The Narrator Enlists in the Army

The narrator’s enlistment in 2005 is a decisive break from civilian life and the beginning of his transformation from an unseasoned recruit into an infantry medic. Recruited when the Army was struggling to attract young people amid news of casualties in the field, he signs a contract and takes an oath within hours of passing his physical. The Army offers a route into service; the assignment that follows places him close to combat and to the moral consequences of trying to care for the wounded.

Recruitment and the decision to enlist

In the first week of 2005, the narrator goes to a recruiting office where a senior sergeant, dressed in a black sweater, green trousers, and polished leather shoes, directs him toward the latrines. Urine cups sit in a desk drawer. After the narrator’s sample comes back clean, the recruiter, Kelly, tells him about the practical benefits of Army service: he drives a government car and receives a housing allowance and health coverage. The recruiter presents those benefits as a compelling offer, while the narrator is still deciding what enlistment means for him.

The recruiting process quickly becomes a test of basic eligibility. The narrator completes twenty push-ups and twenty sit-ups, then runs two kilometers on a treadmill in Vans, with his trousers slipping as he goes. He also takes a practice aptitude test so Kelly can check that he is not below average; the result places him in the 85th percentile. Kelly tells him that a strong score on the real test would allow him to choose his occupational specialty. The narrator’s score and willingness to enlist matter to the recruiter because, as the narrator observes, news of young people being killed or maimed in the field has made recruiting difficult.

The narrator tells his parents that he plans to take the physical and other tests on Thursday and, if they go well, begin classes within two weeks. He has been told he can list preferred duty stations and that most recruits receive one of their top three choices, so he expects to remain near Ohio and visit home often. He also mentions life insurance of $300,000 if he opts for the supplemental payment. His parents have recently bought a spacious house and consider his plan foolish, but they do not stop him; his father asks whether there is anything else he would rather do. The narrator insists that the choice is his.

Examination, contract, and departure

At the physical examination, the narrator learns that he is color-blind. It does not bar him from the medical specialty he wants, 91W, one of the few Army specialties open to color-blind recruits. The explanation he receives is that medics already know what color blood is. The examination also subjects recruits to long waits and a humiliating series of inspections, including a group walk in their underwear and an individual rectal examination. The narrator describes the recruits as physically varied and often unfit, and includes himself among the skinny ones; enlistment begins not with a heroic threshold but with an awkward, bodily inspection.

The Army accepts him. By three in the afternoon he has signed a contract and taken the oath. Roy drives him from the recruiting center to Elba so that he can spend his final two weeks as a civilian with Emily; Joe comes along. Their trip passes Erie in falling snow, and by the Jamestown exit it is dark, with traffic on Interstate 90 caught in a serious storm. Semitrailers surround Roy’s car and sway in the wind, presenting an immediate danger, but the three passengers feel protected by the car, cigarettes, heat, and music. They reach Emily’s home at ten that night. Roy and Joe drop the narrator off and turn back toward home.

From medical service to infantry

The narrator eventually reaches Fort Hood, which he describes as a bleak, desert-like place that seems designed to instill a sense of fatality in young people. The 4th Infantry Division assigns him to an armored battalion, but the battalion is organized from mixed kinds of units: armored companies Alpha and Bravo, infantry companies Delta and Echo, mechanics in Charlie, support in Foxtrot, and a headquarters and logistics company that includes the medical section.

He initially reports to that medical section. Its older members speak in a specialized jargon he does not understand, and he does not want to remain in a first-aid role there. He asks to serve in a company expected to go into combat instead, and is assigned to Echo Company. That decision redirects his medical training toward infantry service: he has enlisted for a medical specialty, but has chosen to accompany combat troops rather than remain with the section where he first arrived.

The work and burden of enlistment

The consequences of that assignment emerge in the narrator’s later work as a medic. After soldiers shoot a young Iraqi man who has fled, the narrator is responsible for treating him. He packs gauze into a possible abdominal entry wound, covers it with a plastic bag secured on three sides with tape, and asks Sullivan to hold the dressing while he searches for an exit wound. He cannot find one. In retrospect, he judges his treatment inadequate: he should have used more gauze to pack the wound fully and turned the man onto his injured side. He also recalls speaking about raising the man’s feet and giving morphine when he was unsure what to do. Enlistment has made him a caregiver in combat, but training and responsibility do not protect him from uncertainty or regret.

The treatment ends amid further violence and grief. After the wounded man dies, the narrator places his body in a mortuary pouch. An older woman tries to reach it and is pushed away; she and a pregnant young woman beat their faces against the ground, while two boys scream. As soldiers carry the pouch away, the older woman follows and tries to pull it from them. The narrator is close to breaking down when automatic fire from AK-47s begins and the soldiers scatter. Sullivan later tells him that the older woman was struck by friendly fire that morning. For the narrator, the episode extends the burden of enlistment beyond the wounded man he could not save: he has also witnessed the suffering of his family and learned that friendly fire killed a grieving bystander.

The narrator’s later confrontation with a lieutenant shows another consequence of his place in the Army. He angrily accuses the officer of ignoring his warning about entering a field too soft for the vehicles and connects that decision to four soldiers’ deaths. In the same account, however, the narrator corrects himself: the lieutenant did not literally kill them, and they were acquaintances rather than friends; without getting stuck, the soldiers themselves might have been killed. The correction does not erase his anger. It reveals a narrator who has moved from choosing enlistment to challenging an officer, while recognizing how combat makes responsibility, loyalty, and blame difficult to separate.