Fives and Twenty-Fives Read online

  Liebert reaches the front of the room, places one hand on the podium, close enough to Paige’s hand to make her uncomfortable, and says, with his back turned to the class, “Was it empathy that he lacked, Ms. Dufossat? It seems to me the executive had ample empathy. He recognized the feelings of his Chinese colleagues, certainly. He simply refused to accept their mediocre standards. Refused to conduct the affairs of his firm, of his employer, in that way. Is it empathetic, Ms. Dufossat, to acquiesce to mediocrity? Is it leadership?”

  Paige knows not to answer. She purses her lips, taking a step back from the podium. But as Liebert moves to take her place, something in the curt nod Paige gives him catches my attention. I recognize it only vaguely, hidden behind those slender limbs and that button nose, as a compact “Fuck you.”

  “A leader would’ve changed the Chinese approach,” Liebert says confidently. Stating the obvious and yet the essential. “A leader needs empathy, of course, to know the mind-set of his subordinates. But a good leader would use this knowledge to alter their mind-sets. Leadership, kiddo, is changing your subordinates so that they are better equipped, better motivated, to achieve the goals you set.”

  I groan involuntarily, fighting a wave of nausea. I reel my legs back under the chair, plant my elbows on the table, and bury my face in my hands. When I pick my head up, the whole class is looking at me.

  “Thoughts, Mr. Donovan?” Liebert smiles.

  “No, just a little sore,” I lie. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “Please, Mr. Donovan. I’ve been hoping to hear from you at some point in this semester. Given the extensive leadership experience I’m told you have.”

  “Really, it’s not a big deal.”

  “Nonsense, Mr. Donovan. You’re a veteran, correct? You were an officer in the . . . which branch of the service was it?”

  “The Marine Corps.”

  “And you have experience overseas? In Iraq?”

  “Yes.” He knows all of this, and it’s starting to piss me off. My classmates shift in their seats to get a better view, sensing, as do I, that this line of questioning will continue for the remainder of the session.

  “And so we should assume that you needed the principles of leadership when relating to that foreign culture, correct?”

  “Not really,” I say with a shrug. “I had a gun.”

  But after a wave of bashful laughter from the class, Liebert keeps after me. “I sense you’re a little reluctant to discuss this. So let me put it to you another way: You’re using your veteran’s benefits to pay tuition, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then, as taxpayers, I believe your classmates are entitled to the benefit of your experience, no?”

  The laughter is more effusive now, as my classmates attempt to placate their professor. They’re younger than me, fresh from undergraduate life and eager to share their experiences, interning here and traveling there. They couldn’t possibly conceive of how badly I want to break Liebert’s arm just now.

  I consider walking silently from the room, going to the registrar, and withdrawing from the class. But that would only confirm me as the troubled veteran. It’s my fault for writing a letter citing my military experience, I decide. Professor Liebert’s smug grin is a just punishment.

  My classmates are grinning, too. Empty vessels awaiting the master’s touch. All except Paige Dufossat. She stands stock-still behind Liebert and watches me warily. Nervous, perhaps, that I might deflect Liebert’s assault back onto her. Or maybe she’s keeping faith, under the impression that we’re a team now. Either way, she’s mistaken.

  These thoughts distract me for a moment, and I stumble back into the discussion a beat behind the action. “I’m sorry. Would you mind repeating the question?”

  This time the class doesn’t laugh.

  Liebert steps away from the podium and gestures for Paige to take his place. “All right, then. Let’s reframe. Ms. Dufossat asserts that empathy is required of a leader. From your experience as a veteran, as someone who’s led men, soldiers, in wartime, would you agree with her?”

  She stares me down, those blue eyes striking against her brown hair. Maybe she’s right. Maybe we are a team in this.

  “Well, first of all, I led men and women. Not just men. And we don’t call ourselves soldiers in the Marines. Soldiers are what you call people in the Army. But in any case, yes: I agree with Paige. Empathy is a good quality for a leader to have. Maybe essential, even, though I’m not sure I’d want to go that far.”

  Paige’s blue eyes narrow, and I notice a something like a smile spidering across her tight lips. Professor Liebert starts to speak again, but I’m no longer listening. I see his lips moving, but I’m elsewhere.

