Snow White and the Commissioned Dwarves

 

Silas was sitting on a bunk in the transient barracks when I got there, I didn’t recognize the others.

“Bobby! I heard you were coming back today, how you feel?”

“Bump on the head, no big deal. How about you?”

He reached up and took off a Tigers’ cap. “Burned off most of my ‘fro, but it’ll grow back,” he said, pointing. “I can’t go home looking all Ivy League, man, think I’m gonna grab another tour while it does. Other than that, I’m cool.” He stopped talking, just looked at me.

“What’s the word on the others?” I asked.

“Leonard lost two inches off his trigger finger, a chunk out of his cheek, and some molars. Busted jaw. They sent him home.

“Padre didn’t get a scratch, one of his endless requests for transfer to the Chaplain’s Corps finally came through, he’s on his way to Oklahoma. ROTC. He said he’s got two semesters left and then he’ll be a 2nd Lieutenant. Oral Roberts U. is gonna make him a Pastor. Army’ll just send him back here, but if that’s what he wants, it’s cool with me. He flew out this morning.

“Mad Mike got some bumps and bruises. That’s his bunk you’re sittin’ on, he’ll be back soon, went to mail a letter. You hear about Zippy?”

“I asked everyone I met in the hospital. One cute nurse wouldn’t look me in the eye while she told me that she’d assisted during his surgery, and that he was then choppered out to the USS Repose for more treatment. He was alive when he left. What’d you hear?” I asked.

“He’s paralyzed, man. Broken neck. Not even a purple heart, not for a wound inflicted by a plumbing fixture. You think the Army wants to shine a spotlight on what happened at the O-club? No way. He was right, though.”

“About what?” I asked.

“We were his last platoon.”

I found an empty rack by the back door and laid down, closed my eyes. Men came and went. Somewhere the ever-resourceful Silas had gotten a little Japanese radio, and he turned it on:

“I can turn a gray sky blue. I can make it rain, whenever I wanted to.
I can build a castle from a single grain of sand. I can make a ship sail on dry land.
But my life is incomplete and I’m so blue, ’cause I can’t get next to you.
I can’t get next to you…“

After the chorus, Sy said, “Hey! You heard this one before? Man this is groovy, sounds like the Temps,” and he started shaking to the beat, snapping his fingers. I was just a little jealous. My funk felt permanent, he had already begun moving on.

On the hour, one of Armed Forces Radio’s young-sounding disk jockeys, clearly from somewhere in the Midwest, said in a flat tone, “And now, the news. Today, Secretary of Defen…”

Silas turned it off, said, “I’m going to chow, you coming?” I just shook my head.

Mad Mike slipped in, sat down. Scowling, fuming.“What is it, Madman?” said Sy, putting on his ball cap. From under his blanket, he pulled out a crisply pressed and folded baseball jersey, which he put on over his fatigue shirt and wore open like a hunting vest. Detroit Tigers, number 17.

“No letters. We had a deal, there should always be a letter.”

“A deal??? You two having a relationship or a contract dispute?” Sy asked.

“There should always be a letter.”

“Who’s number 17?” I asked.

“Denny MacLain. Won 31 games last year. Only the thirteenth time anyone has ever won 30 or more, first in the modern era. Second baddest man in Detroit. My brother sent it. What’cha think?” Silas gave a turn, showed it off.

“Stylish,” I deadpanned, “Army should issue one to every recruit.”

Who’s the baddest?” Mike asked, finally diverted.

“Who do you think?” Sy grinned. “C’mon Madman, let’s go eat us some split pea soup.”

“I thought you said you were an only child.” Mike said

“If you can get me a Curt Flood jersey, you are my brother.”

Mad Mike got up.

“Don’t unpack,” Silas said to me, “we got orders.”

“Unpack what? I got nothin’,” I said.

Mike said,“Come on, then. Come with us. We’ll get you a fresh issue afterwards, at least you’ll have some fresh skivvies.”

“These are fresh skivvies.”

Silas grinned, “They won’t be when you read the orders.”

