16 November 1987 – Fort Bragg, North Carolina

Jeff shifted the weight of the duffel bag on his shoulder as he crossed the company area from the headquarters building to his assigned barracks. He would finally see his barracks room – his home for the next three or so years – in a few more minutes. His Fort Bragg experience thus far had been limited to filling out paperwork at the Reception Company.

’Here’s where the rubber meets the road,’ he thought, thinking about the difference between theory (training) and application (doing).

He’d been training for the Army since the beginning of July. Now he was going to be in the Army learning what that meant. After a full weekend of in-processing with the prospect of one last day tomorrow, his head was spinning. Jeff just wanted out of his Class-As, into a set of BDUs, to get dinner, and then to crawl into bed. Seeing the 82nd Airborne patch on his left shoulder still gave him chills. His biological grandfather died wearing that patch.

Entering the Alpha Company building, Jeff saw the signs pointing the way to 1st Platoon and headed that in that direction. Other signs pointed to his squad’s floor and his squad leader’s office. In this barracks, he’d share a room with one other soldier. This was unlike the huge open barracks bay during training, where he bunked with forty-five others.

A private first class in a battle dress uniform grabbed him when he passed the 3rd Squad’s lounge.

“Hey, are you the new guy?” the PFC asked, pulling Jeff into the common area. “Come here and get in on this!”

Jeff took in the scene: a second PFC stood over a third sitting in a chair holding a book. These other two appeared to be taunting the book reader, and it brought back memories of people harassing him in junior high school. It pissed him off.

“No, I don’t think so,” Jeff growled before he turned back to the door.

“Hey, where you going, New Guy?” the second PFC confronted him.

The second man’s name tape read ’Jaeckel.’ Appropriate. Jeff gave the large man a hard look.

“You want me to help you torment another soldier, one who is apparently in my platoon, when I haven’t even reported to my squad leader yet? Get stuffed. I was on the receiving end of this shit in junior high school, so no thanks! I might be the new guy, and I might be right out of training, but I already know what the term ’Bravo-Foxtrot’ means. I think I’m looking at two people who embody the term.” He turned on his heel and left.

Out in the hallway, Jeff took deep breaths to calm down. He looked again for the squad leader’s office, Room 319. There it was, right next to his room, 317. He dropped his duffel on his bunk. His roommate wasn’t there. He walked next door to report in.

“Sergeant, Private Knox reports,” Jeff said, standing at attention.

“At ease, Private. Have a seat,” his squad leader said.

Jeff sat nervously while the sergeant stared at him, trying to get a feel for Jeff. Finally, the sergeant spoke up.

“Welcome to Third Squad, Knox. I’m Staff Sergeant John Tyler. I’ve been looking at your jacket. This is only a copy by the way; the original is back over at headquarters. Honor grad three times in a row? An ARCOM and two AAMs before even reporting to your first unit? An average of two-ninety-one on your APFTs so far? Not bad, soldier!”

“It’s all been theory up until this point, Sergeant. I still need to experience being a soldier,” Jeff said. “I’ve had a run of good luck, that’s all.”

“And humble, to top it all off. I think you’ll do well here. You reported to Lieutenant Cherrington and Sergeant First Class Hantula when you arrived, I imagine?”

“Yes, Sergeant. When they both got to the office this morning.”

“Good. Why don’t you go introduce yourself to your roommate and get settled in? It’s almost chow time. We’ll talk more later. Dismissed.”

Jeff stood and went to attention, executed an about-face, and stepped smartly out of the room. Jeff walked next door to his room where he came face-to-face with a nightmare. The three PFCs from the lounge sat staring at him. Jeff swallowed.

’Oh, shit... ‘

“So you’re my new roommate?” asked the one who’d been the others’ target in the lounge. His name tape read ’Takahashi.’

“Hai!” Jeff responded automatically. Shaking his head, Jeff explained, “I beg your pardon, Private Takahashi. My karate Sensei back home was also named Takahashi.”