  I’m listening to Gunny Stout give the mission brief, standing in my body armor on the hard dirt of the convoy staging area, just inside the wire at Taqaddum. Watching how the faces of Zahn and Marceau and Gomez and Pleasant brighten as he speaks to them, just as surely as they frown when I take over.

  And then I’m back in a Quantico squad bay with a shaved head, desperately willing myself through to graduation and commissioning, having known from the first day, when the sergeant instructors herded us across the scalding parade deck, frothing like rabid dogs, that I was inadequate to the task. I’m muddling through, watching better men than me wash out or break their legs and receive medical disqualifications. I’m on the endurance course, bringing up the rear, staggering across that red clay in the brutal summer heat while the other candidates, the real leaders, the scholarship athletes and the presidents of their fraternities, muscle their way over the endless hills. I’m laboring under the weight of my pack and rifle, panting and frantically trying to catch up. Sweat pours down my face while the sergeant instructors run alongside me, screaming. “What’s happening back here, Little One? Can’t meet the standards, runt?”

  Then I’m back at the beginning. Before Quantico. Back at college, with the on-campus recruiter, applying for Officer Candidates School. He tells me his quota is met for the year, and though I probably don’t have a chance at getting past the selection board, he’ll start my application package. Afterward, I call my father in hope that I might get a word of encouragement. But all I get is a grunt and an admonition to pack extra socks.

  “Leaders must have a strong sense of the great responsibility of their office,” I blurt out, interrupting Liebert. I must be yelling, barking it out like a drill instructor, because Liebert cuts off midsentence.

  “Leaders must have a strong sense of the great responsibility of their office,” I continue. “Because the resources they will expend in war are human lives.”

  After a moment, Liebert smiles. “Go on, Mr. Donovan.”

  “That’s something you memorize at Officer Candidates School. And it’s true. So true that I think my experience in the military might not apply here. Unless there’s a line item on a balance sheet for human lives we haven’t learned about yet. So, I was wrong. And I’m sorry I tried to get out of your class.”

  Paige’s lips have loosened slightly, and she’s looking at me with her head cocked to the side.

  “Though Paige is right,” I say. “When you truly lead people—which, for the record, I don’t think I ever really did—you make them believe that you care. That you know how they feel. And often you do. But in a war, to empathize too much with the people who might die on account of the decisions you make . . .”

  Professor Liebert and all my classmates stare at me until they understand that I’m finished.

  “Well,” Liebert snorts, “Mr. Donovan certainly has a point. And thank you, Ms. Dufossat, you may be seated. Now, moving on, the text for next week . . .”

  He goes on for a little while, but I don’t listen. I come to with the noise of books and backpacks signaling the end of the session. I stand, rub my eyes, and start gathering my things. It takes me a moment to notice Paige Dufossat sitting next to me. Her original seat was across the room, and I don’t know what she’s d
oing here.

  She looks up at me with her fierce, strangely delicate face, as if someone carved that absurd little nose out of marble, and says, “Thanks, Pete.”

  “Sure,” I say with a shrug. “No problem.”

  She touches the cover of my book. “You sail?”

  “No,” I say honestly. “Never set foot on a sailboat. Not in my whole life.”

  “Oh,” she says, pushing her eyebrows together in confusion.

  “See you next week,” I say, turning my back on her. It’s easier to turn my back on a pretty girl with Gunny Stout on my mind.

  I walk out through the student lounge adjacent to the classrooms and grab my winter coat off the hook next to my in-box. A flat-screen television mounted above the couch plays footage from Tunisia. Police in the night. Riot gear, body armor, and the outline of weapons. Civilians stand in stark relief against flames. I look away.

  Dad.

  Got a few days off next week.

  After work today I’ll be headed up to New Orleans.

  Probably won’t see you before then.

  Anything you need up there? Anything I can bring you back? I’ll probably be sleeping on Landry’s couch. Call you if anything changes.

  Les.

