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Chapter 10: The Spirit of the Bayonet
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Ten The Spirit of the Bayonet He ain't heavy, he's my brother. -The Hollies The next few days dragged by as we all were focused 011 leaving for Christmas. The TACs seemed almost as distracted as we were. Our training classes were fairly routine-PT, weapons training (M-60 machine gun), a couple of classes on military justice. But then we had bayonet tramlng. I had had classes on bayonet training in basic and AlT at Fort Polk, but no one there seemed to take it seriously. Here, though, they did. At first, I couldn't quite figure out why. Bayonet fighting seemed unnecessary for the kind ofjungle conflict in Vietnam. «Fix Bayonets!~ "Charge!~ The whole idea ofduking it out with a twelve-inch bayonet on some level plain seemed ridiculous for Vietnam, a holdover from the Civil War, San Juan Hill, or Normandy, and far, far away from the Gulf ofTonlcin, Tet, Khe Sanh, and Hamburger Hill. Still, bayonet training took a significant period of training time in OCS. I decided that it wasn't the need to understand the principle of fighting with bayonets. Instead, bayonet training took on a level ofsymbolism that the Army wanted to stress. It also became another flash point for observing men under physical stress. The symbolism was central and repeated whenever troops began formal training. After pairing off with an opponent, everyone PUt on wire mesh face masks and leather crotch protectors fastened over the top of our fatigue pants. But instead of actually using bayonets, we used pugil sticks, which were supposed to teach the basic movements of "parry and thrust" without the actual danger of killing someone. At the beginning of each exercise, in response to the trainer's question, "What is the spirit of the bayonet?" we had to yell, "To kill! To kill!" On one level, it was absurdly humorous to step back from the training and look at the whole thing from outside. The sight ofover 200 men wearing these strange masks and crotch protectors and carrying ritle-length sticks with padded ends was comic, a ridiculous ballet. We looked like one-eyed, magnified ants carrying stingers rather than having [hem affixed. But ifyou're inside the ant colony instead ofoutside the jar, everything that happens is heightened, accentuated, pointed. And we were definilely inside the jar. I knew from my Fort Polk days that the best way to make it through was to be a good actor and to have a parmer who understood that this was a dumb show. Yell loud, thrust vigorously, fall convincingly. It should be like the World Wrestling Federation, Gorgeous George in pantomime. So when it came time to pair up, you ought to get with someone you knew was theatrical enough to carry off the show believably. To my horror, when I got in the line to get my gear, Hays was behind me in the line. At that moment Candidate Billy Hays from third platoon was the perfect embodimenr of the senselessness and absurdity that bayonet training represenred. A college dropout from some unaccredited bible school in the Midwest, Hays was supposed to be a minister of some SOrt, one of those holy roller sects that believes in trances and speaking in tongues. The first week or twO, he started trying to convert his roommates and word gOt Out that Hays was a Jesus freak. The TACs started calling him "Sergeant York," after the war hero Gary Cooper portrayed in an old movie, who had to overcome his religious training to be able to kill the enemy. Hays backed off from preaching, but the Sergeant York label stuck. But another problem for Hays was his voice. It was high-pitched and effeminate, a terrible handicap in (he triple macho military world. And to top off the effect, Hays moved in an effete, mincing way that everybody recognized, true or not, as a sure sign of homosexuality. How he had gOtten into OCS was anybody's guess, a renuiter's idea of a cruel joke or a mollth end, last-minute quota filler. All this package made Hays a sure nominee for scrutiny. He was inspected and observed, analyzed and examined, dissected like a specimen. 76 Fort Benning Blufs [3.95.233.107] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 11:17 GMT) For the fits[ few weeks he had made it through without any major problems . The word had gorten around that Hays was married, so he must be...