Kombat Kids - 22. The Corps Weekend

The three buses from Whidbey Island arrived a little after 15:00, large MSI coaches capable of carrying 60 people in relative comfort for long distances. The busses were similar to the ones used by Greyhound and Trailways for transcontinental bus service. Instead of sporting the bright colors, stylized corporate logos and chrome of their civilian counterparts, theses buses were all painted in a uniform olive drab. Each bus was driven by either a Lance Corporal or Corporal, with a Staff Sergeant acting as the escort officer. James and Matt greeted the Marines and invited them into the house for coffee or a Coke.

The senior Staff Sergeant, Sergeant Parsons asked; “I don’t mean to be snoopy, but what’s all this about, this is the first time I’ve been involved in transporting a bunch of civilians to the camp?”

“James and I started the Unit to provide the boys in this area an alternate to various religion based groups, to give them a chance to fit in with a group of boys that wasn’t going to give them a line of shit because they were short, fat, dark, light or different from the norm. Last year, a fifteen year old boy was given so much trouble by the members of the Boy Scouts that he couldn’t take it any more and committed suicide. General Stanton’s nephew was the charter member of the Unit and was here for our Thanksgiving party last year; he liked what he saw so much he was able to get us sponsored by the Corps. If you’re really interested, Matt and I’ll give you a tour of the place, it’s our home as well as the Unit’s and we like to show it off.

Sergeant Parsons was briefed by George Babcock on what to expect when he got to the Bateman place and to lessen any shock he might have when he found out that the Batman Brothers were gay.

“George Babcock and I have known each other since we joined the Corps, we went through boot at Pendleton and I went to his wedding. I want to thank you for what you both have done to pull him out of his slump, if you hadn’t helped him, I don’t know what would have happened. George told me about your place, being his friend I hesitated calling him a liar but I still found it hard to believe.”

An hour and a half latter, found the six Marines, Keener and the Bateman brothers sitting around the kitchen table drinking coffee and soda pop. “Jesus guys, if I hadn’t seen this place I never would have believed it.”

“You think the place is something, wait till you meet the kids, the first time they walked in here I thought they were the youngest Marines I’d ever seen. Fact is, they make some of the regulars I’ve worked with look pretty lame in comparison. We got one kid, Japs’ his name, who’s better with a .50 cal Barrett than most of the guys in my last company were with the 16.” Keener bragged.

As Keener was bragging about the Unit’s kids, the front door opened and six boys decked out in MarCam entered the kitchen. The regular Marines looked at them with a mixture of surprise and disbelief, the kids in Mar Cam ranged in height from about 5’ 3’ or 4” to around 5’ 10”. All of them looked like regular marines except for their obvious youth and the Unit 1 patch on the left shoulder of their blouses.

“Hi!” said the tallest of the group; “we decided to show up early in case you guys needed some help.”

“Thanks Phil, right now there’s nothing going on, but I’m glad you showed up anyhow, we were just briefing these gentlemen on the Unit.”

Jap looked at Keener; “Can I take Wilber with us, I haven’t had a chance to work with him lately and thought maybe I could get some time with him over on the coast.”

Keener chuckled a little; “No I don’t think they’d appreciate you bringing Wilber with you, in fact they’d probably have a cow.”

Sergeant Parsons looked kind of confused; “We were told to take anyone you guys authorized to come, so I don’t see any problem with him bringing his buddy along if you guys say it’s OK.”

James, Matt and Keener all laughed; “Jap, why don’t you go get Wilber and introduce him to the sergeant.”

Jap’s face lit up; “OK Boss, be right back.” With that he turned on his heal and ran out of the kitchen.

Sergeant Parsons knew something was up but didn’t know exactly what was going on, he had the sinking feeling that he was about to find out.

Five minutes later, the little redheaded kid known as Jap walked back into the kitchen lugging the biggest fucking rifle the sergeant had ever seen, the damn thing was almost as long as the kid was tall.

The rifle was a Barrett Arms .50 caliber single shot bolt action rifle with a Leopold telescopic sight mounted on top and a fold down bi-pod on the bottom of the barrel. The rig must have weighed close to 30 pounds, but the little guy handled it with easy familiarity in a safe manner that let the sergeant know he was highly experienced in its use.

Jap had a big shit eating grin on his face; “This here is Wilber, him and me have been buddies since I first joined the Unit.”

