A Charmed Life
Copyright© 2025 by The Outsider
Chapter 17: Destiny
01 February 1989 – Fort Bragg, Fayetteville, North Carolina
“Well, it was fun while it lasted,” Jeff commented while Ken packed the last of his things.
“You knew one of us would eventually leave, either when we got promoted or PCS’ed.”
“I know, but I’m not sure I want to see who I’m gonna get for a roommate after lucking out for the last year and a half.”
“Aw, aren’t you sweet?” Jeff threw a pair of Ken’s socks at him. “Watch it, Buster! That could be construed as striking an NCO.”
“Yes, Corporal! Sorry, Corporal! Won’t happen again, Corporal!”
“You wanna meet Corporal Punishment?”
Jeff’s fears proved to be well-founded.
Campbell, a private straight from training, was his new roommate. Campbell had failed the ‘Jaeckel Test,’ as it had become known in the company. The new guy joined in on Jeff’s mock taunting. Fifteen minutes later, he tried to continue that taunting when he entered room 317.
“Shut the f•©k up, Sandwich!” Jeff said, cutting him off.
“It’s ‘Campbell.’”
“Not anymore! Congratulations! You’ve already earned a nickname! ‘Sandwich,’ as in ‘as f•©ked up as a soup sandwich!’ You haven’t been here five minutes, and you’re trying to tell me what’s what? Take a long walk off the top of a rappel tower. Unpack your shit, and don’t say another f•©king word to me tonight.”
Jeff then did something he hadn’t needed to do since reporting to Bragg – he locked up his stuff so his roommate couldn’t get to it.
The following day, Campbell tried to act high speed at PT formation, which didn’t work. Halfway through a five-mile run, Campbell complained of cramps.
“Probably menstrual,” Jeff muttered to Oscar Infante’s amusement. “I’ve nicknamed him ‘Sandwich’ already, Oscar. Spread that around.”
Oscar’s slick, gigolo ways were gone, thanks to the 504th’s near-combat deployment to Honduras the year before. He’d become a soldier you could count on. He was now one of the stronger members of the 1st Platoon.
“I’m guessing ... like a ‘soup sandwich?’”
“You’re right on the money, Oscar.”
“What’s he been here? Not even twenty-four hours?” Oscar asked.
“Nope, not even.”
“I hope we run all morning. And, you know how I hate running.”
As Jeff tried to complete a school assignment a week later, Campbell turned his boom box on. The volume was set at eleven. Jeff could hear the music over his own, and he was wearing headphones. Jeff ripped the power cord for Campbell’s radio out of the outlet.
“Hey!”
“You want to listen to your music that loud? Put on headphones, or take it outside! I was wearing headphones, and I couldn’t even hear my own music. If you live that long, you’ll be bunking in with someone else until you hit sergeant, so you’d better learn the concept of common courtesy!”
“You’re not in charge of me!”
“I’m gonna be in charge of throwing your radio down the stairs, with you right behind it, in about two f•©king seconds!”
Campbell sulked in his desk chair for the next few hours, playing his music with headphones. Jeff could still hear the music since it was turned up so loud. If the kid wanted to destroy his hearing like that, Jeff wouldn’t stop him.
Jeff put his stuff away and cleaned up in the latrine before going to bed. Five minutes later, in true Infantry fashion, he ignored the world around him and went to sleep.
“Sir, Private Knox reports!” Jeff stood before his company commander’s desk the last week of February.
He was rarely in this office and did his level best to keep it that way. The presence of the rest of his company chain of command in the office did little to calm his nerves. At least there were no MPs around.
“At ease, Knox,” offered CPT Matthews. CPT Matthews was his new CO; he took command at the beginning of the year. “How are things going in your fireteam?”
“Overall, I’d say they’re going well, Sir. The guys are young, but they’re quickly picking up the stuff we’re throwing at them.”
“Even Campbell?”
“He’s more... challenging ... Sir, but he’ll come around.”
CPT Matthews stole a glance at SSG Tyler.
