FM 22-5

By Brian Turner

“Did you see that?!” said an incredulous Lieutenant Colonel Pettigrew to Command Sergeant Major Muerte.
“That buck sergeant failed to salute me!”
Pettigrew was 1-12 infantry's battalion commander and Muerte the highest-ranking enlisted man with thirty years of service. So committed was Muerte to 1-12’s discipline that he'd follow a few paces behind his CO in case Pettigrew spotted an infraction. Whether it was a lapse in uniform, grooming, or hygiene standards, the sergeant major would correct the enlisted man on the spot. Less a toady and more an acolyte, Muerte carried an almost religious conviction in maintaining Pettigrew's strict adherence to any and all Army regulations. The enlisted men often changed directions when they saw them together; reciting:

In the beginning was the word, and the word was with Pettigrew, and the word was Pettigrew…

So when Muerte heard that one of his enlisted men had failed to salute his high priest, he called out to him, “Hey! You, sergeant! Get over here!”
To both Pettigrew and Muerte’s astonishment, the buck sergeant continued on his way, completely ignoring the sergeant major’s commands. Muerte's eyes widened and he clenched his fists—he had never been privy to such brazen indignation. Nobody ignored the sergeant major.
“Your men are slipping, sergeant major, and we can't have any of that in my battalion. I don't care if they’re short timers, Iraq is still a combat zone.”
Muerte attempted breathing exercises in order to calm himself as he followed Pettigrew through the concertina-lined Task Force Warrior Base—formerly a high-ranking Ba’ath Party loyalist’s summer home—located just outside of Samarra. Ten months into a yearlong deployment, they'd lost track of how many men they'd lost. And it was those losses: the letters home, memorial formations, and paperwork that had aged them in dog years.
But they only had two months left to go.
Pettigrew stopped in his tracks and pointed to a group of privates. “Again!? Look, it just happened again, sergeant major!”
Just as with their previous encounter, Muerte called out to the privates for corrective action, and again he was ignored. Breathing exercises aside, Muerte's blood boiled and steam escaped from both ears.
“FM 22-5, sergeant major. It seems like your men have forgotten the basics of the hand salute. A combat zone is no excuse to go soft on the fundamentals, especially since we'll be back in garrison in less than fifty-five days.”
“Yes, sir.”
As the two men approached the door to the battalion TOC, they spotted a recently released memorandum taped to it. The heading designated that it was sent straight from the brigade CO—a bird colonel stationed several miles north in Kirkuk. After reading through it, Pettigrew looked as though he'd seen a ghost.
“This can't… be…”
Muerte couldn't bear his CO's visible anguish and was more than eager to take on his fair share. “What is it, sir?”
Pettigrew took a deep breath. “Per brigade’s orders, there will be no more saluting of officers due to the threat from snipers.”
“Snipers?”
“Yes, sergeant major… snipers.”
“No more, saluting?! But you're the CO, sir.” Muerte snapped to attention and offered a picture-perfect salute as a means of encouragement, but to no avail. Pettigrew could barely muster up enough enthusiasm to lift his head up.
“Thank you, sergeant major. But it's no use. I think I'll need some time to myself to make sense of all this.”
Pettigrew retreated to his office and sat in his chair for a long time, gathering his thoughts. As the weight of his despondency abated—he began to notice that small adjustments had been made to his office without his approval. Although he'd always taken a minimalist approach with regard to decor, several of his office supplies were missing, and—even worse—his ergonomic chair has been replaced with a much cheaper model.
This is how it begins, Pettigrew thought. First they take away your dignity, then they take away your chair.
Pettigrew leapt to his feet. There was no place in his battalion for feeling sorry for one’s self. Not in Warrior Base.
Memorandum or no memorandum—he would make himself undeniable.
Working with haste, Pettigrew used a pair of scissors to cut off the sewn-on oak leaf cluster of a lieutenant colonel that adorned his Kevlar helmet and lapels. He replaced them with the bright silver pin-on rank worn in garrison. He checked out his uniform in the mirror, smiling brightly at his reflection. There, alone in his office and staring at himself, he rendered a perfect salute. Forearm at forty-five degrees, straight wrist and hand, palm down, thumb and fingers joined and extended, and most important—his index finger gently kissing his right eye.
