At Any Point In Time, We Are One Of These Characters. And All of Them.

I was listening to some music, and as often happens when one listens to an old song, memories coalesce out of nowhere. The particular memory I'm thinking of doesn't have a lot to do directly with what I write about, but maybe a few of you will understand it. Maybe it will be an entertaining story for you. Maybe not. I feel compelled to write it.

The music I was listening to was by The Offspring - the album, Ignition. The song - 'Kick Him When He's Down'. The chorus of the song is this:

When the rain comes I sit home and pray
Make it all numb
I wish it all away
All i really need is just somewhere to hide away
Kick him when he's down
Here alone I'll put up and fight
Kick him when he's down
Beat me all the way I'll take it all night
Kick him when he's down
Hey, don't worry, I'll get along home alright

I remember driving from Orlando to Tampa to see my mother between duty stations (leaving the old Naval Hospital Orlando, now closed). I got my first speeding ticket in the unlikely candidate of a 1985 Chrysler Laser, PQJ-32L (Florida). The cop was nice, I suppose, but I notched it up to karma - I'd driven plenty of other cars plenty faster than 90 mph, I was nice, the cop was nice, we agreed on 78 mph or so (any higher and my insurance would have sucked wind)... saw Mom, and headed up to North Carolina. The Nine Inch Nails cassette died on the way up, and all I had was The Offspring from Tampa to the Carolinas, where I was to show up for Field Medical Service School - training for Hospital Corpsman to work with our beloved jarheads. I pulled in, a non-commissioned officer, got back into a shared rack space for training, and passed the next few weeks... eventfully.

There were a lot of personal challenges there. I faced a few demons, even shook hands with a few new ones, but one thing always stands out in my memory. There was this Seaman (E3) who got sent there from Washington, DC - he said he pissed off a Master Chief. Now this kid - I'll call him Talcum - was pushing the envelope on the Navy weight scales. Really, really big fellow with not much discernible strength. A sharp mind, but... not the skinniest guy in the bunch. He stayed to himself. The first few days, we all sort of stayed to ourselves except for the Enlisted Club, and even there the non-commissioned officers had some perks that the lower ranks didn't get. But the very first day, this corporal - the same rank as myself - got in Talcum's face about him being a 'fat body', and hurling all sorts of epithets in the guys face. At first, quite a few of us snickered because if you've survived boot camp, you know what the game is and you just let it flow off of you. You don't let it touch you. We'll call this Corporal 'Corby'.

But it kept going. As an instructor, this guy was theoretically one rank above the highest ranking of us (positional authority), so we just sort of watched quietly after a while. He wouldn't let up. It was like he found a sleeping polar bear, and he was trying to wake it up while we stood around and watched (thus the photo at top). He just kept going. We stopped snickering, all of us, because this was just going on and on and on and on... we all knew that Talcum was going to have problems, but this little corporal (and he was a little corporal) just kept goading him. Pushing him into the catch-22 responses. And this kid was flustered. In ranks, I hazarded a glance over to my right and looked at him. His eyes were liquid, his head downcast, staring at the thing that he was obviously ashamed of. For some reason, a cold rage was building in me. Discipline kept me where I was. Barely. I wanted to wake up his polar bear.

Fortunately for Talcum, another instructor came by - a fellow Hospital Corpsman, thin as a rail and with about half the ribbons that Chesty Puller had. He just said, real quietly, "That's enough." And it was. Corby stomped off in a fit of impotent rage, being outgunned in what we called 'shoulder poker'. Rank wins, and this guy won. Things quieted down, but it was a sign of things to come.

Over the weeks that passed by, Talcum found within himself a certain strength, an inner strength, and he was beginning to let things flow off of him - a natural state, a healthy state. A few of us took Talcum under our wings - encouraging him to work out with us, go for runs, that sort of thing. A small group of us basically tucked him in at night, all of us - we all had different reasons. Deep down, I wanted him to show Corby up, and I wanted him to show Corby up because Corby had rank and nothing to go with it. A blowhard with a Napoleon complex. He probably earned the rank somehow, but in my eyes he didn't deserve it. Of course, the Marine Corps isn't noted for playing footsie with trainees - but this guy was a little overboard.

I ended up being 'Master at Arms', which meant the barracks area was 'my house'. That was probably the worst job I ever had, because I sucked at it - and EVERYONE knew it. It wasn't a secret. But it also meant I could run ahead of the company, unsecure (unlock the barracks), and so forth. When I started running, people started smiling because we were on our way back. I started smiling because I got to run, which I had become good at over the years. I wasn't Forrest Gump by a long shot, but I liked running. I'd go for 3 mile runs after everything just to get away from everyone. There's a solitude in running. Sometimes Talcum came, and stopped when I couldn't cajole him further. Whenever he stopped, though, he started exercising another way. The boy had a drive, and a spark in the eye... The polar bear was awake. But the polar bear was a bit unstable as time progressed.

The first week, I woke up to whimpering. I went to check on it - in boot camp, people cry when they realize that they aren't at home with Mommy and Daddy anymore, but everyone here had been through that. I walked over to Talcum's rack. He was peeling his socks off slowly, and the mess underneath had toes, but that was the only way to identify the feet. There were blisters everywhere, some infected. We're all corpsmen. A few others got up, we got our flashlights out, and we had a conference - told Talcum he had to get off his feet for a while, that we'd talk to the instructors and show them his feet. He wasn't being soft, he needed time for his feet to heal.

