Free Chasing the Son by Bob Mayer Page A

my platoon set up recon at least twenty-four hours before we were supposed to hit a target. I was never a fan of those midnight swoop-ins with no advance eyeballs on the target. Those can go to shit in a heartbeat. At first my company commander wasn’t thrilled with, having to detail a chopper to send the recon element in. But it worked so well, eventually every platoon in the company was doing it.”
    “You were in combat?” Jerrod asked.
    “No,” Dillon said. “I’m making it up because I’m a liar.”
    An awkward silence followed, one that Dillon allowed to last.
    Preston finally stepped into the breach. “We’re here as requested. Is this in reference to the unfortunate incident with Greer Jenrette?”
    “No,” Dillon said. “I want to conduct a survey on how much you enjoyed your time at the Institute. Whether you would recommend the experience to other high school seniors seeking to better their lives.”
    “Listen,” Chad began, leaning forward, his gut pushing the table toward the other side, but Dillon’s palm on the wooden top halted it. “We agreed—“
    “To come here and answer questions,” Dillon said. “Not ask them.”
    “So ask,” Preston said.
    “The Quick and the Dead,” Dillon said.
    The three exchanged glances.
    “That’s what you were doing that night, wasn’t it?” Dillon asked, not quite a complete question, almost a statement. “With Wing? And Greer Jenrette?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I used to think bayonet training was over-rated and out of date. But then I was with a squad that got trapped inside a hut. In the middle of Bum-fuck Nowhere Afghanistan. It’s actually a pretty country if you don’t have to fight in it. Fantastic snow-covered mountains. Sweeping vistas. And hard-ass fighters who will gut you in a heartbeat. Speaking of gutting, that brings us back to bayonet fighting. The Quick and the Dead. That’s what the cadre screamed at us rats when we did bayonet training. Remember?”
    He looked at Chad. “You must have been on the bayonet committee, right? All the football players were. I was. Easy duty. Scream at rats. Make them practice all that parry, thrust, recover crap. Then the fun part. Put helmets and pads on them and make them beat the shit out each other with pugil sticks. Of course, sometimes we forgot the helmet and the padding.
    “Funny thing is, the last recorded bayonet charge by the U.S. Army was in Korea in 1951. But the Brits, they actually did one in Iraq in 2004. Low on ammo, a unit of Brits charged some ragheads and scared the living piss out of them. Still, there are a lot of other martial skills the time could be better spent on than using the bayonet, which is why the U.S. Army has actually done away with the training. But we keep it at the Institute, like we keep a lot of things at the Institute that have outlived their actual usefulness. Like close-order drill. No use for that in combat. Not like we’re redcoats facing Napoleon at Waterloo.
    “But that’s not the point of bayonet drill. It’s actually designed to reverse what we were taught growing up—you know the Christian thing: love each other, blah, blah, blah. Most people are actually kind of reluctant to kill another person. Any of you fellows ever kill anyone?” Dillon stared at each one in turn. Jerrod didn’t meet his gaze; Chad did, but said nothing and Preston simply stared back.
    “Anyway, the goal of bayonet drill is to get soldiers to drop that reverence for life, other people’s lives that is, and get them wrapped up in the chaos and emotion and adrenaline-pumping insanity that is combat. And I assure you, it’s pretty much that. Kipling’s unforgiving minute. Got to keep your head, yada, yada. So that’s why there’s all the screaming and yelling and getting in your face during bayonet drill; besides the fact we liked screaming and yelling and getting in rats’ faces as upperclassmen, didn’t we? Not like you can do that in the regular army