Episode 10:   LCpl Smith

Jan. 29, 2005 6:00 a.m. (Baghdad Time)
Al Asad, Iraq
By LCpl Sincioco
Revised on March 29, 2008

"The finest kind of friendship is between people who expect a great deal of each other but never ask it."
—Sylvia Bremer

[When I started writing this email, Smith was sleeping in his sleeping bag next to mine.  We went to sleep at 2 o'clock in the morning, so we were both dead tired.  People started to get up for morning chow at 5:30 a.m. so we were awaken by their noise.  I'm in my story-telling writing-mood, so instead of going back to sleep, I got up and started writing this.]

Friendship in My Beloved Corps

Friendship in the Marine Corps has a unique way of forming.  You find yourself in a situation, be it boot camp, Marine Combat Training (MCT), Military Occupational School (MOS) or your first permanent duty station in the fleet.  You are a nobody.  You do not know anyone.  You are always the under-dog working your way up to the top.  And if you are like me, you would prefer not to know anyone.  You would prefer to keep to yourself, even though you know that being with people is a whole lot more fun and helps to get you through the tough times ahead.

Then you start to meet people.  They may be your roommate, your platoon mate, or the Marine next door.  As much as I try to keep to myself and not open up to people, situation will inevitably force me to do so.  It may be that I am intoxicated (thanks Mummey).  Or, I may have a 24-hour duty with a fellow Marine, in which case we have the whole night to get to know one another.  Or, it may be that we find ourselves in a predicament that we bond, even if for just that moment in time, to share the misery.  Misery loves company, after all.

And in the company of people, therein lies the mystery.  How do you pick out someone you would want to hang out with?  Is there a science to picking out your buddy, friend, pal whatever you want to call it?

As Marines, we spend more time with each other than married couples do.  When I was in Camp Lejeune, I spent nearly 24-hours a day with Cpl De Leon for 3 months because he was my roommate.  We went to work together, we went to chow together, and we hung out after work together, went to the mall and watched movies together.  He went everywhere I went because he did not have a car.  And yet, despite the time we spent with each other, I did not consider us friends.  This very topic came up a week before I deployed.  I hate to be put in a situation where I have to choose between telling the truth or a lie.  So, I was honest with him, "We were just roommates Cpl De Leon, we are not friends."  His response, not surprisingly, "That's so fucking cruel, Sin."  And I knew it was.  It was then, and still is, the truth today.  The truth hurts, sometimes.  I know.

But sometimes, the greatest lie ever told is the truth.  I had the same conversation once with LCpl Clackler when I barely knew him in 29 Palms.  I told him the same thing, that we were just acquaintances, not friends.  And I must tell you, I felt really bad after I said that because I watched him walk out of my room in silence.  And it would not be the last, such conversation.  After he "accidentally" punched me in the face once when we were in a bowling alley, I was so infuriated that I swore to have nothing to do with him anymore.  Friendship it would seem is like a flower; sometimes you just need a lot of shit for it to blossom into a beautiful thing.

If there is one thing I hate about friends, or friendship in general, is losing one.  Paradoxically, I do not want to make friends because I am afraid of losing it.  And yet, without having made one in the first place what have I got to lose?  It is a very illogical way of thinking for someone who is known to be logical.

Through My Camera's Eyes

Smith is from a small town in Texas.  He is from a well-to-do family.  He grew up in the country where they have a ranch.  He is a cowboy as he likes to be proudly referred to.  I have seen pictures of him, his family, and the horses they have in their ranch; as well as pictures of him riding a bull.

My first recollection of Smith was not a very good one.  We were inside the 7-ton (truck) on our way to the field for our Convoy Operations training back in December.  There were a bunch of Bravo Co. Data Marines acting heinous, pretending they were recruits and drill instructors; being all loud and obnoxious.  I remember getting off the 7-ton and consulting with my "squared-away" peers, Mummey and Serrato, of how immature and retarded Bravo Co. Marines were.  Smith was a Bravo Co. Data Marine, so right from the start he and I got off on the wrong start.

But all of that changed when we got to Kuwait.  When Mummey and I went to eat at Hardee's (Carl's Jr.), we saw Smith and Eckert in line.  I guess it was because we knew no one in Kuwait, so we just ordered our food together, and sat and eat at the same table even though we did not know each other then.  I remember this event clearly because, not surprisingly, I have a video of us eating our very first meal in Kuwait, with Smith and Eckert in the video before I even got to know them.

It would not the first time that I would take pictures or videos of Marines before I got to know them.  When I was in 29 Palms, I had pictures of Clackler before we became friends.  I also have a video of Mummey in a battalion PT-run back in 29 Palms, months before I met him in Camp Lejeune.  My camera, as it would seem, not only captures my past, but also a glimpse of my future.

The Future

The future was something Smith and I liked to talk about sometimes.  In some days, he talked about joining the other branches of service.  One day it would be the Army, the next, the Air Force; but never the Navy.  Even I have dallied [wasted time] with the idea of re-enlisting into the Army.  I do not think we were ever that serious about it, but it was just a great way to kill time while we eat chow.

