Then we buried them with full honors to the strains of "This Land Is Ours" and with the posthumous rank of PFC, the first of our boot regiment to go that high -- because a cap trooper isn't necessarily expected to stay alive (dying is part of his trade)... but they care a lot about how you die. It has to be heads up, on the bounce, and still trying.

Breckinridge was one of them; the other was an Aussie boy I didn't know. They weren't the first to die in training; they weren't the last.

He's bound to be guilty ‘r he

wouldn't be here!

Starboard gun... FIRE!

Shooting's too good for ‘im, kick

the louse out!

Port gun... FIRE!

Ancient chanty used to time saluting guns

But that was after we had left Camp Currie and a lot had happened in between. Combat training, mostly—combat drill and combat exercises and combat maneuvers, using everything from bare hands to simulated nuclear weapons. I hadn't known there were so many different ways to fight. Hands and feet to start with—and if you think those aren't weapons you haven't seen Sergeant Zim and Captain Frankel, our battalion commander, demonstrate la savate, or had little Shujumi work you over with just his hands and a toothy grin -- Zim made Shujumi an instructor for that purpose at once and required us to take his orders, although we didn't have to salute him and say "sir."

As our ranks thinned down Zim quit bothering with formations himself, except parade, and spent more and more time in personal instruction, supplementing the corporal-instructors. He was sudden death with anything but he loved knives, and made and balanced his own, instead of using the perfectly good general-issue ones. He mellowed quite a bit as a personal teacher, too, becoming merely unbearable instead of downright disgusting -- he could be quite patient with silly questions.

Once, during one of the two-minute rest periods that were scattered sparsely through each day's work, one of the boys -- a kid named Ted Hendrick -- asked, "Sergeant? I guess this knife throwing is fun... but why do we have to learn it? What possible use is it?"

"Well," answered Zim, "suppose all you have is a knife? Or maybe not even a knife? What do you do? Just say your prayers and die? Or wade in and make him buy it anyhow? Son, this is real—it's not a checker game you can concede if you find yourself too far behind."

"But that's just what I mean, sir. Suppose you aren't armed at all? Or just one of these toadstickers, say? And the man you're up against has all sorts of dangerous weapons? There's nothing you can do about it; he's got you licked on showdown."

Zim said almost gently, "You've got it all wrong, son. There's no such thing as a ‘dangerous weapon.' "

"Huh? Sir?"

"There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men. We're trying to teach you to be dangerous—to the enemy. Dangerous even without a knife. Deadly as long as you still have one hand or one foot and are still alive. If you don't know what I mean, go read ‘Horatius at the Bridge' or ‘The Death of the Bon Homme Richard'; they're both in the Camp library. But take the case you first mentioned; I'm you and all you have is a knife. That target behind me -- the one you've been missing, number three -- is a sentry, armed with everything but an H-bomb. You've got to get him... quietly, at once, and without letting him call for help." Zim turned slightly—thunk! -- a knife he hadn't even had in his hand was quivering in the center of target number three. "You see? Best to carry two knives— but get him you must, even barehanded."

"Uh—"

"Something still troubling you? Speak up. That's what I'm here for, to answer your questions."

"Uh, yes, sir. You said the sentry didn't have any H-bomb. But he does have an H-bomb; that's just the point. Well, at least we have, if we're the sentry... and any sentry we're up against is likely to have them, too. I don't mean the sentry, I mean the side he's on."

"I understood you."

"Well... you see, sir? If we can use an H-bomb—and, as you said, it's no checker game; it's real, it's war and nobody is fooling around— isn't it sort of ridiculous to go crawling around in the weeds, throwing knives and maybe getting yourself killed... and even losing the war... when you've got a real weapon you can use to win? What's the point in a whole lot of men risking their lives with obsolete weapons when one professor type can do so much more just by pushing a button?"

Zim didn't answer at once, which wasn't like him at all. Then he said softly, "Are you happy in the Infantry, Hendrick? You can resign, you know." Hendrick muttered something; Zim said, "Speak up!"

"I'm not itching to resign, sir. I'm going to sweat out my term."

"I see. Well, the question you asked is one that a sergeant isn't really qualified to answer... and one that you shouldn't ask me. You're supposed to know the answer before you join up. Or you should. Did your school have a course in History and Moral Philosophy?"

"What? Sure—yes, sir."

"Then you've heard the answer. But I'll give you my own – unofficial views on it. If you wanted to teach a baby a lesson, would you cut its head off?"

"Why... no, sir!"

"Of course not. You'd paddle it. There can be circumstances when it's just as foolish to hit an enemy city with an H-bomb as it would be to spank a baby with an ax. War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war is to support your government's decisions by force. The purpose is never to kill the enemy just to be killing him... but to make him do what you want him to do. Not killing... but controlled and purposeful violence. But it's not your business or mine to decide the purpose or the control. It's never a soldier's business to decide when or where or how—or why—he fights; that belongs to the statesmen and the generals. The statesmen decide why and how much; the generals take it from there and tell us where and when and how. We supply the violence; other people -- ‘older and wiser heads,' as they say -- supply the control. Which is as it should be. That's the best answer I can give you. If it doesn't satisfy you, I'll get you a chit to go talk to the regimental commander. If he can't convince you—then go home and be a civilian! Because in that case you will certainly never make a soldier."

Zim bounced to his feet. "I think you've kept me talking just to goldbrick. Up you come, soldiers! On the bounce! Man stations, on target --

Hendrick, you first. This time I want you to throw that knife south of you. South, get it? Not north. That target is due south of you and I want that knife to go in a general southerly direction, at least. I know you won't hit the target but see if you can't scare it a little. Don't slice your ear off, don't let go of it and cut somebody behind you—just keep what tiny mind you have fixed on the idea of ‘south'! Ready on target! Let fly!"

Hendrick missed it again.

We trained with sticks and we trained with wire (lots of nasty things you can improvise with a piece of wire) and we learned what can be done with really modern weapons and how to do it and how to service and maintain the equipment—simulated nuclear weapons and infantry rockets and various sorts of gas and poison and incendiary and demolition. As well as other things maybe best not discussed. But we learned a lot of "obsolete" weapons, too. Bayonets on dummy guns for example, and guns that weren't dummies, too, but were almost identical with the infantry rifle of the XXth century— much like the sporting rifles used in hunting game, except that we fired nothing but solid slugs, alloyjacketed lead bullets, both at targets on measured ranges and at surprise targets on booby-trapped skirmish runs. This was supposed to prepare us to learn to use any aimed weapon and to train us to be on the bounce, alert, ready for anything. Well. I suppose it did. I'm pretty sure it did.