Mike asked, “Doesn’t he need a requisition?”

Silas ginned big, Yup.”

The soup was pretty good. Nobody mentioned Zippy, but Mike did ask, “What’s Leonard gonna do without a trigger finger?” Knowing how proud that little adopted Texan had been of his lifelong prowess with a moving target, neither Silas or I had an answer.

The muscle-bound corporal behind the counter was a textbook REMF. He was all close shave and sharp creases, spit-shined jump-boots and polished brass, high and tight, by the numbers. He had two fans blowing on him. His nails were clean. His eyes were as blue and sobering as a grandmother’s perm. Behind him, down one row, in massive cubbies stacked twenty feet high, uniform parts were stacked by size,. Rows and rows and rows of spares and supplies disappeared neatly into the distance. A forklift scooted past with a pallet of wooden ammo boxes stenciled, “USA, Buckle, Belt, Brass, quantity 1000”, so there were maybe twenty-thousand belt buckles headed for storage at one end of his warehouse as he crossed his arms and shook his head. A collection of pallets just like it waited in the distance. Four guys in tee shirts were off-loading mahogany desks from two tractor/trailers, comma, green, backed up to the loading docks on the other end. The Senator from North Carolina would be pleased.

“Nope. Show me a Form DD612 signed by your Commanding Officer. My Sergeant won’t care what happened to you, you still need the paperwork. How does he know you’re telling me the truth?”

“I’m gonna lie to you over some GI clothing? Nobody’s taste is that bad. Look, Corporal, I am between CO’s at the moment, the last one’s somewhere in surgery, and the next one ain’t here yet. I promise, when I get a new CO, I’ll have him send you the form. Now, I’m not asking you for a Cadillac here, just one standard Uniform Issue, comma, Jungle. Camo’s, hats, socks, more socks, tee shirts, skivvies, belt, boots. You know, the stuff my new CO will expect me have?.Oh, and a new seabag, too.”

“No Form DD612? NEXT!”

A sour looking Pfc behind me started to step past me, but Mad Mike gave him the look. Words were exchanged.

I wasn’t done. “Hold on, wait a minute. Where do I get a Form DD612?”

“Your CO has them, Sergeant.”

“I don’t have one. Did I mention that?”

“I believe you did, Sergeant. NEXT!” He was clearly enjoying this. Now the Pfc behind me is getting a determined set to his jaw, but Mike steps between us, facing him, shaking his head.

I sag, conceding defeat. “OK, OK, you win. Can you at least show me a Form DD612, so I get the right form?”
The Corporal behind the counter carefully takes a green mimeo off the top of a 4 inch-high stack right beside him, takes a step back, and shows it to me like a booking number, “Tell your CO that you need the latest version, that’s REVISION 4, dated 11/56, NEXT!” He looks over my shoulder at the Pfc, and squares it neatly back on his stack. He thinks this is over.

Silas jumps in, “You expecting a run on ‘em? You’re down to, what, your last 3000 of ‘em?”

“They come from Saigon, I gotta order ‘em in advance, and I don’t want to run out.”

“If every CO in I Corps has them, and each man brings his own, how could that happen?

“Where do you think the CO’s get ‘m?” the Corporal asked him.

“So what happens when the CO runs out?”

“He orders more, using a Form DD 612.” the corporal replied.

Silas was a dog with a bone. “What happens when a CO runs out completely? Are you gonna make him fill out Form DD612 to get more Forms DD612? He can’t, he’s out of them! Is your Sergeant gonna tell him no? Of course not, he’ll hand him one of those! This is just like that: until they fly us in a replacement CO, the Sergeant here is the senior man in his chain-of-command, and he’s fresh out of forms!” Silas will not let up, he’s right up in the corporal’s face, and it’s turning red.

“I’m not risking it. My sergeant would have my ass. NEXT!”

By now, Mike is physically restraining the guy behind me, he just cannot seem to get to the counter. This apparently frustrates him. There is some bumping, a little shoving. I somehow managed to sidestep out of their way, but cannot avoid bumping hard into Silas, who is almost pushed over the counter. The comfortable corporal, unaccustomed to physical display, falls back, startled, as the Pfc retreats, regrouping.