“Ken,” Takahashi said as he stood and held out his hand. Jeff took it. “My name is Ken. Thanks for sticking up for me back there. Carl, Frank, and I are all supposed to be getting new roommates soon, and Carl” – Ken indicated PFC Jaeckel – “thought up that little test we just put you through. We wanted to know what kind of people we’ll be sharing rooms with.”

“Nice job, by the way,” Jaeckel remarked. He rose and offered his hand. “Carl Jaeckel, good to meet you.”

“Jeff Knox,” he responded. Frank Widmar, the private who had pulled him into the lounge, introduced himself also. Jaeckel and Widmar took off after a few minutes of getting acquainted.

“You speak Japanese, then?” Ken asked him after the door closed.

“No, I know the words I needed at the dojo. I studied karate for four years. Sensei was originally from Tokyo.”

“My parents come from down by Hiroshima. They raised my sister and me to speak Japanese and English. I can teach you the language if you’d like?”

“I think my family would be impressed if someone could teach me English...” Jeff joked.

“Don’t let this place beat the sense of humor out of you,” Ken replied, laughing. “I meant ‘I’ll teach you Japanese if you would like?’”

“I would, thank you,” Jeff said, sincerely.

“It’s the least I can do after you stood up for me.”

“I felt like I was back in junior high school, getting bullied again. I couldn’t stand that shit then, either. This was a chance to react like I didn’t when I was in junior high, so I did.”

“Whatever the reason, I appreciate it. Carl, Frank, and the rest of the squad will give you a break on the FNG stuff because of how you reacted. Do you have your meal card for the dining facility yet?”

“I do. I just need to knock out some push-ups and sit-ups, get into a set of BDUs, and I’ll be ready.”

Jeff unpacked his duffel bag onto his rack, shook out his best set of BDUs, one of only two sets with the 82nd patch on them so far, and inspected them for wrinkles. Finding none, he undressed down to his briefs and t-shirt and pulled on his PT shorts. He dropped to the floor to start knocking out push-ups. When he finished a silent count, he flipped over and did sit-ups. Finished with his PT, he changed into an Army-brown t-shirt and his BDU pants. He pulled on his jump boots, and then put a five-button wool sweater on under his BDU blouse.

“All set, Ken.”

“That was quick. You did how many of each?”

“One hundred of each. I’m a little behind today.”

“A little behind?” Ken was incredulous. “If that’s ‘a little behind,’ then how many do you usually do?”

Jeff shrugged. “I’m up to doing at least five hundred of each per day, and a five-mile run when I can. The run’s been hard to do every day since I joined up, but then it’s not like they don’t make you run in training.”

“That’s incredible!”

“I’m used to it now,” Jeff shrugged again. “I started working out like this the summer before high school. I did some whenever and wherever I was able during the day and, before I knew it, I was up to five hundred a day. Come on, I want to eat. I’ll get back here to put all this stuff away, and I’ll crash. I’ve got one more day of paperwork and in-processing to look forward to. What time is reveille?”

“Zero-four-forty-five.”

“That’s about what I’ve been used to.”

The new friends left the room and headed out to get dinner.

Jeff tried again to wipe the crust out of the corners of his eyes. He filled out more paperwork in the company office early the next day. He slept well the night before, but a mix of early morning PT, breakfast, and a hot shower did not equal an awake Jeff when you added paperwork. He initialed and signed the final page and returned it to the stack.

“Congratulations, Private, you’re all done,” said Specialist Josh Tomlinson, one of the headquarters office staff. Jeff smiled as he leaned back into his chair. “You’re all done... here.”

Jeff’s smile disappeared. “Oh, that was cold.”

“Well, we office staff have to get our kicks where we can,” Tomlinson laughed. “You still have to draw your equipment at supply.”

“May you die slowly from a thousand paper cuts.” Tomlinson laughed again. “And fall into a vat of peroxide before you do.”

Jeff walked back into the room the following evening carrying a trash can liner with his newly issued web gear in it.

“You all done?” Ken asked.

“I hope so,” Jeff grumbled. He dropped the bag in his closet. “I thought that stuff had to be returned in better condition than this? I guess whoever had this crap missed that class in Basic. And this was the good set! You should have seen the shit they tried to give me first!”

