I left for boot camp right after I turned eighteen. I could have put it off for a little while, but I wanted to get out of the house and away from my asswipe cousin, so the day after my birthday I reported in to the training center.

Service in mandatory in the Confederacy and all citizens must report within one month of graduating or turning eighteen. Men automatically enter the Guards and women are trained for Civil Defense. All must serve, first for a year and then for two weeks annually; even those with severe handicaps are expected to do what they can. If you aren’t willing to participate in the defense of the Confederacy, then get the hell out and go somewhere else.

The uniform, field pack, and rifle are retained after training and active duty and must be stored at home and kept in good condition and ready for immediate use. Neat little fully automatic carbines are issued to all males, along with four thirty round magazines, and most women are issued 9mm handguns. It’s ironic in a way; Asswipes in the Union argue constantly about their second amendment rights to keep and bear arms, and crime is epidemic, while all households in the Confederacy are armed with automatic weapons and crime is practically nonexistent. Try to rob a house in the Confederacy and you’ll be lucky to escape with your life, and a well-armed and trained posse can be assembled at a moment’s notice to pursue any wrongdoer or Yankees carpetbagger who might try some kind of bullshit.

Basic training in the Confederacy doesn’t adhere to a strict schedule. Some liken it to daycare, where toddlers drop in and out and learn stuff at their own pace. First and foremost is the rifle. You must learn to take it all the way apart and reassemble it in the dark or blindfolded, and once this is mastered you must learn to shoot it accurately from all positions. At the same time you learn basic first aid and how to arrange and pack your field gear and also everything you need to know about your uniform and basic military tradition and courtesies. Some guys complete this in a month, some take two months or longer, but everyone finishes and no child is left behind. Except for the lack of girls to talk to it was actually kind of fun. It was really just an extension of high school except that it is a lot more physical and all of the guys live together. We spent a lot of time grab-assing around like the kids we were. I finished Basic in five weeks-I could have done it in four, but I was weak in Military Traditions.

After Basic Training, comes four months of advanced training in which you learn about artillery, mortars, armor, and other weapons that are stockpiled in local armories, and how to function as a unit. People who have special talents, or those who are not capable of regular soldiering are given instruction in communication devices and motor pool duties. After that, select individuals receive specialized training while the others further their education by joining active duty troops at locations throughout the confederacy. South Florida, once known as Cuba, is considered the best duty station for a horny young man while Montana, in the Frozen North, is generally regarded as the worst.

AT was a lot more physical than Basic and we did all of the standard soldier stuff like crawling around under wire fences while they shot over our heads, and learning how to crew mortars and artillery pieces, but most of it was focused on how to function with other team members to form a cohesive and effective fighting unit, or so the book said, and although we would eventually join other outfits individually, we trained together as a unit.

Actually we spent a lot of our time in the barracks or out on extended patrols talking about women and surreptitiously jacking off. Most of us were virgins and would remain so until we turned nineteen. It wasn’t bad really; there were lots of other things to keep a guy’s mind busy, and when it did get to me I could relieve myself by re-living the good times I’d had with Crystal.

Personalities began to surface as we spent more and more time training together. The Old Man had broken both legs on the night he graduated from high school and had spent a year convalescing, so he was nineteen and had a valid Permit Card but no way to utilize it. One look at him in the shower made it obvious that he was superior in another way to us lesser mortals, and we began to look up him as if he was our leader. He had taken some college courses while he recuperated and he’d likely be offered Officer Candidate School and a commission.

His polar opposite was the Kid. He had graduated early and was still seventeen, and although he was only six months younger that most of us, he had the body and maturity level of a younger teen. Despite that, he was sharp as a tack and had completed his Basic in four weeks and had aced all of the subjects. He had the standard equipment but he always hid behind his hands in the shower, as if intimidated by the hairier bodies and adult physiques of the others. He never came on to me, but I sensed that perhaps he hadn’t yet graduated from playing with other boys.

Another guy was a persistent whiner, and he was always the last to muster up and the first to drop out on our longer marches. The Whiner had attended an alternative high school and had graduated and turned eighteen in April and had spent ten weeks in Basic Training but was still only marginally competent. He couldn’t shoot worth shit and his field gear was always fucked up and we all wondered how he had even made it through basic in the first place. He hated the Guard in general and being out in the brush really pissed him off. He complained constantly and generally fucked up everything he touched. He repeatedly asked the Sergeant for a transfer to some kind of office job that was more in line with what he considered his abilities, but Sarge shut him down every time. In addition to everything else, the Whiner snored like a chain saw and made it difficult for everyone else to sleep.

