Pain Is Only Temporary

4/11/2007 Wednesday

2007-05-01T14:42:00.000-05:00

Dear All,

I’m now on my third day as 3^rd Squad leader. There are 49 men in the platoon now that we’ve picked up a man injured at this point in training form another company. There 49 are broken into four squads. 3^rd Squad is the odd one with 13 soldiers, and until Monday, Mard was the Squad Leader. Had been for weeks. He’s just a squared-away guy, so there had been no problems. But he didn’t hear an order while marching and did not react to it, so he lost his job shortly thereafter. I just happened to be standing next in line, so DS “A” tapped me as Squad Leader.

Mostly this just means that I ensure that my guys are all ready with the correct uniforms and equipment, lead them during tactical maneuvers. This last part is the big one for me. I love that stuff. It just seems to come naturally. Probably a product of all those computer games. I only hope I can keep the job until FTXIII (starts on Sunday!) so I can lead 3^rd Squad in the squad-on-squad tactical simulations.

Yesterday we did Eagle Tower, a 40-foot wooden tower that we climb up and rappel off of. Plus a bunch of rope bridges and climbs: crawling overhand over one rope, shimmying up with two topes, and a three-rope bridge. I rediscovered my fear of heights. And today we were training in urban operations, practicing four-men room clearing. This is training that people definitely use in Iraq. Approach the door stealthily in tactical formation, silently move the fourth man forward, and then kick down the door an let all hell loose. Every soldier has a path and a sector of fire. It is carefully orchestrated and endlessly practiced. And given the element of surprise, it is very effective.

Tomorrow we have our final APFT of BCT, the one that determines if we graduate. I’m definitely safe...but still a bit anxious, because I shooting for a 270 out of 300. that’ll get me a patch for physical fitness. And if I push, it’s in my range. It’ll also assure me that I won’t be held over for a mediocre PT score at OCS.

Platoon morale is mixed these days. We haven’t received mail in over a week and we have much fewer privileges than the other two platoons, but we’re still going strong. We’re united in our resentment about our status. Our DSs are around a lot less often these days. When we aren’t training, we rarely see them. I haven’t seen DS “S” in days and days. We’re starting to feel forgotten. But the days are still going by, and the end is nearing. So we just keep pushing. Our growing concern is that we might not receive any time off after graduation after all. As it stands, it seems we are to report to OCS immediately after graduation and will spend our “liberty” painting their building and mowing their lawns. We are also to sleep there. This, obviously, is not alright with us. Not at all. But it proves again that the Army owns us now, and owns us completely. They could order us to Iraq tomorrow and we would go. Once ye enter here, abandon your own plans.

This latest bad news is not yet verified, so I’m not calling anything off yet. It’s too abnormal and needlessly cruel to be true, we think. Many of use have already invested a lot of money to bring loved ones here, and while we expect to be inconvenienced by the needs of the service, our parents/wives/children/girlfriends should not be forced to spend hours in transit only to find out that we can’t see them. But hey, the speculation might be all wrong.

So we won’t stress abut that yet. We’re at 14 days remaining. Seems like no time. We’re on our way out of here. I’ll write tomorrow with the results of the APFT. But now I’m passing out.

-Jeremy

Pictures!

2007-04-30T16:17:00.000-05:00

Jeremy at his finest -- right out of the gas chamber

And playing dress-up at the bed and breakfast...

4/9/2007 Monday

2007-04-18T16:41:00.001-05:00

Dear All,

It’s been a week since my last entry, and seeing how religiously I’ve been keeping this journal, you can probably imagine how busy we’ve been. It has been hectic in BCT. A lot of work and very little sleep. To top it off, I’ve gone and caught myself another sinus infection. So things are generally just peachy But hey, the training makes the days fly by. I’m amazed how quickly this last week has gone. Sometimes I think how Monday was a lifetime ago, and sometimes I feel like it was just today, right before lunch.

We started Monday by playing with the M240B, a crew-served machine gun firing 7.62 mm rounds. That is a beautiful weapon. The firing was clean and smooth, and I hear it practically never jams. I enjoyed it a lot; Quidachay fell in love. Stars in his eyes. We also practiced assembling/disassembling the M240B for time, and though I was bale to do it (after much practice) better than most guys in the company, I wasn’t close to Quidachay. He made furniture back in Guam and says that his experience has given him a natural knack for tools. I can believe it. Man, does he love that weapon. He beams when he’s around it. I don’t blame him.

