“Sounds heavy,” she said.
“It was, coming from someone who learned it at just eighteen years of age.”
She nodded at William’s journal. “You sure you want to read it?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Part of me doesn’t, but part of me feels like I owe it to William.”
“Why?”
Because William taught me that you can’t expect to be treated as a man if you act like a child, and that every life is precious and can be lost in an instant of stupidity or bad luck. He taught me not to waste the opportunities I had, because so many young men never had a chance at them, never had the chance to grow old.
“I just do,” I said.
“Might be something for Beau to read,” Elizabeth said.
“Maybe,” I said. “I think I’ll read it first, though.” I heard the doorbell and looked to the bay window. The designer held a massive book. “That’s my cue to go hit a bucket of golf balls.”
Elizabeth moved to answer the door. “You know, it wouldn’t kill you to stay and participate a little.”
“Picking out wall colors? Yeah, it would. I’d pick out purple and you’d kill me.” I pecked her cheek. “Besides, it’s hard enough just writing the checks.”
August 27, 1967
After hours of filling out forms, I raised my right hand and was inducted into the United States Marine Corps, then boarded a bus bound for Parris Island, South Carolina, what the marines call PI. I will undergo nine weeks of boot camp. I had turned down officer candidate school, which was an extended commitment offered to me after I scored well above average on my AFQT （Armed Forces Qualification Test）。 I don’t care about becoming an officer. I care about getting out. The sooner the better.
Parris Island in August and September is my penance. Ninety degrees and 85 percent humidity.
Every time the bus stopped in some small town, guys got on who looked just like me. Same age. Same shaggy hair. Same sporadic facial hair. Same hard stare, like we weren’t scared. We were. We didn’t say much to each other, but we looked each other up and down, made assessments, wondered . . . though not for too long. You didn’t want to think about it. Just like you didn’t want to think that you might never see your parents or your sisters and brothers again. That you might not make it home. Might not ever again drive that car you fixed up. Might not again eat at the local diner. Might not kiss your high school sweetheart, who swore she would wait for you.
You could “might not” yourself crazy.
I decided it was best to stay in the present. The present, I figured, would be hard enough to get through.
Somewhere along the fifteen-hour bus route, one of the southern states, this big guy got on the bus. A stereotype. He looked like he could play football for Bear Bryant at Alabama. Big chest. Big legs. Big head. Crew cut. Projecting forehead. I could tell that he thought he was a badass because the first thing he did was tell the little guy sitting up front to move. The guy moved without hesitation. I’m a strapping 160 pounds, and I was thinking I would have told the guy to go to hell, but that’s just bullshit. New Jersey hubris. I probably would have moved.
Anyway, this guy didn’t keep quiet like the rest of us. He started saying he wanted to be first. First guy off the bus. First guy to Vietnam. First guy to kill the “Gook” commies. He was laughing about it, like he was on a bus to summer camp. Said his father and his grandfather were both marines. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard that word, but it was the first time I’d heard it uttered with such intent, to kill. It took on a completely different meaning, and it had a harsh reality; I was being sent to kill other human beings.
I wasn’t sure I could do it.
At some point during all his bullshit, I fell asleep. I awoke when the bus stopped at a closed cyclone fence. A marine in starched camouflage nodded and waved the driver through. I looked at my watch. Two in the morning. The bus stopped a second time and immediately all hell broke loose. This guy in a Smokey Bear hat, green pants, and a khaki shirt rushed onto the bus screaming at the top of his lungs. We learned he was the receiving drill instructor during his two-minute tirade about how we will react and how we will respond. Dazed and disoriented from a lack of sleep, I couldn’t think or clearly process what he was shouting at me except to get my ass off his damn bus. I was grabbing shit that wasn’t even mine and rushing for the door.
When I got off the bus, two more drill instructors took turns yelling at me, calling me “shit bird,” “scumbag,” and “numb nuts.” They told me to drop my civilian bag and put my civilian shoes on the yellow footprints painted on the concrete. I couldn’t see in the dark, so I just stood next to the guy closest to me. Wrong again. The senior drill instructor got within an inch of my nose and screamed in my face, “Are you queer, numb nuts?”