Fort Bragg
After the selection process, the day was luminous over the base and the sky was blue: the storm was over, at last.
Leaves and broken branches were scattered everywhere.
That night, the guys received their first off duty hours since what seemed an eternity, to them.
Gates passed by the rooms to announce the news and a few minutes later – just the time to change their clothes – who could walk on his legs started to get ready to go out of the base.
The first to be ready at the entrance hall was Delmore Barry, but he stopped to wait the others, in order to get out all together.
The black coloured guy was smiling already. He almost looked excited.
Despite the fatigue and the pains, having been chosen for the Baker teams galvanized him.
He couldn't stand the wait to get out of the base.
After a while, Rambo joined him.
The two knew that they had been assigned to the same team already. Garner had read their names that morning, in front of a dormitory that looked more like a hospital than barracks.
Barry shook Rambo's hand, and immediately understood he was a couple of years older than Rambo.
Then the two were joined by Jorgenson and Messner.
Ortega and Coletta where still at the hospital, while Krakauer and Danforth didn't feel like going outside, which meant that the remaining four were ready to go. So, after exchanging the usual courtesies, the four went out together.
They were outside Fort Bragg, at last.
Once outside that kind of concentration camp, the guys found that even the air seemed to have a different smell.
It seemed them to have lived not just one, but two whole lives in there.
Barry was the more smiley of all. While everyone used to walked with a limp or slowly, he was the only one that looked like he wasn't suffering any pain at all, even if the marks on his face told a different story.
The four guys went on board of the bus that was going to the town.
As it started moving, Barry gave a pat on Rambo's shoulder, as if just getting on board of that bus had been another very difficult task to achieve. Than he laughed again, extracting a smile from Rambo.
Rambo was shorter and thinner than Barry at the time.
His face looked younger and cleaner than the others. Barely in his twenties – roughly two, three years younger than all of the others – he looked like he was a teenager still.
Rambo liked Barry's expansiveness immediately.
On the contrary Messner, after introducing himself, stayed on his own, and now looked outside the window with a fixed expression, as if he was watching a television screen.
The only one who looked unhappy was Jorgenson.
He stood up, one hand on one of the the bus standing bars, and looked beyond the window screens as if the landscape was slipping away from him.
It was then that Messner sat up and went to him.
“Man” he said.
Jorgenson did not reply.
“I know what you are thinking about, but you shouldn't worry about Ortega. Trust me, 'cause I am the Doc, am not I? He will be as new and very soon. It was a good one that I was there when it happened”
Jorgenson didn't reply.
“It's nothing, man. Really. You did nothing beyond repair to this guy ”
At the end of the bus, Rambo was looking at the two guys talking each other. At a certain point, he started to stand up to talk to Jorgenson too, but Barry put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him.
“Leave him alone for a while” he said.
Rambo looked Barry with a puzzled face.
“He will have his chance to sort it out with Ortega personally, if that's what he want. He just need to spend some time on his own”
The bus stopped, the four guys got out.
When he put his feet on the ground, Messner said:
“Jesus Christ, I can't even do the steps”
*
Fort Bragg was no big city at all, and the guys went in the first bar with some busy people.
When the beers were served, Rambo looked to the one in front of him as if it was a dead muse.
On the contrary, his mates picked them up and started drinking as if it was the most natural thing to do in the whole world to do.
And when they had consumed half of them already, Rambo had still to touch his one.
But then, on the contrary, Rambo suddenly lost any fear, and finally joined them.
That night, the four drunk beers together, asked each other where they came from, what was their jobs before joining the army, and if they were married or single.
They talked, drank and talked again.
It was the first time that Rambo hanged around with guys of his age, and he understood that for them, drinking, joking and saying stupid things was completely natural.
Raising the tones of their voices, drink some more... All of these looked like good things for them, and natural.
To Rambo it was nothing like that, but he liked being there anyway, and together with them.
He liked it very much.
And after the selection he had just passed, everything looked just awesome.
But Rambo was not used to drink so much beer and that mix of vicious daze and light euphoria made him feel uncomfortable.
He had to be careful, very careful.
Obviously, the others were living the moment in a different way.
To them, that sensation was ultra-cool. Before of that day, Rambo have never even imagined that there could exist a good way of being drunk.
He looked to the three guys in front of him, and he asked himself why none of them had already become as evil as his father usually was when drunk.
Maybe it was due to the beer (his father used to just drink whiskey).
Or maybe, those guys were just different.
Rambo then asked himself how much time it would have taken them to become like his father if he had he drank the way he used to, and given the fact that all in all... He was his father's son.
He was just like him, inside himself. He knew it, he felt it up to inside his bones.
And yet, that night, nothing happened.
At some point during the night, they found that in that bar there were some other Fort Bragg's base guys that they didn't now, and yet they joined them.
A guy – that was no soldier – asked them if maybe it was someone's birthday, but the bartender replied before they could.
He said:
“This no birthday. Don't you see the bruises on their faces? These guys has just passed 'the' selection. They belong to the Fifth Special Forces... And the next one is on me”
The bartender was around his fifties, and had just talked using a very friendly tone, but with no smile on his face.
That said, his son vanished in the back to take some other beers.
At this point, the bartender's face darkened definitely, but the four Baker team's guys were too much on the top of the world to notice it.
Even if the blood between the army and the Special Forces was not exactly a a good one, the night the four Baker team members didn't notice it. It was nothing but some sort of party around the jukebox, while drinking beer in streams and talking.
The hate between the Special Forces and the other soldiers – that was rising right just during the Vietnam conflict – was not at his maximum yet, and the Baker team was going to realize about it's existence only much more later.
The guys danced, drank, sang and made some row all night long...
Even Rambo, after finally losing all of his shyness, joined them, just like anybody else.
***
Toward the end, the atmosphere finally chilled out.
At late night, when the last coin was inserted into the jukebox, the song 'Stand by Me' started up, a song a couple of years-old already, but talking about the importance of having someone at your side, during the difficult periods of life.
When the night has come,
and the land is dark,
and the moon is the only light we'll see
The four guys, that had become friends already by then, sat all around the same table.
At this point they were tired, sleepy and drunk, and that was the time for reflections by then.
The jukebox – between one scratch and another – continued.
No I won't be afraid,
ooooh I won't, be afraid,.
Just as long as you stand by me...
At the end of the song, there was a long while of silence.
They were all sat around the same table, stunned by the plaster that was starting to make them feel sleepy by then.
The one of them who broke the silence was Jorgenson.
He turned his head to Messner, that was sat beside him, and asked him why did he join the Special Forces.
One at time, everyone told his reasons to the others, as if everyone had the duty of doing so with respect to the others.
And everyone lied.