Kekoa Hallett<\/p>\n
Run-down, old Humvees lay quietly behind barbwired chain-link fences lining the north side of a street, stretching past hundreds of quadcons all rusting and fading. A left on J road, over a few potholes, and the drill hall is nestled inconspicuously behind a parking lot. Its double doors open up into a hallway flanked by an administrative office. Cheerless, spotless, the walls are covered in trophies awarded to the unit, framed Marine Corps doctrines, plaques commemorating Marines who have received a Medal of Honor, random baubles from past wars, and dozens of loose-leaf instructions for navigating military bureaucracy. The hallway ends with another pair of doors after which the building suddenly opens up. 45 feet above, a sheet metal roof catches and scatters the lowest notes of the voices below, recasting myriad conversations into one mutter. A pair of great gray ventilation ducts, as thick as redwoods, slither up the closest wall and through the stratosphere of the room. Fluorescents mingle with the mottled, gray, morning light filtering through the windowed pediment, silhouetting the ceiling\u2019s latticed framework, bleaching the faces below. A terminal bridge runs along the entire perimeter of the cinderblock walls just above the heads of young men, wearing their desert utility uniforms, standing with arms crossed or sitting on a set of warped bleachers. They chat tiredly and nonchalantly about their disgruntlements, the injustices they endure daily, the forthcoming rewards entitled to them, Lance Coporal Flanneryrick will invariably creep up behind a circle of minglers and, nodding his head dumbly, dropping his voice an octave, and wiggling his eyebrows lewdly, declare how shit-faced he was last night.<\/p>\n
I attach myself to my fellow cooks and we begin chatting like back-of-the-bus yokels: \u201cOnly 48 more hours till quittin\u2019 time, gents!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPerkins is fucking late again.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat pigeon-headed bitch is such fucking garbage, he\u2019ll probably make us fucking inventory again for no fucking reason.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, while he sits on his ass and plays on his laptop all fucking day.\u201d<\/p>\n
The group groans simultaneously. Lance Corporal Moore has just entered the drill hall.<\/p>\n
\u201cHoly shit, look at his fucking haircut, he has like no fade.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAt least he\u2019s on time for once.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to punch his fucking face so bad. What the fuck does he fucking have with him? Is that a fucking waffle maker?\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, it is a waffle maker; Moore walks into the drill hall with an overstuffed daypack on his back and a waffle maker in his hands. A small and wiry figure, he stands at the edge of the bleachers scanning the room briefly before sitting down on a rolled up wrestling mat, alone. His haircut is very ugly; luckily, his oversized Ray-ban eyeglasses are quite eccentric and command a great deal of attention. He pulls out his gameboy and begins to play, but before long a random Staff Sergeant threatens to break it if he doesn\u2019t put it away. Moore walks up to me and begins babbling about the new video game he\u2019s been playing, how excited he is to make waffles this morning, and the wealth of his girlfriend\u2019s family. He shows me his new knife, which is so absurdly large and menacing that it looks like a prop. As he talks, the Marines in our platoon continue to criticize him, but he does not seem to hear. Mercifully, somebody shouts something indistinct and we all shuffle outside to form up. In between the Motor pool and a large garage, we fall into our platoons. After a half hour of monotonous ceremony, we are released to our sections.<\/p>\n
The food service section consists of three rooms: a small office with an extremely disproportionately high ceiling: a \u2018kitchen\u2019 with no kitchen appliances except for a large two-tub sink, a few shelves, and a broken outdoor grill that functions as another shelf: and a back room used for storage and to reduce the risk of being caught napping. The junior Marines file into the kitchen and begin complaining about the NCOs, the training schedule, and the ephemeral temporality of final formation. This dingy room is where most of us will spend the lion\u2019s share of our time at drill. Sitting on a crate, Yang pares his fingernails with a knife, \u201cYou know, I\u2019ve been in this room for three years,\u201d he giggles, \u201cfamiliarity breeds contempt.\u201d Sergeant Perkins enters from the office and the room tenses up. He tells us to start breaking out chow and adds that after we serve, we\u2019ll be inventorying the EFK. He speaks without self-assurance and his sentences are punctuated grotesquely by dipspit. When he finishes talking, nobody moves or makes any affirmative noises. Eyes glossing over, he leaves in a series of awkward gestures and Lukyanenko swears at the door behind him.<\/p>\n
