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IN NUMBER FOUR HANGAR at US Marine Aviation Forward Attack Squadron Wildcat, the installation’s top non-commissioned officer, a sergeant major who in civilian life may have a proper name but here is known only as Sergeant Major, laconically supervises the base’s cook, known only as Cooky, and five fascinated messmen. A Marine hoses fuel into a fifty-gallon drum heating perilously over a propane stove.

“Enough juice,” Sergeant Major announces. “Now johnwayne them cans. All of them.” He refers to the flat, hinged can openers used by the military since World War II—until the nineteen eighties the P-38, since then the larger P-51—though no one is certain why the actor, who never saw combat other than on celluloid, was so honored. By extension, to johnwayne something is to open it.

“Sergeant Major,” the cook cautions, “we ain’t gonna have no tomato sauce or ketchup for two months. When the colonel gets back, she ain’t gonna like it.”

“Boo fuckin’ hoo. Until she comes back, the responsibility’s mine.”

Having filed notice of this potential problem, for which Cooky will have to pay when base personnel find themselves facing weeks of ketchup-less French fries, to say nothing of unadorned cheeseburgers, Cooky affirms his commitment to the command structure. “Aye, Sergeant Major!” Nobody, including the pilots who outrank him, fucks with Sergeant Major. Cooky shouts to the messmen, “Sergeant Major has spoken!”

After they pour gallon cans of tomato puree and ketchup into the oil drum, the master gunnery sergeant demonstrates the kind of expertise that only a grizzled twenty-year veteran Marine can boast. “Now secret ingredient numero uno.”

The messmen dump in powdered milk and stir. The concoction turns an admirable Pepto-Bismol pink.

Sergeant Major’s craggy face develops the rictus that passes, among Marine non-commissioned officers, for a smile. “Secret ingredient numero dos. Three volunteers. You, you, and you. One step forward, unholster them guns the good Lord give you, and fire at will.”

“In the soup?” Cooky asks. He is not questioning Sergeant Major’s authority, only his recipe. Even for Marine Aviation, this may be over the top.

Sergeant Major allows the rictus again to flash over his face. “Cooky, don’t call it soup. It’s paint, is all.”

The three volunteers piss into the drum.