Becky left. Stephie donned her helmet and curled up on the grass beside her hole.
Stephie was roused from deep sleep by the sound of an old Humvee, which approached on the empty street. She lifted her head from her pack. Third Platoon’s well-spaced holes were dug in half-assed fashion around a tennis court turned emergency helipad that they supposedly guarded. The Humvee’s big tires rode over the curb, crossed concrete walks, and stopped between the pebbled water fountain and a soft, rubberized bench. Two trucks followed the Humvee but parked on the street. Burns and Ackerman got out of the Humvee and headed for Stephie and Animal’s positions, which they had dug on either side of the preschool swing sets. The two soldiers lay on the thick grass beside their fighting holes and rose only to their elbows. Ackerman barked hoarsely for the others to join them. Becky and Dawson came over from their holes by the grills. Stephie rolled her eyes and sighed. The two had screwed twice the night before.
That was all of First Squad. Melinda Crane was pulling duty with the battalion’s aid station up at the defenses along the River.
Lieutenant Ackerman walked up wearing black captain’s bars pinned on the collar of his camo blouse. Stephie did a double take when she saw John Burns’s collar. On it was pinned the single black bar of a second lieutenant. The brakes of four trucks groaned loudly from the street behind them.
“Congratulations, Cap’n Ackerman,” Animal said sarcastically from the ground where he lay. He turned to John. “Whose dick did you suck, Burns?” Ackerman’s hand reflexively shot out to John’s chest as John took a step toward Animal. “Oh!” Animal said. “Hold-him-back! Hold-him-back!” The huge lineman never rose from his back in protest of John’s promotion. “What the hell gives makin’ a goddamned buck sergeant a fuckin’ lieutenant?”
“Burns got a field commission,” Ackerman replied. “He’s your new platoon leader.”
“Oh!” Animal persisted. “I’n’t that just fine and fuckin’ dandy! Glad to know this is a pro-fessional army! Why the hell didn’t you make me a fuckin’ officer?”
“ ’Cause you’re too stupid,” Ackerman replied drily.
“And ugly,” Stephie added.
“And you smell like roadkill,” Dawson said, topping it off.
Animal flashed a “fuck-all-of-you” frown and said, “I s’pose that’s our new platoon?” Replacements climbed down from the tailgates of trucks and stretched their backs and legs before shouldering heavy packs and accepting proffered weapons.
Ackerman said, “They’re the best and the brightest the Selective Service System has to offer.” He knelt on one knee and took off his helmet to massage and scratch the stubble covering his scalp.
John reached into his blouse pocket and tossed Animal a small, black plastic insignia. “Hand off your -60 to one of the new guys,” John ordered. Animal tilted his head one way then the other as he looked at the three tiny stripes. “You got First Squad.”
Stephie was incensed. Animal! John was platoon leader and Animal squad leader!
John tossed another set of sergeant’s stripes to Dawson. Dawson! He was only two weeks out of boot camp! “You got Second Squad, Dawson. Chambers over in Third’ll get her stripes and keep that squad. Shepherd’ll keep his fourth.”
Stephie was so angry that she couldn’t even look at Burns or Ackerman. She could feel the burning flush of her cheeks. Burns knelt at her side and removed the corporal’s double-stripes.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Stephie snapped and swatted at his hand.
John held up the three stripes with two rockers underneath — the insignia of a staff sergeant, then pinned it on her collar. It seemed to take forever. The rest of the platoon arrived from the other side of the helipad. Everyone watched. “You’re platoon sergeant, Third Platoon,” John said somewhere in the process. The image of Staff Sergeant Kurth consumed Stephie’s thoughts. How the hell can I be him? she panicked, overwhelmed by the daunting assignment.
When she looked up she saw thirty odd subdued privates — half women, half men — gathering one by one around the edge of her fighting hole. She sat up. Many of the cherries held their weapons at the ready. About half were staring through the trees at the ominous crackle scorching the horizon. The other half eyed the ground.
Ackerman rose and greeted the cherries in a raised voice. “Welcome to Third Platoon, Charlie Company, 3rd Battalion, 519th Infantry Regiment!” He swept his arm past the grimy veterans. “These seventeen soldiers here have taken everything the Chinese threw at them — not once but dozens of times — and they didn’t break! They kept their cool, stood their ground, followed orders, and gave better than they took. That’s exactly what’s expected of you!” he said to the wide-eyed replacements. “They call this platoon ‘West Point’! This was my platoon! And it is, in point of fuckin’ fact, the best goddamned platoon in the battalion! Maybe the best platoon in the whole goddamned U.S. Army! Don’t fuck it up!”
When he finished, Stephie and Animal rose to their feet. The cherries stared back, their attention riveted on the suddenly inspiring Captain Ackerman.
“All right, give me two groups!” John shouted and pointed. “Machine gunners and missile crewmen over there! The rest stay put!”
No one moved. That really, really pissed Stephie off.
“Get the fuck over there!” she shouted and lunged at them. Almost all of the soldiers began to move toward the place John had directed the weapons crews to gather. “Not you, you moron!” she chastised a cherry. “What the hell’re you carryin’?” He had to look down. “Is it a machine gun or a missile tube?” she screamed.
“No, Staff Sergeant!”
“Then stand fast!” The others got the idea and quickly formed two groups.
Ackerman departed trying to stifle a grin. John and Stephie doled out replacements to the squad leaders and attached crews that technically belonged to the weapons platoon, but which were now permanently assigned to the numbered platoons. When Staff Sergeant Roberts saw Animal’s First Squad get a female medic, she said, “Put her back! You got Crane.”
“No,” John countermanded before looking at the veterans and lowering his voice. “I put the new medic there.” Stephie caught John’s eye. He shook his head. Animal, Dawson and Becky saw it too. All understood. Stephie looked off toward the sound of the crackle on the horizon. Melinda Crane was dead.
“Get back over there!” Stephie ordered the uncertain female medic. “You heard the LT!”
“Don’t get me in any trouble, Wu,” whispered his former classmate as he shook Wu’s hand on departing the hotel bar, which was crowded with army officers. “This is top secret. The source is highly sensitive. I could get shot for doing this, you know.” Wu nodded.
The boy was Wu’s age, but he’d graduated a year early than everyone else. The army was even more desperate for computer programmers than for infantry platoon leaders.
Wu took the memory stick concealed in his friend’s palm and slipped it into his pocket.