TCC #3: You Will Remember My Name
Some travelers cross our paths at distinct moments in time. Their names become indelibly etched in our minds forever.
When I joined the Army in June of 1990, I was on a 90-day delayed enlistment, so I had a few months to spend with my wife and kids before shipping out for Basic Training in September. The original plan was that I’d be home for the holidays.
We didn’t know that Saddam Hussein was going to invade Kuwait in August, or that I would be entering Basic Training during the ramp up to our nation’s most intense military engagement since the Vietnam War.
That all changed two months later on August 2nd.
Suddenly we were sitting on the couch at home, watching the 82nd Airborne Division loading up to deploy to Saudi Arabia on live TV. It seemed like only hours since Iraq’s lightning fast invasion of Kuwait started, but we could already tell this was going all the way.
It also wasn't going to be the typical Cold War proxy conflict of the 1980s that we’d all become used to. Saddam had long envisioned himself the George Washington of the Middle East. He dreamed of a united Arab state under a Ba’athist political system.
With ten long years of war with Iran only recently concluded, Iraq had built the 5th largest army in the world and had more experienced combat veterans than all the U.S. services put together. So the TV pundits said. At that time, nobody had any idea how ineffective that army was or what a one-sided war it would turn out to be.
By the time I actually got on the plane for Fort Jackson, South Carolina I was already in the mindset that I would probably be deployed to Saudi Arabia the instant I graduated my training schools.
This idea was again reinforced by our senior Drill Instructor, Sergeant First Class Johnson, almost as soon as my fellow recruits and I had shaved our heads and donned the uniform.
In his forties, he was different than most the DI’s. He had a slight limp, but that didn't stop him from constantly pacing with his hands behind his back. He never stood still. He seemed like a caged tiger, always ready to pounce. He could yell and scream in your face with the best of them when needed, but it was usually his low growl, cool demeanor, and icy gaze that set him apart.
When he spoke, everything was deadly serious and his eyes never wavered. He was the kind of man who could stare 40 soldiers in the eye simultaneously and be the last one to blink.
“Listen up, recruits! I am not messing around here so heed every word I am about to say! Unless you’ve been living under a rock you’re aware of what’s happening in Saudi Arabia right now.
“In all likelihood we will be in a full scale war before you graduate. That means brothers I have served my entire career with will be depending on you maggots to have their back. Do not for one second think that I am going to allow you to let them down.
“This. Shit. Is. Real!”
His hand chopped the air with each word.
“If you came here thinking you were going to clown your way into some cushy, non-combat job, think again. I do not care what your recruiter told you or what it says on your contract.
“I don't care if you are going to be a finance clerk, a tank mechanic, a cook, or a damned laundry specialist. Do not bring that cry-baby shit to me. If you put this uniform on your number one job starts and stops with infantry. Eleven Bravo - Bang Bang - the Queen of Battle!”
At this point the other two Drill Instructors who’d been prowling about the formation let out a loud affirmation.
“Hooah!”, they bellowed.
Drill Instructor Calderon, a much younger and more animated Sergeant, eagerly played the sidekick role. He liked to sprinkle in tidbits of his own wisdom while the senior DI’s were talking. He had huge buck teeth so it always sounded like he was trying to talk around them. The only way to discribe his unique accent is “mush mouth."
“Bvullet catchersh!” he barked.
SFC Johnson continued.
“I am going to mold you, and fold you, and smoke you ‘til I’ve broke you. Pay attention: I don’t care one rats ass if any part of the next 3 months kills you. The Army gave you life insurance then they gave you to me. I’d rather spend it now on a piece of shit like you than spend it later letting you get real soldiers killed.
“You WILL graduate my cycle as the most prepared infantry soldiers that have ever passed through these barracks, or you will die in the attempt! Whether you get to war or not, you’re already dead, so you might as well get that fear out of the way right now.
“You will remember my name for the rest of your miserable lives. I promise!"
They smoked us right there in the parking lot for six hours before we even entered the barracks that first night.
It was a sobering introduction to what was in store. He and the other DI’s went about following through on that promise every day of the next twelve weeks.
One of the many things they taught us was how to subconsciously generate and focus aggression towards the enemy. These adrenalin pumped exercises were intended to mentally condition the reflexes needed to attack the enemy, when otherwise we might be frozen by fear.
Throughout the Cold War, they had done this by constantly invoking “Ivan”, a generic reference to Soviet troops. Ivan was the face of the enemy. These references were changed for our new reality, caricatured into a new enemy: “Ahab the A-rab.”
