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."You would not believe what I found in a Sanskrittranslation.""Hey, man, you got a light?" One of the ubiquitous street people of theWashington Mall stumbled blearily towards them, fumbling a dog-end."Sorry, soldier," said Commander Hume, noting the field jacket and scars,respectful to even this fallen soldier at the last."Don't smoke.""It don' matter, man," the unshaven bum muttered, "Don' matter." Four rapidhuffs from a silenced.45caliber Colt followed and the pair of scientists slumped into the reflectingpool staining the pure waters red."Don' matter," the bum muttered again, asthe screams began.15Camp McCall, NC Sol III1123 May 6th, 2002 AD"Move it! Move it! Get out!Off the bus! Move it!"The young men in gray piled off the Greyhound bus, some in their hastetumbling to the ground.These unfortunates were unceremoniously yanked totheir feet and hurled towards the group now milling into a half-assedformation.The three brawny young men and one brawny young woman doing theshouting had, four months before, gotten off the same kind of bus.Despite thecorporal's chevrons on their sleeves they were recently graduated privateschosen for their size, strength or fierceness as much as their motivatedattitude.They broke the formation into four ragged groups and moved them,overloaded with duffel bags, to their respective assembly areas.The newrecruits were chivvied into rough lines comprising three sides of a quad andthen they got their first experience of a real drill sergeant.In secondplatoon's unfortunate case it was Gunnery Sergeant Pappas.He was standing atPage 71 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlparade rest in the center of the formation, apparently doing nothing butrocking backwards and forwards contemplating the pleasant spring day.What hewas actually doing was applying his personal philosophy of life to a situationhe found totally out of control.He and the group recalled with him had been told that, thank you, we have allthe senior NCOs we need for the Line and Strike formations.They were insteadparceled out to Guard and training units as a leavening of experiencedpersonnel.This was intended to "stiffen up" the units to which they wereassigned.Gunny Pappas often considered the old adage that you cannot stiffena bucket of spit with a handful of buckshot.But he was a Marine (or whatever they wanted to call him this week) and whengiven an order said"aye, aye, sir," or "yes, sir," or whatever, and performed it to the best ofhis ability.So when told he was going to be a DI, he naturally requestedPendleton, since that was right by his home of record.GroundForce Personnel naturally sent him to Camp McCall, North Carolina, threethousand miles away.Being in McCall might have been for the best.The Galactics had started tocome through on one of their promises and he was one of the first groupoffered rejuvenation.The rejuv program was being run on a matrix of age, rankand seniority.Since the military ran on a framework of both an officer Corpand an equivalent NCO Corp, senior NCOs were prioritized with "equivalent"officers.As one of the oldestNCOs in the second layer of enlisted rank, he had received rejuvenation aheadof many sergeant majors that were younger.Thus, after a month of trulyunpleasant reaction and growth, he found himself a physical twenty-year-oldwith a sixty-year-old's mind.He had forgotten what it was really like, thephysical feeling of invincibility and energy, a coursing drive to dosomething, anything, all the time.Regular heavy-duty workouts were returningthe musculature of his prime.They also served to occupy his other energies.He had been a Marine for thirty years, twenty-seven of those married.Duringthose twenty-seven years he had never strayed from the marriage bed.Not forhim the phrase "I'm not divorced, just TDY." He never thought less of theother NCOs, or officers, who took advantage of deployments to pick up someaction; as long as it did not affect their performance he could care less.Buthe had made a wedding vow to "cleave unto no other" and he believed in keepinga promise.It was the same as " 'til death do us part."Now, however, he had a twenty-year-old's body, and drives, and was married toa fifty-something wife.He was experiencing some difficulties with the situation.Fortunately orunfortunately, the pace of training the recalls and then using the recalls totrain the new enlistees was so fierce he had not been able to get back to SanDiego.The rejuv program was eventually supposed to be distributed todependents of the military but he would believe it when he saw it.There werealready rumors that the rejuv materials were running low, so who knew what toexpect long term.He was really sweating his first meeting with Prissy.Heaping insult on injury, since the most senior NCOs, like himself, wererecalled first, there was currently a glut of E-8s and E-9s, the two mostsenior enlisted ranks.In the Navy they were referring to it as "too manyChiefs." In addition, because the emphasis was on training, most of the seniorNCOs and officers were being assigned to basic and advanced trainingfacilities.Therefore, instead of being assigned as the senior NCO in acompany, he was assigned a mere platoon of recruits.Thus he was not in the best of moods when he greeted the group of forty-fiveyoung men he was to make into Marines (or Strike troopers or soldiers orhoplites or whatever the FUCK you wanted to call them).Characteristicallythis made him smile at them.The less perceptive, seeing that the drillsergeant was not the sadistic cretin they had been warned of but a kindlyPage 72 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlsmiling fellow, tentatively smiled back.The more perceptive suspected, correctly, that they were in serious trouble."Good morning, ladies," he said in a low, friendly tone."My name is GunnerySergeant Pappas." The tone forced them to strain to hear."For the next fourmonths I will, I am sorry to say, be your drill sergeant.This fine, fit youngfellow," he gestured at the attending drill corporal, "is Drill CorporalAdams.Think of us as your personal Marquis de Sade.Sort of an aerobics instructorgone horribly wrong."To begin learning that thing called military courtesy you will refer to me asif I were an officer.You will call me `sir' and salute when greeting me.Isthat clear?""Yeah." "Okay." "No problem." "Yes, sir!""Oh, I am sorry.I didn't hear that.The correct response is `Clear, sir.' ""Clear, sir."He inserted a finger in one ear and dug around."Sorry.I'm a bit hard ofhearing.All the screams of dying recruits.A bit louder if you please
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