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Posted on 10/13/2001, 1:39:56 PM by Pokey78

Fort Benning -- For young men hoping to shoot terrorists, a proper haircut still cost $3.60 this week.

A line of them stood toe to heel, single file, on what is known as Day Zero of basic training here at Fort Benning, just east of Columbus and 102 miles southwest of downtown Atlanta. Each young man clutched the exact change in his left hand, just as the drill sergeant yelled at them to do. Once in the barber chair, each stared straight ahead. In a minute, a head of thick black hair turned into a peppery scalp.

In the week in which America started dropping bombs, amid reports that ground troops may be mobilized, these haircuts and other traditionally harsh Army greetings carried a sharper edge. Most of the 2,216 who entered Fort Benning's basic combat training this week are teenagers, torn between wanting to fight, fearing the same and learning to wait. More than any other soldiers in their lifetimes, they're perhaps taking their first steps toward having to kill an enemy or die trying.

Ramirez Hampton ended up here after calling his recruiter Sept. 12.

All summer long, he had watched "Ricki Lake" every morning on his parents' TV in Albany. He was 19, just graduated from high school. He didn't have a job.

What he saw Sept. 11 got him off the couch.

"Someone killed so many innocent people, something had to be done," he thought. "Someone had to stop it. I'm the outgoing type. It might as well be me."

A month later, Hampton became fresh meat in the Fort Benning grinder that turns out 25,000 foot soldiers a year. Hampton describes himself as impulsive -- he loses his temper easily -- which he hopes the Army will cure. But without that temper, he might not have enlisted at all.

Churning youthful passion into competent soldiering has been a focus here since World War I. It didn't just start Sept. 11.

A new life

Testosterone from Hampton, and others like him, created an atmosphere of edgy purpose in the beehive of the 30th Adjutant General Reception Battalion. In this brick compound about the size of a metro Atlanta middle school, signs on the doors remind everyone the base is under the second-highest state of alert. A single TV hidden behind a corner broadcasts a scratchy, barely audible CNN into the huge foyer. The trainees get very little news, military or otherwise; at midweek, they pestered visitors to give them NFL scores from the Sunday before.

The pent-up energy exudes from the very top officer, said Col. Tom Cole, commander of the recruits' training brigade.

"This friggin' thing is personal," he said to a reporter, referring to the war against terrorism. "These kids will train much better and harder and more enthusiastic because, hell, look at what's going on in the world. Knowing the hostilities that are breaking out, they're going to find themselves in the middle of it."

A few miles away, at the fort's edge, buses pass the security roadblocks every weekday nights as they bring trainees from all over the country for paperwork, physical testing and their first taste of a drill sergeant's discipline.

They arrive wearing their Abercrombie & Fitch, their cargo pants and United We Stand T-shirts. Soon that old self is stripped away as these young men learn what generations of buck privates have learned before them: To protect the freedoms of all Americans, soldiers must give up theirs.

The cellphone. The computer. The munchies. The car. The tattoo, if it's in the wrong spot. The jewelry. The habit of tossing dirty clothes on the floor. The free time.

Basically, the you you used to be. Giving that up isn't made that much easier by what happened Sept. 11.

'I won't back down'

New privates rub their heads all the time, smoothing their phantom locks, what their barbers call a "quarter-pounder." Their hair was sucked through a vacuum razor, through a hose and into a 55-gallon drum emptied every other day.

Andrew Sims, 18, looked at his Georgia driver's license to remind himself of what he used to look like. His voice turned wistful. "See, my hair was a lot longer," said Sims, from White County in North Georgia. "It was brown."

As a kid, he admired Tom Cruise in "Top Gun." A high school teacher talked up the Army. It beat his job working in an Atlanta warehouse, and it would give him time to figure out what he'd want to study in college.

He signed up three months ago for delayed entry. When planes hit New York skyscrapers, Sims questioned his commitment. "But I won't back down from a challenge," he vowed. His parents threw him a big barbecue before he left.

At Benning, he posed in front of a flag for a picture to send home. "I just want to let everyone know I'm all right," he said.

Learning to adjust

It's not all Sept. 11 bravado here. A thick blue floor pad in the immunization room cushions the guys who pass out from the series of five to seven shots.