On Tuesday we played with the M249 SAW, or Squad Automatic Weapon. This is a 5.565 mm machine gun, and surprise, surprise, like most of the 5.56 mm weapons we have now seen it has a tendency to jam. Compound this with the fact that the 5.56 round is generally considered insufficiently lethal and you’ll see why I’m starting to be a fan of the 7.62mm. The M249 SAW is a lot like the M240B, except it’s smaller, more difficult to disassemble, jams more often, and coughs powder residue everywhere. I had my mouth open shouting something to my assistant gunner during my spin with the weapon, and I’ve gotta tell you, this stuff leaves a bitter, ugly taste in your mouth. Gross. Long story short, I don’t like the SAW much. I’ll stick with the M240B, thanks. Yeah, it might weigh about eleven more pounds. But that’s a small price to pay for guaranteed functionality.

On Tuesday night, we got the Night Vision Goggles back out and attached laser sights to our M16A2s. We went out to the range for a night-fire exercise. And once again, I learned why the US now owns the night. This tech is absurdly helpful. I went form a pitch-black world, occasionally marred by tracer rounds, to a neon-green landscape with picture-clear targets all marked by the glow of the zeroed scope laser. Aim? No need. Just move your arms until the laser light (really only visible by goggle) hits your target.

But as always, when we have night training, we sacrifice sleep. So we dragged our sorry selves back to the Bay around 2300 and prepared for our second field training exercise, meaning that we had everything in order and hit the rack around 0100. Wake-up on Wednesday morning was 0430. We boarded the busses in full regalia, burdened with gigantic ruck-sacks, grateful that at least we weren’t marching the six miles there. First we started with a few grenades launched from some M203 launchers we received for training. Those things are fun, but I definitely haven’t learned how to aim them. Then we hit the field and entrenched ourselves in our fighting positions.

At this point I’ll end the summary and go back to narrative, because FTX is always an experience.

Does everyone remember the fighting holes form FTX 1? You and a battle buddy dig shallow (but not too shallow) holes large enough to provide moderate fire level cover. You, your buddy, and your gear all fit in these holes. You stay there in the prone for hours and hours of daylight, posting and scanning for an enemy who never shows up. The DSs fired rounds to keep us on edge form time to time, but darn it, they never just got up and charged us. Not that they had issued us any ammunition to stop them, anyways.

When night falls, you stay there. And if you don’t have roaming night guard you roll over and sleep in the same spot. The moral of this story is that you dig a hole and you stay in it. For a long time, no matter what. So let’s take a leap of imagination and presume that our illustrious hero dug his hole next to a stump in a relatively defendable location. This dashing, roguishly-handsome hero may not have noticed that this stump was also a home for the 3^rd Battalion, Man-eating Fire Ant Division. But around 0300, after a long Wednesday of field digging/painful-proning, the fireant recon team made contact with our ravishing hero and proceed to ravish him. I must have been delicious. I was like an ant Shangri-la, a free meal trapped in immobility by the constant interruptions of machine-gun fire. And for a while it was a vicious struggle of man v. ant. I’m telling you, sometimes the Army just blows my mind with the million ways they can cause you pain that you never thought of. The fire ants may have won the battle, but I won the war. DS “A” (rapidly becoming my favorite because he’s always making a point to check the men and make sure we all learn and repeat the lessons, whereas other DSs only seem to focus of trouble-soldiers) noticed the fireants the next morning and told me that I should try sprinkling foot powder on their nest. He had read somewhere that it worked and wanted to find out. So I did, and the ants gradually disappeared, and DS “A” checked on the progress whenever he passed by.

I can’t complain. A night of being the main course was nothing compared to the poor bastard who go poison ivy on his testicles. Not in our platoon. But godohgodohgod. Oh, God. They apparently swelled up like oranges and were draining so badly he had to change underwear four times a day. Oh, God. Whenever I think about this guy, I know that I’ll have to be in serious pain before I ever complain again. Just…oh, God.

Then again, maybe the fireants weren’t even trying to eat me. Maybe they were trying to huddle with me for warmth. On Wednesday night the temperature in GA plummeted to near freezing. We had all packed for warm weather, meaning light sleeping bags. And we’re out in the middle of a hole, anyway. So it got really, really cold. 2^nd Platoon didn’t even pack their bags. Those guys had to huddle close enough to violate don’t ask/don’t tell policies in order to make it through the night. So really, I got off lucky.

