The Duffle Bag Drill

Fort Benning Military Base, Columbus Georgia

“You wanna try me, bro?” A scrappy man with a voice that oozed southern vernacular, the way Spanish-moss saturated trees, stood before a towering form they called the Yank.

“Back off, hick! You're too close. I can smell your rotten breath. You got to stop eating all the roadkill. You’re not leaving any for the vultures.” The Yank shoved him in the chest and sent the bloke flying.

And it was on. Again.

Ray sighed. He stepped back and gave them space. This in-processing phase was taking forever. Ray and his fellow recruits had spent the week waiting for all sorts of calculated misery. There were physicals (all that poking and prodding), not to mention an endless series of immunizations. As he dropped his camouflage pants for another round of shots, he thought, what about the guys with minimal real estate back there? Additionally, there were haircuts, gear issuance, drug testing, x-rays, and all that mind-numbing paperwork which did little to subdue the restless servicemen. Instead, the required monotonous motions seemed to fuel nicotine-deprived, testosterone-laden infernos.

Fights, embers of spontaneous combustion, broke out everywhere. They happened in the lines waiting for chow, in the barracks while waiting for your turn to stand in line, or just when milling around, and over the most minuscule of things: Yo momma is so fat when she sat on Walmart, she lowered the prices. You’re so inbred. They named a sandwich after you. I ain’t as stupid as you look.

Ray watched the Yank swagger away, wiping a bloody nose with his sleeve, leaving his battered opponent looking even worse. How in the world will this volatile, cantankerous mass of seething privates ever get through boot camp without killing each other? We’ll never make it, let alone become fully functioning soldiers.

Unbeknownst to the recruits, the transformation started the moment they arrived.

The fledglings were already shedding parts of their civilian identities, like molting insects discarding their exoskeletons. Everyone entered with their own stories and swag that rendered them unique. But by the time they boarded the buses from reception, all had been uniformly shorn, shaved, re-clothed, and in most cases, re-named. Those who still needed a handle would shortly earn one.

While Ray and his fellow initiates were driven downrange, the tenor began to shift from agitated indifference to charged unease. As different as they had been on that first day, one overarching element united them now. They were entering the unknown together. When they stepped off the bus, everything would change. They would be divided into platoons (Ray would be assigned to the third one) and then squads. But first, there was the duffel bag drill.

Drill Sergeant Sledge, heavily muscled and intimidating with his chiseled face and gruff megaphone loud voice, took control the moment their boots hit the ground downrange. “You are mine now!” he barked, and the rookies involuntarily stepped backward. “Don’t go looking for your momma; she ain't here. She don't want you no more. Do you hear me? You don’t talk, eat, or even fart without my permission. Total control, ladies, every breath you take, every move you make, I’ll be watching you!” He paused to let his words sink in and took pleasure in the looks of terror on some of their faces. “Now, let’s see what you got.”

Two hundred identical army-issued top-load duffle bags with two hundred identical-looking locks were dumped into a mountainous pile. Sledge screamed, a thunderous gravelly voice Ray would hear intermittently in his dreams for the rest of his life. “You have one hour to find your bag, or else you’ll be left behind.”

It was madness, this scramble, this sea of panicked trainees trying desperately to find their belongings. Sacks were flying in every direction, being randomly tossed and discarded after the private’s fingers stumbled, attempting the combination to no avail.

What is to keep the same person from trying the same lock on the same bag he found launched in another location repeatedly? Just like Sisyphus, doomed for eternity, pushing a colossal boulder up a hill, only to have the rock roll down every time he neared the top.

Ray saw a solution, a single conceivable way to get through this impossible exercise of futility. Not thinking of being singled out and punished for his brazenness (that would come later), he scrambled up the pile of olive-green canvas, a silhouette, backlit by the intense Georgia sun, atop an unlikely bluff. He waved his arms and whistled his Coach Lightfoot I-mean-business whistle.

Ray shouted, “There’s only one way we can get through this mess.” He took a quick breath. Most of the recruits were staring hard at him, listening; a few continued their frantic combination dialing. “We have to form a huge circle. Everyone grabs one rucksack and tries the lock. If the combo doesn’t work, pass the bag to your left. When you find your pack, fall out.” Or stay in the circle and help the private next to you, he thought, as he stumbled down. When his feet hit the ground, a rudimentary process was forming. The ring expanded as the nascent soldiers realized the benefit of working in coordination. The duffle bags moved, passing from one set of hands to the next. And then, as each private claimed their belongings and stepped back, the circle constricted.

When they finished, Drill Sergeant Sledge looked at his stopwatch. “Ladies, you set a record. Congratulations. But don’t let this go to your pretty little heads.” Beady eyes honed on Ray. “No matter how cute you think you are, everyone’s shit stinks. Now let the fun begin.”

****

He ran across an open, rock-strewn expanse at an all-out pace. Sweat dripped down his back and stung his eyes. His lungs could not take in enough of the condensed Georgia air to expand. Really, Ray, what were you thinking? You willingly volunteered for this insanity. Fifty pounds of infantry gear weighed him down in a “full battle rattle.” His weapon, flak vest, Kevlar helmet, pistol belt, ammunition, canteen, and loaded, go-to-war rucksack slammed against him as he sprinted. Like many other boot camp experiences, this intense training pushed Ray to uncharted limits.

The psychological demands were as exacting as the physical. And Ray found himself in a constant state of flux, trying to establish some sense of equilibrium. In this moment of total exertion, Ray reached into memory. He was at the State Cross Country Meet, his senior year, and had just rounded the trail’s final bend leading into the open concluding stretch. The crowd let out a roar as the top runners turned the corner and galloped by. Screams of encouragement came from the sidelines as they ran. At the end, he could see Coach Lightfoot furiously waving him in, jumping up and down, more animated than he had ever seen him. Ray heard the vibrant throng, rising in its swell, ascending from a silent Georgian wood— his energized Coach, in the guise of his Drill Sergeant. And he flew across the finish line as though not weighed down by the full combat gear worn by a soldier in a war.

“Iceman? Are you okay?” The private they called Yoda tugged nervously on one of his overly large tea-cupped-shaped ears, which made him look more like Dumbo (but that nickname had been taken) and handed Ray his canteen of water. “Drill sergeant says we have to hydrate.”

Ray shook himself to the present. The two-mile run, in full battle gear, was over. He wasn’t sure what time he had gotten or where he had placed. But he understood that hadn’t been the point. The goal was to strengthen and prepare them should they ever find themselves in a situation like that in war, when all they had to save themselves was the allowance of weighted flight. As if we will ever have to run for miles with all our gear. In modern warfare, Ray thought, this will never happen.

Ray leaned wearily against the longitudinally furrowed trunk of a southern live oak and pulled off his helmet, his cropped dark hair matted with sweat. He took Yoda’s offering and drank deeply. He couldn’t account for how memory slipped in at the strangest times. Everything was different here, at Fort Benning. The way experiences and sensations of the present seemed to trigger the neurons responsible for thoughts and memories of the past was inexplicable. Somehow, they were forging new connections, rewiring his circuitry.

Drill Sergeant Sledge stood large before his recovering men and took a drink from his canteen, demonstrating by example the importance of fluid intake after an all-out effort. He surveyed the soldiers, some still breathing heavily, and calmly stated, “Chuck Norris doesn’t breathe. He holds air hostage.”