The Soldiers I've Known
A rare stream of consciousness
I don’t quite know why I felt so compelled to write this, but I figure amidst all the chaos and uncertainty I wanted to document a small fraction of our history. Maybe it’ll help someone. What you’re going to read has nothing to do with me, but rather the good, the bad, and the ugly of the people I’ve served with. Maybe the people you’ve served with. This isn’t about war stories, valor, or brutality. It’s just about the people. The soldiers I’ve known.
The first senior NCO I ever met told us that one day soon we’d have to be prepared to fight our domestic enemies, possibly even our family. He was not well, and we all knew it (I think). Our 1SG told us he wished he could just take injured soldiers out back and shoot them, as we ran past an injured soldier hobbling along trying to finish our run (and certainly not quitting). I watched drill sergeants take hours of their time at the end of the day to make sure their people were trained on their tasks, who took no greater pride than growing new infantry. The best imbued us with wisdom that I still quote to this day. It’s a strange love to worship the man who makes you hold a rifle squat for half an hour in the Ft Benning heat. Several fellow recruits were recovering addicts, some former college athletes, others just your average American. All joined for different reasons, all held together by common purpose.
My first platoon leader complained that West Point didn’t teach him doctrine. He had a Ranger tab and a bunch of other chest candy. I, like many, had a company commander I would’ve went to hell and back for. Had a few others I would like to forget. Had a 1SG who was loved by everyone (myself included) and called me the dumbest smart guy he’d ever met (fair). I had a first line NCO who I drank with and worked on cars with in the barracks parking lot against regs. He was a self-described conspiracy theorist but also really good at his job and once woke me up by tossing PBRs at my head. Another my ex referred to as “SSG Kill Yourself” because that’s how he greeted me for the first six months I knew him. I leaned into it and told him the arsenic was taking a while. We were later roommates overseas.
I had a roommate who probably broke every regulation in the book but was good at PT and so he promoted and joined the airborne. I’m pretty sure I almost died one night because he angrily drove off from a Sonic after a waitress rejected him and he insisted on Tinder swiping while driving. I nearly died half a dozen times in cars going 120 miles an hour on the backroads and highways around post with people whose names I can barely remember. We all laughed and drank together, some cried together. Some chased each other with stun guns in the barracks on a Friday evening. One guy forgot to shower off the industrial lubricant for the guns before he uh, went to relax. You could hear the screams down the hall. Nearly all of us were in bad relationships. We all came through for each other when the breakups eventually happened. The first time I ever puked from drinking was because me and two E7s had to help a guy get past a breakup via Jack Daniels.
Some had side jobs, some took college classes at night, some published papers, and others had three dependents on an E3’s salary. We ran from MPs and kept each other from getting our asses kicked by the local cops and frat boys alike. We towed each others’ cars when they broke down and talked shit on them when they worked. Sometimes we sucked at our jobs, other times we felt invincible. No matter how we felt, we made sure to complain. This is the way.
Some of my fellow gunners pissed hot for an assortment of drugs. Our Platoon Sergeant once quipped that he could skip the Friday DUI brief, since we were more of a druggie platoon anyway. I had more than one NCO pitch me on steroids (just take cranberry juice, you’ll be fine they said). Back then, I could take pre-workout at 1900 and still be in bed by 2200.
I had a battalion commander that nobody really liked and he didn’t quite care, yet he took me under his wing. I sometimes learned what not to do by watching him, but he also made me learn how to plan at the battalion level. That dude could fucking plan. The first time he told me to do COA dev at 2100 with “the other LTs”, I thought he was joking. He was not. Surely none of this made me look cool to my fellow E4s, nor the LTs and CPTs who had to babysit me. But I learned, a lot. The jump start I got on operations planning for mechanized units is why I’m good at what I do today as both a strategist and science fiction writer. He was probably the only actual mentor I’ve ever had, and if I saw him today I’d still be more than a little nervous about his judgment.
Despite being an atheist, I once had a thrice-divorced chaplain who I got along swimmingly with. No one showed up to his sermons, but everyone went to him for advice up and down the ranks. One of my sergeants major had a theater kid and would sing along to Katy Perry, though he’d always deny it. Another assured folks they could keep crossbows in the barracks so he had hunting buddies (this was questionable.)
When I got my own soldiers, I changed. That burden of responsibility, the honor of responsibility hits different. It’s a high and a weight. I fucked it up more than once. I was an angry kid. Most of us were. I had to feel myself out, learn when to use my temper and when to be the disapproving but stable leader (hint: the latter works better most of the time and makes the former more effective.) I got a lot better down the line as my responsibilities grew, helped by good NCOs beneath me.
I’ve had real shitheads and hard chargers, the kind that would make you proud 40 years from now and the kind that on more than one occasion had me up at 0200 driving to the scene of a domestic incident. I’ve had real crafty soldiers who could fix anything and others who could break track just by looking at it. Another I had to escort to jail more than once, with a senior NCO mocking him the entire way because he was sick of his shit. I once surveyed my section and everyone had been beaten or abused in some way as a kid. They still showed up to work every day and served their country. I knew single fathers who somehow kept it together, making me feel only somewhat more disappointed in my own deadbeat dad. I knew single mothers who took all the shit in the world from every asshole in mouth breathing distance just for being a woman. I’ve known soldiers to battle hunger, alcoholism, homelessness, mental illness, assault trauma, and more. But also none of that matters when you’re in formation or in the mud with the guy or girl next to you. But the thing is, you don’t need to stop caring about people just because you’re not in a foxhole with them.
Some had legions of family that had served, others were the first. Their service was all worth the same. One of my proudest moments was when one of my soldiers finally got his citizenship.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, I’ve known some of the best and worst people you’ll ever meet. And they’re all American.