The next night, after another day in the trenches, it got colder. I had expected this and had developed “fighting position castle” with my buddy Chong, assigned to be stuck with me for FTXII. Chong, by the way, is going well. He’s on track to graduate. And I have seen pictures of his wife; I know why he’s in such a hurry to get back to her. Hot like the heat of a thousand burning suns. Anyway, the two of us “fortified” our position in preparation for Thursday night by digging deeper and building a roof/floor for ourselves. We were going to trap every bit of warmth in there. It was awesome. But just before dusk, DS “A” told us to destroy the castle (far beyond the regs—this is a hasty fighting position, not a house) and move to our bivouac position. It was expected to dip below freezing, and the bivies were supposed to be warmers. Not warmer than the castle, but hey, rules are rules. And orders are orders. But whatever. So we were cold again. But to stave off hypothermia, the DSs had us build and maintain a fire pit throughout the night. Especially useful as we all had guard duty but no cold-weather clothes. So any complaints are silenced next to my memory of a night spent huddled around a fire with some other soldiers, propped back-to-back, crouching together for warmth under a clear night sky marked only by the occasional orange spark form the pit. A beautiful night. I hear some people talk about eh beauty of camping, enjoying their thermal-insulated tents and mobile coffee-makers complete with generators. Well, I’m glad they enjoy that. But I’ve come to discover that eh beauty of nature is linked to the hardship you endure to enjoy it. Look at a night sky while lying in a dirt hole in freezing weather after days fo practically no sleep. It is more beautiful than any other night sky on Earth.

“Wake-up” on Friday (were we expected to sleep?) was 0500 again. Surprise, surprise. The only difference between 0445 and 0515 is we had a fire at 0445. It was still dark and cold. But again, orders are orders. So we hurried up and waited. Eventually the sun rose and we enjoyed a full day of tactical maneuver training. To finish it off, we did the most dangerous training to date: we advanced in teams whiles laying covering fire…with live ammo. No more kiddy stuff, boys and girls. Well, all right, this isn’t all that crazy. But it basically involves running up to a position and taking cover as your buddy behind you fires live ammo maybe ten feet away to your right. We’re sleep deprived and dirty. One slip-up and your buddy could accidentally shoot you in the back. Or vice versa. When DS “W” was getting me prepped to go, he looked at me and asked if I was nervous. Now I always like to give the illusion of composure, so I told him, “Not much, DS. I have pretty good faith in my battle buddy over there.” DS “W” smiled knowingly while Cpt. “F”, who had come up behind me unnoticed, said, “Hell, soldier, I’m nervous. And I’m not even going out there.”

But long story short, I didn’t get shot. And we spent the rest of Friday cleaning/recovering, mostly recovering for me since the cold/sleep-deprivation had revived my sinus infection. It’s part of my commitment to be sick for all of BCT. The guys have some nicknames for me: “Tiger” when I’m going strong and all “hooah,” “Specialist Thesaurus” when they catch me using more…esoteric vocabulary, and my personal favorite, “Fungus.” Because it seems that I’ve always got something going wrong on my body. I’ve grown infamous as the anti-malingerer. Some soldiers shirk training by claiming to be sick. My battle buddies are constantly insisting that I go to sick call, but out of fear of missing training, I don’t. This has become a point of pride. “Sick call? Hell, real men don’t need lungs!” Fungus, indeed. It can’t be worse than poison ivy on your balls.

Saturday was mid-cycle testing, where we were all tested in our abilities to assess casualties and provide medical care, emplace claymore mines, use military maps, and check/clear/disassemble our weapons for speed. No sweat by now.

And Sunday was more cleaning. You know, like we do. So I won’t go into all of that, because the real fun was today. We got up at 0430 and rode out to play with hand grenades. Learn to throw from standing, kneeling, and alternate prone. And then we threw a live grenade. This is more nerve-racking than it may sound for a first timer. You are holding a piece of metal with an explosive tube inside, and if you treat it incorrectly, it will kill everything within 10 meters and maim everything for another 10. The shrapnel can go the length of two football fields, and one well-placed knick of your arteries will bleed you out.

So you slide off the first safety catch. Then you yank our the pin, leaving only the lever. And you…throw it? No, you hold it until you’re ready. It isn’t armed yet. But if you accidentally release a quarter pound of pressure on it, you will arm it. And you might not notice. And after a few seconds you won’t notice anything anymore. No, you hold it. And wait. And then throw. And then duck. Good times, good times. Those seconds where you stand there, holding the grenade, turn into hours. Did I hear it click? No. Wait…did I just arm it? Man, I could not throw that thing away fast enough.

Speaking of which, the DSs all say I throw like a girl. I was mocked a lot today. Apparently I just can’t throw to save my life. The practice grenades were marks of shame. One DS told me he would write my father and tell him about his son’s throwing. So Dad, just so you hear it form me first: you raised a namby-pamby girlythrower. Peyton Manning I am not. Regardless, the grenades I threw hit the targets consistently enough for me to be rated as Grenades: First Class. Not expert, but close. So take that, critics. A girly throw can still be accurate.

