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Ranger Games: A Story of Soldiers, Family and an Inexplicable Crime. Ben Blum
Читать онлайн.Название Ranger Games: A Story of Soldiers, Family and an Inexplicable Crime
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780007554591
Автор произведения Ben Blum
Жанр Биографии и Мемуары
Издательство HarperCollins
PFC Blum reported for duty about four months before the robbery, in April 2006. After the exhilaration of surviving the Ranger Indoctrination Program and the princely rides in limousines from the airport to Fort Lewis, he and the other new cherries had passed for the first time through the hallowed gate in the brown-tarp-covered chain-link fence and discovered a ghost town. The few tabs in the barracks dumped out all their belongings and smoked them perfunctorily, then ignored them. The rest of Second Battalion was still in Iraq. The new privates’ only duties were to clean up the barracks and service gear in preparation for their return. When Specialist Luke Elliott Sommer arrived three days later from Ranger School with a brand-new tab on his shoulder and gathered the new privates to watch The Great Raid with him in Charlie Company’s bar, they were glad just to have their existence registered. Five minutes into the opening sequence a sergeant strode in, puffed up with displeasure at the presence of cherry privates in the bar. The privates steeled themselves to get smoked. But Sommer told the sergeant that they were with him, and that appeared to be enough.
Even among Rangers, Sommer stood out: over six feet tall, with dark hair, blue eyes of powerful intensity, and a smattering of fierce tattoos. He spoke quickly but reasonably with a mild Canadian accent about his two combat deployments, one each to Afghanistan and Iraq. He laid out his philosophy on the Rangers for the new privates. “Ranger Batt is like no place on earth. You’re with the best of the best now,” he said. “But you have to play it smart. It’s a political game.”
Near the end of Ranger School, after weeks of slogging through Georgia swamps, climbing rock faces with numb hands and combat boots, and leading all-night ambushes in which even the intestine-clenching certainty of imminent explosions could barely keep you awake and moving, Sommer had fallen out of formation to administer first aid to a soldier with heat stroke, after which he had been recommended for an award at graduation.
PFC Blum listened in awe. This was the first time an active-duty Ranger with combat experience had treated him like someone worth talking to. Specialist Sommer’s birthplace in Canada just so happened to be home to the Kelowna Rockets, an elite youth club that the Littleton Hawks had once traveled up to compete against. Nervous but excited, Blum spoke up to mention the connection. Sommer told him that he had once played for the Rockets, although in a different age bracket. And there was another link between them: the room Blum was staying in now, number 321, had been Sommer’s the year before.
The rest of the Rangers returned from deployment, then were released on April 7 for two weeks of block leave. Alex flew home to Colorado to see Anna and his family. When he returned, he found himself assigned to the second of three gun teams with a private named Womack, whose measured speech and prickly shaved head reminded him of Squidward from the cartoon SpongeBob SquarePants. Their boss, the team leader assigned to teach Privates Blum and Womack how to do their new job, would be Specialist Sommer.
A few weeks later, shortly after Alex’s nineteenth birthday, Ranger Battalion held a parents’ visit weekend. Norm drove out from Colorado in the silver Audi A4 he had promised Alex for use at battalion.
Alex has always worshipped his father. Back when Norm was playing a charming and tolerant host to his friends, he had been the coolest dad around. On this weekend, though, for the first time in his life, Alex found himself embarrassed by his father. Mortified, actually.
“So what kind of guns do you guys shoot?” Norm asked.
“Guns” was a civilian term. PFC Blum winced.
“Weapons, Dad. They’re called weapons.”
He introduced Norm to the specialist in the parking lot behind Charlie Company.
“I just remember, ‘This is Specialist Sommer,’” Norm recalled to me when I asked him about Sommer on the patio behind his house. “I recognized the name. Alex had talked about him, because this had been his boss for a period of time. He was just a big, thick British Columbia kid. Pretty studly-looking, outgoing, polite. He was bright. Before Alex enlisted, my opinion of army guys was that they had nothing better to do with their lives. ‘Alex, you’ve got all this opportunity, why do something like this?’ But the guys I met there were really impressive. Physically, they’re in perfect shape. They’re so committed to their cause, you have to respect it.”
Later that day Sommer showed up again, joking his way into a room full of privates and launching his big frame up Alex’s back like an extension ladder. Norm was puzzled by his son’s kowtowing formality in response but soon learned that cherry privates and tabbed E4s were strictly separate castes. “There was such a divide between private and specialist, tab and nontab,” he told me.
Ranger Battalion had been set up as a kind of war-themed day camp, with several activity stations to choose from. Sommer asked Norm if he and Alex would like to join him for the walk to Range 7, where parents would have the opportunity to fire automatic weapons. He told Norm to call him Elliott. Norm was happy to oblige. While they chatted about Sommer’s childhood, swapping jokes and hockey lingo, Alex cringed in silence.
“I liked him,” Norm recalled. “I like Canadians. I like hockey guys. I’m thinking, ‘I’m glad Alex has a hockey guy in addition to these Ranger guys. The hockey relationship’s a deep bond.’ I’m thinking, ‘Alex is really comfortable here. This isn’t all bad. So my kid lost his personality, but at least he’s around quality guys. He’s going to learn a lot about life.’”
At the range, Sommer took Norm into a pitch-black tent and strapped goggles on his head that popped the room into the horror-movie depth of night vision, then set him up outside with a squad automatic weapon, the same M240 model Alex trained with. The barrel climbed uncontrollably as Norm shot bursts at the metal targets fifty yards away. Sommer went next. To illustrate, Norm leaned forward in his patio chair, holding an imaginary assault rifle to his shoulder and taking aim at the lawn mower parked beside a broken planter across the grass.
“He’s just, boom boom boom boom. Just, ding ding ding ding. He was right on the fucking target. He didn’t fucking miss. You’re thinking, well, you don’t want to be on the other end of this.”
By the time the trio walked back from the range, crammed into the shoulder of a busy four-lane road with troop carriers whizzing past, the dynamic between Sommer and his son had begun to bother Norm. They were just a couple of kids—Alex was nineteen, Elliott only twenty—but Alex almost seemed to enjoy playing the role of subordinate. It made normal conversation impossible.
“Every time with Alex it was, ‘Yes, Specialist Sommer. Yes, Specialist Sommer.’ So we’re walking back, and I go, ‘Alex, do you guys have to do this? It’s just the three of us. Why don’t you relax a little? His name’s Elliott. Just call him Elliott.’ That’s when Sommer says, ‘Uh, Mr. Blum, that’s not how it works around here.’”
Sommer turned to Alex and barked a command. “Private Blum! Get out in that road and beat your face!”
Alex turned without hesitation and charged into traffic. Norm stared in disbelief as his son pumped off push-ups with his bare hands flat on the hot black asphalt, Specialist Sommer yelling counts from just above. Armored trucks rocked to a halt on either side of them. Alex’s form was perfect, eager, proud. His chest dropped over and over to within a millimeter of the double yellow lines. When Sommer finally called him off, Alex sprang to his feet and both jogged to join Norm on the shoulder. Traffic rumbled back up to speed.
“Sommer goes …” Norm wrinkled his forehead in an effort at recall. “‘He does whatever I tell him to do and he has no vote or say about it. He’s my …’ I don’t think he said ‘bitch.’”
Before Norm flew home at the end of the weekend, leaving the Audi behind, Specialist Sommer told PFC Blum to see if his father would loan him $200. Norm agreed. Two weeks later, Sommer paid him back.