As I sat on the hard concrete I thought about what I had gotten myself into. All of our future drill sergeants stood at the front of the formation. As I sat I turned to take a drink out of my camel back a bag with a long straw. As I turned back there was a short but extremely muscular drill sergeant in my face.
“Why the hell are you talking in my formation private. “He asks bent down and got in my face.” I knew I couldn’t tell him I was getting a drink that would just piss him off even more.
So I frantically said “It won’t happen again sergeant,” wrong answer, he was a drill sergeant.
“What the f*** did you just call me,” he yelled getting even closer, “in five minutes you are mine private King,” he said as he looked down at my name tag. “I am going to f*** your world up.” Sure enough we got onto a bus and made the very short ride to basic training. I was the first one to get of my bus and as I did a smoke grenade blew up right next to me. It made my heart leap up to my throat. What is going on, they told us that we would be doing paper work for the first couple of days.
“Put your f***ing bags over your heads!” One older redheaded drill sergeant with a deep voice yelled! “Now run over there and back in ten, nine, eight, seven.” The time limit was impossible Usain Bolt couldn’t have made it there and back in thirty seconds. “Put your F***ing bags over your head,” He repeats in an even deeper tone. Kids are getting yelled at by three drill sergeants. One kid passes out in front of me. I want to help him. But I knew I couldn’t. Finally drill sergeants found him. They poured some water on him, yelled at him and told him to get back up. Finally they called us to our individual platoons by social security numbers I was afraid I would miss mine. I have never been more focused in my life. Finally I hear my number called I sprint to where my platoon is forming up. As I run there they spray me in the face with water. After everyone is got in our platoons we meet our drill sergeants and when I say meet I mean get yelled at by them. They all wore the same thing every day long sleeve camo, camo pants, and a big brown drill sergeant had that had a round rim. Our head drill sergeant in our platoon was drill sergeant Ramos he could only be described as a bada**. He once told us a story about killing a man in Iraq who charged him with a sword while he was peeing. He was a short Latino man who had a napoleon complex. The first day was probably the worst we got smoked (military term for muscle failing exercise) all day. On the second day we got our m16’s everyone was so excited to get it. Till we realized that the drill sergeants now had five new ways of smoking us. On the fourth day we walked two miles to get our rucksacks. We would have to march back with them. I don’t know how labor feels but I imagine it is comparable to a rucksack march. You have to carry a hundred extra pounds of weight on your back in a hundred degree temperatures. At basic we will always be with a “battle buddy” this was a member of your platoon. Without a battle buddy they would yell at you and make you do pushups. There isn’t much to basic training basically had the same schedule the whole time we were there. Get up at four clean for an hour. Stand in formation for forty five minutes. Stretch for ten minutes. Do what we called pt or exercise usually running. Eat breakfast at seven. Get all our stuff, stand in formation, leave to a firing range, shoot, eat lunch. Shoot some more, then leave go back to the barracks. Clean our m16s, eat clean, free time eight to nine. Start over the next day. It sounds easy but it is not. The stress piles on like you couldn’t imagine. It is hard to put it into words everyday life. But the bond you make with the other people there is so strong. I rember meeting all my battle buddies. There was Allenye a Trinidad rocket scientist, Belske an overweight kid with glasses, Cheney my best friend who was the fastest kid there, Jones my black friend from Alabama, LeClaire who went to sick call for the littlest things, Licht who looked like a little rat and acted like one too. Murphy my enemy, a know it all, and Tysican an Asian with a temper, along with other normal people.
Our bay was a square with beds and lockers on the perimeter. There was a colored square in the middle of the room it was called the kill zone we were not allowed to go on it.
We had about two minutes to eat meals one day there was cake, everyone knew not to eat it, but Tysican, Murphy, and Belske eat the cake. Prompting Licht to go tell on them to the drill sergeant this caused a civil war. “Why would you tell the drill sergeants you know they are going to pt everyone?” Every one asked Licht angrily. Licht was crying in the coroner. “Wow,” I thought to myself, “that was a pretty messed up thing to do, but there is nothing we can do now.”
“It’s not his fault you guys ate the cake,” said Magruder
Murpy wouldn’t quit seeing the fact that he could pick on one of the few kid who he was bigger than he kept at it, yelling, “Your nothing but a little snitch.” With one swing Magruder knocked Murphy down. I pulled Magruder off Murphy even thought it was great seeing Murphy get punched. Magruder got discharged. The barrack was split, till we discovered that if we all work together that basic training would be easy. We had enough problems without fighting amongst ourselves so we banded together. Two weeks passed without problems and we got to blue phase it meant that the drill sergents didn’t have to hang around all the time. Drill sergeant Ramos appointed leadership he choose Jones as the platoon guy and Appleton a twenty four year old to be the platoon leader. They were the only ones that could ask the drill sergeants questions. We helped each other with things did each other’s laundry, helped on pt, and encouraged each other on ruck sack marches. I now under stood the sole purpose of the drill sergeants were not just to be mean to use it was to drive us together.
I kept a secret calendar in one of my notebooks. Day after day I crossed a day off. The thought of graduation pushed me onward. The time seemed so fast yet so slow. I was one of the few that could go home because I needed to go back to school. Others were going to go on to AIT or advance individual training. The night before I left I couldn’t go to sleep. When It finally turned to morning we had a graduation ceremony where donning the beret. The beret signified when we gained the right to be called soilders. Graduation was the happiest day in my life No one else understands what it is like to be a battle buddy.