Home > Thank You for My Service(21)

Thank You for My Service(21)
Author: Mat Best

       Every day you’re wading chest-deep into a scum-infested river, over and over again, using what the Army calls, in a hilarious bit of sadistic understatement, “expedient stream crossing techniques.” I can tell you from firsthand experience, what we crossed every day was not a goddamn stream. A stream is something you and your girlfriend hop over to reach a meadow for a breezy little weekend picnic. In the rushing nightmare the Army had constructed for our navigating pleasure, you were lucky to keep your boots attached to your feet, because each step across the “stream” sucked them a little bit deeper into the swampy mud bottom. The true bliss of all of this training was knowing that I would never be in a fucking swamp in Iraq. (Great foresight, Army, getting rid of Desert Phase, BTW.)

   Once you’re across and back on land, the instructors can finally get back to smoking you like a fat nug of sticky kind bud: fast, hot, and straight to the bottom of the bowl. They don’t care that you are wearing the least comfortable clothing known to man. Oh, it’s constantly wet and sticking to your body? It’s covered in algae and alligator shit? That’s great, why don’t you go back across that stream with your full ruck on and tell someone who gives a fuck? They try to make every single waking second of Florida Phase uncomfortable for you. When they know they’re succeeding, there is a lot of laughter to be had at your expense. Meanwhile, as they laugh, your exhausted, delirious, sun-stroked brain starts to concoct all the different ways you might be able to kill these sonsabitches in their sleep. If you could have stepped inside my head in those moments, you could have Minority Report-ed me right to a maximum-security psychiatric hospital, and I wouldn’t have had a leg to stand on.

   About a week into Florida Phase, I noticed three small, reddish sores on my arm. Everyone who lived down here in America’s grundle told me going in that the mosquitos were nasty this time of year, so at first I thought they were just big bite marks. They went from aggravating to agonizing pretty quickly, but I didn’t want to be a bitch about it and get kicked out of Ranger School. When you get an injury that is severe enough, they will medically recycle you (meaning that after you’re done convalescing you have to start all over again) or just boot you out of Ranger School forever. If that happens, Ranger Regiment will most likely RFS you (relieve you for standards), which means you go down the road and turn in your hard-earned tan beret.

       The next day, the three sores turned into ten. And not only were they getting bigger, but they were also starting to blister. They itched so bad, I don’t even have a joke to describe the sensation. Every bit of mental energy I had been using to endure the challenges of Florida Phase and dream up ways of killing my tormentors, I now had to turn toward not scratching my sores—because if I did scratch them, they would pop. And unless you run an STD clinic in Gainesville, you never want to see the phrases “open sores” and “Florida swamp” in the same sentence. As much as I wanted to say something, I couldn’t. Imagine trying to tell my instructors about my “condition” and asking them to give me a break until the itchy sores got better. That’s how you get yourself taped to a palm tree with flypaper wearing nothing but a combat helmet with a Yankee Candle glued to the top. I just had to get through it and deal with the sores once Ranger School was over.

   Eventually my skin got so bad that I couldn’t wear my uniform in accordance with Army regulations. Every chance I had, I rolled up my sleeves or opened my blouse, looking for even the slightest bit of relief. At first I only did it in places I was sure no one could see me, but I quickly began to take greater and greater risks, starting with not giving a shit whether Trey Bullock saw me flouting the dress code.

   From my very first day in the military, Trey had been one of my best friends. We went through OSUT, Airborne, and RASP together. We had just been deployed together, and now we were in the same platoon here in Ranger School—which never fucking happens. We were always competing against one another (we both wanted to graduate from Florida Phase at the top of our class), but we also always had each other’s backs, no matter what, just like in the streets of Ramadi. When he saw how miserable I was standing in formation, he whispered over to me.

       “Hey, man, are you all right?”

   “No, man, you see these sores?” I opened my sleeves and showed him my arms. “I feel like I’m fucking dying.”

   “Jesus,” he said, as a look of total horror crossed his face. That’s when I knew how serious this was. I had seen that look before. It was the same look Detective Olivia Benson gets on Law & Order: SVU when a reluctant abuse victim finally gives in and shows her the bruises for the first time. Something must be done!

   “I know,” I said. “I don’t know what to do.”

   “You better put your fucking sleeves down and figure it out when we get back, otherwise they’re going to—”

   “Ranger Best!” the instructor called out. “You trying to get a suntan?”

   “Negative, Sergeant.”

   “Then why the fuck are your sleeves up?!!” He gave me a look like I’d just arrived to pick up his daughter for prom and handed her a corsage made out of NuvaRings. “GODDAMMIT, BEST, WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING? GET YOUR FUCKING BLOUSE SQUARED AWAY!”

   “I can’t right now. Look, Sergeant.”

   I walked over to him and politely showed him the oozing sores all over my arms. I’ve seen less recoil from three-and-a-half-inch turkey loads. He looked at me and shook his head violently.

   “BEST, WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING WITH THOSE GODDAMN THINGS? GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!”

   “You betcha,” I said under my breath. Part of me was happy that someone else finally got to see the shit I had been dealing with. But most importantly, I took his fearful disgust as permission to go to Medical and get treated.

       Getting medical treatment at an Army base during Ranger School is like going VIP to the Mayo Clinic if the Mayo Clinic used actual mayo to treat its patients. The “doctor” is typically a physician’s assistant in training who has about 30 percent of what he needs—in terms of both knowledge and supplies—to treat the injuries he sees most often. My case was no different. Not only was the guy I went to a total dipshit, but if you questioned his diagnosis, he got downright offended.

   “So, what do we have here today, Ranger Best?”

   “You might want to stand back,” I said, before taking off my shirt.

   “JESUS FUCK! What is that?”

   “Um, I was hoping you’d be able to tell me?”

   This was not encouraging. When doctors in Florida are shocked to see something in or on your body and they don’t know what it is immediately, you know it must be bad. After a long, hard look from a safe distance, he announced his diagnosis.

   “I think those are spider bites.”

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