The Drill Sergeant

Gooch


I ran across a sound recording the other day of troops marching to cadence called by a Drill Instructor that had a good voice, and it brought up an old memory of a cold wet miserable muddy day in the early 1970’s.

The only thing I enjoyed about Infantry AIT was Drill Sergeant Gooch. He was a short wide black man of about forty years, and he had a voice that Gabriel would have killed for. Gooch was a natural born blues/jazz singer. I think the world missed out on a major talent when he went into the Army instead of going onto a stage.

That man could sing cadence in a way that would just make you want to keep on going forever. Often we would have been on our feet all bloody day long, marching and double timing with packs, helmets, boots and rifles and be totally exhausted and have blisters and basically just want to lay down and cry like little girls; but when Gooch got up to call cadence we came back to life and wanted to keep on going as long as he would keep on calling it.

This one particular evening we had been out on a quick time twenty mile endurance march, out around Puget Sound, up and down those steep hills, on muddy unpaved roads, in that cold cold December rain; wearing the old heavy wet weather gear they had back then and a full combat load with helmets and combat boots and rifles. We were about two miles from the barracks and just barely dragging it in. We had gone way beyond dead tired and were just grinding it out, each of us hoping to make it back without dropping out and having to ride back in the ambulance. We were an exhausted group of individuals, struggling along in our separate miseries. It was one of those exercises where you learn that you can push your body far beyond what you ever thought you could and hope to God you'd never have to again.

Then someone in the back of the formation started chanting gooch, gooch, gooch real quiet like, and slowly everyone picked it up until we were all chanting Gooch Gooch Gooch loudly. We had five drill sergeants with us that day who had been taking turns marching us. But by this time they were so worn out that they weren't even bothering to call cadence anymore, they were just slogging along with us with heads bowed and rain water running off of the brims of their Smoky Bear hats.

So Sgt. Gooch moves out to the side of the ragged column and starts singing cadence in that huge sweet deep bass voice that God only passes out once in a thousand years; a voice that would never need musical backup because it put musical instruments to shame, and we just LIT UP. Thinking back on it now I am sure it only happened because we were calling to him in our exhaustion that we needed him to bring us on in, and that he not only stepped up, he stepped way up, and because he answered us with so much, we gave him back every single thing we had left in us to give.

Something mysterious and deep happened to us as a group then, there was a new connection between each of us and all of us, grunts and DI's alike that was born out of exhaustion and despair and need. It was a completion of sorts. I swear we all got goose bumps and the hair on the backs of our necks stood up as though lightning had struck us. We knew that we had just gone somewhere else, that we had surpassed anything that any of us had ever known before; and we knew that it wasn't going to last, that it couldn't last, but we wanted it to last and we were going to cling to it as long as we could. It was a joyous feeling, tinged with a bittersweet sadness because it could not be kept for long.

We not only double timed the last two miles while singing cadence, but we begged Gooch to keep on going, so he took us all the way around the perimeter of the parade ground singing and double timing and everyone was in perfect step; making that shup shup shup shup sound soldiers make when double timing and it was CRISP, and we didn't want to stop, we didn't ever want to stop. We had reached some kind of shared totally insane plateau that elevated us above the physical torment we were in. We still felt the pain, we hadn't gone numb, but we didn't care about the pain anymore because we had somehow gone past that point. There was a kind of bond in what we were sharing. We got so hot that the rain steamed off of our shoulders, making us look ghost like in the semi-darkness and parade ground lights and we kept on going. I don't know how many times we went around that parade ground, but it must have been 5 or 6 and it could have been 10 for all I really know and it was one big giant of a parade ground, each loop adding another mile and a half. Every time we came around we would just keep on going and Gooch would just keep taking us on, not giving it up. Not giving it up until we had to.

Our parade ground was surrounded by other Infantry AIT training companies all facing into the center. By the time we finally stopped marching, just about every man in every company around that parade ground was outside lined up around the grounds and cheering us on, nearly shoulder to shoulder all the way around: Officers and grunts and DI's alike. They heard Gooch singing, and they heard us calling it back and they knew we had come in from a 20 miler in the rain and no one could believe we were still going and not just going but GOING.

They came out and stood there in awe, in that cold rain without rain gear, getting soaked, just because Gooch sounded so good and we sounded so good, and because they knew they were witnessing something rare and pure. They cheered us on, calling cadence back to us as Gooch and company came around near them, and they all, each and every one of them wanted to be in our formation, they wanted to be part of what we were experiencing. They were envious and they wanted to be one of us in all that pain and insanity and pure glory.

Sergeant Gooch did that.