If brigade won’t let them salute me, I’ll make damn sure that they can't miss me! he thought.
Percolating with confidence and each step more exemplary than the last, Pettigrew departed his office and strode toward the TOC’s exit. His plan was to head straight for the motor pool with his rank glistening in the midday sun, catching the eyes of all the enlisted men and leaving them with no choice but to render a salute.
Sniper or no sniper, this is my battalion!
As Pettigrew departed the TOC, he saw a confused Muerte approach from outside. He motioned to him. “Let's go, sergeant major. We have some standards to uphold!”
Muerte looked as though he wanted to speak, but instead followed Pettigrew’s lead. They headed in the direction of the motor pool and soon spotted a squad of grease covered enlistees walking toward them. Pettigrew deliberately slowed his cadence, looking in their direction and making sure the sunlight glinted of the oak leaf cluster adorning his lapels and Kevlar helmet.
They passed him by without missing a beat.
No salute.
Aghast and dejected, Pettigrew steadied himself on a nearby Humvee for balance. He thought he’d had it all figured out, a way around that dreadful memorandum. But it was no use.
Muerte followed the group of soldiers with his eyes as they marched toward the latrines. He was unusually quiet given the obvious emotional pain his beloved CO was in.
“Why so silent, sergeant major?”
Muerte turned to face Pettigrew. He removed his Kevlar helmet and ran his hand over his shaved head. “You ever hear the story of the Flying Dutchman, sir?”
“A ghost ship, right, sergeant major? Do I look like a Navy man?”
Muerte chuckled. “My father was a Petty Officer on the USS Yorktown during Midway. He used to tell me stories about the Flying Dutchman during Halloween to scare me. But unlike the more traditional story, he told it to me from the point of view of the crew…”
Pettigrew was becoming impatient with Muerte’s cryptic manner of speaking, especially given the severity of the situation at hand. “Just get to the point, sergeant major.”
“What if all those sailors, you know, the crew of the Flying Dutchman, didn't know they were dead? Century after century pass, and there they are, aloft with the sails, running rigging, inspecting the yards and moorings. What if they, so busy with the day-to-day responsibilities of the ship, were completely unaware of their fate? Forever cursed never to make port?”
Like the impact of a 155 mm howitzer round, Pettigrew felt as though he'd had the breath knocked out of him. The lack of saluting, the memorandum about the sniper, his partially cleared out office, even his missing chair….
Pettigrew and Muerte were no longer of the living.
Pettigrew removed his Kevlar, dropping it at his feet. “That sniper… they were talking about us, weren’t they, sergeant major?”
“Yup. And I always stand right behind you, sir. Must’ve been some shot to get the both of us.”
Pettigrew let out a long sigh as he stared at the sky. “They always say you never hear the bullet that kills you.”
They both chuckled.
As their laughter trailed off, Muerte turned his attention toward the front gate of Warrior Base, gazing at something in the exit road and grinning. “We'd better get going, sir.”
Pettigrew grabbed his Kevlar helmet and cleared his throat, returning to his ramrod straight posture. As the two of them headed in the direction of the front gate, Pettigrew paused and stared at Muerte. “Sergeant major, you forgot your Kevlar.”
Muerte was taken aback. “Kevlar, sir? But… we're… already dead.
“Uniform regulations, sergeant major. Afterlife or no afterlife, I’m still your commanding officer.”

****

Brian Barry Turner served in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF-1) as a Combat Engineer in the US Army blowing up caches of unexploded ordinance. His often explosive, humorous short fiction has been published in The Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library's So It Goes Literary Journal, The Deadly Writers Patrol, and Wrath Bearing Tree. Brian will one day finish his collection of short stories, thus completing his obligation to his fellow squad mates.