The next scene has always struck me as being conspicuously demoralizing and dehumanizing in its immutability: Sergeant Perkins, as always, having given his orders to nobody in particular, left without assigning the responsibility of supervision to any of the other NCOs. This void of authority creates an arena in which one\u2019s apathy, fear of reprisal, and confidence in one\u2019s ability to malinger successfully must be pitted against each other in order to determine the next course of action. For my fellow Marines, this usually means a good 60 seconds of comatose deliberation<\/strong> (FIX) during which I grab Moore by the back of his collar and covertly drag him into the back\/nap-room to begin our interview.<\/p>\n Moore appears to be content sitting down. I take a moment to stare at him, to try and ferret out some essential quality about his face, some obscure facet of his personality that might help illustrate the whole. His eyes are half-blackened by the shadow of his brow, he raises a fist to his mouth and rolls his fingers around, he licks the inside of his cheek, yawns and smacks, the gestures of domesticated herbivores. I mutter loud enough so that he can hear, \u201csimple bovine eyes,\u201d and stare at trying to gauge his response. Not perceiving any, I start the interview.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen did you know when you wanted to be part of the military?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cProbably like nine or ten\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCan you trace it to an experience? When was the first realization that you wanted to wear the uniform?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, I don\u2019t know, probably just movies or something\u2026 I don\u2019t know I just wanted to wear the uniform and it\u2019s like the stuff in the movies it\u2019s cool, but it\u2019s unrealistic, well back then it was now it\u2019s\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOkay, so how about you give me a time line of your life leading up joining the Marines?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBorn in Bremerton, moved to Bellevue, I\u2019m an Aquarius, joined Marines, originally was going to join Army, went to military school, and then high priority for high school students so I was the secondary.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd that\u2019s why you joined the reserves because you just wanted to get the hell out of there?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYup.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy did you want to leave so bad? Was it just money?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah I only had like twenty dollars and I was living with my ex-fiance.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh, the one you\u2019re living with now?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, no\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo, there\u2019s another lady, before, the uh, Asian broad?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, I don\u2019t know, I got a thing for Asians, yeah but my ex-fianc\u00e9 or my almost, yeah she\u2019s Vietnamese.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou tried to join the Army and ended up in the Marines. How\u2019d that happen?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell, I got rejected by the Army because I had some court stuff, they wouldn\u2019t even work with me or let me work out with them. So, when I left the Army recruiting station a Marine Recruiter was right there and he asked me a question led me to talking about Marines\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDo you remember the question?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, I don\u2019t know, but he got my attention and he did the whole salesperson thing and I just sort of fell for it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou just fell for it?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cUh, at first yeah, but then with the Marines I realized, that they work harder and stuff and I could even tell with the poolees and stuff, they stand out. Like, I worked out with the Navy and their workouts were just playing volleyball indoors. The only reason I even considered the Navy was cause the recruiter was pretty hot. I would have joined for her.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSure, a girl worth fighting for.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAsian too.\u201d<\/p>\n And so it goes, our unproductive t\u00eate-\u00e0-t\u00eate, searching for insight somewhere within his memory. I\u2019m unable to get him to describe a moment in his life where he self-actualized or even just stopped things from happening to him automatically. We touch on his childhood and he stands fast, concerned only with banal details: places he\u2019s lived and which version of Pok\u00e9mon he was playing while lived there. We speak about boot camp and he talks at length about the ferocity of his drill instructors. While we are commiserating about our time spent there, the door slams open and two of the Marines in our platoon, Lau and Vanderkooy, walk in.