P.T. test -- I actually ran a mile
in 8:15--amazing. But "they" counted
only 12 of 30+ push ups and 28 of
60 sit ups. Got ragged for it.
Go ragged for lots today.
Still, not too bad. Worse is
classroom--Mickey Mouse
+ boring + little sleep +
penalty for sleeping in class
makes for tense time.
Fight never did break out at
reception, by the way.
Collective punishments beginning.
Strained my shoulder muscles--great.
Toe hurts from falling bulletin board.
Laundry finally. General liked
our barracks--irrelevant to DIs.
Push ups.
--BREAK--
22:45--Just stopped [Sergeant Sierra]
as he entered our 1st Platoon area.
He did not want to be stopped--
I reported him to CQ [the NCO in charge of the quarters]--almost
got dropped for not knowing his
name though. But I did what my
orders required and so can't get
in any serious trouble!
Early on, you are set up to fail. Inflicting stress and making you better at what you are doing are the goals. So they don't count all the push ups and sit ups I did to make sure I don't get complacent so soon about passing the PT test at the end. The run, too, was rigged. Even though this early they only tested us on half the distance the actual test would be, the four times around the track that was actually a 1/3-mile track and not a 1/4 mile as we were told meant they made us work harder.
Doing the actual tests would be easier with this approach. In Desert Storm, the Iraqi feared our VII Corps more than the other troops earmarked for Central Command because VII Corps had trained to fight the A team--the Soviet Union's best army that sat in East Germany. Same idea.
The classes were a relief from active pain, exertion, and harassment. But they were so boring that pain, exertion, and harassment could creep up on you in bunny slippers as you drifted into sleep while sitting.
But at least those were individual punishments. The collective punishments were designed to get us to police ourselves. In fact, I recall one trainee who was very uncooperative and who got us dropped a lot. I don't remember if he graduated. What I do remember is that our drill sergeants strongly suggested that a Full Metal Jacket-style "blanket party" would be in order. We did not do that.
Actually, one E-4 we had (the pay grade--he was a Specialist in rank) had served in the Air Force, gotten out, and then joined the Army. He said that the Army was a lot harder because basic reversed the time in the class room compared to the time outside marching, exercising, and eventually shooting.
I can't even remember the inspection as an individual event. They are indistinct in my memory now. You'd think a general inspecting us would leave an impression. But the opinion of a visitor--no matter what his rank--paled in comparison to what the drill sergeants did.
I continued to focus on my aches and pains. I had to ignore them to keep up. And I did. But I was very aware of them.
And that toe thing was no small matter. The large board fell off the wall and the corner came down right on my bare toe. That small injury affected me for two decades as it would periodically flare into pain. Now it is completely healed.
Like many things about my military experience, this was just a shadow of what soldiers who go to war experience. But it was at least a shadow to approach understanding what it means to have a wound that will limit you for the rest of your life. Similarly, I have a measurable loss of hearing in my left ear caused from repeatedly firing an M-16. It actually has no noticeable effect, but at one physical I had years later, a doctor did note it and asked me about what could cause it. Shooting was what she figured did it. State troopers who spend a lot of time driving on highways with their window down also get that, apparently.
Oh, and in addition to the pains of training, you had to find the time to do laundry. In theory, you could send your laundry out to be washed (for a price), but with only 2 summer uniforms, the time it took to get them back meant you'd be stuck in your winter uniforms way too often. So the plan was usually to wear a uniform set two days and do laundry (staying up late to do so) at the end of the fourth day--with the winter sets in reserve in case you just couldn't wash that night.
And my excitement of course was during fire watch duty when I attempted to stop a sergeant who normally didn't belong in our barracks from storming through. I probably could have gotten away with just ignoring the intrusion but figured it was best to report the intruder.
And I guess the thought of having to do more push ups wasn't quite as fearsome as it had been a few short days earlier. In time, I'd treat the threat of having to do more push ups with disdain.