“I have a little proposition for you, Corporal. I know a sweet WAC clerk with a mimeograph machine. You give my Sergeant here his uniform issue, and I will get you 5000 blank Forms DD612 that smell like Chanel No. 5. Think about it, you’ll be a hero, maybe go home with a medal after all”.

“NEXT!” The Corporal, sensing a turn in the Sergeant- baiting, is suddenly losing interest.

The Pfc starts to roll up his sleeves, glaring at Mike.

Silas pulls us aside, “Let’s go”.

Once outside, he reaches under his shirt and pulls out a blank Form DD612. He smiled, “I thought you guys were never gonna get me close enough.”

A week ago, Silas walked away from the ashes of Officers Club with only the smoking clothes on his back. Since then, he has not only replaced all his gear, he has acquired a new transistor radio, a Denny MacLain jersey, and, it turns out, a two-hundred-dollar Cross fountain pen, which he ceremoniously un-pockets with a Renaissance flourish. He turns Mike around and uses his back for a desk, efficiently filling out the requisition, checking boxes,. Then, writing way too large, he scrawled the illegible signature of a hopefully non-existent Major all over the signature block, using his off-hand.

I knew what was coming, but Silas filled us in anyway, “Be some other guy there at 0800, won’t know you from Stokely Carmichael. Let’s go see Bobby’s new orders. Lead the way, Madman.”

“Who’s Stokely Carmichael?” Mike asked.

“He’s not Bobby.”
The company clerk was brutal, playing with my orders, instead of handing them to me. “BuPers  should’a scrapped your platoon, break you guys up, use you to fill the holes in my other squads. Instead, they found you guys a new lieutenant, fellahs, fresh out of ROTC, a gen-you-wine ninety day wonder, flying in tomorrow. See if you can keep this one safe. Oh, and those two privates asleep on their gear over there? Fresh from Fort Irwin. They’re yours, too, Sergeant. Get ‘em off my lawn.”

His “lawn” was a 20 foot square of cracked concrete between the motor pool and the base laundry, but I could see his point. They were indeed an eyesore. I thought they were scraping the bottom of the barrel when they drafted me, but it must have had a false bottom. They looked like they hadn’t flown here at all, they’d been dragged by a tractor with an oil leak.

“Those guys must have come the long way,” Mike said.

“There is no short way.” said the clerk, like nobody else had ever seen a globe.

Sy replied, “They look like they came by way of Uranus.”

“Maybe yours. If they’d’a’ come by way of mine, they’d look better,” replied the clerk, grinning. He finally hand me my orders. Coming from his lips, the scuttlebutt sounded like a death sentence, I couldn’t wait to read them for myself., so I didn’t.

They were a transfer, in triplicate, from 2nd Platoon, Bravo Company to… 2nd Platoon, Bravo Company. Ya gotta love the Army.

I hoped our new Lieutenant gave a better first impression.

He didn’t, but it wouldn’t matter long.

There was a stunning long-haired WAVE on base that worked somewhere in Officers Country. That meant we didn’t go there, so we didn’t know her post, but the staff there all had the same schedule. During the week that the Army kept us cooling our heels in the Transient barracks, we’d often go sit outside on the curb just to watch her walk by, from a distance. Due to the way she wore her hair, we called her Snow White, but she was far, far prettier, she was a walking sunrise after a long night.

We then started nick-naming the officers we encountered, after Snow White’s dwarf friends. The Major was Doc, the Doc in sick bay was Sneezy, you get the idea. After the seven names everybody knows, we started making up our own, so when our monthly checks were “mislaid”, we met Captain Bitchy, in payroll. She was a piece of work. Colonel Tipsy was named posthumously after he stumbled out of the tent serving as the new temporary Officers Club, wandered across the tarmac and right into the tail-wash of a turning Marine Phantom, and was blown not only into a drainage ditch, but into base history, after he was found there the next morning, drowned in two inches of water, and otherwise unharmed.

