The Range
As best I can recall, it was 1993 and I was still new to drinking anything at the time- at 20 years old, I came into the Marines pretty n00b to anything. I had a real lame life in H.S. and so on. Moving on, I am at a buddy from my platoon's house, Steven Juarez- the craziest Hispanic mother fucker I'd ever met. A former gang banger, the whole nine. With us was another crazy fucker- Jason Metcalf. A hysterical psychotic who was fearful of nothing. It's a Sunday night and what else is new- I'm drinking a 12 pack of Budweiser (Jesus, I used to drink that shit?). We're just hanging out at Juarez's, drinking beer, talking shit and the like. I had all but polished off the beer, when he calls me into the kitchen and asks if I'd ever heard of Firewater. Now, my roommate at the time was a Blackfoot Indian and I knew that he still referred to hard alcohol as such- but not this. This was Firewater, hot cinnamon schnapps.
This is where things get bad. Really, really bad...
I say no. It smells god awful, I am not at all interested. Well, being the only white guy there and having them both dig on me, I bowed to peer pressure and decided, "I'll show these fuckers" and grabbed a glass from the cupboard. A nice tall 16oz glass that I proceeded to fill almost all the way up. As they are both chiding me and I am standing there in the kitchen, my thought process begins, as I start to amp myself up internally to do the unthinkable. So, as I will later use as a tactic in other various acts of unthinkable stupidity, I stood there with a blank look on my face, waiting for them to think they saw me back down... and as sure as they said "Aww fuckin'-A Edwards, you fuckin' puto", I kicked the glass back, opened my throat and shoved home all the glasses sickening contents. BAM! "Yeah, take that mother fuckers!!!" My night had just started to end.
After the wowing of both my fellow platoon members, we decide to hit the pool and do laps and so on. We were in an amphibious raid company, so we lived for the water. We're doing underwater "pays to be a winner" sprints, where, the 3 of us go underwater from end-to-end, the winner stays out while you race the other guy. Then, that winner stays out and you race yourself. This can be brutal with an entire platoon let me add. So, after only about a half hour, I am fucking dead tired and certainly pretty fucked up. Amazing how all that holding your breath and physical exertion can get the alcohol really moving huh? That's just fuckin' silly. Metcalf has to help me out of the pool and I stumble back to the apartment- the world shifting on it's axis before me as I struggle to maintain. Nope. It's not happening. I get into the house, walk into the living room and in glorious fashion, pull the most awesome header anyone has ever seen (according to them). Face first, I see it happening and I just don't have the skills to stop it.
Next thing I know I am in the back of Juarez's truck on base. They carry me up to my barracks room and toss me into my rack. I am semi conscious of the fact that they are doing this and realize that they undress me, pull a sheet over me and leave. WTF? I'm naked? I pass out.
"Edwards. EDWARDS!!!!!" Holy shit, what the fuck time is it? "Jesus Edwards what the fuck, over? You gotta go to the rifle range you fucking moron" cries my roommate Elgin. Jesus, he's right. I slump out of the rack onto the floor and struggle my way to my wall locker for my uniform and my gear. Fuck me I can barely read the numbers to open my lock. I claw for my uniform as I still sit there in the floor fucked up as hell. Oh yes, I am still so very much wasted. I put on my combat boots, toss on my green t-shirt and from out of nowhere my roommate starts yelling again "Edwards what the fuck are you doing man, put on your god damn cammie bottoms!!!" As I look down to see, I am naked as fuck from the waist down and wearing my boots. Lovely. I begin to laugh hysterically. Elgin keeps going on and he can't help but finally laugh at how insanely retarded I am at this point. I get myself together, grab my shooting gear and bail out of the room, yelling at the top of my lungs "I'm fucked up and I'm headed to the range!!!" Yeah, I'm a bright one.
So, I make it to the armory where the gate guard is this incredibly hot young black WM (Woman Marine), where unbelievable to me even at the time, I pause to flirt. Jesus I am so fucked up. I haul ass to my armory window, grab my M-16A2 service rifle and head to the rally point for the buses to the range. I get there and I am of course, late. Marines are never late, because, well... you just aren't. I'm a PFC and a Corporal calls me over and immediately grabs me by the throat and says "Jesus what the fuck Edwards, are you fucking drunk??!!!" I explain and he informs me that Gunnery Sgt. Thomas is on this range detail and I had better do WHATEVER it took to sober up because if he finds out- well, I'm dead. I skarf down an MRE and stay way away from anyone to hide my stench. We finally get to the range and I catch up with Juarez and Metcalf. They explain the header to me and explain that, once they got me to the barracks, I was soaked with sweat. Great. Alcohol poisoning. They stripped me down to help cool me off. I tell them the story and how my events unfolded that morning. All we could do was laugh. I don’t know if it was the sheer stupidity, the insanity- eh, who the fuck knows. Looking back, that has got to be one of my dumbest moments ever. I did shoot rifle expert that week though ;)
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