Free Terms of Enlistment by Marko Kloos

sleeps with one eye open, Sergeant Burke stays up until the early hours doing paperwork and listening to the feed from the platoon bay’s audio monitoring system, but Sergeant Harris is usually fast asleep from lights-out to reveille. That means every third night is what we’ve come to call ’date night’, where Halley and I sneak off to the head in the middle of the night to get a little bit of time together, away from the eyes and ears of our fellow recruits.
    Our arrangement is not exactly a secret. It only took so many people walking in on us in the head at two in the morning to make it common knowledge, and I suspect that word has gotten around to the instructors as well. For some reason, however, there are no enforcement measures to keep us from sneaking off to the head together two or three times a week, and the other recruits have entered into a sort of unwritten understanding with us. There aren’t many of us left. Our platoon has shrunk to twelve members just before graduation week. Our chow hall table is still well-represented, since we lost only Cunningham. Everyone else has made it through: me, Halley, Hamilton, Garcia, and even Ricci. Hamilton is still platoon leader, and she will be carrying the guidon of the severely reduced Platoon 1066 at graduation.
    When we march to our last communal dinner in the chow hall on the evening before graduation, we are every inch the last-weekers: fit and trim, with mirror-polished boots, marching in a precise cadence and at brisk speed. We march past newly arrived platoons, herds of bewildered-looking , long-haired kids in civilian garb, and they look at us just like we gazed at the last-weeker platoons almost three months ago.
     
    On our last night, the sergeant on duty is Riley. Halley and I are already getting over the disappointment that we won’t get to fool around in the head one last time when Sergeant Riley takes her PDP out of the Senior Drill Instructor’s office, and turns off the light.
    “This is your last night,” she tells the assembled platoon, as we wait in front of our lockers for the order to hit the rack.
    “You’ve made it this far. I trust none of you will be knuckle-headed enough to pull any stupid shit that’ll get you kicked out just before graduation,” she says, and gives us a little smile. It’s more of a smirk, but it’s the first time we’ve ever seen anything but her perpetual stern expression on her face.
    “Have a bit of a party, if you want,” Sergeant Riley tells us as we look at each other in disbelief. “Just keep it down, and make sure you’re where you’re supposed to be when reveille comes around.”
    She turns around, tucks her PDP into the side pocket of her trousers, and walks out of the room.
    “Good night, platoon.”
    We grin at each other as she closes the hatch behind her.
    “Well, how about that,” Hamilton says with a chuckle. “I’d say let’s break out the good stuff.”
     
    We’ve all brought back food from the chow hall before, despite the admonitions of our drill instructors. All the PT and quarterdecking has turned us lean and perpetually hungry, and the meal times are simply spaced too far apart to keep our metabolisms going. Every time the chow hall serves a dessert that’s easily portable, many recruits end up taking seconds, wrapping the contraband donuts or brownies into napkins, and tucking them into trouser pockets. The instructors aren’t stupid, of course, but they turn a blind eye.
    We pool our hidden food reserves on one of the empty bunks. They amount to a decent sampler of all the desserts served in the chow hall in the last week. We have a good variety of donuts and cookies, lots of fresh fruit, brownies, and even a few slightly smashed pieces of apple pie. There are no drinks, of course, but the water from the fountain in the head is cold and clean, and we’re so elated about this unsupervised night and our impending graduation that it might as well be cold beer.
    We eat the