ROYSTER!!!!

Drill Sergeant Royster.  The guy was crazy.  He looked a midget on steroids in a drill sergeant hat.  He was the quintessential Army leader – stubborn, disciplined, angry, motivating, pushing the limits of policy, and remaining ethical 95% of the time.  There were quite a few things I respected about our junior Drill Sergeant – and quite a few mistakes that I’m sure he regrets as well.  We were mortal enemies – but he was a leader, and I could at least count on knowing that his heart was in the right place, which was exactly the opposite of what I experienced later in my career.  Drill Sergeant Royster was a good leader – flawed – but not the kind of person that would ever stab you in the back. 

But I didn’t meet Drill Sergeant Royster right away.  When I arrived at Corry Station for AIT, I was greeted by my first “squad leader” in AIT.  Like Basic Training, trainees in AIT rotated through leadership positions.  PFC Berger was my first squad leader – and we would have several adventures over the next six months.  He met Uba, Tomkins, Arcand and myself outside the base, and escorted us into the Barracks, where he explained that we would meet our senior Drill Sergeant.  When I heard the word “Drill Sergeant”, my heart froze.  Was this going to be another six months of Basic Training?

The nervousness grew waiting outside the door.  Finally, we heard a sharp female voice yell at us, sounding like a stubborn den mother, “Get in here, soldiers.”

Her name was Drill Sergeant Garcia.  She was a Drill Sergeant – but she was more of a calming presence than your average DS.  The first thing I noticed about DS Garcia, was that her body was smoking hot. Her face was ok – she wore glasses, and had this wavy blonde hair that screamed “math geek” – but the body had obviously benefitted from many years of army fitness.  There’s nothing worse in training than having a female drill sergeant with a bangin’ body in tight ass PT shorts yelling at you to do pushups while your hoping your boner doesn’t peek out of your BDU’s.  I couldn’t even tell you what she told us in that first speech, because I was too worried about whether my erection was showing. 

DS Garcia dismissed us for the evening, and this is where I began to learn the truth about AIT.  Drill Sergeant Garcia was calm, spoke in direct even tones, and treated each of her basic trainees as her own children, since she didn’t have any personally.  Berger explained this to me as he helped me lug my bags up to my room for the night.  Drill Sergeant Royster, he explained would be quite different. 

Berger was a cool guy – he was kind of the “Zack Morris” of our AIT, and I was his “AC Slater”.  He was always scamming – but got along with everyone so well that we always covered for him.  He was always trying to make me cooler – loaning me designer clothes and such.  I was always helping him with his scams and backing him up – until he left and I was stuck holding the ball on my own. 

As he escorted me upstairs he explained how Drill Sergeant Garcia basically treated them like college students and didn’t really bother them too much as long as they did PT and finished school.  He said that there was this new guy – DS Royster – who basically treated them like shit and was making AIT seem like it was basic training again. 

That was the truth about AIT – it could be like college, or it could be like basic training.  It all depended on who was controlling the game at that point in time.  Unfortunately, I was coming as DS Garcia was leaving. 

I met Drill Sergeant Royster early the next morning.  I remember hearing him yelling in a LOUD deep voice as I was making my way downstairs for PT the next day.  His voice was way more intimidating than anything I had heard in Basic Training.  “New privates!” he yelled “you better bring your civilian clothes down here and lock them in this closet!!”  This was the procedure.  You start AIT with no civilian clothes (Phase 4).  If your good for six weeks, they let you have civilian clothes and off base privileges, with curfew (Phase 5).  If your good for another two months beyond that – you can basically go anywhere you want with no curfew (Phase 5b).  I never made it to Phase 5b.  

I grabbed my bag and rushed downstairs.  I ran in the door, and basically bounced off of one of the biggest heads I’d ever seen in my entire life.  Seriously – this guy looked like like the main boss from “Mike Tyson’s Punch Out”. 

“Soldier, watch where the heck your going!”

And there was my introduction. 

Needless to say, Drill Sergeant Royster and I never hit it off.  The guy looked and acted like a damn cartoon character.  I think, part of it was the fact that he was such an impressive physical specimen, he sometimes pushed too hard and injured soldiers who weren’t quite up to par with him.  He made fun of injured soldiers – in one Rifle PT session he replaced an injured soldier’s rifle with a toy water gun and made her exercise with it.  Needless to say, DS Royster was very popular with the “jocks” of the group, and hated by everyone else.