  The Rule

  I leave a note on the kitchen table for my dad and sneak out the front door quiet as I can. I tiptoe out to my truck before he wakes up. Walking barefoot over the cold, sharp gravel so as not to make noise. I put my boots on in the cab and bundle up with lined leather gloves, the old woolen watch cap pulled down tight over my brow. My overnight duffel gets thrown in the truck bed. The trauma bag gets put on the passenger seat next to me. I always bring it with me on long drives. Why not? A useful thing to have, depending.

  I let the truck idle slow and quiet across the driveway, not even touching the accelerator till I turn onto the highway. I imagine the route up to New Orleans for later tonight. Picture all the roads and towns and intersections up ahead. Thorough and detailed like a convoy brief. Like how Gunny Stout gave the convoy brief. Before Lieutenant Donovan took it over, anyway.

  Gunny Stout used to make Marines lift my trauma bag so they knew the weight of it, showing them that I earned my way. That I wasn’t a goldbricker—not some nasty sailor doing a little combat tourism.

  “Pack your own trash,” Marines said. Earn your way.

  No one packed their own trash like Gunny Stout.

  “Five and twenty-five’s the rule,” he said. Gunny Stout had a lot of rules, but five and twenty-five, that was most important.

  He was short, five-seven maybe, with sandy hair and freckles. Must have been almost forty, but in his body armor and sunglasses he looked like he could’ve been in grade school. The sunglasses hid the wrinkles around his eyes, and the flak jacket smashed the folds of middle age flat around his waist.

  “At a halt, you stay in your vehicle and scan,” he said. “You look around, five meters out from the wheels in every direction. Inside five meters, our armor plate is vulnerable to frag. Vulnerable to blast overpressure. A shock wave can rip the doors right off. You spot a wire, or two rocks stacked on top of each other, or a patch of disturbed dirt, you call it out. You spot a piece of trash that seems too heavy, you call it out. If it holds your attention for more than two seconds, you call it out.”

  I stood next to Gunny Stout when he gave the brief. He said it helped the Marines to see a corpsman next to the bomb tech. Everyone stood still when he talked. The only Marine allowed to move around during the convoy brief was Sergeant Gomez. She circled us like a sheepdog, making sure we all paid attention. Michelle Gomez, her full name. Found that out a long time later.

  Sergeant Gomez owned that platoon. She and Corporal Zahn, the two of them. They ran it as a team. Not because she needed Zahn for anything. Gomez had motivation to spare. Marines a foot taller than her would flinch when she came up on them. Just her voice could break bones. Full and Texan.

  She looked the part, too. Always kept her hair tied back and out of her eyes. Shiny, black hair smooth as a feather. If a strand or two fell down and tickled her cheek, she’d curse and step away to tie it right back. I watched her do it in the morning once, before reveille, behind the barracks hut when no one else was awake. She sat on the steps with her hair down, hands working it back into a bun. I couldn’t help but stop to watch. She noticed me and narrowed her eyes, all mad. Like, what the fuck you looking at? Turn around. Get back to work, asshole.

  Gunny Stout stopped talking as a cargo plane came in low over the lake, right on top of us. He never raised his voice, Gunny Stout. And he never looked at planes, even when all the other Marines did. Even Lieutenant Donovan and the other officers, standing off to the side while Gunny Stout gave the brief. They all looked up like it was the first plane they ever saw.

  Lieutenant Donovan had brown hair, brown eyes, and real good teeth. Had a bit of weight on him, but was tall enough to wear it, just barely. A real southern college boy, the lieutenant. Like he was on his way to an outdoor jam band festival one day, took a wrong turn, and somehow ended up in the Marines. He sat on the hood of his Humvee, his flak jacket and helmet stacked next to him while Gunny Stout gave the brief. The rest of us, the enlisted? We showed up to the brief with our gear already on. Sergeant Gomez made sure of that. The lieutenant, though, he could take his time, I guess. Cross his arms and watch with gold bars on his collar. Happy to be called “sir.” Happy to let Gunny Stout run the convoy. Happy to let Sergeant Gomez and Corporal Zahn run his platoon.

  Gunny Stout didn’t work for him, really. Lieutenant Donovan had the road-repair platoon, out filling potholes all day. Just that road repair had six vehicles and enough Marines to pull security while they did the work of patching the holes. It was tough work, too. Dirty and hot as hell in that body armor. But worse than that, those potholes always had another bomb under the rubble. And I do mean always.