“Holy fucking shit” said one of the Lance Corporals; “What the fuck are you doing with that hog?”

“Jap looked a little pissed at the marine’s statement; “I’m one of the Units two snipers, it’s my weapon of choice and I’m good with it.”

The Lance Corporal snorted; “Yeah right kid and I’m John Wayne.”

Phil standing behind Jap said; “I don’t fucking think so, besides being about a foot too short, you’re too fucking ugly.”

“Stand easy Squad leader!” James said to Phil. There’s no need to jump salty here, he hasn’t been around the unit, so he hasn’t any idea what out capabilities are.”

James looked at the Lance Corporal; “You really shouldn’t bad mouth someone you don’t know, Jap here will probably be going to Camp Perry this year and participate in the long distance shooting match this summer. While this is his personal favorite, he’s also highly skilled with one of the Unit’s mach grade 7.62’s”

The Lance looked skeptical, but didn’t say anything.

Keener sighed, looked at his watch and turned to James; “We got a couple of hours still, let’s take the Doubting Thomas here out to the range and let Jap put on a show.”

James looked at Matt and shrugged; “Fine with me, but there’ll be no side bets, you understand Keener?”

“Damn, all right James, but damn you take all the fun out of life.” Keener's last statement caused the Squaddies to laugh.

Ten minutes later the Marines, Squaddies, Keener and the brothers were all on the range and Jap was getting set up. Seeing as how his spotter hadn’t arrived yet, Phil Martin stood in for him.

While they were setting up, the Lance Corporal started grousing; “so what’s the big fucking deal, if I couldn’t hit the target at a hundred meters with that set up, I’d quit.”

Keener was starting to get pissed; “What’s this shit about a hundred yards, Japs shooting at the 1,500 meter target over there.” Keener pointed at a place off in the distance and it took the Lance a few seconds to realize there was in fact a target way the fuck out there.

“Yeah right, you really tryin ta tell me this little redheaded kid’s going to hit that from here?”

James and Matt were standing behind Jap and were far enough away that they couldn’t hear Keener when he said; “Not only hit, but he’s going to put all his shots in the black, and I got fifty bucks that says he’ll do it too.”

The Lance didn’t even hesitate; “You got yourself a bet, I always love ta take money from you wise ass civilians.”

Keener who was wearing blue jeans and a dark blue flannel shirt just smiled, and nodded his head.

After everyone had donned hearing and eye protection, Jap sat down alongside Wilber and just looked at his rifle for a few minutes. Taking a deep breath and letting it out he got into the prone position and nodded his head at James.

James looked around; “Ready on the right? Ready on the left?”

Jap said “Ready”

All ready on the firing line?”

Once again Jap sang out; “Ready.”

“Commence firing”

Jap’s first shot sounded two seconds later. Then for over a minute he continued to fire a round every five to six seconds until he had shot off all 14 remaining rounds.

James called out; “Cease fire, cease fire, the range is cold, firearms down actions open.”

Jap looked a little pissed: “Damn James, I think I threw that last round low.”

James chuckled; “Don’t worry about it, let’s go take a look and see how you did.”

To the surprise of the Marines, the Squaddies and Unit’s leadership all turned and headed into the range building, not knowing what was going on the Marines followed them.

Matt when to the computer keyboard mounted to the side of the large screen plasma monitor and punched in a series of commands. After thinking about it for a few seconds, the computer displayed the 1,500 meter target that Jap had been shooting at. After hitting the target with fifteen half inch diameter bullets, the center had just about disappeared. Matt studied it for just a second and said; “You’re right Jap, it looks like the last round was low.”

Looking at the monitor everyone could see that one round had missed the other fourteen round group that Jap had made by about one inch, but it was still well with in the black by at least three inches.

Lance Corporal Tilden didn’t know what to say, he reached in his pocket and pulled out his wallet and started to take out the money he had bet Keener.

Keener laughed; “Keep your money, it was a sucker bet. Jap here was taught by his father and has been coached by Gunnery Sergeant Mcnaughten for the past couple months. I’ve been watching him shoot every chance he gets and knew he’d put them all in the bull. By the way, I’m Staff Sergeant Webb, I’m here TAD to support the unit’s firearms and act as the shooting instructor when Gunny Mcnaughten isn’t around.