“These might help him come around quicker.”
The captain flipped him something. Jeff saw whatever came from AAFES, the Army & Air Force Exchange Service, before he caught it. They were subdued corporal rank pins for his BDUs.
“Sir?”
“Congratulations, Corporal.”
“Thank you, Sir. Will I have to leave the company now, Sir?”
“Not unless you want to.”
“No, Sir! I’m Alpha all the way!”
“I didn’t think so. No, we’re stretched thin as it is; you’ll be staying with us. We thought we could hold off until Support Cycle came back, but we need you in place before Mission Cycle starts in two weeks. When we’re back on Support, we’ll get you to the Platoon Leadership Development Course.”
“Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir.”
“You’ve earned it, Corporal. However, you will have to move out of your barracks and over to the battalion’s NCO barracks. As a junior NCO, you’ll bunk in with another corporal.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“We’ve got a small detail assembled to help you out.” CPT Matthews stood and extended his hand. “Congratulations again.”
“Thank you, Sir. I won’t let you down.”
“I don’t expect that you will. Dismissed, Corporal Knox.”
Ken Takahashi rose to answer the knock on his door. Jeff Knox stood in the hallway holding a box and a duffle bag slung over his shoulder. Three other soldiers from their squad also stood in the hall carrying boxes.
“Hey, Jeff. What are you doing here?” Ken asked his former roommate.
“Moving in.”
“What?”
“I just got promoted. Can I come in?”
Ken stepped aside, bewildered.
“They assigned you to this room?”
“You’re a master of the obvious there, fella,” Jeff joked to his best friend. “Mind like a steel trap!”
“This is cool! Third Squad’s gonna be the class of the company with us running the fire teams!”
“You know it. Uh, Ken, you wanna clear your shit off my bunk?”
Two days later, the company conducted MOUT training - Military Operations in Urban Terrain. This is mil-speak for house-to-house fighting. MOUT is high-stress, combining close combat with threats from all angles. Everyone must be on top of their game and support the team.
And then there was Campbell.
Jeff’s fire team stood in loose formation after their turn in the ‘shoot house.’ The company was equipped with MILES gear, the military’s version of laser tag, which allowed realistic training. The gear required the use of real weapons modified to fire blanks.
Jeff reviewed how to clear a room with one of his new privates, Williams. Campbell discussed something else with his battle buddy. Campbell waved his rifle around in an unsafe manner, and carelessness with a weapon, even if unloaded, was not to be tolerated.
“Stand by, Williams.” Jeff started towards Campbell to correct his malfunction, but fate intervened.
Oscar Infante crossed behind Campbell at the same time. He was behind Campbell when the misfit drew his rifle back over his shoulder. Oscar turned when Jeff shouted at Campbell. Campbell’s action and Oscar turning his head caused the rifle’s stock to pass under his chin and strike the passing specialist in the Adam’s Apple.
Jeff heard a wet, sickening ‘crunch’ upon impact. Oscar’s eyes widened. He tried to take a startled breath but couldn’t. His hands shot to his neck, and he started to crumple.
“MEDIC!” Jeff immediately yelled, darting towards Oscar.
Heads snapped around at the call. Others saw Jeff moving towards a falling soldier and began heading that way. Jeff caught Oscar while his friend fell like a tree.
There was a striped abrasion on the injured man’s neck and blood in his mouth. Jeff lowered his buddy to the ground. He unbuttoned Oscar’s BDU shirt and unbuckled his web belt; with an injury to the man’s neck, Jeff didn’t want to move him any more than that.
“What do you have, Corporal?” asked the assigned medic as the man knelt on the other side of Oscar.
“A strike to the Adam’s Apple from an M-16. The striations are from the butt-plate; I heard a crunch when it hit. Didn’t want to move him much till you got here.”
“Crushed larynx,” the medic mumbled. “Nixon! Ambulance UP!” the medic called to his partner. “Can your guys give me a hand?” he asked Jeff.
