Helmet for My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific

by Robert Leckie

Going to the brig in the Marine Corps — especially to the bread-and-water cell — is like going abroad. First you must go to sick bay for a physical examination to determine if you are strong enough to stand such a diet and confinement; then you must visit the company office, to have the black marks entered in your record, and more important, to be sure you are docked in pay for the time you spend imprisoned; next you must revisit your company area to surrender your weapon and your gear to your property sergeant — and then, clad only in baggy, faded dungarees, the livery of the brig, you are ready for the door to clang shut behind you. Back in your company, you are a dead man for five days. Even your bunk is denuded of pad and blankets. You are a cipher — the scapegrace whose picture is turned to the wall. Every foot of the way in these progressions made at an odd, doglike pace, there follows your prison chaser, trotting grimly behind, his rifle at high port, like a canoeist with paddle poised — your shadow and your shame. The large black circles adorning front and back of your costume are almost endowed with weight, you feel them so poignantly; for you know that these are there for the prison chaser to aim at, should you break for freedom. The brig receives you, and you are nothing; even the clothes you wear belong to the brig and bear its mark; your very belt and razor blades have been entrusted to the brig warden — you have nothing — you are nothing.