The Next Warrior

Proving Grounds - Part 22

Gunnery Sergeant Yafante's shouting continued. "It's good, this was all just a simulation, wasn't it Romero?" He paused, waiting for a response from the young Marine.

"Well?" he roared.

"Yes, Gunnery Sergeant!" replied back the PFC instinctively.

Yafante's posture took on a distinctly forceful stance as he growled caustically.

"And why is it good PFC?"

"Because I died, Gunnery Sergeant," the young Marine responded meekly.

"No!" retorted the aged warrior condescendingly. Yafante's arm shot out, outstretched with his hand and fingers elongated and pressed tight to one another, forming a knife hand solid enough to cut steel. He pointed with his whole arm straight at Nathaniel's face, unignorably inches away from his eyes."Everyone's dead, PFC. What makes you so special?"

"Aye, Aye, Gunnery Sergeant." Romero said.

"Aye, Aye? What, did I give you an order? I said, 'What makes you so special?'"He looked deeply, piercingly into Romero. His presence was like nothing any of them had ever seen before. Normally, he was a calm and collected force that lumbered around the bay or in the Non-Commissioned Officers' offices. He rarely said anything louder than normal conversation. He could be relentlessly dogged in his training, some might go as far to say ruthless or even sadistic, but never raised his voice or broke a sweat about it. The Gunny was a true stoic warrior when he wanted to be. This man was nothing like that, though. They'd seen him get into the training before, but never break his detached stare as he led it. This Yafante, the one beating down Romero with every word, was like a beast on the end of a chain, barely restrained by some force none of them could see. The rest of the Marines there on the training grounds found themselves staring silently, intimidated by this new side of the veteran warrior they had never truly known before.

Nervously, Romero looked at the Gunnery Sergeant and shakily answered the Gunnery Sergeant's question of what made him special?

"I'm not."

"That's right PFC. You're not special." The Gunny was snarling as the words seethed through his clenched teeth. "You're no more special than all those other Marines in the plane you crashed. You're no more special than the pilot, or the eight grunts either. You're also no more special than the rest of your little fire team. Wonder how they turned out?"

This time Romero said nothing. He just stood silently and stared past the Gunnery Sergeant, far off into the distance at the empty field where the imaginary plane and its imaginary crew had crashed not long ago.

Yafante's tone shifted. His stance softened and he began to pace around Romero and among the other Marines. He wasn't the raging beast anymore. Now, he was venomous."But that's not your fault, is it PFC?" For a moment, Romero puzzled over the question. Romero's team, then standing silently watching from a few feet away, didn't miss the Gunny's implication. They knew well what was coming, as they had already endured hours of it before this. "Williams!" barked the belligerent platoon SNCOIC.

"Yes, Gunnery Sergeant!" shouted Corporal Williams in response.

"So, it seems that the first thing you do when we give you a fire team is get them all killed? Is that what happened?"

"No, Gunnery Sergeant." Romero's fire team leader replied.

"Oh? That's what seems to have happened to all of us watching the massacre. Still anyone left in the woods you'd like us to know about? Is there still some mystery Marine on your fire team I have forgotten? Did one of your Marines make it through and I simply didn't notice it?"