Having said that, there is a trade-off here somewhere, because Drill Sergeant Royster helped me to finish AIT with a 12:32 two mile run time – something I never in my entire life thought I would be capable of.  He made me into a pretty impressive athlete for a short time – and quite frankly I probably never would gotten a piece of ass from any woman, or married my gorgeous wife, if not for the training he gave me.  However, I had to sacrifice my body to get there, and I blame him for some of the lifelong injuries I’ve acquired, many of which begin from “pushing” myself to meet his exaggerated standards. 

The fights between Drill Sergeant Royster and I would become infamous amongst my fellow trainees.  He just rubbed me the wrong way.  I was constantly belittling him, talking crap to his face, and criticizing him in front of his commanders for his aggressive and unnecessary leadership style.  At the time I was just being a smart ass – but in certain ways I was right.  No other AIT class before ours, or since ours, has had it as tough as the class we faced with Drill Sergeant Royster.  It was like another six months of basic training – only worse. 

So, while I was barely surviving the daily army training regime of constant wall locker/room/testicle inspections and PT, I was also tasked with completing my “job” or MOS course, which was ################# – one of the toughest intelligence schools in the world.  This is your primary responsibility during AIT, and it took roughly 8 hours out of every day. 

Luckily, my AIT course was taught by the most adorable, sexy, Kate Hudson look-alike the US Air Force had to offer.  Her name was TSgt Kuke, and I’ll be damned if she didn’t have the attention of every single man in that classroom.  She was always out at night, and came in telling stories the next day of her hard partying and drunken exploits.  We loved every second of it.  I could listen to that blonde wavy bobbed hairdo explain PSK Demodulation for weeks. 

I had three classmates in AIT.  The Army platoon at Corry station ranged anywhere from 10-65 people depending on the time of year.  When I arrived there were ten of us. There were 65 when I left.  They split us off into groups for our classes, based on when your security clearances arrived.  Because I had basically done nothing my entire life, my clearance arrived immediately, while Uba and Tomkins waited 2 months for theirs.  Arcand was placed on a different shift.  I was placed in a group with four other men, who would become good friends as the years passed by – and we were all mixed in which the four other services in a class of 16. 

My group consisted of myself, Mosby, Dash, and McMahon.  Mosby was a short, fast-talking red headed kid from South Carolina.  He was a former football player, a jock, and became a fast favorite of DS Royster.  He also talked a lot of shit.  Dash was an aggressive young black man also from the south, who liked to sit on the sidelines and instigate controversy.  He could talk shit better than anyone in the platoon, but he was so friggin funny that none of us cared.  Finally, McMahon was one of those select few that joined the military to really “join the military”.  He was there to be a soldier.  At the time, I called him “rich white kid”, because I was so impressed his family owned their own car.  I guess this reflected more on my poor upbringing than it did on him. 

I would also give McMahon a lot of grief because no matter how many times he tried, he couldn’t pass his PT test.  He spent two months in phase 4 – and I tormented him endlessly for it.  Years later, McMahon would eventually surpass all of us in rank and professionalism.  That skinny little rich white kid would become the greatest soldier I knew in the U.S. Army – the kind of leader anyone would be happy to risk their lives with.  He was one of the the most successful SFC in our job field, but he started out as a skinny kid who couldn’t do the minimum number of pushups. 

I was known for being a fighter and a rebel in AIT.  Unfortunately, I fought with the wrong people.  I called myself *****.  This was the beginning of a dark period of growing and maturing in my life.  I was in constant conflict, with my family, who I once again tried to cut ties to, with my fellow soldiers, and with my leaders.  I slept on the floor and I talked crap and got in at least 30 fistfights while I was there.  I rebelled against policy – always trying to see how far I could push the system before I got caught.  The most ridiculous fight I got in, was when my friends and I turned on one another – for no other reason than bragging rights. 

It was about halfway through the course – we were all talking shit about who could beat up who.  At some point I opened my big mouth, “Mosby, I could kick your ass any time”

Mosby got all red in the face.  I could tell he was tired and fed up of the same routine every day. 

“Fine, motherfucker.” he furled his brow at me, “Fine, we’re gonna fight after school.  I’m tired of this shit.  We’re gonna fucking fight.”

The class grew silent.  I accepted the challenge with my usual bravado.  No one else talked the rest of the day.  Everyone was uneasy – wondering if we would go through with it. 

And we would…and it was violent…and it was pointless…

But I knew it would be.  Still, I clenched my fists and headed home to prepare for “the fight” with my roommate.