If that wasn’t enough danger for one day, we just returned form another night exercise: the Night Infiltration Course. I know some of you remember this. Wait till dark. Then get out of the trench and crawl over a hundred meters with live ammo being fired over your heads. Nervous and your head jerks up? A bad idea. Tonight was for real, no playing. There was a very real chance that a bullet would catch your head. More likely that you’ll exhaust your arms and move your knees up, or hsift too high climbing over a log, and you’ll catch on in the rear. Or you’ll wander too far our of line in the dark and get tangled in a TNT pit and have to be picked up in pieces the next morning. There have been a lot of flags sent home form this range. Everyone who’s gone through it can remember it. Tracers whizzing inches above your head. Explosions blurring your vision and shaking the ground. Flares breaking the dark. Barbed wire piercing your skin as you desperately push out of the trench. Your arms are drained by the end Go ahead, try and speed crawl through a few football fields. Tired? Don’t get up, you’ll get killed. Man. Lately this stuff has gotten a bit more…scary. And crazy exciting. I hauled like a demon tonight. Our platoon made it through far faster than the other two. We were moving.

But enough of that for now. It’s very late, I’m covered in filth, and I need to go clean the Captain’s office before I sleep. Also, I need to check on the squad for all equipment needed tomorrow. Because despite my best efforts, I was promoted to squad leader today. But more on that tomorrow. Sleep well, and remember, keep your butts down under the wire. I’ll write soon.

-Jeremy

4/1/2007 Sunday

2007-04-17T21:43:00.000-05:00

Dear All,

It’s finally April! 25 more days until graduation. Almost to blue phase. There is light at the end of the tunnel, and it looks good. So it seems to be a good day. I had a nice, large breakfast with (yes, my Sunday treat) coffee. We gave the CTA a thorough cleaning and enjoyed a light lunch. Then we trained and studied for our mid-cycle testing with our battle buddy groups. And then we had dinner. Heck, it felt like a vacation today.

We only had some excitement towards the end for the evening when the fire alarm went off. Our company wisely remembered to grab our weapons as we dove outside, but one company next to us did not. Some push0ups were involved in their remedy. And we fulfilled our perverse pleasure in watching some other poor bastards get a taste of smoke for a while.

We’ve started doing that more often. We crane our necks when other ocmpan8ies are getting punished, eager to see. It validates our pain to see other people go through it. Proves we aren’t weaker. Actually, we almost want them to hurt worse. We’ll then “remember” our own experience with more pride. I can see why every generation claims that they had the “last days of hard basic before it got lazy.” Basic probably hasn’t changed that much in a century. The tech, yes. But not he pain. We probably just want to remember ourselves as stronger and even more hard-core, gung-ho than we were.

We almost got to see a group of new recruits come off the busses for the first time on Thursday. I swear, we were grinning like maniacal devils. We all wanted to see it so badly. To watch from a new perspective some of the seconds that we’ll remember for the rest of our lives. To bad we had to move on; that would have been something to see.

Word is that the Iranians have captured some British personnel. We don’t get any news here, so we can only catch rumors and speculate. And speculation is running rampant. Would they tell us the moment we go to war, or would they wait until we get orders to board the planes? WE don’t know. But the guys in the Bay are reading up on the specs of Iranian armor and APCS. The subject of their terrain, military capacity, and history is always in discussion. This is what happens with too many OCS guys trapped in a room. Well, whatever happens, we’re ready for orders.

My night duty is almost over, so I’ll wrap up. It’s been a good day. The end of Basic—and whatever that may bring—is getting close. So except for the fact that he fire alarm lights are still flashing (as of 2256) and the fact that my bunk ajoins one such flashing light (oh joy), this has been a good Sunday.

Time to try and sleep without going into seizures now. But if I can nod off in a cold, chigger-infested fighting hold, I can definitely fall asleep to this. A few more weeks of training and we’ll learn to sleep through anything.

So goodnight. I’ll write soon.

-Jeremy

3/31/2007 Saturday

2007-04-17T21:42:00.001-05:00

Dear All,

Fun day today. After a burst of sprint/rests in PT we had breakfast, as usual. IT was gigantic and delicious. For the rest of my life I’m probably going to have huge breakfasts and small lunches and dinners. It’s better for you, and hell, breakfast food tastes better. Good deal all around. We spent the day training for Reflexive Fire, which is the foundation for urban and a mobile shooting. Now we’re getting into the real stuff.

After lunch we transed out to the firing range and got to play with CCOs again. Sure enough, after ten minutes, I figured that thing out. And I went totally crazy on the head of my target. That’s one stationary green insurgent who won’t be terrorizing freedom any more. Hooah. I felt very, very manly.