Our short new Lieutenant, an English major from Occidental College, was the first officer to name himself. Walking into the side door of the barracks, he tripped on the door sill and fell awkwardly. Who else could he be but Clumsy? Confirming looks were exchanged as he picked himself up, and the name Clumsy was cast, in my mind at least, in concrete… until he spoke.

“Ummmm,” and then he paused and looked around, “Ummmm,” (pause) “I’m looking for a platoon.” Duh. What did you think you’d find in a US Army barracks in a war zone, something else?

“Ummmm,” and that pause again, while he unfolded and smoothed out a crumpled piece of paper from the very bottom of his pants pocket.

“Ummmm,”…. 2nd Platoon, Bravo Company?”

It just got worse from there, and there was a Dwarf in the movie who only knew one word. The word was “Ummmm,” and the dwarf’s name was Dopey.
Lt. Dopey it is.

Some other officer would reveal himself to be the dwarf named Clumsy. Hey, just because something is cast in concrete, it doesn’t make it permanent…
We’d never had a Reserve Officer before, but the one thing that you’d think all 90-day wonders learn during their crash course is how to march a group of men. They may know no strategy and even less tactics (and if they backed into a chair, they might break their necks), but they should know how to march men. We didn’t see it coming. He might be ROTC, but he’d done the 90 days, right?

After “mustering” us and our gear out back in the sun, he called the roll. one by one (“Ummmm…. (pause), Dixon, Michael C…., Ummmm…. (pause), Private, Ummmm…. (pause), first class”), Dopey marched the five of us to the armory. It was a disaster. The first time he called out “Ummmm, (pause…) pluh-tooon, Halt!”, either the “Ummmm, or the “(pause…)” screwed up his rhythm, one of the two, and he ended up calling the “Halt!” off the right foot, the incorrect foot We stumbled into the street like an old floppy accordion.

One of the new guys had been clipped hard in the heel and he wasn’t happy.

“Lieutenant, Sir,” he said, hopping around, “By morning one in boot camp, every recruit on the grinder knows that command starts and ends on the left foot. There’s a good reason for that, Sir,” by which he meant, either, “How did you ever screw that up??? or don’t you ever do that again,” one of the two, maybe both. We all mumbled our non-specific concurrence.

You can’t get to the chow hall for breakfast until you are relatively safe to march across the crowded gridiron. Hunger is a great motivator. By the time the sun rose, the command, “uh-Left Flank, hut!” ends on the left foot, (march another left, right), the very next left, every man does a left face at once, in full stride, beginning on the left foot, and ending on the left foot. Soon even the command, “Pluh-tooon !Call-umm ryeeet, hut!” ending on the right foot, is executed by every man with precision and confidence. By the afternoon, he is doing it at a double-time with swagger. By tomorrow night, while carrying an M-1 rifle, with two new boots full of blisters.

They don’t call it the grinder for nothing.

As we all glared silently at Dopey, waiting for his next command, he melted down like a blindfolded freshman at a fraternity hazing. “Ummmm, (pause…) True Confession time”, Lt. Dopey had “ummmm, (pause…) never even been on a grinder”. The only marching he had ever done, had been “ummmm, (pause…) on the way to and fro, around ‘The Quad’, on the way to class” and he hadn’t ever been “ummmm, (pause…) the one calling the cadence, not once.’

When he finished crying, he wiped his face on his sleeve, squared his shoulders and said, “Ummmm, (pause…) go get what you need from the Armory, get it back to the Barracks. Pack everything, be ready to move “ummmm, (pause…), go eat dinner. There’s a planeload of combat engineers flying in tonight, the Army needs the beds. Weapons check at 8:30.” Then he squared his lid and marched himself, without problem, to the Officers, ummmm, (pause…) Club…

I hoped Dopey just needed a good cry., he had a job to do, he had to stay alive.

Here comes Snow White, walking down the sidewalk, she had seen the whole thing. I felt like begging her for a new dwarf, and she looked like she wished she could offer one.

And then the soup was cold. Even Silas was speechless.

---