He swore at us, and told us to just wrap his feet and treat him in the barracks. Someone reading this who has never been in a military training environment might say we shouldn't have done that, but Talcum was one of us and if he said he could take it - then we'd let him, and help him on the way. We all had stuff to treat him with - each corpsman is a pharmacy unto himself, it's in the job description. We patched him up, and he kept going. His feet didn't get better, but they didn't get worse. They did stink to high heaven though, and as Master At Arms I made sure he got easy work around the barracks - dusting whatever. He pulled his weight.

Corby was going to get Talcum, win or lose, so Corby began to mean less and less to Talcum - and the bad part was that it was beginning to show. On the flip side, Corby seemed to sense that Talcum was ignoring him, and started pushing harder and harder. One day, Corby came in and saw Talcum at the geedunk (vending) machine. He said, in front of all of us, that we weren't allowed any of that (pointing) 'Navy Chow'. We corpsmen bristled under that, some more than others, and then he had Talcum do pushups and situps for touching the 'Navy Chow'.

Talcum started talking about what he would like to do to the little twit, Corby (which we all agreed he was - he never picked on someone who could or would meet him head on). One day he went a little too far - he was insubordinate somehow - and Corby jumped on his desk and started screaming and spitting in Talcum's face. I don't know why I was there. Something to do with being the Master at Arms, or something like that. Maybe I was being counselled on something (like my hair, which was always borderline). But I was there, and I watched that and was shocked. Dismay set in. I knew Talcum was trying. I knew he was working. He didn't deserve that. Then the cold rage.

Something gave me away before I lost my cool, and I was escorted outside by one of the instructors, who told me firmly, 'Go back to the barracks, we will handle this.' I didn't run. I walked. It was a long walk back to those barracks. I told the Chief who was with us in training about what happened. I went to my rack, threw on my cassette player, and listened to The Offspring. 'Kick Him When He's Down'. Right. Word spread through the barracks. Some time later, Talcum came in, and was given a wide berth. I sat up and looked at him. If you have ever seen pure fury in a man's eyes, when the tears no longer come, when they don't focus on anything, you've seen eyes like he had. The polar bear was awake, and looking at him, I couldn't help but wish that someone would sing that bear a lullabye. I had flashbacks of 'Full Metal Jacket', and that M16. The Chief calls me out front. The thin instructor is there, and he's talking to the Chief and I - Corby got yanked up hard, but we were to keep an eye on Talcum. The instructors were worried about him.

I'd been looking at the ground when that was said. I looked up at him, and I said, "Didn't you know that the first day?" I was angry, he saw it, and he did the right thing. He faded into the darkness. There was no right answer. I didn't know the answer. I had just tried to wake a polar bear, and that polar bear decided I wasn't worth waking up for. The Chief told me to stay cool, and I went for a midnight run.

Days passed, and Talcum wouldn't talk other than answering basics. He wasn't there. He wouldn't let people help him with his feet anymore. He'd have them wrapped. He came back one day with a bad limp after going on his solo run. Sitting on his bed, he pulled off his sock and started giggling. You could have heard a pin drop in that barracks. Nobody had heard Talcum laugh, or giggle - and this was not a sane giggle. This was a giggle that sent chills up your spine as his dribble was sucked by gravity to the ground.

After a few minutes, he stopped giggling, and fell fast asleep. A few of us kept watch on him.

The next morning, he was normal. He was more than normal - he was laughing, joking with us, and eating breakfast. He moved easily. I don't know who it was that asked him, but the truth came out - he had been giggling yesterday because he had finally gotten down to the minimum time on the 3 mile run.

The day for the final test for physical training, for graduation, Corby reappeared. We didn't care too much, because the next day we were out of there to our next duty stations. We could smell freedom, taste it, and not even Corby could dull our spirits. But Talcum missed the target that day, and even while we tried to cheer him up, he cheered himself up and said he would graduate with the next class. He knew he could do it. Maybe he said that just to make us feel better - it worked. We had to clean the barracks, and it wasn't done right. It's NEVER done right the first time, but tempers were high and I was the Master At Arms, so I didn't win any friends that night. That's life.

And the morning that we were to head out, Corby walks in and buys something out of the vending machine in our barracks. Without thinking, with the taste of freedom on my lips, I asked him if he was getting some 'Marine Corps chow'. Oops. So, since I was still under instruction, he had positional authority. I ended up on the sidewalk in front, doing 8 count bodybuilders, pushups and situps while he munched on his donuts. And he left, telling me to keep going. So I did. I was mashed for about half an hour, I couldn't tell, but I wasn't going to break. The concrete below was a melted reflection of me, my sweat coming in heavy drops. I'd awoken the polar bear, and he had taken a cheap shot. The instructor told me to stop, asked me why I was out there and I told him exactly why. He told me to go inside and get cleaned up. Civilian clothes. They'd be out with our orders soon. I got a few pats on the back when I walked in.

We got our orders, and I hopped in the car after I tossed in my sea bag. Corby was there. I looked at him, smiled, and told him that I'd be around off base for an hour if he wanted to discuss things... a little place right across the street. Foxy's Place, I think. He never showed. I really wanted him to show up.

I don't think Corby stayed at that command much longer. I believe, or want to believe, that Talcum graduated at some time.

The point to all of this, I suppose, was that Corby, Talcum and I were the same person. Not like a surreal movie, but Corby hated Talcum because he used to be like Talcum (or so I believe). Talcum hated Corby because he didn't want to be like Corby, and maybe because Corby reminded him of someone. And while I was standing around watching, I became a bit of both.

At any point in time, we're the one who's the sleeping polar bear, or the one who's the penguin trying to wake up the polar bear, or the penguin standing by looking on. Most of the time, we're all three. Be careful which polar bears you wake up, be careful which penguins you swat when you wake up, and be careful where you are when it all goes down.

Dunno why I had to write that. It just fell together tonight.