Battle Buddies
My battle buddy in basic training was a laid back guy named Trochnell. He was a good guy, but an ordinary guy. Nothing stood out about him. He never talked much. We got along pretty well.
But if there's one thing I've learned about isolated training, (like PLDC, Basic Training, AIT, etc.) it's that they tend to make all Soldiers, even laid back gentlemen like Trochnell, want to fight one another.
So, Trochnell and I came to blows one day. It was a small incident, really, but it made me really think about the psychology behind it all. I mean, here you had me, a near pacifist, throwing blows with Trochnell, who's probably never even punched a guy his entire life, and for the life of me, I can't even remember what for.
Basic Training is a real mindfuck...it truly is.
For example, I remember going through the Gas chamber. There are only two things out of Basic Training I would never repeat again. One of them was the final road march, which nearly ruined me, and the other was that gawddamned fucking Gas chamber.
The Drill Sergeants are funny about it. They like to feed you as much chilly macaroni as possible before you go in. I remember them making us eat 2, maybe 3 extra meals that day. Then, they have the camera crew waiting on the outside so your parents can buy a tape of your misery as you leave the chamber vomiting.
You go in, line up against a wall. Everything is dark and red and spooky. Because, that's what the Gas chamber is...it's confronting your fears...letting your mind and body know that the equipment the army has given you is going to protect you.
But, it didn't protect everyone. Either the equipment was old and broken, or the seals didn't work, but one way or another, as we waited outside the line to go into the chamber, we'd see a soldier come running out crying because they couldn't breathe. They sent them out the front way, so we could all see how painful it was.
You went inside, and stood against the wall. The Drill Sergeant would come by and check your seal, then, at the proper moment, you would break your seal, take a breathe, and say your name and social security number. That was the easy part.
Then, at the end, EVERYONE had to break their seals at once. You stood in line, as the Drill Sergeant let each person out, one by one. If you held your breathe, or closed your eyes, you got sent to back of the line.
I remember breaking my seal, and I fully expected my eyes to hurt, and maybe my face. Everyone knows that about tear gas. I wasn't expecting my LUNGS to hurt! It's like breathing fire, and it's everywhere. You feel like you are standing and breathing in the pits of hell. Holding your breathe hurts, taking deeper breathes hurts...there's no escape. I remember standing there, moving sooo slowly towards the exit.
I closed my eyes...for the tiniest moment. I couldn't breathe, couldn't think. I thought I was going to die.
The Drill Sergeant physically YANKED me out of the line, by the back of my BDU shirt.
"Back of the line Soldier!"
And so I went...eventually I got out, and I was perfectly fine afterwards. I was never really in danger. The Gas chamber isn't about your body overcoming the elements. It's about your mind overcoming the fear.
Like I said, Basic Training really is a mindfuck...
And, not everyone was capable of handling it.
PVT Thompson was the guy who broke down in our basic training class.
He was a geeky kid, kind of medium size. I remember, we were standing outside the chow hall, and the drill sergeants decided to smoke us (make us do some push ups and other exercises). We did some push ups, then some flutter kicks...and so on. We did some overhead arm claps, and then to add to the torture, we had to hold our full canteens over our heads for as long as we could, while our string-noodled arms shivered from the workout.
Now, this stuff was easy to me. I mean...it hurt, but it was bearable.
But, something about this one particular exercise made this Thompson kid flip out. I remember, his arms slowly starting to fall, and the Drill Sergeant running towards him. It was the good looking female Drill Sergeant I talked about before.
"You better get that canteen up, private!" she yelled in his direction.
The normal response would be "Yes, Drill Sergeant!"
Instead, we all heard, "Fuck you, Drill Sergeant! I can't keep it up!", and EVERYONE turned their heads. Private Thompson was beat red, tears streaming down his face.
"What did you just say to me, Soldier, what did you just say?"
"I said I can't hold up this fucking canteen you fucking cunt!!"
He threw the bottle in her direction, and it landed at her feet. She began screaming in his face, at the top of her lungs, and within seconds, at least four other drill sergeants had joined her for support. They were all standing in a circle and yelling at the Private. He was standing perfectly still, yelling right back at the top of his lungs through the tears, his fists tightly clenched. His voice was intense and wavering, like nothing I've heard before or since. It was the voice of a mental breakdown, which shook all of us to the core.
One of the Drill Sergeants got behind Private Thompson...I couldn't really tell what happened, if he threw a blow first or if they just grabbed him, but either way, the entire group of Drill Sergeants dragged him off screaming, and that was the last we saw of Private Thompson.
For some reason, all of Basic Training seemed a lot more real after that.
There were a lot of emotions all flowing together towards the end of basic training. A lot of loneliness and longing for the normal life again.
I had just been to the hospital because for some reason my forearms were swollen up to the size of Popeye's. The doctor's called it muscle stress...whatever it was, it was damn weird looking. I was 118 lbs with bodybuilders arms. It took a day or so for the swelling to go down.
But, something about sitting their in that hospital, seeing the outside news, and the Burger King down the street. It reminded me that their was still a world outside of this tiny little camp, and I longed to be a part of it again.
For eight weeks, I had no contact with the outside world. Everyone else had spoken with their families and so on. Here, I was, ready to complete the course, and tackle the hardest physical task I'd every been through in my life, and I felt like I was going through it all completely alone.
