Until 2:00 p.m. a lot of
waiting to be shipped to "other side."
Boring. Nervous.
Arrived in cattle truck. Drill
sergeants screamed for us to
get off. I didn't quite make it to the steps when I was
pulled down forcibly.
I landed smack on the
DI's foot. I thought I was
dead. He didn't even mention it.
Lots of DIs around. Push ups,
sit ups and harassing to see
if anyone breaks. I was OK.
Did "something" wrong but correctly
identified SFC [sergeant first class] rank.
Gear stacked in lockers.
Getting settled. Harassed. Push ups.
Not nailed yet as individual.
This was the basic training you expect to see.
We were packed--standing--into a trailer called a cattle truck. Nice to know our value right up front. We rode in silence and arrived, seeing out the tiny windows just glimpses of our new home.
With one small exit on the truck and trainees loaded down with duffel bags on our backs and whatever personal luggage we had streaming from both ends of the truck to the middle had just the sort of bottle neck effect you'd expect. Of course, we weren't able to go anywhere near as fast as the drill sergeants wanted us to go. And they knew that, too, of course. We were set up for failure.
So in one respect having a drill sergeant reach up, grab me by the collar, and pull me down where my combat boot crunched on his toe was a bit of justice.
And I got away with it. I never made eye contact so never did know who I nailed.
We were hustled to the front of the barracks and told to drop our stuff and drop ourselves to do push ups. I wisely went into the front leaning rest position with my backpack filled with civilians clothes right underneath my stomach. In the mass of gear and trainees, I got away with that small amount of support when I was in the down position.
I was standing at perfect attention staring at a particularly lovely brick on the barracks wall and minding my own business when I drew attention. Maybe it was because I may have been the only one in the ranks with a unit patch on my shoulder--the Michigan National Guard griffin which others thought was pretty cool. In green, of course, on the BDUs (battle dress uniforms). [UPDATE: Ah, memory comes back. I didn't have my state patches on until advanced individual training the next summer.] The sergeant first class grabbed his collar insignia and asked what rank it was. I told him. So he moved on with no obvious reason to drop me (for push ups).
When they finally finished this ritual and had us in formation, they had us dump all our stuff on the ground to check if we had everything we needed. Right.
So we dumped and held up equipment and clothing as they called it out. Then they told us to put it away. All that organizing over the weekend to combat load my stuff was screwed up. Indeed, to this day I have no idea if in the mass, compressed,confusion I grabbed everything I dumped out. Nothing major was missing.
And at one point, one drill sergeant called out "Who knows [my good friend and best man for my post-basic training wedding]?" I did of course. I had written post cards ahead of time. That particular post card complained that Robocop was my drill sergeant.
Again, I was not dropped for push ups for something I did or was alleged to have done or almost thought of doing. So far, so good!
In the barracks, the three-day veterans who had watched our reception from the barracks windows scrambled to get us ready for formation. The fear in their eyes and their worry about getting it all done in time was the most troubling part of arriving on the other side.
Clearly, Satisfaction was not in my near future.
