The one soldier who couldn’t quite live up to expectations was Samovich, who was skinny as a toothpick and sloppy as a bear. He couldn’t never do enough push-ups or clean his rifle proper-like or keep his bunk in good order. Whole dang unit got in a bad row of stumps again and again for that sumbitch.
Ain’t nobody wanna punish him. They hoped Samovich to improve, but Samovich cried for his mama and he tried a-sneaking like a clumsy ninja, even cheating on an obstacle course, stogging around the obstacles out in the woods where Drill Sergeant Tucker couldn’t see.
That was some low-manhood, high-sissy behavior, so far as Goose was concerned. And per his buddy Harley, who Goose ain’t barely know yet, but they later ran together cuz they shipped out together.
Once Tucker found out about the obstacle course, he shit his lid, and Samovich returned to the barrack with a heavy head, a black eye and a limp, and word soon got back that they wasn’t getting leave this weekend cuzza him.
Whole dang unit got no leave cuz Samovich couldn’t handle his shit.
That pissed ’em all off. It was Harley who badmouthed Samovich so bad them’all took a turn gutpunching him.
By then he was bawling in the corner of the barrack like a rank pussy, god did that weakling shit piss Goose off. It wasn’t even just that Samovich was a pussy — god knows the world’s fulla ’em! — but he was getting the whole barrack in trouble, and Samovich was going off to war! What’d he think this was? Prep for a trip to a circus? He gonna hafta toughen up or the Vietnameys gonna send him dirtwards. A man rises hisself to the situation at hand.
A man rises hisself to the situation at hand.
The one soldier who couldn’t quite live up to expectations was Samovich, who was skinny as a toothpick and sloppy as a bear. He couldn’t never do enough push-ups or clean his rifle proper-like or keep his bunk in good order. Whole dang unit got in a bad row of stumps again and again for that sumbitch.