Legs weak in morning.
Okay after breakfast.
Helmet, MOPP gear issued.
Stowed. Inspection tomorrow.
Watch at 3-4 a.m. Up at
4:00 for 5:10 inspection.
Bought wrong damned shoe laces
for alternate days boots--fuck!
DIs began indoctrination of USA
fucking world. Not all of DI's
historical analysis was completely
accurate--I did not argue.
To sleep at 10:15. Will get
4-1/2 hours sleep tonight.
Miss [fiance] a lot.
Physical stress was beginning.
We were given more gear. The MOPP gear--mission oriented protective posture--more commonly called a chemical suit plus mask, was old and not really functional. We had it just to get used to how to use it. It was very hot to wear charcoal-lined misery. And a mask which restricted your vision and situational awareness tremendously. Your likelihood of getting shot or just falling down and impaling yourself on a branch while wearing this stuff was probably greater than being poisoned without one. But it was deadly serious and we trained with this a lot.
You did not wear that junk for yucks--especially not when it is hot.
I discovered my helmet chin strap was broken. Rather than mention this and draw unwelcome attention from NCOs who really didn't seem to like me very much (nothing personal, mind you), I jury rigged it through my helmet (the older pre-Fritz design that you've seen in any World War II or Vietnam movie) and so had a slightly off-center chin piece my entire time there.
We had to set up our lockers for inspection. We actually had a display drawer where we rolled up t-shirts in cardboard that we all cut the same length to maintain uniformity and neatly placed other required items. Things like shoe polish were empty tins placed there and we never touched that drawer. Everything we used was jammed in other parts of the locker. That way a snap locker inspection would be easy to withstand.
And if you really wanted to hide food or something, you hid it outside your locker. It wasn't worth it to me to do. And you'd best hope the rest of your platoon didn't get collectively punished for your stash being discovered. So don't tell anyone about what you hide.
The Army was also very concerned about our feet--since we walked on them a lot. We had two boots we were supposed to alternate to allow them to dry out. To enforce that we had regular laces and then laces with a knot in them. We had knot and no-knot days.
I still wear those combat boots occasionally, including the pair with knotted laces.
I was horrified at the ancient films of Soviet armed forces on maneuvers. I can't remember a lot of the indoctrination stuff. But it actually pretty much ended there. They had too much to teach us and the block of instruction on the Soviet menace was completed and that was that. I really didn't need teaching about how evil the bastards in Moscow were. But it offended me at some level that it wasn't done that well.
Still little sleep and I would generally know exactly how little I was getting every night.
And honestly, it seems a little odd to see mentions of my Ex-wife in that context. But what can I say? I did miss her a lot at the time. That's the way it was.
UPDATE: It is appropriate to note a Strategypage post that addresses basic training. Note that I went through it before it got easy in the '90s. Just sayin'.
