Phase II issue--dress stuff.
Not much today. Inspection
tomorrow. GI party tonight--
i.e., clean. PT today.
Tough. Strangely content after.
PT doesn't hurt any more.
Fuck it. I miss [fiance].
Thinking about her a lot
today. Look forward to seeing her.
Knees hurt. Hope they last
marches next week. I'm
surprised they've held out this
long. Feet OK. Back seems
OK, too.
More signs that I had passed a tipping point. I had time to think about my fiance more. More to the point, PT had become something to do rather than something I might fail to do. We were told to do this and we were told to do that and we were told to run there. I did this and that and ran there.
And it wasn't that my injured body was better. Oh, it was a bit better, it seems. But it remained background pain. The difference was that I didn't seem to think the various injuries or pains could stop me.
The GI party was a full court press of cleaning the barracks to prepare for an inspection.
And we received our dress uniforms.
That is all. Not much to report that day.
On the physical training part, let me add that the attitude that developed over formal exercise extended to my platoon's view on being dropped to do push ups as punishment. At some point, first platoon--but not the others--would drop in solidarity with any individual in our platoon who as dropped by a drill sergeant to do push ups. It was our way of saying the drill sergeants could do their worst and we'll deal with it and keep going. We no longer stood still in fear with our eyes locked forward hoping not to draw attention from the drill sergeants lest we have to do push ups. Collective physical punishment, sometimes used to get the group to pressure the individual to conform and get with the program, was turned on its head.
There was pride in being tough enough to endure without shrinking from facing what we endured.