  So it made sense we roll with them. We only had the one vehicle, the bomb disposal team. Gunny Stout, Staff Sergeant Thompson, a driver, and me. We didn’t even have a spare body to man the gun turret up top, though anyone could’ve jumped up there in a pinch.

  We’d go first, check the hole, and clear whatever new bomb was put in there overnight. Then Lieutenant Donovan’s guys, they’d come in behind us and get to work, filling the hole and patching it with concrete. First, they cut the jagged asphalt from around the edges to prep for aggregate. Then they carried those heavy bags of concrete over to a beat-up, old mixer. Just pouring down sweat inside that body armor. Had to watch for snipers, too. Never could stay in one place for too long or they’d take fire. Sergeant Gomez always nipping at their heels, telling them to hurry the hell up.

  Gunny Stout kept going when the plane noise faded away. “When the vehicle commanders roger-up,” he said, “clear inside five meters, then the dismount team executes the twenty-five-meter sweep, on my order.” Gunny’s voice got tight. Not loud, just tight. “Dismount team, eyes up.”

  Most Marines stared at the dirt during a convoy brief. Tucked their hands inside their body armor and rested their chin against the ballistic plate. But when Gunny Stout said, “Eyes up,” they rolled their shoulders back and locked onto him. In unison, you know? Like one creature.

  “When I say go, do not hesitate. Three seconds.” He held up three fingers. “Every door open. Every door closed. All Marines working a tight search pattern in three seconds. It takes three seconds for a triggerman to initiate a device, and you can’t let that happen while that armor seal is broken. Move with a purpose. No sidebar conversations. No laughing.”

  Sergeant Gomez explained it to me, once. How Marines managed to do everything in time, on a silent drill count. She smiled and said, “Oh, you mean that Snap, Pop?”

  It was how they spoke. How they did every little thing: Snap, Pop.

  Satisfied, Gunny Stout tapped his notes. “Right. Dismount leader, when you confirm no devices, no threats to dismounted troops inside twenty-five meters, return your team
to the vics. On my order, or as you were, on the lieutenant’s order, we set security.” He pointed to Lieutenant Donovan. “You all right with that, sir?”

  Lieutenant Donovan looked up and smiled. “Sounds fine, Gunny.” He crossed his arms and swung his dangled feet off the hood of the Humvee.

  He had that Alabama gentleman’s drawl, the lieutenant. I never could tell—was he even paying attention? Was he just relaxed? Lieutenant Donovan had a gunnery sergeant of his own. Gunny Dole. But that guy never went outside the wire. A fat pension-grubber on his last deployment. He’d wander around the company office talking about the promotion boards coming up. Talking about his retirement. Talking about his deployments to the Philippines in the nineties. How much fun they were. Not like this shit, he’d say.

  Gunny Stout never talked about anything but the mission. He gave us a smile and looked around, studying us.

  The turret gunners wore bandannas to keep the sweat out their eyes. Under her helmet, Gomez wore the sleeve of a green T-shirt stretched out over her hair. Corporal Zahn had grenade pouches on his flak to hold cans of Skoal. We all wore tan flight suits. Flame resistant, for a little extra protection.

  Gunny Stout looked to Lieutenant Donovan. “You have anything to add, sir?”

  “I do.” He nodded. “Just one quick item.” He jumped off his Humvee and strolled into the briefing circle, glancing over at the command building to make sure Major Leighton was watching from the steps before he addressed the platoon. “This isn’t the best forum for this bit of gouge, I know. But the company commander wanted it passed to all Marines before noon today: He’s fed up with the bathroom graffiti. He says he’s over it. The stalls in comfort trailers get painted today, and we’re due for new Porta-Johns tomorrow. So, it’ll be a fresh slate. All graffiti removed. Then, starting tomorrow, if any drawings of penises or gossip about female Marines shows up in the bathrooms . . .” He paused and peeked over at Sergeant Gomez, kind of an embarrassed look on his face. “If the company commander sees anything like that, he’ll have the first sergeant post a twenty-four-hour watch in the shitters with orders to check each stall as Marines come out.”