Corporal Pleasant gave the young gentlemen rudimentary instruction in the assembly of the Sling, leather, and its attachment to the U.S. Rifle, caliber.30, Ml, and then informed them that by 0345 the next morning, he expected the rifles to be cleaned, and that each individual would be expected, by 1300 that very day, to be as familiar with the serial number of the weapon as he was with his beloved mother's face.

"Where's the serial number?" one baffled young gentleman asked. "This fucking thing's covered with grease!"

It was the opportunity Corporal Pleasant had been waiting for.

The first thing the baffled young gentleman was required to do, while double-timing in place with the rifle held above his head, was shout "This is not my fucking thing. My fucking thing is between my legs. This is my rifle. I will not forget the difference." When he had recited this litany ten times, he was ordered to run around the arms-room building, with his rifle at port arms, accompanied by two other young gentlemen who had the erroneous idea that his calling his rifle his fucking thing was amusing and had smiled.

The young gentlemen were then double-timed to the mess hall for breakfast.

And it was there that Platoon Leader Candidate Pickering first saw Platoon Leader Candidate McCoy. At first he didn't place him. The face looked familiar, but he thought it was a face from other summer training camps. Then he remembered who he was.

His first reaction was distaste. Breakfast was scrambled eggs and bacon and home-fried potatoes, two pieces of bread and a lump of butter. The only thing that Pickering considered safe to put in his mouth were the home-fried potatoes. The eggs were cold and lumpy, the bacon half-raw, and the bread dried-out. McCoy was wolfing down this garbage as if he hadn't had a decent meal in a week.

Pickering watched, fascinated, as McCoy ate everything on his stainless steel tray, even wiping it clean with a piece of the stale bread.

When he had finished, McCoy picked up his tray and walked toward the mess hall exit. Pickering picked up his near-full tray and followed him.

Corporal Pleasant was there, standing before garbage cans under signs reading "Edible Garbage" and "Non-Edible Garbage."

Corporal Pleasant examined McCoy's tray, and with a curt nod of his head, passed him outside.

When Pick Pickering reached Corporal Pleasant, Corporal Pleasant said, "Over there, asshole," indicating with a nod of his head a group of perhaps a dozen young gentlemen holding their trays, U.S. Rifles, Caliber.30, Ml slung over their shoulders, standing against the concrete-block wall.

Eventually there were nearly thirty young gentlemen who had not found their breakfast appetizing and had left much, in some cases most, of it on their trays.

Corporal Pleasant stood before them.

"Gentlemen," he said. "The Marine Corps loves you. Because the Marine Corps loves you, it has gone to considerable effort and expense to provide you with a healthy, nutritious breakfast. The Marine Corps expects you to eat the healthy, nutritious breakfast it has provided for you."

The young gentlemen looked at him in some confusion for a moment. Then one of them, delicately holding his stainless steel tray in one hand, tried to fork a lump of scrambled egg with the other hand while simultaneously going into contortions trying to keep his U.S. Rifle, Caliber.30, Ml from slipping off his shoulder.

Corporal Pleasant immediately stepped in front of him, put his hands on his hips, and inclined his head so that the stiff brim of his campaign cap almost touched the young gentleman's forehead.

"What the fuck are you doing, asshole?" Corporal Pleasant inquired.

"Sir," the young gentleman bellowed, "eating my breakfast, sir!"

"With a fork! Did you hear me say anything, asshole, about eating with a fork?"

"No, sir!"

The young gentleman looked at him in absolute confusion, not quite able to accept what Corporal Pleasant seemed to be suggesting.

Corporal Pleasant nodded his head.

"Eat, asshole!" he said. "Every last fucking crumb!"

The young gentleman raised the tray, and then lowered his face and began to gulp and lick the tray.

Corporal Pleasant looked at the others.

"On my command," he said, "slurp it up. Ready, slurp!"

Nearly thirty young gentlemen raised their stainless steel trays to their faces and slurped.

When Pickering went outside the mess hall, McCoy was waiting where the trainees would be formed in ranks. There was a barely perceptible smile on his face. Pickering went and stood beside him.

"Now I know why you ate everything on your tray," he

said. _

"I've been through this sort of shit before," McCoy said.

"What are you doing here?"

"What does it look like?"

"I thought you were going to get out of the Marine Corps?"

"You were right, there's a freeze on discharges," McCoy said.

"Well, we can buddy around," Pickering said. "That'll be nice."

"It would be a bad idea," McCoy said.

"Why?" Pickering asked, surprised, wondering why McCoy was rejecting him. "Why do you say that?"

"I know about Pleasant," McCoy said. "Or people like him. If there's one thing he hates more than a college boy who wants to be an officer, it's another corporal who wants to be an officer. As soon as he finds out that I'm a Marine, he'll start in on me."

"So we'll be even," Pickering said. "He's already started on me."

"Take my word for it, Pickering," McCoy said. "It would be worse if he knew we were buddies. For both of us."

"I don't understand," Pickering said.

"You don't have to understand," McCoy said. "Just take my word for it. Stay away from me."

"Well, fuck you," Pickering said, his feelings hurt.

McCoy smiled at him.

"That's the spirit," he said. "Pick, honest to God, I know what I'm talking about," McCoy said. "Sooner or later, they'll have to give us some time off. Then we can see if there are any fourteen-year-old virgins in Virginia. But what you have to do until we can get away from that prick, especially if you plan to get through the course, is make yourself invisible."

Pickering still didn't understand. But he realized he was enormously relieved that McCoy was not rejecting his friendship. Then he wondered why he was so relieved.

(Two)

Company ' 'C' Marine Corps School Battalion

Quantico, Virginia

1805 Hours 1 September 1941

Corporal Pleasant placed the platoon "at ease" and then announced that it was now his intention to show them how to disassemble the Cosmoline-covered rifles they had been carrying around all day.

When they had them apart, they would clean them, Corporal Pleasant said. He would return at 2100 hours and inspect the cleaned pieces, and then he would show them how to reassemble their rifles. He knew, he continued, that they all wished to begin Day #2 of their training with spotless rifles. Good Marines prided themselves on having clean pieces.

This was pure chickenshit, Platoon Leader Candidate McCoy decided. A little chickenshit was to be expected, and was probably even a good thing: Pleasant had to make it absolutely clear to these college boys that they were under his absolute control. The college boys who had slurped their breakfast from their trays would never again take more chow than they could eat from the mess line. There had been a point to that.

But there was no point to this rifle-cleaning idea except to make everybody miserable. Except, of course, that Pleasant wanted something on every last one of them that would give him an excuse to jump their ass. There was absolutely no way to remove all the Cosmoline from a rifle with rags. Cosmo-line did what it was intended to do, preventing rust by filling every last nook, crevice, and pore in both the action and the stock. You could wipe for fucking ever, and there would still be Cosmoline oozing out someplace.