Free Sparta by Roxana Robinson Page A

soldier named Duckworth began a call-and-response chant with his tired fellow soldiers as they marched back to base. Spirits rose, marching became unified, and the cadence song was born. The first ones were made up of numbers, but soon they became narratives and spread quickly through American military culture.
    The song, with its call-and-response form and stereotypical characters, derives from black culture. It harks back to secretly subversive work songs sung by slaves, and later by black prisoners toiling at prison farms. But the subversion in the Marine songs is deliberate and outspoken. It’s not directed at the Marines’ masters, but at their old civilian lives and all their values.
    There were cadence calls about everything, and if The Marine Officer’s Guide was the official source of Marine culture, cadence calls were the unofficial source. Some of the calls were about the home front and a stock character called Jody. Jody was the sneaking, lying rat who’d steal your girlfriend or your wife and your car as soon as you were out the door. Suzy Rottencrotch was the girlfriend who’d betray you before you even climbed onto the bus, who fucked everyone she knew the second your back was turned. You hated her, and you hated Jody. These calls told the candidates not to trust civilians. According to the calls, there was no one a Marine could trust except another Marine.
    Some of the calls praised the Marines and some trashed the other services.
    I don’t know, but it’s been said
    Air Force wings are made of lead.
    One afternoon they marched along a dirt road beside a swamp. The air was sultry and hot. Mosquitoes drilled into Conrad’s face and hands as he marched along, and sweat inched its way down his forehead into his eyes. It was the first time he’d heard the napalm song.
    Gather kids as you fly over town,
    By throwing candy on the ground,
    Then grease ’em when they gather ’round,
    Napalm sticks to kids!
    Napalm sticks to kids,
    French-fried eyeballs and baby ribs—
    Marine Corps!
    Burn the town and kill the people
    Throw some napalm in the square
    Do it on a Sunday morning,
    While the people are at prayer
    Throw some candy in the schoolyard
    Watch the kiddies gather ’round
    Slap a mag in your M16
    And mow those little fuckers down.
    They marched in a long double line, boots thudding in the soft dirt, voices chanting in rhythm. They sang things together they would never say alone, in a speaking voice.
    Go to the market where the women shop.
    Get out my machete and I start to chop.
    Go to the park where the children play.
    Get out my machine gun I begin to spray.
    One day in class, an instructor walked up and down at the front of the room. The classroom was large and bare, and the candidates sat at desks that descended in tiers to a platform at the bottom.
    The instructor that day was short, with a big chest, grizzled hair, and a gap between his front teeth. He talked about the rules of engagement that governed military behavior during combat. The ROEs changed according to conditions, varying from engagement to engagement. Fighting a uniformed military unit on a battlefield was very different from fighting nonuniformed insurgents in a city. But fundamentally, the ROEs defined a military code of honor: targets were to be clearly identified as the enemy and clearly engaging in hostile activity. Civilians were not to be targeted for lethal fire.
    Conrad wrote this down in his notebook.
    The notebooks they were issued were small and cheap, hinged at the top with a metal spiral. The paper was greenish white, with wide horizontal lines and one vertical line down the middle. He had to ignore the vertical line when he took notes, writing across it. While he wrote down the part about not targeting civilians for lethal fire, Conrad thought about the napalm song, but he said nothing about it, nor did anyone else. The napalm song and the ROEs about civilians were like dinosaurs