Seriously, though. I figured that damn thing out. The CCO won’t give you pinpoint accuracy, but at close range (hence the name Close Combat Optics) it can give you a solid and quick bead in your target. Very helpful little toy. And we got to use the M16A4s today, too, so it was generally just a blast. We started plugging the target at 25 M and moved in closer in a line, in combat technique, ultimately to the 5M line. I’m still surprised they let us move forward together with live rounds in our weapons, poised for reflexive fire. It’s a far cry from the excessive safety precautions of the last two weeks. Apparently after you qualify they start letting you use your weapon in a half-realistic way.

I’m just thrilled that we’re finally learning practical combat skills. Next week we’ll be going further in depth on how to move, communicate, and fire in teams. We’ll be clearing rooms, setting up more fighting positions, and doing a convoy-fire session. The DSs aren’t particularly convinced that the convoy training is necessary. As DS “M” pointed out, our platoon is particularly unsuited for this: at no time, he explained, will the Army fill a truck with 20 lieutenants and a .50 cal. There’s no tactical value in such a maneuver, and it’s also downright bizarre. So maybe that won’t be so practical. But it will be fun.

Today wasn’t crazy busy, but at least I’m convinced we’re back on the right track and y time here isn’t for nothing. These are skills we will use on deployment. We’re finally learning the basics of how to hit and not get hit back.

Now for a platoon update:

Quidachay is either healing well or jest a stoic guy. He’s doing well and keeping up.
Booher’s two broken ribs bother him, but he looks to be a definite go for graduation.
Chong, however, is pretty injured. His leg may have a stress fracture. He’s trying to hide it, but it’s becoming more obvious. He refuses to go to the hospital because they may confirm his worst fears and remove him form training. It’s already happened once when he got pneumonia last cycle. He has no desire to stay here any longer.
Nelson and Chanler both caught some nasty flu going around. Had to go to the hospital to get it checked out. The rest of us hope that this isn’t a new strain; we don’t want any more torture.
Lewis and I are a little upset that we didn’t get our ability-group run this morning. We had even taken some Ibuprofen an hour before in preparation. We were psyched to go. But the springs were still good. 30 second sprints 60 seconds walk. Sprint at your own pace, repeat a lot. If you weren’t exhausted, you weren’t sprinting fast enough. So nobody could complain that it wasn’t enough. Fun times.

So, in short, life is good today. And tomorrow is Sunday, so we’ll be getting extra sleep. I say this with only a little bitterness at the CQ desk for my 0100-0200 shift. But it isn’t so bad. I get one complete 3-hour sleep cycle in each direction, so I might even feel better than if I slept right through the night. Anyway, time for some CQ duties. I’ll write during my ample time tomorrow. Sleep tight.

-Jeremy

3/29/2007 Thursday

2007-04-14T18:46:00.001-05:00

Dear All,

When I woke up this morning, I realized I was still here. I had really hoped it was all just a dream. I can’t explain it; somehow, I woke up just hating everything about being here and determined to have a bad day. Part of me realized how ridiculous and counterproductive this would be, but the other part of me was too busy loathing the Army to even stop and wonder why. I just woke up on the wrong side of the tiny, tiny, tiny thing they call my bunk.

It was a premonition of doom, and damn it, I was doing to do my best to make sure everything that happened would be a disaster. Maybe it was something in the air because the rest of the Bay felt pretty much the same. We just hated life today. My bet? Nerves for Qualification Day screwed with our heads.

We started with a three mile “motivational run,” done in platoon formation, and the motivation is to stay in formation to avoid crippling humiliation from the DSs. One man started to fall back and the DS leading the cadence had us all sing the following in the nanny-nanny-boo-boo style: “Somebody’s not going to make it/ to Graduation Day/Weak bodies just can’t take it/*name*’s gonna have to stay…” Charming stuff, really. I finished the run without incident. But I still felt crappy about it. Just one of those pointless bad moods.

I qualified “Marksman” today. First try. Nothing to be proud of, unfortunately. Not “sharpshooter” or “expert.” But with more time and practice I’ll get that Expert badge. Needless to say, I felt crappy about this, too.

Maybe the real root of this little funk has been a growing frustration with the dynamics of my platoon. For all of BCT I’ve been very successful at flying under the DS radar. They still don’t know my name. Do it right, quickly and quietly, and they don’t even see you. I’ve also made a point to shut down my natural desire to take charge of things. NO leadership allowed. Trust me, I’ve had to bite my tongue a number of times to keep this personal promise.

Nobody grades you on leadership ability in BCT. They do in OCS. So I figure, what a great opportunity to sit back and watch how other people lead! Be on the other side for a while and see what works! And I’ve learned a lot about some very different styles. I prefer to focus on a positive style, building off of people’s pride. Try to build a strong esprit de corps. Most of you all have seen how I work, so I won’t really go into it. All I need to say is that it is drastically different than the style I see here.

