Dog Tagged

By James Brock

Incidents in Dog Tagged are based on true events.

Drill Instructor Clay Norris has his hands full. Between new recruits and a Senior Drill Sergeant with an attitude, the last thing the young soldier needs is to develop a crush on one of his trainees.

But Private Chevy Banks is an Adonis and sweet as southern bee honey. Young Banks is a natural leader and draws Clay in with his easy manner and warm as the sun smile. A combination that melts the trying-to-be-tough as nails Drill Sergeant.

Clay thinks he has kept his feelings toward the young troop reigned in but finds he has not when the Senior Drill tears the men apart before the desire in their longing glances can be fulfilled. Clay tries to move on, hoping to forget Chevrolet Banks by throwing himself into his career.

Fate (and the U.S. Army) bring the two together for a brief, joyous reunion and the same forces cruelly rip them apart again, each now facing a trauma alone.
Dog Tagged is set post DADT and pre the policy end.

This story offers a glimpse of the life of gay men serving their country who were not afforded the same rights as their heterosexual brothers in arms, with whom they fought side by side.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Brock
• Release date: Aug 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463073025

James Brock

Childhood for James Brock was spent on a homestead in central Alaska. No electricity, running water or telephone. Personal business was attended in an outhouse. When winter temperatures dropped to below zero haste was made. James swears their parents sent he and his brother out to play in early May and told them not to come back in the house until the sun went down. Which was in early September.... He is the author of over two hundred published short stories, two family biographies (editor of Bachelor's Roost Letter's From an Alaskan Homestead Russell Brock and Ex-Bachelor's Roost Mermories of life in an Alaskan Homestead Russell Brock, Opal Brock and James Brock), a collection of horror stories (Nightvine... Tales of the Dark), and the gay comic murdery mystery Men Overboard!. James has also been published in the Seattle Gay News, the Alyson Publications One Teenager in Ten and Straight?2. He once upon a time sold comedy to Joan Rivers and Phyllis Diller. Living in Seattle James enjoys reading, writing and indoor plumbing.

Book preview

Dog Tagged

James Brock

First Smashwords Edition 2019

Copyright 2019 by James Brock

Published by Smashwords

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

Cover image courtesy of Shutterstock

Interior images courtesy of Canstockphoto

Cover by Joleene Naylor

LaVation Publishing

Seattle, Washington

2019

For Captain Charles F. and Paula Gillis

I will always love you.

Standin’ tall and looking good, oughta be in Hollywood,

Standin’ tall and looking good, oughta be in Hollywood.

Dress it right and cover down forty inches all around,

Dress it right and cover down forty inches all around.

U.S. Army drill cadence call

One

MY NAME IS DRILL INSTRUCTOR CLAYTON NORRIS. YOU WILL ADDRESS ME AS DRILL INSTRUCTOR NORRIS, DRILL SERGEANT NORRIS OR DRILL SERGEANT. I AM NOW YOUR MOTHER, FATHER, PRIEST, PASTOR, BEST FRIEND, WORST ENEMY AND DARKEST NIGHTMARE.

I was yelling this at the top of my lungs at the group of raw recruit material in front of me, my second cycle of Army basic training trainees. I’d been given five days between training cycles to get ready for these new troops, hardly a blip in training terms but I’d proven myself with the first group of trainees and been promoted to lead Drill Instructor. With only one cycle of training under my belt I was still so new my vocal cords had not yet pulled into the wheezy rasp that makes it easy to tell an experienced Drill Sergeant from one as new as me by their raw, cracked voices.

You will obey without question. If I say jump you do not ask how-fucking-high. You. Just. Jump. I paused for a dramatic moment before going on, The life you save by doing this could be mine so do not fuck up. My uniform was starched and creased, a new wide brimmed felt D.I. Smokey-the-Bear style hat was riding low on my forehead. I’d been issued a hat on receiving my diploma from D.I. school but heavy rain during the first cycle of trainees had all but destroyed it so I upgraded to this better-quality hat at my own expense. Not only did the head gear set us apart from regular troops they could be angled just enough to conceal our eyes. Which was a nice psychological barrier, between screaming and my look I was menacing as fuck.

Arms crossed over his wide chest my partner in training, Senior Drill Instructor Robert Lewis, stood not far behind me, his stony face gazing across the faces in our group silently. He was a quiet, critical hard ass who already didn’t like me and would make my life miserable if I got anything wrong. At the end of his training as a drill instructor Bob would be moving on to another phase of his military career after this cycle of troops. My first Senior Drill had moved on as well but he and I had hit it off like peanut butter and jelly, he was hard on the troops but funny and snarky with me behind their backs and had truly been a wind under my wings to help me succeed that first time around.

But some people just do not mesh. In the very short few days Bob and I had worked together in preparation for our trainees we had proven to be oil and water, Popeye and Bluto, Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader but we were brothers in arms so had to work together as the training we were about to start was critical to every recruit. We were going to tear them down to re-build them, which meant a lot of hard work in a short period of time. The country was at war, even if it was unpopular, but we were not here to win a congeniality contest.

I couldn’t put my finger on why the Senior Drill did not care for me, but whatever beef the he had with me would have to be put aside for the sake of training as each piece of information was vital and given out for a reason. It was our job to make certain these knuckle heads knew how to keep living by knowing every aspect of their assigned spot in the military, from how to handle the weapon they would be assigned, down to how to wear their uniform properly. Their lives, in other words, were in our hands and the training had to be exact.

