Dogs of War by David Drake

Author:David Drake
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: War stories, Anthologies (multiple authors), Science Fiction, Fantasy fiction, Fiction, Space warfare, General, Adventure, Soldiers, Military, Military art and science, Human-alien encounters
ISBN: 9780446610896
Publisher: Hachette Digital, Inc.
Published: 2002-01-01T10:00:00+00:00

Basic Training

Mark L. Van Name

Week 1, Day 1

I knew I wasn't supposed to look anywhere but straight ahead, but I wanted to check down the road to my right, to see if Mom was still there. After she dropped me off everything happened so fast that I didn't even know if she had left yet or if she was still watching me. I sorta wanted her to watch me, but I sorta didn't, because she had started crying when the men yelled at me to get in line, and that had made me feel like crying and I knew I shouldn't cry. Daddy taught me that. Men don't cry. Now that he was gone I was supposed to be the man.

But I still wanted to see her, and Sergeant Minola sounded like he was yelling at some kid at the other end of the line, so I turned and looked.

She was gone. I couldn't even see her car, and that made me mad and it made me want to cry and I wished she was still there.

Then he was screaming in my ear, and it all happened so fast that I couldn't tell what he said at first even though his voice was loud.

“… some kind of hearing problem, Private?” He yelled louder. “Is my voice not clear enough for you?”

“No, sir!”

All of a sudden he was right in front of me, leaning into my face.

“Do I look like I sit around the office all day, playing pocket pool and having lunch at some air-conditioned officers’ club?”

His face was the color of old cardboard and looked as hard as wood. The muscles in his neck and his arms stood out as he leaned over me, and I could not imagine him ever sitting around. “No, sir!”

“Then stop calling me sir! I work for a living, boy. You call me Sergeant! Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“No wonder you have a hearing problem, Private. You don't talk loud enough to wake an ant sleeping on your lips.” He stood up and backed away. “Now, do you understand me?”

I yelled as loud as I could, “Yes, Sergeant!” I was so scared my hands were shaking. The noon sun was so hot I was drenched with sweat, and I felt like I was going to throw up. I didn't want him to see any of it, I didn't want him to keep yelling at me, I didn't want to be there. It wasn't fair. None of the other boys I knew had to join, none of their fathers had died in this stupid war and made them have to become soldiers.

“What's your name, Private?”

“Larry, sir, uh, Sergeant.”

“You don't get it, do you, boy?” He leaned again into my face. I could see the hairs in his nose and tiny scars like craters on his cheeks. “I don't give a rat's ass what your first name is. I don't care who you were or what you were back in that sorry excuse for a world that brought your sorry excuse for a recruit ass to me.

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