Tilden looked at Webb, shook his head and turned to Jap; “Jap, I really hate when I have ta eat crow, but that was some of the finest shooting I’ve ever seen, please accept my apologies for being such an asshole.”

Jap grinned; “Thank you Lance Corporal Tilden, that means a lot to me, especially coming from a regular Marine.”

Jap took Wilber back to the gun room and performed a quick but thorough cleaning on him. After placing Wilber in its gun rack, he secured the gun room and went back up to the kitchen. All the marines smiled at him when he entered and congratulated him on his shooting. While Jap had been busy in the gun room, more of the Squaddies had turned up and had gone downstairs to the Cavern.

Lance Corporal Tilden was down there when Jap entered the Cavern; he motioned for Jap to come over.

“So Jap, how come you call your piece ‘Wilber’, I mean when a guy names a piece, he usually names it after a female?”

Jap looked at him for a second; “A bunch of us read a story on the internet, one out of the ‘Nifty Archives’ called ‘Somerset Farm’ written by a really cool writer by the name of Jamie Haze.” “One of the characters in the story, who happened to be a gazillionaire, decided that all his boats, airplanes and other toys were males and should have male names.” “We kind of liked the idea so we started to do the same thing with our stuff.”

“Geez little buddy, that sounds kinda queer don’t it?”

Jap looked at Tilden for a second and started to cry; ‘I’m sorry, I thought you knew.” Jap turned and ran out of the Cavern.

Webb who noticed Jap running out, went over to Tilden and asked; “What’s wrong with Jap?”

“Shit I don’t know, we were talking about how he came about naming his piece Wilber and when I said his reason sounded queer, he started crying and said ‘I thought you knew’ and ran out of here. What the fuck is going on here?”

Keener sighed; “I thought you guys had been briefed.” He then went on to tell Tilden about how the Unit came about, how the majority of the Unit was gay and how much effort the kids had been making to be the best they could be. “So you see, Bill, when you made that ‘Queer’ remark, it was like slapping him in the face.”

“Ahh shit man, my uncle is gay and I never woulda said anything if I’d known.” “I feel lower than whale snot, that kid really impressed me with his shooting and I had no idea he was gay.”

Bill Tilden wasn’t a bad person; he just let his alligator mouth overload his canary asshole sometimes, now being one of those times. Heading upstairs, he stopped on the third deck and saw the door to the arms room open. Walking over to the door, he heard Jap talking to someone, when he got to the door, he found Jap cradling Wilber softly sobbing and whispering to the large rifle.

Tilden knocked softly on the side of the door and asked; “Hey Jap can I talk to you for a sec?”

Jap started, then quickly rubbed the tears from his eyes before saying; “I think you made it clear enough before about what you think. I’m sorry if I offend you, but I am gay and I can’t do nothing about it.”

“Jap, listen to me, it’s true I didn’t know you were gay, if I had I wouldn’t of said what I did. My uncle is gay, and he’s one of the nicest persons I know, I have more respect for him than I do for my father. Once again I have to ask you to forgive me for being such an asshole; I didn’t mean to insult you or to hurt you.” As far as I’m concerned, you can wear a dress and high heels and it wouldn’t make you less a man in my eyes, so please don’t cry anymore or you’re going to make me start.”

Jap looked at Tilden and realized he wasn’t trying to blow smoke up his ass, he really meant what he said. “Thanks Lance Corporal, I guess I’m still kinda thin skinned and I thought you were bein a gay basher. We had a couple of our guys spend time in the hospital cause of some homophobes and it just scared me when you made that comment about bein kinda queer. I’m sorry if I acted like a baby.”

“Hey man, it was my fault for saying such a dumb ass thing, can we just start over, besides knowing how you shoot, I plan on making some money off you this weekend. There’s a whole bunch of guys back at camp who think they’re hot shit with a rifle and I can get some good odds on you when we take you to the range.”

Jap smiled for the first time since Tilden made his comment and just nodded his head yes.

18:00 came about and the Unit’s members and families started to load up the busses. By 18:30, the three busses were moving down the road towards the coast, minus of course “Wilber.”

At 23:00, the three busses dropped the family members off at the motel and then proceeded to the main gate of the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station. Master Gunnery Sergeant Mcnaughten, a Marine Light Colonel, George Babcock and the twins were waiting for them at the barracks that had been set up for them after they cleared the Main Gate. Lieutenant Colonel Thompson from the Public Affairs Office greeted them and showed them into the barracks. He then got with James and Matt and briefed them on the schedule for the next two days. By 24:00, everyone was in a rack and sleeping soundly.