Many of our “student leadership” have take the DSs as leadership role-models, not realizing that the DSs are here to “lead” in an entirely different kind of way. They’re here to tear you down, break you down, humiliate and destroy you. Your motivation is mostly based on fear. A man will do a lot out of fear, but he’ll do more out of pride. But so many guys here think a leader should scream and berate you for every second of hesitation or error. This style of “leadership “ is turning some of our boderline cases completely off. Every day we’re told that we’re complete crap by the DSs. I don’t know how these other guys came to the conclusion that they could motivate and inspire us to greater teamwork and effort by calling us crap on our off time. Good soldiers, but they could be horrible leaders. Tell a man he’s crap often enough and he’ll start to believe it. We need a victory, something to be proud of, and soon. We need positive reinforcement, no matter how false. We need dignity again. I can’t calm myself down about it. Stupid, stupid ideas of leadership. They just don’t understand what “motivation” is really all about. We don’t need more DSs. We need leaders of a different kind, who treat everyone as competent soldiers, consult us (or at least keep us well-informed), and who make a point of instilling some pride in us to pull us out of this downward spiral. The more we lose, the more we’re demoralized. The more we’re demoralized, the less change we have to win.

But enough gloom and doom. Sorry ot subject you all to my little rant; it’s just been building in me for a while. And this has still been a great learning experience. I know I’ll take ht lessons to OCS. Long story short, it’s been a crappy day. So I’m hitting the bunk so I can get that sweet beauty sleep that’s made me the sexy, shaved, bespectacled, and exhausted man I am today. Tomorrow will be better.

-Jeremy

3/27/2007 Wednesday

2007-04-14T18:45:00.000-05:00

Dear All,

Tomorrow is Qualification Day, which is the beginning of the end of Basic Training. Why? Well, because we will at this point have learned to march and shoot. Many other things as well, of course, but these are the basic fundamentals of warfare. Move to where you need to be and then kill things when you get there. Basic? Yes. But this is Basic training.

Also because we only have 3 weeks left. There will be two notable field exercises, a tower scaling, and an APFT final before we go. Not that much. And the last week is apparently spent cleaning and recovering without much training, so it really means that we’re looking at our last two weeks of training.

To signify this shift, we spent the day back at Reception drawing our Class A uniforms. These are our dress uniforms used for Graduation. Once you’ve made it this far they’re pretty sure you’re going to make it through. These thins are expensive, after all. So I’ve got them hanging in my locker now. Berets and all. So look out, ladies, because Lyon’s out and on the prowl in his sexy BCGs and grandpa pants. The ones that rest at your belly-button. The Army has resolved to spend thousands of dollars to make me look as much like Steve Urkel as possible. But hey, it’s their money. For an E-4 salary, I’ll let them dress me however they want. I’m just going to ask Hope to shield her eyes when I’m around.

It was fascinating to return to Reception after a month and half of BCT. I noticed things instantly that I never noticed before. All the new recruits, for instance, wear their patrol caps incorrectly. Look like idiots. The halls are filthy and desperately need a thorough cleaning. I wonder if this is how I’ll be at home: dress-right dressing all the chairs, covering down all the dinner plates, taking a toothbrush to the corners of the kitchen…what a difference a month can make.

The funniest thing just happened during accountability formation—yes, I have opt write these letters in shifts. Background: there are 3 platoons in Bravo Co. 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th; where’s 1^st? Who knows. They just don’t exist this cycle. Anyway, the DSs of each platoon foster a somewhat-friendly rivalry between us, with the coveted “Honour Platoon” graduation award as the prize. We can get pretty heated about our platoon rivalries, too. Before chow, for instance, we shout out cadences customized for our platoons and DSs. Around Week 4 these cadences became cracks at other platoons. The platoon motto for Plt 2 was “Keep on Running.” And eventually Plt 4 would respond to it in unison with their own shout of “You’d better run!” One day, as I think I’ve already told, we responded to a Plt 2 taunt by having our formation left-face and execute the standing ham-string stretch, thus mooning all of Plt 2. Good times.