This included things like dressing target dummies in Iraqi-style uniforms and insisting that we scream “Die, Ahab, Die!” as we charged with bayonets fixed, stabbing and slashing.
It was inserted as a reminder constantly.
“Ahab will not waste one second thinking about your family back home! Do not stop to think of his!”
“You cannot surrender to Ahab! He does not honor the Geneva Convention!”
“Do you think I’m being hard on you? Wait until Ahab puts you in Hotel Hussein!”
“You will remember my name, maggots, I promise. Do it all again!”
Some might bristle at the impropriety and political ramifications of such ethnic demonizing, with good reason. But from a pure training context, I can say it was very effective at helping us steel our minds into believing that we could - and would - do whatever we had to in order to win.
We couldn’t afford to wait to get our nerves up until we were faced with the need in reality. It needed to become instinct. For that, we needed the mental stand-in to focus the fear, aggression, and training on.
What concentrated this further is that we were almost completely cut off from news of the outside world. Almost.
My wonderful bride had started smuggling me newspaper clippings hidden in letters and post cards every few days. Every time mail call came around I’d wait until lights out, put on a flashlight, and read the news aloud to the platoon before flushing the evidence.
We had some idea about the continued build-up of Operation Desert Storm, but only bits and pieces.
There was also a TV in our barracks day room, but the Drill Instructors had already told us it wouldn’t get turned on until the last few weeks of Basic. Still, SFC Johnson knew we were all desperate to know more than we were officially supposed to.
The tension of impending deployment for war was ever-present in the barracks.
He occasionally came into the bay late at night and opened up the day room for his personal use. He would leave the door open about 6 inches while he watched CNN’s Headline News Network. He kept it at medium volume so he wouldn’t wake those already asleep.
Everyone else would crowd quietly around the door, taking turns listening to the latest updates and projections.
After 30 minutes or so he would slowly stand, keeping his back to the door, stretch, and then walk over to shut the TV off, giving us time to scramble back to our bunks. It was an unspoken way for him to show he cared while still maintaining his strict persona.
September and October passed so fast that it wasn’t until Thanksgiving arrived that we realized we were all very close to graduating Basic Training and moving on to our advanced schools. We spent the holiday on the rifle range and they brought turkey and stuffing out to us in the mud that night, served off the back of a truck.
After an hour of chow and holiday down time, SFC Johnson stood up, zipped his field jacket, put on his gloves, and stamped his feet against the cold. Then he threw his head back like he was howling at the moon.
“Get your asses up off my ground! Fall in! Night fire range begins now!
“Gobble gobble, turkeys. You will remember my name, I promise!”
We made it back to the barracks, frozen and caked in mud, around 4 a.m. the next morning.
November became December and we were in the home stretch.
By this point the entire platoon had transformed from a group of raggedy volunteers off the street into a pretty disciplined team. The Drill Instructors eased up on us and started treating us more like soldiers than recruits. They began letting more and more of their own human kindness shine past their hardened masks.
The day room was opened several hours a day by then and we were finally getting an idea about what had gone on in the world in the past few months. They even put up a small tree with a few decorations to at least acknowledge the holiday season.
The last week of Basic Training was mostly about cleaning up the barracks and our equipment before graduation. It had been weeks since we’d been woke up in the middle of the night or really caught off guard by the Drill Instructors' routines.
The regimented daily drive had come to an end and it felt like we were just coasting through the last few days.
We should have known better.
3 a.m., the day before graduation.
The stairwell door crashed inward followed by SFC Johnson in full PT gear, and all the lights came on at once. He carried a trash can lid and was banging it with the butt of his flashlight.
“Get up, get up, get up, 2nd Platoon!
“You have 2 minutes to get in your PT gear and in formation downstairs! Bring gloves and your flashlights!”
Up one aisle of the bay he marched with a limp-driven purpose, banging and shouting. Through the bathroom and showers he strode, kicking in stall doors, banging and shouting. Down the other aisle of the bay, dragging blankets off of slow movers, banging and shouting.
As fast as he’d burst in he was out the door again, barreling down the stairwell. As soon as the door closed behind him someone from the back of the bay joked,
“You will remember my name, I promise!”
We all chuckled as we finished getting dressed and rushed out the door.
As soon as the platoon was formed up, SFC Johnson marched us a few blocks away to the parade fields. These large grassy areas were well lit from stadium lights lining either side. This was where we would march in our dress uniforms for the first time at graduation the following day.
There I was, standing in the middle of the first rank, at attention under the bright lights at 3:15 a.m., dressed in Army grey sweats, running shoes, black leather gloves with wool liners, a black wool cap, and my Army issued flashlight.
