Read Online Sparta by Roxana Robinson - Free Book Online Page B

be honest at OCS, how can the Corps trust you to lead men in combat?”
    No one answered. No one had any idea of what to say. No one their age in the civilian world talked like that. Popular culture was driven by irony; the Marine Corps was driven by earnestness. By belief. It had something to do with the fact that Marines stood so straight that their shirts had no wrinkles. That their gaze was so fixed.
    At Quantico, they lost everything.
    The first to go was appearance: they lost their faces. Not really their faces, only their hair, but the change was so extreme it seemed to affect their faces. Conrad saw himself in the mirror after his hair was gone: without the face he knew, he felt vulnerable and strange.
    Everything familiar was taken away. The candidates became objects of derision and contempt, and so did their families, their backgrounds, their education, any source of pride they might have had. Mockery and abuse were the tools.
    Once, the sergeant stopped dead in front of Conrad, who stared past him, his hands rigid at his sides. The instructor folded his arms and glared, rage leaking upward.
    â€œCandidate, you’re nothing but a skinny piece of trash, you know that?”
    There was no swearing at Quantico, and no physical contact—lawsuits had ended those. But the instructors were still ferocious.
    â€œYes, Sergeant Instructor!” Conrad shouted.
    â€œHow the frig do you think you’re going to pass this course, candidate?”
    â€œI don’t know, Sergeant Instructor!” Conrad bellowed back. Big mistake: he’d used the personal pronoun. He should have said This candidate instead of I.
    â€œâ€˜You’ don’t know? You?” the sergeant roared. “Who the heck are ‘you,’ candidate?” He stuck his face right into Conrad’s. A big vein in the side of his neck moved under the skin like a snake. “You think you’re some kind of special piece of lowlife trash?”
    His face closed in under the hat brim, his nose nearly touching Conrad’s. A gob of spit landed on Conrad’s eyelashes, and Conrad blinked instinctively and met the sergeant’s eyes for an instant.
    â€œGet your eyeballs off me, candidate!” he screamed. “What the fug are you looking at?”
    â€œNothing, Sergeant Instructor!” Conrad screamed back, his eyes now on the barracks wall.
    â€œAre you looking at me, candidate? Why are you looking at me? Are you in love with me? Do you want to date me, candidate?”
    â€œ No, Sergeant Instructor!” Conrad screamed.
    â€œ Don’t you ever, ever look at me, candidate. I’ll make you sorry you were born. I’ll make your miserable self into grass. I know what you’re like, candidate. I can see right through you. Do you think I want a nasty piece of trash like you in my beloved Marine Corps?”
    â€œNo, Sergeant Instructor!” Conrad shouted.
    The contempt from the instructors aroused a kind of answering rage. In fact, during training, rage was the ruling emotion. It was always present, though the level ranged from simmering resentment to throat-choking fury.
    They had to yell their responses, which meant an investment of energy. The word they had to yell most was “Kill!” They yelled that all the time—on their way to meals, when an instructor walked into a classroom, and when they drew their chairs out to sit down. At first they focused only on volume. Later, when they were more confident, they concentrated on gusto, zest.
    One day in the barracks the instructor went after a candidate named Thomas. They were lined up in front of their racks, which was what they called beds. He’d been not quite fast enough in lining his bare feet up along the painted line on the floor. The instructor came over and stood in front of him.
    His face red and swollen, he yelled, “What the fug is wrong with you, candidate? How long do you think you have to obey my