you motherfuckers have just made the worst mistake of your lives! you have chosen to join my army! this army is my mother, my father, and my little virgin sister and i will not allow anyone or anything that is not up to my standards near her pretty little virgin cooze, do you understand me - give me a sir, yes, sir!
those who i deem unworthy to pass through this camp will quit, and those who refuse to quit i will kill. you ever hear of a training accident - give me a sir, yes, sir!
in my time i have killed sixteen men for the good of my country, sixteen men whose entrance into this army i could not condone, as it would weaken the fabric of this nation's defense! this base suffers an average of three training accidents a year, unfortunate incidents that i will not hesitate to repeat if you cross me, understand - give me a sir, yes, sir!
so forget what you've seen on sixty fucking minutes about the kinder, gentler military - you will either succeed, quit, or die by my hand! he walks over to a tall black cadet in the front row. pike.
my power here is absolute, isn't that right, nigger?
i hail from biloxi, mississippi where we string greasy coon necks up from tree branches when the mood strikes us you have a problem with that?
what the fuck is this? you lay a hand on me while i'm trying to do my duty and rid the world of you? he kicks pike in the balls and releases him. pike goes fetal on the ground, vomiting, as west stands over him, screaming.
get the fuck up, you're still in formation, get the fuck up! pike somehow gets to his feet, vomit streaking his clothes.
what the fuck have you done to that uniform, take it off, take it off, take it off! pike, still gasping, can't move fast enough. west slaps him again and tears the man's shirt off.
get those fucking pants off, i want you buck ass naked, you don't deserve to wear these beautiful united states army issue clothes! pike struggles off the rest of his clothes until he is naked. west turns and spies dunbar in the line.
cadet, what's your name!
you know how to work a pistol, dunbar?
dunbar you are to stand here and guard this nigger for the next twenty- four hours! he is not to be given food, water, or clothes! if he so much as moves, you are to blow his nigger brains out, is that clear?
the rest of you, fallout for physicals! the rest of the cadets fallout, following west away to one of the buildings, leaving dunbar and pike. one with a gun, the other naked.
get up, get up, get up! we're going on a little night hike, boys - muster in five on the south tarmac!
a rifle, a pistol, and three phosphorous grenades to a man! this is live fire, so keep those safetied until we touch down; i don't want anyone shooting their dick off! some chuckling.
some of you may have heard there's a hurricane coming! american soldiers do not wait for good weather - they do not wait for a bright sunshiney day to do their duty! an american soldier learns to operate in the worst conditions and turn said conditions into an advantage against their enemy! anyone who thinks these conditions are too harsh, feel free to lay down and die, you get me?
lz is two clicks north of a cabin, you are to split into teams of two
and work your way through your designated area blasting as many targets as you can find! each area has twenty targets, first team to take all twenty and find the cabin wins! teams are as follows - dunbar and nunez, pike and mueller, kendall and childs! mueller groans.
i will be in the areas monitoring your progress and if i see anyone drag ass i will personally slit you stem to sternum and leave you for dead! fall out! the cadets board the transport chopper. kendall gets on last, passing west who leans in and whispers to him:
you're gonna die tonight, faggot.
first team, second team, third team, go, go, go! the click of rifles being unsafetied as the cadets pour out of the helicopter.
what the fuck is going on?! mueller runs down the embankment toward him.
gentlemen! it has come to my attention that there is a traitor in our midst. someone who was going to break the code of fraternal brotherhood that i have endeavored to create in all of you. perhaps that failure is mine. but we take care of our own. and this traitor must be made to pay. he walks down the line of the six men, eyeing each of them. finally stopping at one. putting a hand on his shoulder.
run.
i know you were. cadet mueller found the letter you'd written to the colonel in your locker. you were going to betray us all. now, run. he points to the door. the hurricane, raging outside. nunez looks to the others, then the door, and understands. he takes off running out the door. gone. west walks over to a table covered with a tarp. pulls the cloth aside to reveal m-16's, pistols, and grenades.
now we'll see whose training's paid off the most. you are to hunt cadet nunez down and bring his body back to me. if you fail and he escapes, we all go down together. the remaining five cadets, understanding there is no place for friendship or kindness here. this is life and death. they walk to the table and gear up.
congratulations, cadet pike. you get the gold star. dunbar stares at his sergeant through the rain.
you'd best get him out of here. don't worry about the bodies, they'll be taken care of. dunbar doesn't move.
this is where we part ways, cadet. you tell them i died out here, or i'll come back for you. tell them one of the others did me. mueller, childs, i don't care who. you and kendall, you tell them a story. you can tell a story, can't you? dunbar doesn't reply. west laughs and flips him a salute.
dismissed.
welcome, cadets. the art of warfare is simple and complex. simple in its goal, complex in its execution.
as sun tzu writes, the true warfare is deception. a hitchhiker up ahead. hardy pulls over for him.
at all times you must confuse your enemies, surrounding them with uncertainty, giving them false hope.
at all times, you must mask your true intentions. hardy, smiling at him, because the hitchhiker is not a hitchhiker at all.
what the fuck is going on?
is this about that little drug business you all are running? yeah, i know about that, roberto told me-
fuck that. you little pissers really think you can throw a scare into me? dunbar raises his rifle and shoots nunez. he goes down, twitches once and lies still. dead. west looks at dunbar.
you're gonna have to do a lot better than that, son.
didn't i kick your ass out for this drug thing fifteen years ago? hardy just smiles.
should've known you were involved in this. come on then. let's see you try and stick me- moving faster than west thought imaginable, hardy moves and the knife flashes, cutting west open stem to sternum. hardy grips the older man by the shoulders, lowering him to the ground as he dies. whispering in his ear:
your greatest weapon will by your allies . . .
 . . some of which you may have to sacrifice for the greater good. hardy, secretly dissolving a powder into kendall's water.
make no mistake, the innocent will die. . . osborne, firing twice into styles. as he hits the wall
if you engage in a clever enough subterfuge.
which brings us to the simple goal. for the true warrior, the one and only objective is to emerge from conflict unscathed.
thank you.
you can tell a story, can't you?