The Next Warrior

Disembarkation - Part 7

Two months after the Colonel's speech, the Marines of 2/2 were aboard the USS Tripoli.

Gone had passed the initial thrill of being on the high seas. It had long ago since worn off, as now most of Romero's time was spent in the squad bay, surrounded by the smell of ancient socks and the lingering afterodor of tobacco mint. The squad bay was a cramped hole in the middle of the ship where Marines called home. Marines slept in hammocks dangling across the steel beams standing throughout the bay or on the fold up cots riveted to the walls. Sea bags with all of their gear, equipment, and personal belongings lined the deck beneath the hanging cots and bedding. During the times when they weren't making port, they would be doing drills on the ship's quarterdeck, in classes and simulation, or performing preventive maintenance on the gear. There was no task more mind-numbing than the constant cycle of PMing gear. Perhaps they would be lucky enough that something would break from all the maintenance and they could actually have something to do. The deployment was already a few months in and they were well into the tedium of ship life.

Romero was asleep when a fellow Lance Corporal from the platoon, Robert Lomax, "Lolo" along with Kaiser shook him violently awake. Kaiser most delicately flipped his hammock sending him crashing to the floor.

Lolo cackled as Romero came to life, "Dude! We're in Africa! Ain't no way you're sleeping through Accra."

Romero groaned less awake than angry, "I'm good. You guys go on without me."

"Ahh, you're just butt hurt from back in Havana," Lolo said.

Romero grunted into the bag of laundry he used for a pillow.

"Look. Everybody in Ghana speaks English, so Kaiser isn't going to be able steal your girl 'cuz you don't speak the language."

Kaiser was going through his gear, grabbing whatever he thought he might need for his adventures on the Gold Coast. Romero said nothing.

"Serves you right." Kaiser said. "It isn't my fault that we went to Cuba, and you can't even speak enough Spanish to hit it with one of the locals. Seriously, you're Mexican. How do you not speak Spanish?"

"I'm half Mexican," Romero replied. "My family have been citizens since the 60's."

"Not the half Juanita cared about. Once she found out you couldn't speak the mother tongue, you left the door wide open. With a third of the United States Hispanic, you'd think that you'd learn to have exploited that dual nature of yours. You only have yourself to blame."

Romero was annoyed to have the story brought up. "Why do you even speak Spanish? You're a Jew."

"The maid taught me." Noam replied very matter of fact.

Lolo mocked Noam for his class faux paux, "Ho ho." He bellowed. "Must be nice havin' a maid to fluff your pillow and teach you the tongue of all society's bottom feeders like us, huh?"

"Whatever," he said as he continued to rifle through his gear, "It isn't my fault my dad is a venture capitalist. So, I'm loaded? I still crawl through all the same mud holes as the rest of you. I just clean up better when it's over."

As he said this, he pulled from his bag a nice watch and shoes, far nicer than anything Romero could afford. He had designer clothes he pressed religiously whereas the only civilian attire Romero had was a pair of jeans and a Hawaiian shirt he bought at the PX back in Camp Lejeune. Noam certainly did clean up better than the rest of them.

"Why did you go into the Marines, anyway?" Romero asked.

"You mean because I could just drop the money and go to some private school where everyone is pretentious and boring, get an internship my dad set up at some banking firm, before taking an executive position at my dad's venture firm at 25 and twenty years before I deserve it?" He let the point hang in the air.