Back to tonight. In an accountability formation you typically have the platoon hold up their weapons and count off from right to left, dropping to our knees as we go. 3^rd Plt has been working on our special addendum: we’ve incorporated a nifty rifle spin into it as we drop. Our DSs love it. Tonight all three platoons had to gather for company accountability in front of DS “D” of 2^nd Plt, and we had our chance to do our trick in front of everyone. And except for one minor slip0up where one of our guys stuttered on his number, we did very well. Ds “D” glared at us, obviously pissed, and declared: “Well, that was just retarded, 3^rd. And all you’ve done is prove that some of you don’t have the brains to count and move at the same time.” “Somebody’s jealous,’ I muttered. Then DS “D” turned to his platoon and ordered a weapons count, clearly expecting to set a new standard of perfection. They screwed it up in a hundred ways. As I write this, I can still hear him screaming at his platoon in the “privacy” of their Bay. Man, he hates us. Now we just have to win the Qualification competition tomorrow to seal the deal. On that note, our DSs are granting us an extra hour of sleep to give us a leg up. I’m going to take advantage of that now. Good night, team.

-Jeremy

03/27/2007 Tuesday

2007-04-07T18:12:00.001-05:00

Dear All,

They changed out company run into an Ability Group Fun this morning. Remember those? It’s been a long time since we had one. In fact, we haven’t had one since the post where I announced that I had been “promoted” from Bravo to Alpha group. So today was my first run in Alpha. I’d like to share some words about how that went.

To my parents I will all my personal belongings and earthly remains. To Hope I will my dignity, which I left somewhere between miles 1 and 2. It’s in the puddle beside my pride and self-respect. I got blown away today. They were moving. The DS in charge of Alpha decided that they wanted to do 2 miles in su-13:00 pace. Preferable 12:00. They ran like gazelles; I like to think of myself as a bit more of a hippo. 2 miles in 14:00 hurts me. 2 miles in 13:00 would kill me. So I maintained pace for the first mile, but then I started drifting to the rear of the formation. I didn’t stop. You don’t stop running here...the consequences are unpleasant. But I couldn’t keep the all-out run going. I don’t know my final time, but I was at least 330 seconds behind the formation by the end.

Everything else was a blur this morning. I stumbled around like a zombie for an hour, totally bushed. Every ounce of energy was stripped away. At one point I sat down to scrub my boots—and wore up just in time to stop Mard from pouring water on my head. That is the platoon’s penalty for falling asleep before lights-out. I didn’t even know I’d drifted off. For most of the morning I was in an old movie reel, where you blink and then notice that 3-5 seconds have passed between each blink. Micro-sleep. We need more rest.

I say this with some bitter resentment because I’m currently doing night duty (0300-0400) at the CQ desk. Which means wake-up today was 0245. Great. Well, it won’t be long until we graduate and I get a few days off before OCS. I’m going to splurge and sleep in until 0700 every morning…man, does college feel like a million years ago. 0700 sounds ridiculously late.

But enough on that. Charity and I had a big fight on the range today. Temperamental little harlot didn’t just decide to miss, she decided not to even fire. This wasn’t on e small jam. This wasn’t three or hour. This was seven jams, and one was so bad that I had to eject the magazine and fish around the chamber for the stuck round before I got her working again. I had a DS standing over me and watching the disaster the whole time. Improper weapons maintenance, he declared. I had to do my best not to argue. ;My weapon is clean. I cleanse Charity religiously. I maintain that the magazine was jacked. But you can’t argue with a DS. I just promised that I’d spend more time maintaining my weapon in the future.

Of course, the range targets don’t stop popping up and down just because on person is jammed. So a lot of targets went on by while I was slapping my magazine and going crazy on my charging handle. I finished unjamming the weapon just as two targets, the 200 and 300, popped up. DS “A” screamed at me to hit them quick. I don’t know how it happened, but I charged the weapon and snapped two quick shots and somehow knocked them both down. When I try, I can’t shoot like that. But apparently when I’m pissed and distracted, little Sniper Lyon comes out to play. It was a one-in-a-million event and I know better htan to think it could happen again. But I—and DS “A”—was pretty impressed for a second.

I’ll qualify on Thursday. But it won’t be Expert. God help me, I’ll try for it. But I know it’s literally a long shot. Those 300s are beasts.

Anyway, my CQ is finishing. I’m gonna go get ready for morning PT. Take care of yourselves, and whatever you do, dodge all 0300 duty. Nighty-night.

-Jeremy

03/26/2007 Monday

2007-04-07T18:10:00.000-05:00

Dear All,

Locked, cocked, and ready to rock for BRM week! I go to the qualification range on Thursday. I’ll qualify, but Expert looks a long way away. To be honest, even Sharpshooter (30 of 40 targets) might be a stretch. I’m not very good at this yet and I need more practice. Much more.

Right now I’m sitting at the CQ (company quarters) desk outside on duty. Mosquitoes are waging war on me, and the paper I’m writing on has some peeves of their mortal remains. They know to come here. There are two poor souls sitting here around the clock, so they basically have a free buffet. Don’t even have to work for it. And they’ve gone home and told friends, because every slap in the air we make takes out one or two of them. They’re that thick. I love my job.