It wasn’t an easy task, turning civilians into soldiers, we were going to complete the mission and weed out anyone who was not military material. Someone had to do it and that someone was me. If the Senior Drill did not like me there was not a lot I could do about it. It helped if you had an ally to work with day to day but we were not there to make friends, we were there as part of a fighting machine which did not have feelings.

Feelings were for civilians.

You are trainees, I shouted to the group at large while sauntering around the loose formation I had lined them up in. They were cold, wet, miserable and for the most part scared. Keeping them in fear was a great way to keep them under control. I was cold and wet as well but couldn’t crack and let them see any humanity, they needed to think of me as a machine. I knew in their minds the steady down pour drenching them was beading off me as if I were made of Teflon.

I’d been handed this group late in the afternoon the day before, getting them settled in for the night in the barracks I now had them back out on the parade field at five AM. Even the troops who came from military families and had an idea of what they were getting ready to go through were second guessing why they were there on that cold, rainy morning.

You are not soldiers. If you graduate basic training you will be soldiers, for now you are only civilians training to become soldiers, is that clear?

A few half-hearted Yes Sergeants and Yes Drill Sergeants were mumbled so I went through the careful paces of dropping them, a procedure they would learn to take whenever they messed up as a group or an individual messed up and I wanted to punish the entire group.

Calling for the young men to OPEN RANK meant each of the four squad lines took a step apart. I then turned them at an angle and had them drop to the ground into the FLR, Front Leaning Rest or push-up position. A position they would come to loathe.

I held the troops in the plank position for another beat then started the count, stopping at twenty then calling the troops back onto their feet and back into formation as they swiped their hands over their clothing and tried to wriggle their shirts and jeans back into place. It would not be long before they would stop noticing the debris on their hands and carry on with whatever they were doing before the push-ups as naturally as breathing.

Most of them struggled to get half of the exercise I had asked for and were now sweating despite the rain.

IS THAT CLEAR?

This time I got a fully bellowed acknowledgement of my question.

YES, DRILL SERGEANT! roared through the cold morning air.

I had their attention.

Like a mother, Drill Sergeants are gifted will extra sensory sight, hearing and smell. Peering into the ranks through the darkness, I focused on a tall blond in the second squad. All American good looks, he probably had been a Sunday school going baseball player and Boy Scout his entire life. He was grinning like he was on a sunny beach getting ready to play volleyball. Blazingly cute, the half grin, half smirk he wore nearly gave me wood on the spot. Last cycle I had managed to not focus on faces of the troops at all but this was one of those stand out hot guys, the kind who get hit on by both women and men and who know they are cute with such an Aw shucks Opie Taylor veneer that they generally get away with murder.

The almost smile he gave me nearly caused me to stumble backward. I have been around some great looking guys in the Army but this one overwhelmed me. I wanted to pull him out of formation and take him out for a beer, followed by a long make out session.

I could tell that under the right circumstances he would be a lot of fun but being in my training rank was not the right circumstance.

I had to snap myself out of my momentary reverie.

What’s got you so happy back there, your buddy behind you givin’ ya some morning wood.

Yeah, homophobia still ran rampant in the military despite Don’t ask, Don’t tell-and the fact that I like cock as much as I like candy meant I probably should have set a better example than using homophobia myself but it was the way of our military world and lingo. I’d met several other gay guys in my military time and phrases like that were just the way we rolled. I had learned in my five plus years in that there are no atheists or true heterosexuals in fox holes. Not saying everyone is gay or bi but some of the guys I’d had the most blisteringly hot sex with were the ones you would never have guessed were into other guys sexually. None of us were fully out and kept low profiles. I was glad at least to be living under DADT rules, which meant I could at least be myself to a degree unlike the soldiers before me who were thrown out of the military like trash for admitting their sexuality.

Just happy to be here Sir, the young blond shot back, causing a ripple of giggling to go through the company. Cute and ballsy, a good combination.

‘OPEN RANK!" I called again, a low groan filtering through the recruits now that they knew what those words meant. There was something about this blond, I could just feel it. He was hot, confidant and I knew it was going to be a long cycle of having jack off fantasies about him. He had a heart breaker of a smile a guy could get used to.

I gave them another twenty push-ups then asked the blond what was so fucking funny about being in my formation. His handsome face had twisted back into a scowl and this time he gave the proper response,

Nothing, Drill Sergeant.

Gimme your name Private, so everyone will know who to thank for that last round of push-ups!

Private Banks, Drill Sergeant.

He was all but beaming, enough for me to have dropped them again, but I had a schedule to keep.

You can all thank your new friend Private Banks for that round of kissing the ground, so if any of the rest of you think this is a time to show your pearly white smiles and how much fun you are having, I can give the Company another round of Front Leaning Rest on you, too. Interested?

NO DRILL SERGEANT! resounded at a volume that satisfied even the Senior Drill Instructor.

With that, our first day truly started. I ran the troops through PT, Army prescribed physical training which meant a lot of sit-ups, push-ups, jumping jacks and other energy drainers to keep the walking hormones worn out.

As I marched them toward morning chow I got a better look at the blond. Cute as fuck, he looked like a taller version of Ryan Phillipe mixed