Chapter 2: Sergeant
"Oh, Parks, you've put the lieutenant on the spot now!" Luz shouted. The crowd around them erupted in laughter.
Buck Compton stared at the dart, perfectly centered in the bullseye, and shook his head with a wry smile. "You win, Parks!" Buck knew he couldn't hit a shot like that. He conceded without even throwing his own darts.
"Five hundred dollars. This is yours." Joe Liebgott handed over a thick wad of cash. "You made me lose everything, Parks."
"Is that so?" Parks laughed. No one dislikes money, and Parks did a quick mental calculation. At current American prices, five hundred dollars was a huge sum, equivalent to a soldier's pay for ten months. "Maybe next time, you can bet on me to win."
"I won't be able to sleep tonight! Even though I lost, I still think you just got lucky as hell," Buck Compton said, shaking his head as he walked away.
"Who else wants a beer? Buck's buying tonight!" Parks held his own beer high.
"Whoa! You're alright, Parks!" A round of cheers went up.
"Alright, guys, I've got some bad news and some good news. Which do you want to hear first?" Just then, Walter Gordon hopped onto a table and yelled to get everyone's attention.
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"Let's have the good news first!" Alton More called out.
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"The good news is, tomorrow morning's inspection is canceled! That means we can all sleep in!" The moment Gordon finished speaking, the room roared with approval.
"Now that's what I call good news!" Parks laughed. "But I have a feeling the bad news is going to make the good news feel pretty pointless. I know Lieutenant Sobel all too well."
"The bad news is, tomorrow afternoon's leave is canceled. Sobel is taking everyone out for field training." Just as Parks predicted, when Gordon announced the bad news, a wave of disappointment fell over the men.
***
The next afternoon, Camp Toccoa.
"You people are at the position of attention!" Sobel barked, weaving his way through the perfectly formed ranks. He stopped in front of Perconte.
"Private Perconte, have you been blousing your trousers over your boots like a paratrooper?"
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"No, sir," Perconte replied, chest puffed out.
"Then explain the creases at the bottom."
"No excuse, sir," Perconte said, looking tense. God only knew what kind of twisted punishment this psychopath would come up with.
"Volunteering for the Parachute Infantry is one thing, Perconte, but you've got a long way to prove that you belong here!" Sobel shouted. "Your weekend pass is revoked."
He moved on and stopped again. "Name?"
"Luz, George."
"Dirt in the rear sight aperture. Pass revoked." Sobel took the rifle from Luz, glancing at it from the corner of his eye.
"When did you sew on these chevrons, Sergeant Lipton?" Sobel asked, running a finger over the sergeant stripes on Lipton's sleeve.
"Yesterday, sir," Carwood Lipton replied, pursing his lips.
"Long enough to notice this. Pass revoked."
"Yes, sir!"
"Name?"
"Malarkey, Donald G."
"Malarkey? Malarkey's slang for bullshit, isn't it?" Sobel took Malarkey's rifle and inspected it.
"Yes, sir."
"Rust on the butt plate hinge spring, Private Bullshit. Revoked."
"Name?"
"Liebgott, Joseph D."
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"Rusty bayonet, Liebgott!" Sobel reached out and pulled the bayonet from Joe Liebgott's sheath. "You want to kill Germans?"
"Yes, sir!" Liebgott shouted.
Sobel threw the bayonet onto the ground, where it stuck into the dirt. "Not with this. I wouldn't take this rusty piece of shit to war and I will not take you to war in your condition."
Sobel walked to the front of the formation and bellowed, "Now, thanks to these men and their infractions, every man in the Company who had a weekend pass has lost it. Change into your PT gear, we're running Currahee!"
Rhys knew this scene well; he had watched it countless times. He suddenly wanted to laugh, but seeing the dejected faces of his brothers, he couldn't.
Just then, Platoon Leader Dick Winters gave the order: "Second Platoon, dismissed! You have two minutes to change into your gear. Move!"
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Despite their bitter reluctance, no one in Easy Company disobeyed the order.
"White, let's go." This time, Rhys walked directly over to White. He knew that if events followed their original course, White would refuse to train and subsequently be transferred out of the 506th by Sobel. Rhys knew White was a good man, just a bit spoiled.
"Parks, I don't want to. I really don't," White said, sitting on his cot.
"You can do this, White." Rhys crouched down to look at him.
"I can't take it anymore!" White buried his head in his hands in frustration.
"Look at me, White. No one is born able to do this. Let's go. I'll stick with you," Rhys said, pulling White up from the bed. "I'll help you."
White changed into his gear and followed Rhys out of the barracks. Rhys was happy; it was possible that White's fate had been changed by his arrival.
The run up the mountain was the same as always, up and back down. Rhys was adapting more and more to his current body; he could even feel it growing stronger, filled with power. This was thanks to his far more advanced training methods, as well as his own set of internal breathing exercises that allowed him to more efficiently improve his physical condition to meet the intensity of Sobel's training.
"I can't believe this is the same Parks," even Sobel thought to himself now, amazed at Rhys's rapid improvement. 'Perhaps he's the strongest man in my company.'
***
"Attention!" The handful of soldiers in the barracks dropped their poker cards and snapped to their feet.
The man who entered wasn't Herbert Sobel, but Dick Winters.
"At ease, men," Winters said with a smile. "There's a small ceremony today. Everyone fall in outside."
"Oh, I hope this wasn't Sobel's idea," White muttered. Everyone else laughed loudly. The men weren't as tense around Dick Winters, but that didn't diminish their respect for him. He was a good man who always tried to help them out when Sobel was giving them hell.
Second Platoon assembled outside the barracks. Lieutenant Dick Winters and Lieutenant Lewis Nixon were already waiting, both smiling.
"Rhys Parks, William Dukeman, Denver Randleman, front and center!"
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The three men immediately took one formal step forward.
"In light of your outstanding performance during training, Lieutenant Sobel has recommended you for promotion to serve as staff NCOs for Easy Company. You are hereby promoted to the rank of Sergeant!" Dick Winters took the sergeant's sleeve patches from Nixon, distributed them to the three men, and shook their hands with a smile. "Congratulations."
The three men saluted and returned to the formation.
"Dismissed!" As soon as the command was given, the platoon crowded around them.
"Hey, Bull, you're buying the beer this weekend!"
"All three of them are buying!" someone else heckled, and the group broke into cheerful laughter.
"Good work, Parks." As Rhys walked past, Winters grasped his hand and nodded. "You're one of the finest soldiers I've ever seen."
"Thank you, Lieutenant," Rhys said with a nod and a smile. "And you're one of the finest officers I've ever seen." Rhys saluted Winters and Nixon, then turned and headed back to the barracks. The promotion had come quickly, but it was undoubtedly a result of his consistent performance.
"Congratulations, Parks!" Inside the barracks, White grinned at him. "I knew you could do it. Now, you promised you'd help me. To be honest, Lieutenant Sobel's been torturing me so much I'm about to lose all my confidence."
"You have to call him Sergeant Parks now!" Ed Tipper joked from the side.
"Alright, call me whatever you want," Rhys said with a nod. "But remember this: no matter what happens to us, we are brothers. When we're out there killing Krauts, the only people we can truly trust are the brothers right beside us."
"But I will absolutely never trust Lieutenant Herbert Sobel," George Luz quipped with a grin, "not if he's the one standing beside me."