The Scummers

Thirty-Three

190 Thirty-Three North Depot Activity Romulus, New York May 1961 There were four platoons in the MP company and we pulled guard duty every four days, twenty-fours at a time. After our shift, we had twenty-four hours off; then a day of detail duty, usually shit details, picking up cigarette butts from the compound, painting, cleaning— always cleaning—then a day of training; and then another day of guard duty. Each platoon followed the same routine, but on different days, so there was always a platoon on guard, a platoon screwing off, a platoon cleaning, and a platoon learning to ferret Communists out from under rocks. In other words, there was never a time, ever, when the depot was unguarded. Mounting of the guard was carefully controlled, carefully done. The new platoon coming on duty “fell out” into the guard mount room, or, in warm weather, outside on the parking lot beside the barracks. The platoon officer and platoon sergeant would inspect the platoon, walking the rank and file, looking for something to rag your ass about, usually finding it. When inspection was over, the MPs were taken to the various guard posts around the depot, relieving the old guard. By the security regulations of the post, no MP could leave his guard post until he was properly relieved, even if the poor scummer had to stand there for days. He could die there, but he could not just walk off. Guys who were not assigned to a specific post were assigned to the riot squad, a bunch of leftover troopers who hung out in the 191 guard house, fully dressed, weapons at hand—ready to go as a group to quell riots, defend NDA, kill Communists. Whatever. The guard house. Everybody not standing guard—the extra MPs, officers, noncoms, guys assigned to the riot squad—all went to the guard house inside the inner compound. Twenty-four hours later, it all happened again. And again and again and again. And that is how I spent my thirty days, confined to a routine that would stun a musk ox. And I had read about musk oxen back in the outhouse-sized library at Crum High School. In general, my entire life on the depot was limited to my platoon. We hardly ever saw the men in the other platoons. The rotating work schedule kept each platoon on a separate schedule and now and then we would run into an MP we had never seen before—and learn that he had been on the depot longer than any of us. It didn’t take very long to figure out that our platoon was the dog platoon of the MP company, and that all the other platoons knew it. The platoon leader, Lt. Thurman Ringer, was one round short of a full clip, a half-educated ROTC puke who had been a cheerleader at West Virginia University. I was careful, very careful, to never let him know I was from West Virginia. Ringer wanted desperately to be accepted by the other officers in the MP company and his way to acceptance, he figured, was to make life for his own men as hellish as possible. Ringer lived for the day he could bust one of his own troopers on a security violation—or bust them for anything. Fortunately , he was too stupid to be really dangerous. Mostly, he was just funny. But funny men can get you killed, too. Ringer had a willing accomplice in Staff Sgt. Leonard Kraus, our platoon sergeant. The two men despised each other, but their mu- 192 tual dislike was tempered by their dislike, and constant harassment, of the men who served under them. Kraus had made a career out of hiding out in the military. He avoided going to combat areas in Korea by driving his car into a ditch, feigning a leg injury, and then limping around on some sort of rehab duty until the army forgot about him. He had been in the army a long time; NDA was to be his last active duty before retirement. Within the platoon the people I really paid any attention to were the men in my squad, eight other men and me, men who worked together, trained together, pulled the same guard posts, showered together, went into town together, drank together, played poker in the parking lot together, and tried to fuck...