Then the letter finally came...
Well Mr. **** :
Well I am glad that you finally gave us you adderss now we can write to you. You really don't know what it as been like around here not knowing how to write to you grandma calls almost every other day to find out if we heard anything from you or if we receive your adderss or when mom call's from work and ask me if you sent a letter and then there is poor *** waits right in the front room for the mail lady to see if there is letter from you and when there is he come's out yellowing we got a letter from ***** before I can even get out of the van. I want you to know that day you left was one of the roughfest day that I ever had in my life I look at your picture on the wall every night and think why did I let you join and then I say to my maybe it's for the best I want you to know that I am very proud of you and I Love You Very Much and I do miss you I will walk in your bed room and yell at you just to keep in practice. I want to know that if you don't think you can't make it you have nothing to be ashame of and you can come home and stay and go to school. I want you to know two things one is we had real bad time with ***** when you on the airplane man did he ever ball we didn't know if we could get him to quit then your mother started then you know what happen I started. Two. now your mother can never say you will be like *** again because you have done more than he will ever do in his life. I want you to remember one thing be proud of your self for you done more than any of the ****'s ever will do.
LOVE YOUR
DAD
P.S. You can call us collect if you want and remember one thing your dad stinks when it come's to writing letters. Will have new mattress on box spring for your room this week.
When I had received the letter, I took it to the bathroom. I sat down in one of the stalls, and frankly, I cried like a little bitch. I suppose part of it was missing home. Part of it was realizing how much I had already forgotten of who I was, in just those first 8 weeks, and part of it was a longing to see the outside world again.
I dried my face and left the restroom. A couple of the other guys smiled and nodded...most of them had done the same things the first time they received there letters from home. None of us said anything about it.
Two days later we started the final test. It began with a 5-6 mile road march. I remember the first five mile road march we did, almost four weeks ago. It was nearly impossible. It took every once of strength I had...and I was not looking forward to doing it again. I was even more not looking forward to the 15 miles on the way back.
We began the march by staggering off into two columns, one for each side of the road. You kept a 5-10 meter interval from the guy in front of you. Every once in a while one of the Drill Sergeants would give us the hand signal to halt, and we would stop and kneel or lay on the side of the road, behind cover, looking for an invisible enemy.
As we neared our campsite destination, something strange happened. We reached our destination, and I was feeling good. Not just good, but great! We marched around five miles, in the middle of the 100 degree heat, in full gear and rucksack, and I felt stronger then I had ever felt before.
We set up camp. Frankly, this was the absolute coolest part of basic training, and I think the most fun I've had EVER. We set up our own tents using the provided equipment. Everyone out at the campsite was supposed to dig their own foxholes, but the Drill Sergeant pointed at me and five other Soldiers. We were assigned "Special Duty".
Trochnell was left behind to dig our foxhole by himself. Now, in any other situation my battle buddy would have been pissed. But he and I both knew what "Special Duty" in basic training really entailed. It was never fun, and always much worse than the actual task at hand.
In this case, however, it was not so bad. We went out and about setting up the LRC course that we had to navigate later that night. It was standard stuff. Rope crossings, wall climbings. All of it was a lot easier than it had been eight weeks ago.
I was starting to fill out. In the past eight weeks I had gone from 118lbs to 138lbs. The newfound muscles were serving me well. I could run faster and farther as well. I remember in high school, running a mile seemed unfathomable to me. Now I could run two in less than sixteen minutes.
We got back from setting up the course, and I was just in time to help Trochnell finish up the foxhole. We covered it with some nice camouflage, and I'll be damned if by the time it was all said and done we couldn't see the campsite at all.
Or so we thought. It was early morning on the second day. During the whole field exercise we slept about 2-3 hours each night, between guard duties, exercises, etc. Around 3:30-5:30 each morning, we'd get up, grab our M-16s, and scurry into our foxholes to conduct perimeter security. It was during this lazy period that the Drill Sergeant managed to work his way into our perimeter. All I remember was the sound of a small "thunk" beneath us, and then white smoke everywhere.
But, even that was fun. The whole field exercise was a blast. We were dead tired by the time it was done. We didn't sleep at all that final night, but all in all it was the best time I had through basic training.
The time came to pack up. We filled in our foxholes, policed up the brass and garbage, and the Drill Sergeant assembled us into a formation. We brought along our rucksack and full gear, and stood at attention.
Now, this is where the fun ended.
Up until this point, when we traveled from range to range, for the different exercises, we were herded like cattle in the back of these tiny green trucks, 60 men to a truck. That would not be happening this time.
When the formation was finished, we were expecting to be dismissed and fall out to the truck.
Instead, the Drill Sergeant kept us at attention.
"Left face...forward march!"
Even though there was not a sound amongst us, you could feel the tension. Not only were we going to march home fifteen miles that night, after a low crawl under live fire, but we had now just been "unofficially" notified that we would be marching the two miles it took us to get to the live fire range.
I was a little angry, but mostly I was tired, in my mind, heart, body and soul, and I never hated a Drill Sergeant so much as that very moment.
Still, I knew this was it. I smiled, sucked up every ounce of motivation I had left in my tiny little spirit, and I moved on.
This was the march home...
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