Jeff spent the last few hours with water and a stiff-bristle brush trying to get the mud off the gear, and that was after hours filling out the last of his in-processing paperwork. He’d ask Ken to look at the web gear another day, to see how he did cleaning it.

“I might be better off buying my own,” Jeff groused.

“Lots of guys do that. So, tell me again about this new stuff you heard about at supply? The new waterproof gear?”

“I guess it’s supposed to replace the field jackets. The specialist over at supply said the folks at Natick Labs have been working on a whole new system of waterproof jackets, liners – even pants – that are supposed to be made out of that new Gore-Tex stuff.” Jeff shrugged. “I guess they’re going to be rolling it out next summer, so we’ll have it next winter.”

“Which means, in true Army fashion, it’ll get here the summer after that, it will suck, and they’ll get it right the second time – in five years.”

“I defer to your greater knowledge and experience in the matter,” Jeff joked.

“Just you wait, New Guy. You’ll see. You said you met the LT and our platoon sergeant yesterday?”

“Yeah, before I started with all the company in-processing fun.”

“Sergeant Hantula has been here a couple of years, so he’ll probably PCS in a couple more. The LT just got here a few months ago. He’ll be here longer; he seems like he knows what’s up. Sergeant Tyler got here about the same time as I did. You ready for chow?”

“As long as it doesn’t look like mud tonight,” Jeff grumbled.

“This is the Army,” Ken reminded him. “Don’t get your hopes up.”

“I think I need a shower after shaking Infante’s hand.”

Ken chuckled. “That’s a common reaction. My family wants to come to visit, but I don’t want him near my little sister yet. Certainly not until she’s sixteen at least. Maybe not even when she’s twenty-six!”

“My sister’s a senior this year, and already seventeen. She’s not visiting until he’s ready to PCS! That guy’s a legend in his own mind.”

“He’ll needle you a little as the new guy...”

“I figured on catching stuff like that as the FNG,” Jeff shrugged. “I can handle him. I can even put him in his place without kicking his ass.”

“From what you’ve told me, that’ll be a new experience for you.”

Ken laughed when Jeff flipped him off.

Jeff and Ken sat in their barracks room reading at the end of Jeff’s first week at Fort Bragg. They noticed another soldier poke his head in and survey the room through the open door.

“Hi, how are you?” Jeff offered, looking up from his history homework. He received no reply other than a curt nod before the other man disappeared. Jeff looked over at Ken.

“Fingers.”

“‘Fingers?’” Jeff replied.

“Fingers Flaherty, as in ‘sticky’ or ‘Five-finger Discount Fingers’ Flaherty.”

“Glad I don’t have much lying around.”

“It won’t matter to him. He’ll take whatever, regardless.”

“No one’s caught him at it yet, I’m guessing?”

“Nope. Make sure the door is locked tight whenever you leave the room, regardless of how long you’ll be gone.”

“Right.”

Jeff settled into life in the active-duty Army. He no longer mailed the letters to his father and sister to his dad’s garage to prevent his mother from intercepting them. Now he mailed them home.

His mom surprised him by showing up at his AIT graduation. She hugged him tight and cried out her apology in the middle of the parade field at Fort Benning. She told him how proud of him she was for the choice he made, and for his performance in training. Their relationship wasn’t back to where it used to be, and might never be, but it was improving.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Mom. Merry Christmas.”

“Hi, Jeff! Merry Christmas! How are you?”

“Okay, thanks, Mom. We’ve got a pretty light day scheduled. We’re still on Support Cycle, so we’ve got it easier than the guys in the other brigades.”

“Well, I won’t pretend I understand any of that, regardless of how many times you’ve explained it. I’m sorry you couldn’t come home for Christmas.”

“I’ve only been here a month, Mom. I’m low man on the totem pole, too. Add those together and my chances of coming home were pretty slim.”

“How are your correspondence classes going?” Jeff started his classwork in history two weeks ago.