Smith and I have spent a great deal of time together in the past 4 weeks.  We would talk on our way to the chow hall.  Instead of taking the 10-15 minute it would normally take to walk, we would ride the bus.  The bus could take as much as 20 minutes before it showed up.  Then it could take yet another 10-15 minutes to take us to the chow hall as it made its way through the stops.

I always find his logic for avoiding work rather amusing.  Having grown up in the way he did, work that is not fun is just that:  not fun.  Instead of taking 1 hour for chow, he and I would usually take 1 and a half hours and on rare occasions 2 hours.  Chow time is the only time we can be ourselves.  Talk about the things we want to talk about and say the things that was in our mind.  Chow relieves stress, and we look forward to it every time.

One morning, Sgt. Stone woke up Smith and told him to get ready for work.

Smith and I are both a part of the Transition Party.  So, as lazy as he may sound sometimes, he is actually quite good at what he does.  One time we were sitting at the chow hall next to an Army guy and Smith started talking to him.

He smiled, looked down at the table.  He almost hesitated, but I knew he would not be able to resist.  With a grin on his face, he looked straight up and continued.

The Army guy looked at him, smiled and continued eating.

What brought a great smile to our faces was when we talked about what we want to do when we get out of the Marine Corps.  Smith wanted to go to Australia, so do Mummey and I.  We came up with a great and elaborate plan to stay there for a few weeks, get drunk, get laid and maybe work in the local fire or police department if we run out of cash.

When your life has been reduced to nothing but sleeping, eating and working, like it was for us in Al Asad, your mind tend to think of things not in the present, but either in the past or the future.

Data Marine

Because Smith was from a well-to-do family and his world had been handed to him seemingly in a silver spoon, he likes to express his thoughts a lot.  He spoke his mind and freely, which annoyed some people because he would say things, that while everyone thought about, no one dared say.

I was his outlet.  He voiced his groans and complaints to me sometimes.  I am an eager listener most of the time.  I learned a great deal from everyone around me, Smith including.  I had forgotten how frustrating it was to be a young adult, and through Smith I can re-live that moment again.

We laughed.

Trey and Rey

One time, we were in line at the chow hall and Smith wanted to know my first name so he could come up with a nickname for us.

There were many nights when both Smith and I were really tired from a long day at work.  We would talk about just falling asleep as soon as we hit the rack and yet we would stay up for at least an hour talking until we gave in to exhaustion.  His cot and my cot are literally next to each other, so we can converse even if everyone around us was asleep.  Not exactly by design, mind you, but out of necessity.  When our tent flooded and we built a virtual plastic ceiling, Smith's cot was at the very edge of it.  So he had to scoot his cot as close to mine as possible so he would be under the protection of our new ingenious plastic ceiling.

Smith, can be pretty intellectual.  But intellect was often superseded by the raging hormones of youth.

We laughed, then we went to sleep.

Our Last Night

On February 1st, I got back to the tent way later than expected, at 2330 (11:30 p.m.).  Everyone in the tent had already gone to sleep.  I had plans to exchange pictures with Mummey, but he was already asleep.  Smith was still awake though, his face lit by the dim glow of a laptop screen.

As tired as I was being at work for nearly 16 hours (that's not to say I worked 16 hours), I wanted to spend a little bit of time with Smith.  We both knew it was going to be our last night together for a long while.  He said he would pull an all-nighter.  I was game to join him for as long as I could, despite my exhaustion.

At around midnight we left the Transient tents bound for the second place in Al Asad that gave us joy:  the Internet Cafe.  Mind you that Smith and I have access to the internet, since we are Data Marines.  But accessing the Internet via military computers/network was painfully slow due to the satellite links and encryptions, etc.  The Internet Cafe was faster, a lot faster in certain hours of the day.  Plus, there were no restrictions to the web sites we could go to and the things we could download (for the most part).

We spent nearly two hours in the Internet Cafe that night.  He logged on to Ultima Online, chatted with friends and wrote emails.  I read and responded to emails, chatted, and downloaded MP3s—for the first time.  We were waiting for the Internet Cafe attendant to yell, "Computers 17 and 20, you're time is up!"  But, he never did.  It seemed our 30-minute time limit does not apply when no one was waiting in line.  So naturally, we stayed for as long as our frail body would allow.

At around 2 o'clock in the morning we decided to call it quits.  We headed back to the tent and decided we should hygiene.  The tent was pitch black, as even the folks who stayed up late to watch DVD movies have gone to sleep as well.  We used my state of the art LED flashlights.  I handed one flashlight to Smith, and I kept the smaller one to myself.  We grabbed our gear and headed for the shower room on my flip-flops while he wore his boots in PT uniform (short and t-shirt).

The water was warm, as we had predicted it would be.  We had planned on being loud and obnoxious in the shower room.  Who, after all, would shower at 2 o'clock in the morning?  Well, as it turned out a few other Marines had the same idea.  Party poopers!

