As Kevin sat on the airplane looking out the window he had to wonder “What the hell am I doing?” It was his first time on an airplane. Actually, the closest he has ever been to an airplane was to seeing them fly overhead at 10,000 feet. He was glad to get assigned a window seat. Now he would get to see what the world looked like from that high up. Little did he know that it was the one of many firsts that he would experience during the next 3 years.
It was 6 months ago that Kevin signed up for the Army. Now that the time was here he really did not want to go. Back in December when he was a senior in High School he did not know what he wanted to do after graduation. He had been in JROTC for 3 years and a lot of his friends were signing up for the military so he just followed suite. Since graduating he got hired working as a plumber and he found he could support himself and life after school was not as scary as it seemed months back. But his decision to leave had already been made months ago and now he was bound to it.
After take off Kevin looked out the window in amazement. The sky below him looked like someone had taken a bag of cotton balls and scattered them everywhere. It looked as if you could jump from cloud to cloud and never fall to earth. The stewardesses brought drinks and peanuts. Kevin though he never been waited before by such nice lady's, except for Friday night after he took his girl friend home and he would meet the guys at pizza hut to goof off and talk about their dates or the movie they just saw.
There was a change of planes in Dallas on route to El Paso where he would take Basic military training. He had never been anywhere but the east coast and always lived near the ocean. Going to the dessert south west would be just one more of those firsts that he would experience. Upon arrival at El Paso international airport he was meet by a very nice Sargent. It seems odd that he was so nice because he has heard horror stories about how mean the Sargent's were during basic training. Looking back that Sargent must have been laughing inside knowing what was coming and coming soon.
Even the first experience on the base was pleasant. The recruiter had told Kevin not to bring a lot of clothes since they would take all his belongings from in during in-processing. Most soldiers would loose so much weight during those weeks in basic training the clothes they brought did not fit anymore and they ended up donating them to a charity. So Kevin obeyed and traveled light. Beside the clothes he wore he brought one change of clothes.
The first few days were uneventful the Army issued uniforms, shaved off all the trainees hair, preformed medical exams, and thought some basic instruction how to form up and march to different events. Kevin through to himself
"what was all the hoopla bout how hard Basic training was this is a piece of cake".
Afterward he even had to laugh when he thought back on it. After lunch one day the Sargent told the group they were going on police call. The only point of reference Kevin had was when he was in grammar school and he was on the safety patrol. He wore a safety patrol belt and made sure kids did not walk on the grass or stopped traffic so kids could safely cross the street. He thought this should be fun pretending to be a cop again. Little did he realize that was the term the military used for picking up trash. It was the first of many.. many police calls he did over the next 3 years. It seemed that when Drill Sargent did not have anything for trainees to do they made them pick up trash. Later trash was expanded to tumble weeds which Kevin learned to hate. Tumble weeds have needle like stickers that reminded Kevin or the briar patches back home. They would stick you even through the gloves the Army issued.
As with most things even this stage had to come to an end. After getting in-processed they split the group in half and marched us up the hill to the barracks that was called home for the next 10 weeks was located. They stopped the platoon in from of the barracks and that is when all hell boke loose. It was like sharks in a feeding frenzy. There were at least 6 drill sergeants that came out of no where and were all screaming at the same time. We all had our duffle bags full of clothes on our backs and were instructed to take them off and put them in front of us.
"To slow" said the drill sergeant "put them back on and try again
The way to put a duffle bag on your back is to bend over and put your arms through the straps to grab the 60 pound bag and lift it over your head. Then drop the bag to seat snugly on your back.
The drill sergeant then said
"to slow take if off"
""put it on"
"to slow take if off"
It did not take long to get exhausted in the El Paso 90-100 August heat. That is when things went from bad to worse. Huffing and puffing trying to get his breath back a Drill sergeant came up and said
"what's wrong with you dickweed you sound like a choo-choo train just stand there and take a rest.
Then the first drill sergeant called a second drill sergeant and said
"Hay Drill sergeant check this guy out he sounds like a train."
the second drill sergeant said
"why are you huffing and puffing are you a sissy? put that duffle bag back on"
That's when the first drill sergeant came back and said
"what are you doing? didn't I tell you to take a rest that that thing off"
the second drill sergeants came back and hollered
"What's wrong with you can't you obey orders didn't I tell you to put that duffle back on"
this back and forth head game went for a few minutes with some pushups inserted until the Drills sergeants got distracted to some other poor soul that the "sharks" went after.
The whole time other drill sergeants were attacking trainees behind and all around Kevin. It was mass chaos with orders coming from all directions along with insults. Some Drill Sargent had a tendency to hit the trainee with the brim of their smokey the bear hats. then they would say
"Did you touch me?"
"Hay Drill Sargent this guys touched me. Do you want to fight me is that it? Do you think your that bad to try and fight me?"
And both Drill sergeants would start in on the poor guy who was just trying to survive.
After a while Kevin assumed they got bored and told the group to pick up there gear and get inside barracks. Pick a rack (Bed) and stow your gear in the locker.
About that time the second group of trainees were arriving out side of the barracks. The guys already in the barracks could not resist watching out the window as the second group when through the same tortured they had just endured. Afterward everyone could laugh about that first exposure to the drill sergeants. Everyone had there own opinion on which one was the meanest.
That was the first exposure to basic military training with a lot more to come. The drill sergeants would push the trainees to the limit and make them do things the never would have thought they could do.
It was a true "Welcome to Hell"