We had a rotation in the classroom learning about mortars, followed by a week in the boonies where we each got experience setting up, aiming, and cleaning the weapon. It was hard work, mostly because we had to pack not only the tube and base plate and mount, but also the ammunition that we’d be firing. The Whiner naturally fucked up and kept dropping the ammo he was passing, and the Sergeant rewarded him by giving him the late night guard duty. We were in the middle of nowhere and there wasn’t anything to guard against, but we had to train as if we might be attacked at any time.

The rest of us had just got bedded down when the staccato roar of the Whiner’s snoring cut through the night. The Sergeant jumped up as if he were going to go kick some ass, then sat back down and told us a story. “Falling asleep on guard duty in a combat zone will get you shot for dereliction of duty,” he informed us. “I saw that happen once back in ’42, during the Mexican campaign.” The Sergeant was an old timer, maybe thirty-five or forty, and had been in the Guards forever. “But in peacetime it carries a different punishment. Comms, bring me the Sat phone.”

The Kid was squirming around now, as if he had an ant climbing up his leg. “Out here in the boonies, Sarge?” He asked, as the Sergeant took the Sat phone from the communications specialist. I didn’t have a clue what he was getting at.

The Sergeant didn’t answer, but took the offered phone and dialed HQ. “Captain Miller please,” he said, and then after a pause, “Captain we have a 189-sgd situation here. Yes Sir, you can hear it for yourself. That god-awful noise is our guard snoring. Yes Sir, will proceed as authorized. Good night, Sir.”

The Kid’s antsiness had now evolved into a boner, and I suddenly realized why. Guys caught sleeping on guard duty are summarily castrated, right on the spot, and as soon as they heal up they become field whores and are sent back to the same unit that they jeopardized. Not only that, but they are kept in the guard for an extra three years during which time they must bend over or open their mouths for the pleasure of any enlisted personnel who request their services. The Kid had aced Military Traditions and knew his shit while I had skipped through the course.

“Okay, let’s do it,” The Sergeant said. “Harris, you go relieve The Whiner.” Harris had a weak stomach and would probably toss his cookies anyway, so he was assigned the guard duty and wouldn’t have to watch the punishment.

“What’s up, Sarge?” The Whiner said, strolling casually back into the camp.

“Take off your clothes, Wilson. All of them.”

“Why? Sarge?” The Whiner always questioned his orders.

“Because you were sleeping on guard duty. Do you know what that means?”

“So I closed my eyes for a few seconds. There’s nothing out here anyway but jackrabbits and rattlesnakes. You know that. Besides, I was up all day.”

“White, you and Morton and the Old Man help Whiner take off his clothes. Kid, get your first aid kit.”

“What are you guys doing? Hey! Let go of me!”

“Richard Wilson,” The Sergeant stated as soon as The Whiner had been stripped naked. “The other members of your unit have found you guilty of sleeping while on guard duty, and on behalf of the Confederate States of America Guards, and with the support and consent of my superiors I sentence you to castration, sentence carried out immediately.”

“What?” The Whiner was incredulous. All color left his face, and his dick and balls, already on the small side, practically disappeared as they tucked up seeking refuge back inside his abdominal cavity. He turned to run, but was quickly wrestled to the ground where six of us held him down while the kid trained a powerful spotlight on his naked crotch. The Sergeant tied a shoelace tightly around The Whiners scrotum, forcing his balls to the bottom of his hairy sack. He then moistened a cotton ball with antiseptic and swabbed the whole bag before taking the small scalpel and slicing the center of the screaming soldier’s nutsack open. He forced each testicle through the slit and severed them one at a time. He emptied a packet of coagulant into the open wound before roughly suturing it shut.

“How soon will he be back, Sarge?” The Kid’s pants were tented with anticipation.

“Probably two weeks, Kid. Do you think you can wait that long?”

Although tradition dictated the castration be carried out by the unit that had been jeopardized, the eunuch’s recuperation, and the removal of his teeth, would be overseen by professionals.

The Whiner was back with us two weeks later, now decked out in the pink uniform of his new specialty. Most of us weren’t really into that sort of thing, but tradition demanded that we draw lots for the privilege of initiating him, and I won, and I wore a condom for the first time in my life. The Kid was next; He’d had a hard on for the last two weeks and his enthusiasm was such that he burst his condom. The Old Man was last, which was probably a good thing as there were no condoms available that would fit him.

I didn’t encounter the Whiner again, or any of the other field whores the rest of the time I was on active duty, but wherever he is at least the Whiner now has something to whine about.