The other DIs were nowhere in sight. Odd. Morning PT was usually an all hands affair.
“Stand at ease, soldiers." SFC Johnson said.
Soldiers. It wasn't lost on me it was the first time he’d ever acknowledged us as anything more than recruits. We relaxed.
“You may not know it," he continued as he started his signature prowl in front of the platoon, “but you are my last cycle as a DI after 24 years in the Army. I’m medically retiring.
"If any of you decide to stay in for the long haul, you’re going to learn something. People come and go at a pretty high turn-over rate in this line of work. You’ll meet a lot of names and faces as you go. Move around a lot. Make a lot of buddies.
“Then, you wake up one day and realize you can’t remember the name of your first commander, or the corporal that annoyed the hell out of you a few years ago. That’s when you’ll realize how important those names are to you.
“So when this cycle started I decided I was going to, just this once, leave a lasting impression that you could never, ever, possibly forget. I decided that you will be my final legacy.
“When I’m through with you, you will remember my name when you tell the story of this day to your grandbabies.”
He smiled for the first time in three months. He was less scary when he scowled.
A unanimous moan rumbled through the formation. So this was why he brought us out for PT two hours early. He was going to bring down the worst physical heat on us he ever had, just to prove what a bad-ass old rooster he was on the way out!
Sure, we’d remember his name. We were already cursing it under our breaths.
“Shall we get started? Platoon, attention!"
We snapped to as ordered, minds prepared for one last grueling day of Basic Training.
“Place your flashlight in your right hand.
“Turn it on and stick you right hand straight up into the air."
40 flashlights flicked on, arms pointed arrow-like into the pre-dawn sky.
“With your left hand, reach over and grab the right butt cheek of the man on your left! Do it now, get a firm grip! If you have nobody to your left, grab your own damn ass!”
We sheepishly took hold of our neighbors by the ass, still with our other arm in the air.
“Now lean to the left," he demonstrated slowing leaning like it was a stretching exercise. We followed his lead.
“Now slowly raise up and lean over to the right."
In a slow arc, forty arms swept up and back down, leaning as far as we could the other direction.
“Left,” we leaned.
“Right," we leaned.
"Left… Right… Left… Right…”
With each iteration he was slowly increasing the pace until we were swaying more than leaning, waving those flashlights like Zippos at a rock concert, trying not to lose grip on each other's bums.
“Now sing!" he shouted and started singing in an amazing, operatic tenor.
“I'd like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony…”
We all burst out laughing, but did as told and joined in on the pop-culture holiday anthem. If you didn’t live in the '70s and '80s, you might not be familiar with the Coca Cola holiday ad campaign song.
It was as much a holiday staple in those decades as Jingle Bells or White Christmas. Everybody knew it.
The song in a way sums up the hopes of a generation raised under the ever-looming threats of the Cold War. Ironic that the lyrics would mean something different to us, as adults, now the soldiers of the first war in the post-Soviet era.
I'd like to build a world a home
And furnish it with love
Grow apple trees and honey bees
And snow white turtle dovesI'd like to teach the world to sing
In perfect harmony
I'd like to hold it in my arms
And keep it companyI'd like to see the world for once
All standing hand in hand
And hear them echo through the hills
For peace throughout the landThat's a song I hear
Sing it along
Let the world sing today
Over and overI'd like to teach the world to sing
In perfect harmony
La, la, la, la
To, do, do, do, do, do
La, la, la 1
Before long we were bellowing it out, an off-key swaying choir, oblivious to the fact we were holding someone’s ass in our hand, or that someone else had a handful on our own.
We finished the song and then knocked out 50 push-ups. No heat. No smoke. Then he marched us back to the barracks for a relaxed morning before breakfast.
The following day we graduated and I never saw SFC Johnson again.
He wasn’t lying, though. There are names, faces, and whole stories that I struggle to recall today and wish dearly that I could.
But I will forever remember the name of Sergeant First Class Samuel Johnson, the Drill Instructor with a legacy. A man who was scary enough to enstill courage and confidence by sheer force of will. A man who could stop time in the shadow of war to manufacture a moment of family and the holidays out of thin air.
A man intelligent enough to understand that we needed both.
Just recalling his name has been enough to make me smile every holiday season in the thirty-odd years since.
Happy holidays from our household to yours!
Until next year,
A.W.
“ 🎶 I'd like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony… 🎵 ” 😙
I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing (In Perfect Harmony) lyrics © Shada Music, Inc.