<\/p>\n \u201cOh shit! It is super official in here right now! Alright, I\u2019ll be asking the fucking questions around here, boy\u2026 you got any questions you wanna ask him?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat makes you cry?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMovies where the dog dies\u2026 I like dogs.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWho cut your hair?<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, I did, and my girlfriend helped out at the end. It\u2019s a bad haircut, I\u2019m gonna borrow money to get it fixed.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat are you most proud of, Moore?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI got a job at secure-task in the Microsoft division, get overtime, get paid to basically sit on my ass.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhere do you live, Moore?<\/p>\n \u201cBellevue, Victoria\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWho do you live with?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGirlfriend.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI thought you guys broke up.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re on the\u2014we\u2019re basically almost there.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy, Moore?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re different, she\u2019s upper-class, I\u2019m not and personality is just so different.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIs she Asian? And you\u2019re just white?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI like Asians.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe watches anime that\u2019s why\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou like the, the animated porn?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, creeps me out.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGood.\u201d<\/p>\n Moore describes a violent hentai that he and his friend watched when he was 15 that turned him off to the genre. Vanderkooy and Lau continue to press and he speaks a little bit about his childhood. His mother raised him and four siblings on $900 a month. Corporal Roze walks in.<\/p>\n \u201cThe PFCs don\u2019t know how to make the fucking cornbread and brownies so get in there and help them or at least get out of here and go look busy. Staff Sergeant will be walking through.\u201d<\/p>\n The motions of drill don\u2019t change much from month to month. We, the junior Marines, grudgingly obey the inane commands of our NCOs. The greater purposes of our duties are almost completely unknown; bits of hearsay are weaved together with furtive glances at officer\u2019s clipboards and pig-headed pessimism to form blurry figurations of the day\u2019s schedule. The overwhelming sentiment in the cook\u2019s platoon is one of impotent insubordination. Every order is carried out with disinterest, thinly veiled exasperation, or outright disgust. Of course, these discontents are quickly abated by our collective \u00e9lan or by an invigorating and frequently cynical sense of humor. Through some process hitherto undescribed by science, rote tedium and insultingly valueless tasks are transformed into the foundations of impregnable friendships. I turn to my fellow Marine, currently engaged in removing pubic hairs inexplicably attached to the bottom of a toilet seat, and, my face assuming a gross caricature of military doggishness, snap to the position of attention. I sound off:<\/p>\n \u201cReport your post!\u201d<\/p>\n Diaz snaps up and responds in kind:<\/p>\n \u201cGood afternoon sir, Lance Corporal Diaz reports the junior enlisted head all clear! The count on deck is four shitters, four pissers, and two garbage Marines! There is nothing unusual to report at this time, sir!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cVery well, carry on!\u201d<\/p>\n I give him a swift salute with my hand just below my waistline and about-face. Before I leave, somebody in the stall grouches:<\/p>\n \u201cWill you fags shut the fuck up? I\u2019m trying to shit.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAs I was,\u201d Diaz responds, \u201cThe count on deck is four shitters, four pissers, and three garbage Marines.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFucking retards.\u201d<\/p>\n Sometimes, however, it is not enough to bray and holler and dig one\u2019s knuckles into your buddy\u2019s ribs, as the day wears on, and as tempers become unmanageable, Moore receives a greater amount of abuse. His actions and inactions alike are criticized harshly by all present. Whenever he leaves (and sometimes when he enters) the group mocks and mocks and mocks him until we work ourselves into a mania. At that point, one of us makes some violent gesture that draws the attention of an unsympathetic NCO who orders us to clean the head or take out the trash. I end up pushing a pallet full of moldy fruit to the dumpster with Moore. As we walk across the lot, Sergeant Saga walks by us, points at Moore with all fingers extended, and says,<\/p>\n \u201cWhy are you so goddamned fucked Moore?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAye, Sergeant!