| Lazing on the grass during a break, two lance corporals discuss a computer game.
"Hey, did you ever get 'Gears of War'?" asks Louis Doran, 19.
"Nah, I was gonna, but my mom told me not to," says Steven Aspling, 20.
In the world of war, they have more backbone.
When two of K-Roc's men fall "wounded" - as dictated by a trainer - there's the squad's youngest guy, Timothy Bardo, kneeling on concrete with the squad radio, calmly reporting the casualties and requesting help.
He's using what's known as a "nine-line," a reference to the standardized radio report that has nine points of essential information. Every nine-line must report the same information in the same order: Line one: location. Line two: your radio call sign and frequency. Line three: number of patients, and so forth. Every Marine and soldier must memorize nine-lines so they can call for a medical evacuation helicopter quickly and accurately.
The story on Bardo and the nine-line is that a day earlier, he had melted down when practicing a nine-line under pressure. The pressure was Lance Cpl. Matthew Schwaller, senior radio operator, a big man with a gruff voice, and off under a tree he had laid out several Marines as "casualties" and was testing Bardo, who has been in the Marine Corps all of nine months.
"OK, Bardo, gimme the nine-line," Schwaller ordered. "QUICK! Jesus ... OK, line one. Line two! C'mon, Bardo, what is line two?" Schwaller bellowed as Bardo grimaced and sweat poured off his face. "Do you know what line two is? Line three? Your buddies are bleeding out and you frickin' don't KNOW what line two is? You better get this RIGHT, Bardo! OK, now this Marine is dead, and it's YOUR FAULT, BARDO!"
After that, Bardo spent hours memorizing the nine-line. Now, under the pressure of explosions and two dying Marines, he reels off the numbers effortlessly. "Line five: two patients, urgent surgical. Line six: marking site with green smoke. Line seven. ... " No one in the squad mentioned anything about his achievement.
But they all noticed.
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