‘Recruit’ Taylor
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When you join the Marine Corps, there are many things that you expect, such as the physically demanding lifestyle, being taught how to fight, and even going halfway around the globe to a country most people couldn’t point out on a map. You also face the reality that you might not come back. It is a very real situation that most of us accepted. But they don’t prepare you for when the person who doesn’t make it back is someone you knew. Even if all your memories aren’t exactly good ones, it is a sobering reality check for many. I still haven’t forgotten the first one I knew, Private First Class Taylor.
Taylor was, well, different. I first met him at Infantry Training Battalion, or ITB. He had a thick Texas accent, almost to the point that I couldn’t be bothered trying to understand what he was saying. He would also fit the stereotype almost perfectly, and whenever we were allowed to put on civilian attire, he would put on a massive cowboy hat, and the most obnoxiously large belt buckle he could find. Some of the other Texans I met in ITB were almost embarrassed to admit that they were, all thanks to Taylor.
It was made clear almost immediately that he was the type of person that joined the Marines thinking it would be like Call of Duty. While training for urban combat and room clearing, my squad accidentally missed clearing a room. This room just so happened to have one of the combat instructors in it, and he burst through that door and lit us up with sim rounds (think paintballs but fired out of an M-16. Yes, they hurt). We were told to be casualties, and the first person to come upon the scene was none other than Taylor. He asked me “Witte, which room is it?” to which I motioned to the right, thinking he would form up and wait for others. Nope. He pulled out an empty magazine, threw it into the room ‘as a distraction’ and then literally jumped into the room.
There were a few moments of silence as the instructor tried to process what he had just witnessed. His eyes widened and his nose turned to a snarl as he rushed to the other side of the room and snatched Taylor up by the collar. Everyone within ear shot knew that our day, not just Taylor’s, was about to be ruined. The mass punishment that he chose was he had everyone fireman carry the ‘casualties’ down three flights of stairs. We started to call him ‘Recruit Taylor’ after that, because the only thing worse than being a boot, is being a recruit.
I was one of the few that didn’t openly hate him for it, so he was more willing to talk with me than he was with others. I remember still being in ITB for Thanksgiving, and he wanted to go home and see his family (which was outside the range we were allowed to go). For Thanksgiving, we were given a 96-hour liberty, and liberty was more or less what we called the weekend. The only problem is that we were expected to come back to base periodically and ‘stand watch’. I think it was just a way to ruin your weekend, because you just stood around doing basically nothing for a few hours. Well Taylor had a proposition for me. He asked me “Witte, if I give you my TV and Xbox, will you take my watch over Thanksgiving?”. I immediately agreed, because if I’m being honest Skyrim had just released and I wanted to give it a try. Well, apparently Taylor ‘received some phone calls’ while he was visiting his family. Phone calls that he didn’t answer I might add. He took that as me backing out of the deal and tried to take his TV and Xbox back. How, you might ask? By breaking into my wall locker. Not exactly the most subtle way.
In his attempt to break into my wall locker, he caught both my attention, and that of our platoon sergeant, Sergeant OJ. OJ asked “Taylor what on earth are you doing?”, although he was not nearly that diplomatic about it. Taylor gave the mind-blowing response of “I traded my Xbox to Witte if he took my fire watch”. That was probably the single worst thing he could have said, because we were technically not allowed to sell, or trade, our watch duty. They knew we did, but they weren’t going to stop us unless it became a problem. Taylor just made it a problem. Perhaps OJ was being lenient because it was the first day back, but all he asked was “Witte, is this true?” and when I told him it was, he simply said, “Well congratulations on your new Xbox” and that was the end of it.
When ITB was finally finishing up mid-December, the Marines in my platoon had a bit of a celebration, although really it was closer to a party. Gone was the instructor/trainee relationship, and it was replaced by the idea that we were all Marines. To be fair, we already were, but now we were at least trained to do something. One of the instructors was preparing to go to MARSOC (Marine Corps special forces, also called ‘Raiders’), and challenged a Marine in my platoon to a wrestling match. That Marine happened to be a state wrestling champ and ended up winning. We also chose the company honor-man, who was the Marine that won the wrestling match. Sergeant OJ may have influenced the decision by openly belittling the other candidates for ‘being reservists’. Again, he was not nearly so diplomatic about it. Finally, we held a yearbook-esque ‘most likely to’ vote. Taylor was voted ‘most likely to be the first to die’. It sounds morbid, I know, but that is the type of humor we had in the Marines. In fact, I remember him finding it to be absolutely hilarious. We all did, of course.
But then he was.
After graduation, I was sent to Security Forces training, and Taylor immediately dropped to a division that was getting ready to deploy. I had barely finished that training when I heard the news. He was indeed the first, and I only wish I could say he was the last.
It may sound like I am insulting him, but that is just how I remember him. Almost every memory I have of him is of him getting us mass punishment, trying to back out of a deal, or throwing me specifically under the bus.
Yet I still have the Xbox he traded me back in ITB. I don’t have any cables, any games, or anything to actually make it work, but I can’t bring myself to throw it away. Perhaps it is because deep down there is a sense of guilt. How is it that we joined at the same time, and yet I am the one that is still here? Survivor guilt is something that plagues many active-duty personnel after all. Or perhaps it is my way of remembering my brother ‘Recruit’ Taylor, even if it is little more than a plastic brick collecting dust in my living room.