If the enlistee's eyesight is poor, he gets a thick pair of what everyone calls BCGs (birth control glasses). Not that he'll see a woman anytime soon who isn't telling him what to do.

"It's not like I'm a player, but it's like you have to learn to adjust," said Joshua Galinato, 18, who sealed the 20th letter to his girlfriend back home in York, Pa., since arriving Sept. 17. He drew a flower around the stamp.

He mailed it at the post exchange, where manager Reba Boyett can tell the ones who are about to cry, and she tells them the Army will take care of them. But, no, she still isn't allowed to sell them any chocolate or sodas.

Second thoughts

Patriotism has its regrets, too. Michael Schoolcraft, 18, entered the Army on Sept. 28 in Puyallup, Wash. He wasn't that fired up about Islamic fundamentalists. He just wanted to get fit and earn some college money.

Soon he missed his girlfriend. He missed his mom. He missed playing video games and practicing with his punk rock band, Don't Panic.

He heard that if he threatened to kill himself, the Army would let him go. So he told his drill sergeant this week he was considering suicide.

Instead of letting Schoolcraft go, the sergeant stripped him of his shoelaces and razor and made him wear a fluorescent pink vest identifying him as a flight risk. He had to wear it until he saw a counselor. He and a few other pink vests walked around, flopping in their laceless sneakers.

"Now I really regret it," Schoolcraft said. "I realize they're just making an example of me. That's just their job. I don't think they mean it."

He imagines his mom telling him, "I love you. And I hope you go through with basic training."

Fitting in

To continue in basic, a trainee must do 13 push-ups and 17 sit-ups and run a mile in 8 minutes. It's not a problem for those who have played sports, just for those who played only Nintendo. It's a big problem if they're ever going to carry a 60-pound pack for 20 miles.

Those who fail the physical training work out twice a day. This week, 21 young men -- spindly, portly, uncoordinated -- sweated, quivered and turned red as they paired up for push-ups. Their stomachs drooped like warped shelves.

"STOP SAGGING!" yelled drill sergeant Gerald Canada.

Jason Dasky of Flushing, Mich., 5 feet 11 and 227 pounds, needs two more push-ups and 30 fewer seconds on his mile run. He's two weeks behind the guys he arrived with.

"It's not because we're fat," he said of his workout partners. "It's because we need more help. I didn't think it would be this rigorous."

He joined the Army on Sept. 11.

"Before this, I was tired of my mom telling me what to do," he said. "Now I'd tell her, 'Sorry, Mom. I made a mistake!' "

'I'm not afraid to die'

Teri Bost joined the Army on Sept. 12. "I wanted to go kill somebody," he said.

On his family's ranch in Lubbock, Texas, Teri Bost rides bulls. One's horn punctured his leg. He got back on. "I'm not afraid to die," he said. "I want to jump out of airplanes and blow things up."

He'll earn a $10,000 bonus for completing his initial training, another $6,000 by staying in the Army. The Army offers incentives up to $20,000. The incentives helped the Army meet its yearly goal of 76,000 enlistees by Sept. 10.

By Sept. 11, the Army was dealing with an unexpected groundswell of recruits eager to see some combat.

The glut has forced itchy enlistees to wait as long as several weeks to be assigned to a company. Ramirez Hampton stewed as he waited in line to sign papers, one a $200,000 life insurance policy. He wished he was home watching "Days of Our Lives."

"Oh yeah, that was my show," he said.

In this time of limbo, he will also learn how to make his bunk perfectly and how to salute, drill and march while continuing his physical training. A chaplain conducts a weekly stress management class.

Lt. Adam Grein, the detachment commander in charge of occupying the waiting soldiers, notices that wartime makes most trainees more attentive. He notices a look in their eyes. "We are ready and we know," it says.

But they really don't know anything. Every few days, a company of 220 of them head to Sand Hill, which has the same kind of reputation among soldiers as Parris Island, S.C.,does with Marines. Rumors fly about what will happen "down range," the guns and gas masks and forced marches.

Those are the next steps in changing them from young men to soldiers and teaching them the skills of modern warfare. If they can stand it.

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