Private First Class Pollock was a bit of a fuck-up. Despite having loving, attentive parents, Pollock always managed to find the wrong crowd. In high school he bullied freshman and mouthed off to teachers. His friends laughed and encouraged him and provided the necessary social feedback to encourage Pollack to new levels of douchery. The principal finally expelled Pollack when he brought a butterfly knife to school and used it to impress girls.
With more free time on his hands than he was accustomed to, Pollack turned to various forms of larceny and amphetamines. He developed a taste for betameth and, during one particularly memorable bender, stole a car and wrapped it around a lamppost.
Pollack had the fortune or misfortune to draw a particularly patriotic judge, who sympathized with the plight of Pollack's upstanding parents. The judge gave Pollack a choice: four years in the UCAS Army or four years in a penitentiary. The food was better in the pen but Pollack guessed there was less shower sex in the Army. He enlisted.
In basic training, Pollack found his calling. The structure suited him, being removed from his bad influences did wonders for his behavior, and he found himself enjoying some of the more exotic labors. During one drill he found himself unexpectedly crawling around on a cold concrete floor in the middle of the night while his drill sergeant fired off magazine after magazine of blanks into the room. Despite the noise and the discomfort and a banging headache, Pollack actually found himself grinning at the absurdity of it all. Plus there was the prospect that if he got his GED, made E-5, and stayed squared away then he could qualify to be a drill sergeant and be a professional bully. That was something worth working toward.
For the first time in his life, PFC's parents were proud of him. Making it to E-3 had qualified him for aluminum bone lacing, which - he realized in an unguarded moment of self-reflection - made him proud of himself. The Army gave him a vision and the Army was showing him the way.
PFC Pollack's next step is to make it to E-4, and that's how he finds himself running around outside in a blizzard with an SMG and a growing sense that this isn't actually an elaborate drill. The point is brought home when Swoopy tackles him by the knees and starts pawing around for a knife.
Pollack doesn't have much experience sticking his knife in people, but his wayward youth and idle time with his butterfly knife pays off when he beats Swoopy to the stab by producing his own knife in record time and plunging it into the other man. Hey, this isn't too hard! I can do this! PFC Pollack thinks to himself as he envisions and medal and a promotion.
The first rule of knife fighting is, "Don't get into a knife fight with someone better than you." So far so good, as Pollack's training is fresh while Swoopy's is rusty. The second rule is, "Don't get into a knife fight with more than one person at a time." In Pollack's defense, it was Swoopy who attacked him, not the other way around, and Pollack certainly didn't expressly invite SSG Danyes over to stomp him in the head a few times, but that's what happens anyway. The helmet and the bone lacing keep the trauma to a minimum, but his brain bouncing around his aluminum skull does buy Swoopy a precious moment to stick his combat knife where the sun don't shine, and then to do it again for good measure.
The stabbing doesn't hurt, per se, which could be due to the freezing temperatures, or Pollack's adrenaline, or the sharpness of knife. Pollack feels a certain wetness, which is annoying given the weather, and strange sensation that he likeness to a hose losing pressure unexpectedly. Unfortunately the hoses in question are his internal iliac arteries. Pollack finds himself being unceremoniously flipped onto his back by Swoopy, who staggers to his feet with a hand pressed over his own wound.
It's so pretty, Pollack thinks, looking up at snow falling through the trees as the gunshots and fireworks slowly fade into the background. Pollack is so tired, which is normal because it's the middle of the night and he had a long day and struggling with another man for a knife is exhausting. He feels cold for a moment but the sensation dims and is replaced by a sense of his muscles relaxing. It would be so, so easy just to close his eyes and go to sleep, so he does. Pollack settles himself into the soft snow, lets his eyelids slowly drift down, and then says good night.
