Gunny Rogers 2: The Most Powerful Weapon
We were on the platoon street between the tents that were our billets at Camp Matthews, sitting on our upended buckets cleaning rifles. Each of us had a towel which had been designated part of our rifle cleaning gear spread out between his feet in front of the bucket. M14 rifle parts were laid out on the towels. Toothbrushes scraped blued steel. Hoppe's #9 solvent crowded other smells from the air.
Gunny Rogers was supervising. He stood quietly, looking us over. Of our five drill instructors, he was the one who really took it upon himself to disabuse us of the romance so often tagged onto war stories, to forge us into warriors. One phrase we heard from him often was "Ours is not to reason why; ours is but to do or die." That was what we were here for, he said. Kill or die. And since some of the people we'd be going up against were very good killers on their own, and wanted to stay alive at least as much as we did, we had to be better at killing than they were, or each of us - or, what would be worse, the comrades who depended on us - could die. And that would be against Marine Corps regulations. Sometimes he would paraphrase General Patton, who was the only Army general who was ever worth a shit, as far as Marines were concerned: Your job is not to die for your country. Your job is to make that other poor sonofabitch die for his country.
"Listen up," Gunny said. Buckets and boots scraped; rifle bolts and operating rods clinked onto towels. Silence.
He waited a long time to speak, looking up and down the rows of us, letting us look at him. That was his signal that what he was about to say was important, real Marine Corps "straight scoop" rather than "petty shit," and we had goddamned well better pay attention. He didn't raise his voice. Once in a while he would bellow, but more often he would let his medals and scars and combat record and personal charisma - the whole totemic package of his stature as a warrior among warriors - speak for him. At such times he would speak softly, and we would lean forward and scoop up his words like a dying man just arrived at a desert oasis scoops water, which was what he intended.
It came as a question. "What is the most powerful weapon in the world?" he asked softly. It was repeated in urgent whispers to recruits at the ends of the formation who hadn't heard. Necks craned; glances danced.
It was always better to avoid answering a question unless you were sure of the answer. These were the times when abuse and extra duty were handed out if you guessed wrong. But this was an easy one; the answer was obvious. A recruit raised his hand. "Yes, Private," the Gunny recognized him. The kid stood to attention. "Sir! The most powerful weapon in the world is the atomic bomb, sir!"
Gunny waited another of his long pauses, paced slowly, shaking his Smokey the Bear campaign-hatted head in an expression that was intended to come across to us as a mixture of profound disappointment and disgust. How could they ever expect him to make Marines of such imbeciles, his body language said.
He turned and faced us. His face would have made the four on Mount Rushmore look like a bunch of wimps: car salesmen, or the like.
"B-u-l-l-s-h-i-t." The word rolled out like far-off thunder. We looked at each other in puzzlement. My mind flipped through everything I knew, looking for the answer he wanted. One of two guys in the platoon with some college behind me, I had actually read quite a few books. Aha, I thought. He must mean the hydrogen bomb. I was about to raise my hand when Gunny gave the correct answer, parsing out his words: "The most powerful... weapon...in the world...is a Marine...and his rifle."
Pause.
"Think about it. Carry on, Privates."
Each of us, squatted there on his bucket, bore a look on his face of perfect astonishment. We looked at one another, whispered. "Gaww-awwd damn!" Delighted grins appeared as we went back to cleaning our rifles.