“Williams! Sledz!” Jeff called, looking around. The two privates he called were already right behind him. “What do you need us to do, Doc?”
“Get his helmet and LBE off, carefully.”
Jeff and the two privates bent to the task. He registered the sound of someone tearing Campbell a new one but didn’t spare the time to look up. They worked the LBE and MILES harness off without touching Oscar’s neck.
Jeff saw Doc swab his friend’s neck with something below the injured area. It was a yellowish-brown liquid with an antiseptic smell. Jeff also saw a flash of steel.
“Hold him still. There’s gonna be some blood.”
Jeff looked Oscar in the eye.
“Look at me, Oscar. Look at me! This isn’t gonna be fun, but you can handle this! This will hurt less than your landing at Palmeroa last year. You bit it hard, buddy! I swear, I don’t think I’ve seen anyone screw up a PLF like that since Jump School!”
Pain was evident in his friend’s eyes when Doc made his cut.
“You can do this, Oscar. This ain’t nothin’! You’re Airborne! Suck it up and drive on!”
Jeff heard others retch at what Doc was doing, but he didn’t move.
There was a gasping rush of air when Doc cut through Oscar’s neck and into his windpipe. Doc swabbed away the blood and placed a breathing tube into the incision; Doc packed more clean gauze around the tube. The ambulance pulled up. The second medic grabbed a pole stretcher while Doc secured the tube in Oscar’s neck.
Williams and Sledz looked green, but they hadn’t moved. The platoon helped load their fellow soldier in the back of the ambulance. The siren wailed while it drove away and towards the base hospital.
Jeff tore his eyes away from the ambulance and scowled at Campbell. He had three sergeants screaming at him already. Jeff watched while the sergeants made him start doing push-ups. Campbell would be pushing for days. The sergeants continued to harangue him, but the added voice of a corporal wasn’t going to matter much. Jeff turned his attention to more urgent matters.
“Williams, where did our weapons go?”
Williams indicated a spot behind Jeff. Someone stacked the rifles in a teepee-like arrangement as if they were on display. A private from Ken’s fire team stood watch over them.
“Good work, Knox,” 1SG Haversmith said when he approached Jeff. Jeff shook his head.
“I should have stopped this before it happened, First Sergeant.”
“How?” the First Sergeant asked. “I saw you about to correct Sandwich as soon as he started messing around with his rifle. Yes, I know his nickname and why he has it. It fits, from what I hear. Tell me how you could have prevented this?”
“It doesn’t matter, Top. I’m his fire team leader, the first NCO in his chain of command. It’s my responsibility.”
“Jeff,” David Haversmith said, placing his hand on Jeff’s shoulder. “You may have heard this one already, but ‘you can’t cure stupid.’ I know you’ve been trying to correct Sandwich’s attitude since he arrived. There are some people you just can’t help.
“Yes, as a leader, you’re responsible for what your subordinates do or fail to do, but this one is on him, not you. You’ve had two days as an NCO, but Williams and Sledz have benefited from your leadership since they’ve been here. Take a breath.”
“Yes, First Sergeant.”
“So what did he get?” Ken asked the next day.
“The captain wants to drop him out of a C-130 without a parachute, but he will let JAG handle it. From what I hear, JAG will go after him for assault and battery with a dangerous weapon as a result of culpable negligence. We’ll see what he winds up getting.”
“What’s the maximum penalty for that?”
“Dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and confinement for three years.”
“Not enough!” Ken spat. “He’s ended Oscar’s career and could have ended his life.”
“No argument there, but that’s all the Punitive Articles allow. However, no stretch in Leavenworth will be any fun for him. Is it true they’re bringing in two new sergeants as fire team leaders?”
“That’s what I’m hearing. They were supposedly working on that before Sandwich’s ‘incident.’ We’ll keep our stripes. They’ll still send us to PLDC next time we’re on Support, too.”
Jeff just nodded, wondering how Oscar was doing.
