Jay Allan - Marines

"Don't forget your bags, kiddies! The porters are all busy elsewhere, I'm afraid! Now move your asses. I want everyone out on that platform in three minutes!"

We stumbled out of the crowded car and out onto the platform, milling around aimlessly until the sergeant came over and yelled at us again until we managed to get into a fairly neat line. We marched into one of the buildings where we went through a check in and orientation process that took several hours after which we were led into a large auditorium.

We'd only been sitting a minute when a man walked out onto the stage. He was tall and muscular, with thick black hair speckled gray. He wasn't dressed in the same gray fatigues as we and everyone else we'd seen were wearing. He wore a spotless dark blue coat with polished silver buttons and one platinum star on each shoulder. His neatly creased white pants were tucked into shiny black boots, and a short sword with an intricately carved hilt hung from his waist.

"Hello, and welcome to Camp Puller. My name is Brigadier General Wesley Strummer. As you can see, I've worn my dress blues in honor of your arrival. Take a good look, because you probably won't see another uniform like this unless you graduate. And less than half of you are going to make it that far."

He paused for a few minutes to let that sink in, then continued. "If you don't graduate then you will go back where you came from, and for most of you that wasn't a very pleasant place. Unless of course you die in training. Which will happen to some of you. Maybe a lot of you."

Again, he stopped and let us consider his words. His voice was calm, almost gentle, but without so much as raising his voice he had everyone's complete attention. You could have heard a pin drop in the room.

"Those of you who do graduate will join the most elite combat formation in the history of the world. You will serve wherever you are needed, anywhere in explored space, and you will perform that service with valor and distinction. And after you make your first assault, all of your past crimes and offenses will be wiped clean."

That was the first hopeful thing he'd said. A bit of carrot to go with the stick.

"But first you have to complete training. The regimen is unlike anything soldiers have experienced before, and when you have completed it you will be the deadliest human killing machines that have ever existed.

"But before you even begin your training proper, you are all going to the infirmary. You have had varying health care priority levels, most of them pretty low, so you haven't had much medical care. Well now you are going to have every treatable deficiency corrected. Plus, we're going to make some improvements to the original design. When we're done you will all see and hear better than any civilian, and you will have enhanced reflexes.

"After you are released from medical, you're going to do six months of basic field training. Trust me, whatever you think you've been through before, field training is going to teach you the true meaning of physical fitness. You'll probably all survive the medical procedures, but some of you will die during field training. So take it seriously."

That was the second time he mentioned dying in training. I figured it wouldn't be the last.

"After we get you in decent physical shape you're all going to go through a customized remedial education program. Honestly, you're all ignorant and uneducated - totally unqualified to serve in my marine corps. But we're going to fix that. A marine private has the equivalent of a six-year post primary education, and you're going to get it in less than a third of the time it takes lazy civilians.

"Then, we're going to teach you to kill. I know your backgrounds, and a lot of you think you already know how, but take my word for it, you are all amateurs. We are going to make you professionals. Stone cold death machines that strike terror into the hearts of our enemies.

"You think you're tough because you abused or murdered a few helpless workers? Or even another tough guy gang member?" He laughed derisively for a few seconds, the first sound that came out of his mouth that wasn't flawlessly polite. "I've personally killed at least 75 men and women, and troops under my command have killed over 50,000. And all of them were shooting back. So if I were you, I'd pay very close attention to your training, because all of your instructors are combat veterans who have been where you are going and came back to tell about it.

"Of course, you need to get through your training first before you have to worry about surviving combat, and it's going to take everything you've got to get to graduation. And if you wash out, remember - you go back to wherever we found you. For almost half of you that's death row; for most of the rest it's some miserable cesspool where your life expectancy ranges from a few weeks to a few years.

"We offer all of you a chance at redemption, but our price is high. Your mind, body, soul, and every last measure of effort you can muster. If you fail we will leave you dead and bloody on the training field. Or I will personally sign the order to haul your sorry ass back to whatever hangman we snatched you from."

He stopped for a few seconds and methodically scanned the room. Every eye in the place was trained on him. It wasn't just what he said; it was the way he said it. I'd never seen anyone with such a commanding presence and serene confidence. He hadn't raised his voice or spoken an angry word, yet he'd been as ominous and threatening as anything I'd ever encountered.

I'd been living in a world of angry confrontation. In the gangs, a dispute over a nutrition bar could get loud and ugly, and likely violent as well. General Strummer spoke softly and politely enough to be sitting at a dinner party. Yet I had no doubt he'd sign an order sending a lazy recruit back to the gas chamber without a second thought.

"Ok, I think I've made my point. I hope you enjoyed my dress blues, because it's the last free show of respect you're going to get. From now on you earn everything. Do your best, listen to your instructors, and one day I will see you again on the graduation field."

He turned, and walked off the stage, the sound of his boots on the floor echoing loudly in the otherwise silent room. As soon as he'd cleared the stage a captain came out and gave us instructions on getting our billet assignments and meeting with our provisional platoon leaders. Then we were dismissed.

I made my way through the line to get my bunk assignment, but I was lost in thought the entire time. The general had made quite an impression on me. I'd never encountered anyone like him before. I loved my father, but he had been a gentle sort of man, and I'd seen what the world did to people like him.

When I was with the gang I'd seen the other side of humanity too, the vicious, animalistic, malicious side. I'd lived that as well, and in my years with the gang I did some terrible things. But I never really felt like one of them. I never understood the needless brutality, the wasteful violence that went beyond the opportunistic.

The authority figures I'd met were mostly corrupt, vindictive bullies. Certainly none of them commanded any respect. The closest they came to respect was fear, and that they extracted with threats and force.

But Strummer was different. He left me wanting to know more, to understand his way of things. I had no doubt he could act just as summarily, just as harshly, but I somehow felt his actions would be fair, or as close to that as things got. I didn't realize it at the time, never having really experienced it before, but these thoughts and feelings were the beginnings of respect for another human being.

Training was an unbelievable experience, and I learned more things than I could have imagined. We started with the medical review. They had all our test results from exams we'd been given on induction, but they still did a lot more checking. Apparently the Corps likes its marines healthy, and we were going to meet that standard no matter what it took.