Under the Gun

The beginning of this week starts out rifle week, the basis for a marine. As I stood there in the field with the other officers today, going over safety techniques and dry firing, I could not help to think that I was more under the gun than behind the sights. The events for the past day made me seem more like the target than the one aiming.


Earlier that day, I stood at parade rest outside the office of my staff platoon commander, our main evaluator and leader of our platoon for the next 6 months. I would have been more nervous, but I knew what was coming. I just wanted to get in there and get it over with.

The third lieutenant walked out of the office and past me without looking at me. He didn’t have to say I was next. I knocked on the outside of the door

“Good afternoon sir. Lieutenant Brian reporting as ordered.” I said
“Come on in Lieutenant.” He said.

I walked into the room and stood at attention 6 inches in front of his desk. The Captain was a tall man, standing at six foot five. His bonny complexion was misleading, as he moved with grace and precision, even when shuffling papers. His eyes and manner are more like a father and a mentor, rather than just an evaluator. But it was hard for me to see that at the moment, as my ass chewing was about to commence.

“Do you know why you are here?” He asked
“Yes sir.” I said
“And why is that?” He asked
“Because I got a 73 percent on the last exam sir.”
“Yah. As you know, 70 to 75 percent is considered marginal on the exams. You were about 2 or three questions away from failing. What happened?”
“ I don’t know sir.” I said stumbling. “I must have studied for 20 hours this week since the Saturday prior. My room mates can attest to that. I knew all the questions and I swear that I got no less than 6 wrong… But I really don’t understand what I did wrong.” I said.
“Hmmmm” the Captain said as he looked down at the two pieces of paper on his desk. “Looks like you got a 95 on the last exam. You’re lucky you did that well because your average would be way lower if you didn’t. You need to stay up on that studying and you need to figure out what it is that went wrong. “

He looked down at the paper and began to read off what he was required to say. I didn’t know what he said word for word, however it explained the steps as to what would happened if I continued to fail and not keep my average above a 75 percent on an academic level. Most of it went from minor steps from counseling and academic probation, to being recommended to the commanding board and putting my commissioning up for review.

“You put yourself off to a hell of a rocky start Lieutenant.” He said after reading.
No shit, you can say that again I thought.
“Here is a memorandum. You have 24 hours to answer the questions to this report. This will be put in our records and will give you a chance to think over what you need to improve.” He said.
“Yes sir.” I said
“You are dismissed.” He said, looking down at the papers on his desk.
“Aye-Aye sir. Good afternoon sir.” I came back to attention and walked out of the office.


And so, I stood out there in the field later that day and looked through the front sights of my M16 out at the tree line. I could imagine myself standing there with a giant red target on my back, just asking for more trouble. I felt as if the entire company already had their sights in on me as well, being that I was only 4 of 50 people to tank the test like that.

I find that I usually do this kind of thing; to stumble right out of the starting gate and fall flat on my face. I find it ironic because I do this in almost everything that I do. And that is why I am not as worried as I should be. It is like the 3 mile’s that we ran for the Physical fitness test at the very beginning of our training. I started in the back of the pack and let everyone go out in front of me. The pace was fast, and everyone seemed to be in better shape and way ahead of me at first. But a slow and persistent pace pays off, as I pass one, then another, then another. By the end of the run, I didn’t come in first, but I ended up much further ahead than I started.

And I ran the best time that I have in a while.

Here’s to pressing forward and getting over that bump in the road…


Oh crap… is that a hill ahead of me?