My 3 Little All-Stars

          Our unit was six months from deploying when I was assigned my first three soldiers that were all mine.  Of course, these soldiers were the biggest idiots I’d ever met.  I thought I was being punished for something.

            “No Vance, we just think you’re the only one that can fix them,” Pons said.

            Every group has a problem child mixed in with good soldiers to dull the pain.  All I had were three problem children, a dunce for a first line supervisor and nobody to be proud of or look up to.  That’s what happens when you’re the newest NCO.  I kept a positive attitude, but soon realized being positive doesn’t fix stupid.

            We’ll name the three mouth breathers Lemon, Lover and Mango.  Lemon was a scout of average height, lackadaisical, clumsy, well fit, light haired and an overall male ditz.  He reminded me of a five year old who says he wants to be a fireman one day and the next day he wants to be an astronaut.  Yeah, that’s great kid.  Just let me know when you’re all grown up and know what the fuck you’re actually going to be.  By describing him as “well fit” I mean he had retard strength.  You need over a hundred pounds of ammo lifted over your head to load onto the trucks?  Lemon!

            Mango had the same strength, but the demeanor of a Neanderthal.  A white, backwoods, and gorilla-shaped scout from Minnesota who always had tall tales of crazy hunting days with some character he called “Gunner Nelson.”  Mango couldn’t just say “Nelson” or “Gunner” either.  Both names had to be used together.  He graduated in a class of seven.  Seven, and he wasn’t even the runner up to valedictorian.  Imagine a guy that thinks he’s fooling everyone with lies about how awesome his life in Minnesota was.  Now imagine he’s telling these lies with that hilarious accent from the state of ten thousand lakes.

            “Oh yaw, Gunner Nelson and me would go out fer days hunting!” he’d say all excited as we would all just smile and nod with an awkward silence.

            It would only be stories about Gunner Nelson from his hometown.  Ole Gunner Nelson sounded more like an imaginary friend, but I guess that’s to be expected with a graduating class that was three times smaller than our platoon.  I tried, but had a hard time relating to his hunting stories.  I was from the suburbs where fishing was the closest thing to hunting as I ever got.  One of many characters I would have to adapt to in order to allow our little group to function properly.

            Then there was Lover.  Holy shit.  This guy.  Lover was quite the character and even in his absence, he would provide us with good stories while deployed.  He was a slow moving, short, frumpy Hispanic infantryman from L.A. with a thick accent from somewhere south of the boarder.  It took a serious effort from him to look like he was awake and not a complete bag of ass.  Lover was a terrible soldier and frustrating as hell to work with, but he had the most hysterical stories about his girlfriend.  I mean, they weren’t funny to him, but I was usually in tears laughing at how crazy she was while listening to his accent.

            “Like, this one time, my girl wanted to get freaky in bed so she told me to let her fall asleep and then wanted me to fuck her awake.  So I did!  She freaked out and screamed at me to stop raping her,” Lover said with a sad look on his face that turned to a smile for the ending comment of his story, “but I fucking lover, man.”

            Lover would end every story with those words.  You can’t make this shit up.  I couldn’t believe the stuff that would come out of his mouth.  We all had a hard time understanding why he would put up with his alleged girlfriend.  He’d begin every story with wide eyes and words of wonderment.

            “Like, this one time, I walked two miles to McDonalds to get her breakfast in bed and she told her cousins to jump me.  So they did!  But I fucking lover, man.”

            “Why the hell did she tell her cousins to do something like that?” I’d enquire.

            “I don’t know, maybe because I raped her.”

            “But she told you too!”

            “Yeah, but I fucking lover man.”

            Just imagine a bunch of us listening to this.  One guy would slap his own forehead, another would put his head down in disbelief, another would tilt his head like a confused dog and the rest of us would just stare with our jaws down.

            “Like, this one time, she said she was going to kill my mom.”

            “Alright dude, that’s a deal breaker.”

            “But I fucking lover, man.”

            “Hooooly shit.  Just stop.”

            Eventually that crazy little firecracker would use all $20,000 of Lover’s enlistment bonus on jewelry shortly before dumping his ass while he was at Fort Lewis and she was in LA.  Lover was already a mess, but that didn’t help.  He took a dull knife to his wrist one night.  Lover called another platoon member shortly before he did it, so we don’t know if it was a legit attempt or a cry for attention.  Either way, that was a one-way ticket out of the platoon as we were too close to deploying for mental issues.  His actions left us a man down in an already small platoon.  Something that I’m sure didn’t go thru his mind as he sawed at his wrist.  We missed Lover’s stories after we took off for Kuwait and Iraq, but he was certainly the weakest link so we were able to pick up the pace.  Or would we?

As soon as we got to Kuwait I found out that Mango had an issue with his enlistment contract.  He was supposed to receive a bonus after enlisting for the regular army from the National Guard, but never did, thus making it a breach of contract.  Mango’s options were to either leave the army due to the breach or reenlist for nothing.  Both options were crap.  Mango had a kid on the way and needed the money, but on the other hand his current job was quite hazardous and making it home wasn’t guaranteed.

Being so close to moving into Iraq during the surge, most of the platoon would brand him a coward if he decided to go home.  Mango was my soldier; therefore I had to give him that older brother advice.  I told him he had a family on the way and it was his responsibility to take care of them.  Of course the decision was his, but I reiterated the most important thing is family.  Mango could stay and earn money with benefits.  Some of us morbid bastards thought about how the army’s $400,000 life insurance would take care of his family too.  He decided to go home and I supported him, even though his decision was not what any of us would have done in the same situation.

            Where did all my advice and support get Mango?  That piece of shit went home, cheated on his girl and then left his own kid in the dust.  The last time anyone saw ole Gunner Nelson’s best friend, he was lurking in some bushes outside an apartment complex in Tacoma claiming to hunt squirrels.  My trust in people doing the right thing started to slide downhill and I hadn’t even been in a firefight yet.

            Out of my three turd nuggets, Lover was being kicked out of the army because he “fucking lover” and Mango would be sent home shortly to cheat on his woman.  This left me with Lemon.  To his credit, if I ever asked him to do something, he’d do it real fast like.  I could tell him to run into a door full speed and a few seconds later you’d hear the crash.  I had just been promoted to sergeant so it was solely on me to keep this guy in line.  Oh how I hoped for better soldiers in the future.