vulgar, I thought, faking another chuckle. Why do I like this guy? "Me too." I lied. Sometimes it's better to lie and keep a friend than to isolate yourself. Maybe I'm going about it the wrong way.
"I'm going to go shower." Murphy stood up slowly like an old man.
"You're too young to be so old." I said.
"Aren't we all?" Murphy had a point.
I didn't feel like showering, I know it's gross and all, but I didn't have CQ tonight again, and I was tired. I tucked the envelope behind my mattress, between it and the wall locker. I hated the top bunk, but being taller than my bunk mate, it was only right that I took it. I climbed in and lay down under the covers. Lights out wasn't for another ten minutes, and Drill Sergeants always loved watching the cameras and calling out the guys climbing into bed early, but I was among the lucky few who wasn't easily spotted on camera. I turned over, ear plugs still in, and covered my head, embracing the darkness and quickly drifting off into well needed sleep. I hoped for more that five hours tonight.