Oscar Infante stared at the ceiling in his Fort Bragg’s Womack Army Medical Center hospital room. It was a different room than the one he’d been in this morning, but the ceiling was the same. He almost wished he was still unconscious. There was nothing to do but stare at the ceiling or watch soap operas.
He’d rather run all day than do either of those.
A knock sounded on his door. The rigid collar on his neck prevented him from turning his head. Rolling to one side, he saw Jeff Knox standing in the doorway. Oscar waved him into the room.
“Hey, Oscar. Glad to see you awake.” Oscar smiled at him and pointed to a chair. “Thanks.”
Oscar picked up his pencil and pad of paper. With his voice box crushed, this was his only form of communication.
“I know it’s a dumb question, but how are you doing?”
“Neck hurts,” Oscar wrote. “Surgery when swelling down.”
“Are they going to be able to fix your throat?”
“So they say. So much for the singing voice.”
“Your singing voice was fine, Oscar. It was fine when you were in the shower, that is. Maybe we can find a Port-O-Potty you can carry around with you?”
Oscar started to laugh, but there was no sound.
“No laughing. Hurts.”
“Sorry.”
“Campbell? Nobody’s told me yet. You’re first one by.”
“You were in the ICU until today. The rest of the guys will be by soon enough. Sandwich is in the stockade now. They’re convening a general court and will hopefully send him to Leavenworth. If they convict him, he’ll get a dishonorable discharge, forfeit all pay and allowances, and be confined for three years. None of us think it’s enough, Oscar.” Oscar shrugged.
“Doesn’t matter.”
“You’re wrong, Oscar. It does matter. You’re someone we counted on in 1st Platoon! You were probably next on the list for a lateral promotion to corporal! With you as an NCO, we were a lock for the best platoon in the brigade! It matters because you’re one of us, a Devil in Baggy Pants and a Red Devil to boot!
“No matter what happens next, Oscar, no one can take that from you. Don’t forget that!”
Oscar just put his head back, staring at the far wall. Jeff wasn’t sure how much of his little speech got through to his friend. A soft knock at the door made Jeff turn. A pretty brunette stood just inside the room.
“Hi, I’m Jenna. I’m here for Specialist Infante’s physical therapy session?”
“Hi, Jenna. I’m Jeff, one of the guys from Oscar’s platoon.” Jeff turned back to Oscar while he rose. “I’ll be back tomorrow, Oscar, and I’ll let the guys know you can have visitors now.” Jeff glanced at Jenna. “You should at least comb your hair before your date comes over, bud,” Jeff said in a stage whisper.
“I’ll give you a few dating tips when I return.” Jenna giggled when Oscar gave him the finger. “You’ll have to excuse my friend, Jenna. He’s a bit shy and isn’t real comfortable around girls.”
Jeff ducked when Oscar threw a box of tissues at him.
“Time to go!”
A week later, Ken and Jeff were meeting two new additions to the squad in the company offices. Sergeant Tyler handled the introductions.
“Sergeant Frank Breckenridge, Sergeant Cory Song, these two men are Corporals Ken Takahashi and Jeff Knox. They’ve been acting as the fire team leaders for 3rd Squad. You won’t find a better pair of soldiers in the company. I’ve relied on them since the last two team leaders left.” The four NCOs shook hands.
“Speaking for myself, I know I’ll be counting on you guys while I settle in here,” SGT Breckenridge said. SGT Song nodded in agreement. “Which one of you is acting as Alpha Team leader?” Ken raised his hand. “How are we looking?”
“We’re doing okay, Sergeant. We just lost a member of the team two weeks ago, a specialist, to a training accident. We’re handling it right now. We need a replacement for that soldier, and we’ll be back up to strength.” SGT Song looked at Jeff.
“Same here, Sergeant. Our training loss was the careless soldier who caused the accident. He’s still in the stockade, but that’s only until he’s court-martialed. We also need another warm body and to get that body trained up.”
“Both are in the works and should report in before we hit Training Cycle next week,” noted SSG Tyler. The others nodded.
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