Now, the idea of me staying up as late as I did considering that I had work the next morning was pretty silly.  We were already exhausted even before we hygiened.  By the time we hit the rack, it was about 3 o'clock already.  The problem was, having just showered, we were now wide-awake.  We were tired, but mentally awake.  So we layed on our cot and started talking.

For one reason or another, we got into the topic of the Marine Corps and leadership.  I don't know why, but I guess it's human nature to dislike the very institution you work for.

We talked for the next hour, until we were both so tired that we fell asleep.

Our Last Dinner

If there was one moment in the last 4 weeks that marked Smith and I as friends was when he picked me up for dinner—our last dinner together.  There were about 20 Marines leaving for Fallujah, most of them his platoon mates.  He did not go with any of them.  Instead, he walked about 5 minutes from the Transient tents to the building where I was working; all the way to where I was sitting, in front of the DSID and came up to me all excited ready to surprise me.

I turned around and there he was.  The last person I expected to see, but the one I was hoping to see in all of Iraq.

Somehow, I did not expect to see him for dinner.  I thought either they would have left the base by then, or he surely would have gone to dinner with his own platoon that was leaving with him.  But, I was really glad to see him, more than he probably knew.

As we were walking to the chow hall, I started talking to him.

We stopped a long the way to the chow hall and took pictures.  We both knew it would be one of the last pictures we would take.  None of it is with us together, since we alternated snapping each other's pictures using my camera.  As we strolled to the chow hall, I pointed at how beautiful sunset was in Iraq.

Now for some reason, we did not have our usual conversation.  There were more pauses and silences and the tone of conversation was also more serious.  While we were eating chow, we got in the subject of history.  World history, war history, U.S. history, the economy and the world in general.  Smith, as it turned out, was well acquainted with history.

From the moment our conversation started to the very moment he and I parted, we were talking nothing but history stuff.  I was talking to Smith like I would with my dad!  I could throw, names, places, time periods in history and he knew exactly what I was talking about.  We covered topics as far back as the Carthage and Spartans, and as modern as Ronald Reagan's Star War's project.  We were both fascinated with technology and how it evolved over the course of human history.  We were intrigue by politics of how England and the United States influences the world.  We both understood that your political clout is only as strong as your military might.  For once, I felt like someone understood me beyond the usual level—at the intellectual level.

We walked to and from the chow hall just so we can prolong the time we could spend with each other.  But like a fox chasing after us, time finally caught up with us.  We were standing in front of the building where I had to go back to work and we both knew it was time to say goodbye.

He extended his hand and we shook hands.  With a heavy disposition, I grabbed his and shook it.

"This is how Clackler probably felt like when I left Camp Lejeune," I thought to myself.  I was his only friend in Camp Lejeune and I left him.  Smith was my only friend in Al Asad, my battle-buddy, my pal, my partner in crime, my "bosom" buddy, as Sgt. Williams refered to us one time.  And, he was leaving me.  A grave sense of sadness overcame me.

In that brief second we shook hands, it might as well have been a lifetime in an instant.  It was the second time we shook hands that day.  The second time we said goodbye to each other.  I wanted to give him a hug before we parted, but it seemed awkward at the moment, as I was holding a plate of food on my left hand for Sgt. Williams.  As we parted, we promised each other we would keep in touch.  As we walked away from each other, I looked back.  I caught a glimpse of him looking back.  And that was how we parted, looking back at each other.

Friends?  What are Friends?

I told Smith once that, "I like to avoid people."  But Smith...he's one of a kind.  He's one of those people I want to be with when I want to be alone.  He would always find some way to make me laugh be it in his Jim Carey-like persona, or his Arnold Swachenager impersonations.  He found interest in what I did, and I found interest in what he did.  It made for an interesting encouter every time.

When he was being overly abnoxious I would say to him:

Then, he'd scream.

We would laugh.

We never called each other a friend.  Not even once.  As I once told Clackler, "Being friends is not a title you wear, but what you are to the other person."  After he left, I felt like I was missing a friend.  The nights were colder and lonelier than before.  Even the trip to the chow hall was no longer the same.  When a friend leaves, he takes a part of you.  It felt like I was standing on one foot, trying to find my balance in his abscence.

What is a friend?  A friend is someone who likes you for all that you are, your strenghts and your weaknesses; your humor, or lack of it.  A friend is someone who takes you seriously, who seeks you out when you're missing; whose company you enjoy and look forward to, day in and day out.  A friend is someone who can look you dead in the eye and tell you exactly who you are—like a mirror for your soul.  A friend, stays in your heart regardless of distance.

Friendship in my Beloved Corps is bitter-sweet.  I have not found the science to friendship yet; it just seemingly happens.  The spontaneouty of when it happens is what makes it rare.  Like a diamond in the rough.

—LCpl Sincioco
United States Marine Corps, 8th Comm BN, Support Co., Data Platoon