“Okay so far, Mom. The university gave me all my AP credit, so I’m already a sophomore. I’m just about done with the first module in that year. I want to get a little farther into the year before we’re on Training Cycle; Ken’s been telling me that once we’re in Training, I’ll be too busy and too tired for classwork.”

“I’m just happy to see you continue your education, regardless of how you’re doing it.”

Jeff spoke with his mother for another ten minutes before being passed to his sister, then father. He hung up thirty minutes later.

“How’s your family?” Ken asked.

“They’re good thanks. Do you want to go grab breakfast before you call home?”

“Yeah, with the time difference I’ll call home between ten- and eleven-hundred.” Ken was from Spokane, in eastern Washington State, three hours behind Fayetteville.

Jeff tracked an item in the local paper for four months before he decided to move on it. He wasn’t accustomed to being without a car, even after seven months without one of his own. This year, Kara drove what he once considered his car, even though his dad owned it.

Jeff and Ken drove out to Carvers Creek, North Carolina in mid-March. Carvers Creek was not far from the base, but they felt they needed to wait until they were back on Support Cycle to go even this far from Fort Bragg. Jeff wanted to check out the vehicle he’d watched in the paper months for months.

“Where are we going again?” Ken asked in Japanese. The pair started immersion language training earlier in the week.

“Try that again? A little slower. I think I almost got that.” Ken repeated his question slower. “Okay, turn left here,” Jeff replied in broken Japanese.

The two friends pulled up to a modest home set back from the street. To one side of the driveway sat a black 1983 Chevy K10 Silverado pickup. It sported regular tires, no lift package, and it was clean. A gentleman stepped out of the house and made his way down the driveway as Ken and Jeff approached the truck.

“Help you boys?” the man asked.

“Yes, Sir. Good morning. I’m Jeff Knox and this is my friend, Ken Takahashi. We’ve come to look at the truck, if we may?” Jeff asked, extending a hand to the older man.

“George Clement, though most just call me ‘Clem.’ Been plenty of folks by to look, but that’s all they ever seem to do. You fellas go on and have a look. I’ll be right here to answer questions if I can.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

Jeff stepped to the truck and peered through the window. The interior looked clean and in good shape, as did the exterior. Someone was taking care of this vehicle. Jeff stole a glance at the ground below the truck and saw that the grass underneath was short. Tire tracks led back to the garage near the house and were well-worn.

“May I look under the hood, Sir?”

Clem nodded and Jeff pulled the latch. When he raised the hood, he was surprised. As clean as the vehicle looked elsewhere, the engine compartment was covered in oil, especially around the engine. Jeff recognized the pattern. The rest of the compartment looked good; he didn’t see any animal nests or that any had chewed on the wires or hoses. A closer look under the vehicle showed no issues there, either.

“May I start her up, Sir?”

Clem nodded and handed over the keys. Starting the engine confirmed Jeff’s suspicions about where the oil came from. He let the engine run briefly while he checked the equipment in the cab of the truck. There were no issues. Jeff turned off the motor. He circled the vehicle, testing the shocks on each corner. The sight of something familiar on the bumper froze him in his tracks.

An 82nd Airborne Division bumper sticker. Jeff looked at Clem.

“This was my boy’s truck,” Clem explained while he looked at the truck, the pain clear on his face. “He was a paratrooper over at Bragg two years ago when his ‘chute failed on a training jump. Will blew that head gasket you heard just before that jump. He planned to fix it the weekend after, but he never got the chance.”

Clem looked at Jeff. “His death killed my wife. She died less than three months after he did, of a broken heart more than anything else. He was our only child. Me, I guess I’m too much of an ornery old cuss. I’ve been hangin’ on since they both passed. I finally got around to pulling Will’s truck out of the garage this past Christmas. Didn’t feel much call to, before that. Been gettin’ my house in order, cleaning things up. I’m still planning on being ‘round a few more years, but enough’s enough. What’re your thoughts on the truck, son?”

“It’s obvious your son took good care of it, Sir. You’ve been caring for it, too. Keeping it covered, washed. Fixing that head gasket won’t take me more than a couple of days; parts aren’t that expensive or hard to come by. My dad taught me how to tear down an engine for that job. Does two-fifty under book value sound fair?”

