and about ourselves. This was the rifle range, the only part of our training we thoroughly enjoyed. After so many hours of drill and calisthenics, of droning lectures in the sun and training films run off in sweltering clapboard buildings, the prospect of actually going out and shooting held considerable promise, and when the time came it proved to be fun. There was a keen pleasure in sprawling prone on the embankment of the firing line with a rifle stock nestled at your cheek and the oily, gleaming clips of ammunition close at hand; in squinting out across a great expanse of earth at your target and waiting for the signal from a measured voice on the loudspeaker. “Ready on the right. Ready on the left. Ready on the firing line. … The flag is up. The flag is waving. The flag is down. Commence— fire! ” There would be a blast of many rifles in your ears, a breathless moment as you squeezed the trigger, and a sharp jolt as you fired. Then you’d relax and watch the target slide down in the distance, controlled by unseen hands in the pit beneath it. When it reappeared a moment later a colored disk would be thrust up with it, waved and withdrawn, signaling your score. The man kneeling behindyou with the scorecard would mutter, “Nice going” or “Tough,” and you’d squirm in the sand and take aim again. Like nothing else we had found in the Army, this was something to rouse a competitive instinct, and when it took the form of wanting our platoon to make a better showing than the others, it brought us as close to a genuine esprit de corps as anything could.
We spent a week or so on the range, leaving early every morning and staying all day, taking our noon meal from a field kitchen that was in itself a refreshing change from the mess hall. Another good feature—at first it seemed the best of all—was that the range gave us a respite from Sergeant Reece. He marched us out there and back, and he supervised the cleaning of our rifles in the barracks, but for the bulk of the day he turned us over to the range staff, an impersonal, kindly crowd, much less concerned with petty discipline than with marksmanship.
Still, Reece had ample opportunity to bully us in the hours when he was in charge, but after a few days on the range we found he was easing up. When we counted cadence on the road now, for instance, he no longer made us do it over and over, louder each time, until our dry throats burned from yelling, “HUT, WHO, REEP, HOE!” He would quit after one or two counts like the other platoon sergeants, and at first we didn’t know what to make of it. “What’s the deal?” we asked each other, baffled, and I guess the deal was simply that we’d begun to do it right the first time, loud enough and in perfect unison. We were marching well, and this was Reece’s way of letting us know it.
The trip to the range was several miles, and a good share of it was through the part of camp where marching at attention was required—we were never given route step until after we’d cleared the last of the company streets and buildings. But with our new efficiency at marching we got so that we almost enjoyedit, and even responded with enthusiasm to Reece’s marching chant. It had always been his habit, after making us count cadence, to go through one of those traditional singsong chants calling for traditional shouts of reply, and we’d always resented it before. But now the chant seemed uniquely stirring, an authentic piece of folklore from older armies and older wars, with roots deep in the life we were just beginning to understand. He would begin by expanding his ordinary nasal “Left … left … left” into a mournful little tune: “Oh yew had a good home and yew left —” to which we would answer, “RIGHT!” as our right feet fell. We would go through several variations on this theme:
“Oh yew had a good job and yew left—”
“RIGHT!”
“Oh yew had a good gal and yew left—”
“RIGHT!”
And then
We spent a week or so on the range, leaving early every morning and staying all day, taking our noon meal from a field kitchen that was in itself a refreshing change from the mess hall. Another good feature—at first it seemed the best of all—was that the range gave us a respite from Sergeant Reece. He marched us out there and back, and he supervised the cleaning of our rifles in the barracks, but for the bulk of the day he turned us over to the range staff, an impersonal, kindly crowd, much less concerned with petty discipline than with marksmanship.
Still, Reece had ample opportunity to bully us in the hours when he was in charge, but after a few days on the range we found he was easing up. When we counted cadence on the road now, for instance, he no longer made us do it over and over, louder each time, until our dry throats burned from yelling, “HUT, WHO, REEP, HOE!” He would quit after one or two counts like the other platoon sergeants, and at first we didn’t know what to make of it. “What’s the deal?” we asked each other, baffled, and I guess the deal was simply that we’d begun to do it right the first time, loud enough and in perfect unison. We were marching well, and this was Reece’s way of letting us know it.
The trip to the range was several miles, and a good share of it was through the part of camp where marching at attention was required—we were never given route step until after we’d cleared the last of the company streets and buildings. But with our new efficiency at marching we got so that we almost enjoyedit, and even responded with enthusiasm to Reece’s marching chant. It had always been his habit, after making us count cadence, to go through one of those traditional singsong chants calling for traditional shouts of reply, and we’d always resented it before. But now the chant seemed uniquely stirring, an authentic piece of folklore from older armies and older wars, with roots deep in the life we were just beginning to understand. He would begin by expanding his ordinary nasal “Left … left … left” into a mournful little tune: “Oh yew had a good home and yew left —” to which we would answer, “RIGHT!” as our right feet fell. We would go through several variations on this theme:
“Oh yew had a good job and yew left—”
“RIGHT!”
“Oh yew had a good gal and yew left—”
“RIGHT!”
And then
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