"Yes, Master Sergeant!"
"Bullshit! Some of you are still thinking that I'm just going to hate the other guy." Ruiz shot out an arm and pointed out toward the plain and the rising sun. "Use your pretty new eyes to focus on that transmission tower out there; you can just barely see it. It is ten klicks away, ladies and gentlemen. I'm going to find something about each of you that will piss me off, and when I do, you will sprint to that fucking tower. If you are not back in an hour, this entire platoon will run it again tomorrow morning. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Master Sergeant!" I could see people trying to do the math in their heads; he was telling us to run five-minute miles all the way there and all the way back. I strongly suspected we'd be running it again tomorrow.
"Which of you was in the military back on Earth? Step up, now," Ruiz asked. Seven recruits stepped forward.
"God damn it," Ruiz said. "There is nothing I hate more in the entire fucking universe than a veteran recruit. We have to spend extra time and effort on you bastards, making you unlearn every single fucking thing you learned back home. All you sons of bitches had to do was fight humans! And even that you did badly! Oh, yes, we saw that whole Subcontinental War of yours. Shit. Six fucking years to beat an enemy that barely had firearms, and you had to cheat to win. Nukes are for pussies. Pussies. If the CDF fought like the U.S. forces fought, you know where humanity would be today? On an asteroid, scraping algae off the fucking tunnel walls. And which ones of you assholes are Marines?"
Two recruits stepped forward. "You fuckers are the worst," Ruiz said, getting right in their faces. "You smug bastards have killed more CDF soldiers than any alien species—doing things that Marine fucking way instead of the way they're supposed to be done. You probably had 'Semper Fi' tattoos somewhere on your old body, didn't you? Didn't you?"
"Yes, Master Sergeant!" they both replied.
"You are so fucking lucky they were left behind, because I swear I would have held you down and sliced them off myself. Oh, and you don't think I wouldn't? Well, unlike your precious fucking Marines, or any other military branch down there, up here the drill instructor is God. I could turn your fucking intestines into a sausage pie and all that would happen to me is they'd tell me to get one of the other recruits to mop up the mess." Ruiz stepped back to glare at all the veteran recruits. "This is the real military, ladies and gentlemen. You're not in the army, navy, air force, or Marines now. You're one of us. And every time you forget it, I'm going to be there to step on your fucking head. Now start running!"
They ran.
"Who's homosexual?" Ruiz said. Four recruits stepped forward, including Alan, who was standing next to me. I saw his eyebrows arch as he stepped up.
"Some of the finest soldiers in history were homosexual," Ruiz said. "Alexander the Great. Richard the Lionhearted. The Spartans had a special platoon of soldiers who were gay lovers, on the idea that a man would fight harder to protect his lover than he would for just another soldier. Some of the best fighters I ever knew personally were as queer as a three-dollar bill. Damn fine soldiers, all of them.
"But I will tell you the one thing that pisses me off about you all: You pick the wrong fucking moments to get confessional. Three separate times I've been fighting alongside a gay man when things have gone sour, and each fucking time he chooses that moment to tell me how he's always loved me. Goddamn, that's inappropriate. Some alien is trying to suck out my fucking brains, and my squadmate wants to talk about our relationship! As if I wasn't already busy. Do your squadmates a fucking favor. You got the hots, deal with it on leave, not when some creature is trying to rip out your goddamn heart. Now run!" Off they went.
"Who's a minority?" Ten recruits stepped forward. "Bullshit. Look around you, you assholes. Up here, everyone is green. There are no minorities. You want to be in a fucking minority? Fine. There are twenty billion humans in the universe. There are four trillion members of other sentient species, and they all want to turn you into a midday snack. And those are only the ones we know about! The first one of you who bitches about being a minority up here will get my green Latino foot squarely up your whiny ass. Move!" They heaved out toward the plain.
On it went. Ruiz had specific complaints against Christians, Jews, Muslims and atheists, government workers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, blue-collar joes, pet owners, gun owners, practitioners of martial arts, wrestling fans and, weirdly (both for the fact it bothered him and the fact that there was someone in the platoon who fit the category), clog dancers. In groups, pairs, and singly, recruits were peeled off and forced to run.
Eventually, I became aware that Ruiz was looking directly at me. I remained at attention.
"I will be goddamned," Ruiz said. "One of you shitheads is left!"