Reveille went at 06:00 to a lot of moaning and groaning from the Units members, James Matt, Keener and Gunny Mcnaughten made their way through the bays making sure the boys were all up and moving. James, Matt and Keener all enjoyed the morning display of teenage wood that sprouted like a forest in the barracks, the Gunny just laughed and told the boys to watch what they were doing or they’d put someone’s eye out.

By 07:00, the boys were all dressed and ready for the new day; Keener had the Unit fall in, in front of the barracks and marched them to the Enlisted Dinning Facility about two blocks down the road from the barracks. When the boys arrived at the EDF, they received an awful lot of stares from the active duty Marines already there. James was talking to the mess sergeant when they arrived and instructed them to sign their name and to write “Unit 1” in the block that was titled “Organization” on the sign in sheet. The boys, being typical teenagers, put away an enormous amount of food. What surprised the mess sergeant and his mess cooks was when several of the older Squaddies came up to him, complimented him on the quality of the food and then thanked them for the job they did preparing it.

After breakfast the Squadies were marched back to the barracks and given a chance to take a dump or attend to other personal hygiene requirements and then formed back up. Keener marched them over to the base auditorium and they spent the morning attending lectures and hands on training for first aid, CPR and survival techniques.

At 12:00 they were once again marched over to the EDF where they did their imitation of a swarm of ravenous locusts. Phil Martin smiled when he heard one of the mess cooks comment on the fact that they wouldn’t have any leftovers for midrats (Midnight Watch Rations, meal fed to the members of the watch that was on from 23:30 through 03:30) if this kept up. At 13:00, the unit was loaded on the busses and taken to a large athletic field where a “Fast Line” demonstration was put on by members of the Recon Platoon. The demonstration consisted of several Blackhawk helicopters swooping in and hovering over the field while thick lines were thrown out and fully equipped Marines dropped to the ground by rappelling down the lines. After the Marines were down and in a defensive position and the helicopters were gone, the entire Unit stood and applauded the Marines. The Marines were recalled and formed up into squads and then released to mingle with the Unit to answer questions.

Jordan Littlelk was talking to one of the Marines; “It gets you down in a hurry, but it seems awfully loud, aren’t you worried about letting them know you’re coming?”

“Naw, we would normally have a couple of Apache’s do a suppression run first to keep their heads down, then they’d stand off and provide cover fire as needed.”

“That’s neat, but wouldn’t it be better to go in quiet?”

“Yeah it would, but you’d either have to go in on foot or jump in if you wanted quiet.”

“I don’t know, I think I’d rather jump in than fast line it, that way I’d at least have a chance to pick my own landing zone.”

The Marine looked at Jordan a little funny; “Jumping in is not as easy as it looks in the movies kid, if you don’t know what you’re doing you can find yourself in a world of shit.”

“I hear what you’re saying, but still I think a HALO insertion is better.”

“What do you know about a HALO insertion kid?”

Jordan heard a patronizing note in the marines voice; “Right now not that much, but in two weeks me and my buddies are going to start jumping from 4,500 meters, and by July, if we can get the aircraft, we hope to be up to 9,500 meters.”

The Marine looked at him; “Are you shitting me, what kind of scout troop are you guys with?”

Jordan bristled; “WE are NOT a scout troop, WE ARE Unit 1 and WE WILL jump from 9,500 meters by the end of the summer.”

Saying that, he turned away from the startled Marine and walked away, visibly pissed.

That night while the boys were watching a movie at the base theater, Gunny, George, Keener, Matt and James were sitting around a table in the Staff NCO Club drinking a beer when a Gunnery Sergeant came over and asked; “Mind if I join you?”

Gunny looked at him and smiled; “Have a seat Gunny, gentlemen I’d like to introduce you to Gunnery Sergeant Oliver Johansson, he’s in charge of our fast line teams. Oly, these are James and Matt Bateman, Staff Sergeants George Babcock and Keener Webb. James and Matt are the men who started the Unit the boys belong too.”

“Good looking crew you got there, and a whole lot of proud. I was talking to one of your kids at the field after the demonstration today, Littlelk was his name.” The Marine laughed; “He was telling me that he was going to do a HALO from 9,500 meters this summer, I guess I kind of hurt his feelings when I chuckled at him.”