“Son, that seems a bit high for a truck that needs that kind of work.”

“As I said, Sir, the truck is well-cared for. Your family paid a high price for the freedom I grew up enjoying, and extortion hardly seems fair repayment. There’d be lots of people willing to pay well above book value for your son’s truck, if not for the head gasket. I can fix the truck myself, and that gasket is likely the only thing I’ll have to touch. I won’t even have to touch his bumper sticker because Ken and I are both in the 82nd.” Clem couldn’t see Ken’s access sticker for Bragg with his car parked where it was.

Jeff saw Clem hesitate for a moment before making his decision.

“You have yourself a deal, Jeff.” Clem held out his hand and they shook on the deal. “You boys come up to the house and we’ll take care of the paperwork.”

Jeff and Ken shook Clem’s hand again before they left the house; he paid Clem in cash. They stopped next to Jeff’s new used truck with keys and completed papers in hand thirty minutes later.

“You had him over a barrel if you wanted him there,” Ken said.

“I know, but what good would that have done? I know you saw the USMC stuff around the house. It wouldn’t have taken much to have him digging his heels in. Instead, I have a new truck and he has one last good memory connected to his son.”

Ken nodded, even more impressed with his younger roommate.

The two friends walked up the stairs of their barracks, along with two other soldiers from their platoon, one evening in early May. The four all wore a thick layer of camouflage paint on their faces and carried heavy rucksacks from their massed tactical training jump. With 1st Brigade five weeks into Training Cycle, the platoon jumped or ran some field training exercise almost every night. All four looked forward to showers, chow, and sleep.

Jeff led the way up the stairs. He glanced through the window on the fire door before opening it. He raised his fist in the hand signal for ‘freeze,’ The rest fell silent while he studied what he saw.

Someone was in the room he shared with Ken. Nobody from the squad should be here; all had been on the jump that night. Jeff made the hand signal for ‘enemy in sight’ and indicated ‘three one seven.’ The others nodded. He indicated that the other two should provide security. He and Ken would confront whoever was in their room.

He opened the door without making any noise. The impromptu assault section flattened themselves against the wall to stay out of sight. Jeff peeked around the doorframe; there was only one person was inside. Jeff gave a silent three-count before he and Ken charged in.

The two occupants of the room surprised the burglar. They crushed him against the far wall. He tried to get free, but Jeff yanked his underwear up until it almost ripped. The man’s eyes watered and his stomach rolled before Ken drove him to the floor. Jeff knelt on his neck, holding him down.

“Hey, Sarge,” they heard one of the others in the hall say.

“Why aren’t you jokers getting cleaned up yet?” SSG Tyler stepped into view. “What the hell’s going on in here?” he asked as he looked into Room 317.

“We found Fingers in here when we got back,” Ken said. “I can already tell there’s stuff missing from our room, but we haven’t had a chance to check that bag there.”

“They’re lying!” Fingers cried. “They dragged me in here!”

Jeff pressed his face into the floor a little harder.

“Johnson, call the MPs,” Tyler ordered. Johnson stepped away to make the call. Fingers started making noise again. “Shut up, Fingers! You were supposed to be on sick call. I’m betting you used that excuse for a chance to go through other people’s rooms. Godfrey spread the word to have people check their shit.” Godfrey, the other soldier who helped them, took off also.

Ken and Jeff sat on Fingers until the MPs arrived. The MPs took charge of the intruder, wrestling him out of the room in handcuffs. One MP stayed behind to interview Ken and Jeff. They were released an hour later.

“Gee, it’s a good thing we weren’t tired or anything,” Jeff muttered while stifling a yawn.

“Yeah, that’s exactly what we needed after a day of training.”

“If you two are done clowning around you should go get washed up,” Tyler suggested when he came back into the room. “Knox, remember you have your twenty-four-hour CQ duty with Corporal Thomas at zero-seven-hundred tomorrow; you might want to crash pretty soon.”

“Yes, Sergeant.”