APRIL

PANAMA

My feather pillow was flattened and stuck to the side of my drooling face as I dug for the sheet behind my shoulder. The itchy wool blanket was annoying next to the smooth white sheets knotted underneath it. I found the sheet and pulled it up around my neck, I dreaded to wonder if I had been asleep for thirty minutes or four hours. As I hoped for the best, scattered “beeps” from digital watches sounded around me, indicating the top of the hour… But what hour?
I was beginning to relax for another hour until I heard the “buzz.”
Being on the top bunk, my head was just an arms-length away from the ceiling. After sleeping there for the previous ten weeks, I learned that the florescent bulbs inset above my head would faintly buzz for a couple of seconds before turning on, just long enough for me to acknowledge and to pull my blankets over my head to protect my darkness.
I yanked up the wool blanket just in time and tightened my eyes, anticipating the blinding white light.
Bunk springs creaked and a few more digital watches chimed, including mine. I opened my eyes under the blanket and let them adjust before exposing them to the bright white ceiling of my platoon’s army barracks. Basic Training had been over for two weeks, but not much had changed. My platoon’s transition from Basic Training to Military Police School was seamless with the exception of a short formation to acknowledge a new lesson plan. The training brigade was designated as One Stop Unit Training, or “OSUT” as it read on my orders.
I sat myself up and swung my feet off the side of the bunk. I paused for a moment to prepare my tender feet and sore legs before dropping off my sanctuary onto the hard tile floor.
“Hey Moo, you got any spare shoe laces?”
The voice came from beneath me. Mike Richards was my bunk mate and assigned Basic Buddy. He was from southern Missouri, a real Missouri good ol boy. His animated stories from home kept me entertained for the duration of our stay in Alabama.
“Dude, no.” I said.
“Try Rodgers, he don’t need em.”
Rodgers was a recruit who was in the process of getting discharged due to “foot problems.”
I slid off of my upper bunk and hit the floor as delicately as possible as the “ka-CHUNK” of the back door warned us of the Drill Sergeant approaching.
“AT EASE!” was hollered by a private at the opposite end of our bay.
“Carry on!” The Drill Sergeant replied to the room. His boots knocked sharply in a rhythm too swift in comparison to the tired soldier’s movements he surveyed as he began to pace the rows of bunks. Soldiers he paused near simultaneously quickened their actions. Some tripped into running shoes, some straightening bed covers, others zipped into sweatshirts…
As he quickly strolled down the center of our bay, the shine on his boots matched the gloss of the floor we had spent hours waxing.
Weeks earlier, this same floor was nearly mud covered, with scattered field gear and the occasional loose, scurrying scorpion that had hitched a ride back from our field exercises, but that was Basic Training.
This was Military Police School.
For now, the classroom was the only place we’d place our boots. The only time we’d break a sweat outside of morning physical training would be when we were dropped for push-ups, which at this phase, was for any reason at any time.
The Drill Sergeant stopped near the exit of our bay and spun on his heels, placing his hands on his hips...
"TROOPS! A Marine was killed last night in Panama..." he shouted.
We all paused.
"The media has called it friendly fire on a count of a drunk Marine not responding to orders to halt."
We all began to move again, walking towards our Drill Sergeant to head out for our morning formation. He held his ground firmly with his hands on his hips and elbows flared out sharply.
Soldiers funneled towards him as he eye-balled & asked various troops that passed him out the door...
"Do you think that's what happened, Private?"
"Do you, Private Richards?"
"What about you Private Moore?"
"I sure hope so, Drill Sergeant..." I said while shuffling past.