“Yeah I guess that would have pissed him off.” Said James. We’d be doing it sooner, but I’m having a hard time lining up an aircraft that can let the boys jump from that altitude.”

The Marine looked at James like he had two heads; “Are you trying to tell me that you are actually going to let the kid jump from that height?”

“Sure, why not, he and the other members of the team are ready for it, it’ll be awhile before we try night jumps from that high, but a daylight jump won’t be a problem.”

“God damn, their parents don’t have a problem with them jumping, I mean I’m not sure if I’d let my son jump from 2,500 meters, let alone 9,500.”

“Our kids are hard corps; our jump team is made up of 20 guys, fifteen of which are under seventeen years old. If you think they’re bad, you should meet my swimmers.” Matt said.

For the next hour and three more rounds of beer, the Unit leadership told the Gunnery Sergeant about the different skills and training the boys of Unit One were gaining.

“Shit man, if the kids can keep up the pace you’re setting for them, we could deploy them to Iraq by November.”

The guys laughed at the Sergeants left handed complement; “Yeah they could, but we got more important things to do than busting caps at a bunch of A-rabs.” Stated Keener.

Gunny Mcnaughten looked at Keener; “I think that’s enough beer for you tonight Staff Sergeant Webb.”

Keener glanced over at the Gunny and saw he was pissed off; “Sorry Gunny, I didn’t mean to say that.” Saying that, Keener stood up, Told Gunny Johansson it was nice meeting him, said good night to the others and left the club.

Johansson seeing the interaction between Gunny Mcnaughten and Webb got really quiet; “Sandy you want to tell me what’s going on here?”

“Not really Oly, maybe tomorrow after I talk to General Stanton, I can’t say anything on my own. I will say that if you or your guys run in to any of ours, it’d be smart if you didn’t flip them any shit.”

Johansson heard the key word in the Gunny’s statement, “ours” Gunny Mcnaughten left unstated that ours also included General Stanton being a part owner of the “ours” statement. “No problem Gunny, but as a professional courtesy, I would appreciate knowing what exactly is going on when it’s cleared by the General.”

“Sure Oly, I’ll give you this much though, come out to the long distance range tomorrow around 08:00. I think what you’ll see will be worth getting out of bed early on a Sunday morning.”

Shortly there after, everyone headed back to the barracks to get some sleep before the last day of the Unit’s weekend started.

“Reveille, Reveille, all hands heave out and trice up, the smoking lamp is lit in all authorized spaces. Now reveille.” The standard announcement that was heard in all U.S. Naval and Marine units woke the members of Unit One. Moans and groans and morning wood vied with each other for supremacy in the barracks. Webb and the Gunny walked through the bays banging on shit can lids (garbage can lids to you civilian types) yelling at the boys to ‘show a leg’ and get ready for breakfast.

“Hey Gunny?” shouted Jacky Hoffman; “What’s this stuff about showing a leg, you coming over to our side?”

Gunny laughed; “You fucking wish you little wise ass, it’s an old saying that was started back when the Navy and the Corps first started.”

“What’d it mean Gunny?” Asked Jap.

“Back when the U.S. started the Navy and Corps, when a ship came into port it anchored out in the stream and didn’t grant Liberty to the crew. The only members of the ship allowed ashore were the officers and working parties supervised by senior petty officers, N.C.O.’s and Midshipmen. You can imagine what it was like on board the ship after being underway for a couple of three months, there was two, three hundred men kept on board the ship, most of whom weren’t much older than you boys, and most of them walking around with morning wood all day. Anyway, the ship would allow females to come onboard and service the crew, they’d sleep in the mans’ bunk or hammock that they were with, so when reveille went, one of the Master At Arms would go through the berthing compartments and if he found anyone still in their rack and couldn’t tell if it were a man or a woman because they were covered, he would say ‘Show a Leg’.” “Even though the women back then didn’t shave their legs, it was readily apparent if the leg belonged to a man or a woman.”

Jap got a nasty grin on his face; “Did you ever get in trouble back then when you showed your leg?”

Standing behind the Gunny, Webb laughed; “Well Gunny did you?”

Gunny, smiling, used Webb’s favorite sayings; “Aww, I don’t have to take this shit.” Turning he started to leave the barracks, but not before taking a swipe at Jap.”