Free Duty First by Ed Ruggero

mountaineering the next day. The anticipated highlights: a competition to see which squad gets the best time building a one-rope bridge, and a rappel down a seventy-five-foot cliff. Haglin talks happily around bites of food, but his enthusiasm is not infectious.
    Jacque Messel, the only woman in the squad, sits next to him, cross-legged, the muzzle of her rifle resting on one knee, a loaded paper plate on the other. She doesn’t look up as Haglin continues his patter, until the cadre on the serving line start yelling at the new cadets to hurry up and finish eating. Messel and the rest of her classmateshave spent most of the last hour standing in some line or other: waiting to move down off the hill, waiting at the bottom of the hill while the cadre figured out which platoons would eat first, waiting in line to wash her hands, waiting in line for food. As soon as she got her food someone was yelling at her to hurry up and eat. There is plenty to eat, she says, and almost no time to eat it.
    Haglin finds out that Messel’s father, like his, is a West Point graduate.
    “My dad was FA [Field Artillery]”, Haglin reports. “When I was born he put away all the gold stuff [uniform insignia] for me so that I can have it when I’m commissioned.”
    Messel, unimpressed, responds by pushing a lock of hair behind her ear.
    “I used his cadet saber to cut the cake at my high school graduation party,” Haglin says happily between bites.
    “My dad saved his saber for me, too,” Messel says without enthusiasm. She rolls up her paper plate, which has plenty of food still on it, picks up her rifle and stands.
    “This place is not for me,” she says.
    As they finish eating, the new cadets are herded up a small grassy hill above the clearing where they ate. The entrance to the mountaineering site, where they will train the next day, is nearby.
    The squad leaders and platoon sergeants move their charges into a large rectangular formation on the hillside. Their challenge is to get the entire company to set up neat rows and files of pup tents on the grass. Thirteen hours into their day, the cadre are about to be tested.
    The new cadets drop their rucksacks on the ground. Many of them also ground their weapons, helmets, canteens, and ammo pouches. Their camouflage shirts are sweat-stained, but they are relaxed and talkative, and soon the occasion turns social.
    “Why can’t we have a camp fire?” one of the new cadets asks a classmate.
    “Because the enemy will see where you are.”
    Each person carries a “shelter half—half a tent. Team up with a buddy, button the two halves together, snap together the tent poles,run the guy lines, pound in a few stakes, and you have a neat tent with a triangular cross section.
    But as they unroll the tents, many new cadets look at the equipment as if seeing it for the first time. Others are not all that interested in getting things set up. Not all of the second class squad leaders, for that matter, seem engaged with the task. There are few instructions from the company leadership. Many of the cadre do not realize just how much guidance the new cadets need; others are just ready for a break, too. They sit on the grass and watch the dusk roll in.
    Some of the squad leaders jump to the task. Grady Jett is one of those. He shows his new cadets how to lay out the tent, how to space the rows and line up the tent stakes so that everything will be neat and orderly. Other cadre members use the time to visit friends in other platoons. Another squad leader, visible in the failing light because of her startling blonde hair, is working on her tent when a male cadet appears and—though she doesn’t ask him to—begins to help. His squad of new cadets is not close by.
    Many of the cadre members have removed their helmets, substituting the more comfortable camouflage soft cap. The new cadets take their cues from the cadre and begin adjusting their uniforms for comfort.
    Another squad leader stands at the end