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t ever fucking look at me, you child rapist.\u201d<\/p>\n Having concluded his mentorship, Sergeant Saga walks on, leaving Moore to contemplate his role as a whipping boy.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s probably my glasses,\u201d Moore says, turning towards me, \u201cBut, I found them for free and they\u2019re exactly my prescription.\u201d<\/p>\n MOORE MOTARD STORY<\/strong><\/p>\n Moore lives with his \u201cit\u2019s complicated\u201d significant other, Nicole, in Factoria. Their apartment, paid for by her father, is unassuming and clean. The large planes of unadorned white walls command most of the interior, and only one corner shows evidence of pleasant human congress and the glow of habitation. An oversized flat screen television is suspended above a cubby shelf filled with the colorful titles of an immense collection of video games and consoles. As Moore and I settle around his dining room table, Nicole flips through a magazine on the couch.<\/p>\n \u201cOkay, let\u2019s talk about how people in our platoon treat you. Why do you think you get so much shit?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBecause I\u2019m immature and I made like a bad first impression.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, yeah, what do you think that impression was?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m bad with direction, pretty dumb, and that I\u2019m lazy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDo you think these are true?<\/p>\n \u201cHalf and half\u2026 I make dumb decisions, I\u2019m bad with directions.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDo you mean directions like cardinal directions, like north south?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat too, you can ask me to go grab something from the refrigerator and I can\u2019t find it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s why we break up.\u201d Nicole chimes in<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, she asked me where\u2019s the closest way to my heart and I said over there, wrong direction, right?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYep.\u201d<\/p>\n Moore chuckles, but I don\u2019t feel any of the tension leave him, Nicole, or myself. Throughout the day, Moore and Nicole will denounce each other like this, tackily and directly, as if they not only endorse this pettiness, but, having already settled comfortably in the atmosphere of mutually assured destruction, are now flourishing in it. Nicole will emasculate him by flirting with me or discussing the cartoonishly excessive finances of some dreamboat in her class and Moore will retort by mentioning some salacious detail of their sex life.<\/p>\n \u201cDo you feel a sense of fraternity or camaraderie in our platoon?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh yeah, with ours, we all fuck with each other, but I think if something\u2019s going on we\u2019ll all help each other out. Sergeant Saga will, as much as he hates me, he\u2019ll help me out.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo, you know all these things people say about you, when Lucky and Lau are talking all this shit about you, how do you deal with it?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn one ear out the other because they\u2019re opinion about me is not gonna change. I can tell, I could easily be all macho like everyone else and it\u2019s not gonna solve anything. Whatever, just get my shit done, do my MCIs and I\u2019ll just get corporal.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOkay, so how do you want people to perceive you? What do you want people to say about you?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDamn, I\u2019m sexy. Good looking. [To the cat] Isn\u2019t that right? Fuck, I look good, that\u2019ll be my quote. Cause I do look good. I\u2019m very narcissistic about myself, looks wise. I just know I look good and I\u2019ve noticed that. I\u2019ve noticed myself noticing myself. Now, I\u2019m just babbling on, wasting your time.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, no, please, believe me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut, my way of thinking is different than others though. Cause I don\u2019t really have a big ego. Even with my Mom, I\u2019m the odd one in my family. I\u2019ve always wanted to go to Japan, and it\u2019s really easy for me to learn Japanese, but I quit that class.<\/p>\n CONCLUSTION:SOAPBOX:MOORE LAST WORD?<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kekoa Hallett Run-down, old Humvees lay quietly behind barbwired chain-link fences lining the north side of a street, stretching past hundreds of quadcons all rusting and fading. A left on J road, over a few potholes, and the drill hall is nestled inconspicuously behind a parking lot. Its double doors open up into a hallway […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1172,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[6,5,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1172"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/losttime\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}