I was unable to join the platoon for PT today because I—as well as five others—was selected to be in today’s “Duty Squad.” We go to the range or training area beforehand and set it up for the company, placing water cans, filling magazines with ammo, etc. It is not a punishment—it’s supposed to be a reward for individuals who don’t need more PT—but nobody really wants to do it. We like PT. I’ve been able to beg off so far because I want to improve my PT and would rather stay. But today I couldn’t escape. So we climbed into the Deuce and drove to the range. But first we had to stop at the water pump to fill up the giant Water Buffalo, a huge container of water on wheels, that follows us on training. I was closest ot the door of the truck so I got out to grab the big hose, hanging like the water hoses for steam trains, and direct it to the Water Buffalo. Seemed easy enough.. I unscrewed the top of the WB, held up the hose, secured myself…and then realized that I was totally unprepared for the volume of water that these hoses can push out. I went flying, it went flying—still on, of course—and DS “A” and the Duty Squad busted a guy laughing as I got an 0515 shower in full uniform. Cold water. Five gallons a second. Everywhere. I was invoking the names of every religious figure I could think of while I fumbles like a desperate idiot to regain control of the hose. DS “A” finally killed the water. I stood back up, drenched, and prepared to finish the job. Stand up, secure much more firmly, and…I go flying again. I was getting more angry than embarrassed so I somehow managed to jump and capture the hose and successfully held it down while the WB filled. It was a very cold morning. The sun finally came up and dried me off, but not before hours of silent shivering had passed. I. Love. My. Job. Of course the whole platoon got the story form the guys on duty squad, and DS “A” gave me some good-natured ribbing for it. I deserve it. I looked ridiculous, and all right, it probably was pretty funny. But not fun.

My battle buddy, Mard, at about the same time back in PT, somehow telepathically knew of my disaster and strove to publicly humiliate himself as well. Battle buddies stick together like that. The story, as I hear it, was tha the platoon was doing crab-walks down one side of the track and sprinting back. Mard had just stood up and was getting into his insanely fast stride when he tripped. The eyes of the entire company—minus duty squad—were on him. He was even mid-battle cry when he hit the sand, face first with no help from his arms, and crashed hard.

The entire company did a sympathy groan in unison. Mard called it his “sugar cookie,” and he just lay in this “sugar cookie” for a few seconds, trying to process when had just happened. And DS “S” called out in his customary form, “Soldier! We have chow in twenty minutes! Stop eating all that sand!” It’s sweet that he battle buddies both got humiliated today. Apart, but still somehow together. The battle buddy bond, I guess.

Otherwise the day was typical. Wake up. Shoot weapon. (Pardon me, fire weapon. Gotta get all this right.) Clean weapon. Clean Bay. Random PT/smokings. March. Chow. March. Clean. Sleep. I’d go into details, but I think you’ve all got the particulars by now.

Tomorrow is a platoon run. I love those. Somehow it feel liberating to hit the road and just start going, yelling cadence all the way and jumping like ninjas to avoid those deadly railroad tracks. They’re much m ore dangerous in the dark, you know. Because at 0500, for those of you unfamiliar with that hour, is typically very dark.

Anyway, I should have fun. And tomorrow is another day to improve my marksmanship. Go Army. In a way, sarcasm aside, I think I really do love my job. So far. We’ll se what the Officer Corps is like soon enough. But enough for tonight. Take care, sleep tight. See you at 0445.

-Jeremy

3/17/2007 Saturday

2007-04-07T17:35:00.001-05:00

Good God, did we get smoked today. DS vengeance came swiftly. But as I write this, the platoon banner downstairs still waves a clean white flag. So all is not lost. It makes sense, now that I think of it: the 1st Sgt. is a scary dude. He can hurt people. He can also hurt…the DSs. In time I have learned that the DSs seem to fear the 1st Sgt. almost as much as we do. He oversees their conduct as well as our conduct, and any flaw in our conduct is a reflection on their conduct. So naturally they have incentive to cover some of our more minor screw ups and thus cover themselves. Changing our Phase is a big decision that requires the 1st Sgt.’s final input and approval. So the DSs might threaten us, but I doubt they’ll change uks back for anything other than a total disaster. Of course, I may speak too soon. But for now we’re still in White Phase.
The day started with the entire battalion conducting a 2-2-2 assessment APFT. This is an Army Physical Fitness Test consisting of 2 minutes of maximum push-ups (no resting in down position), 2 minutes of maximum sit-ups (again no down time), and a 2 mile run for time. The 2-2-2 APFT is the standard assessment for al Army personnel and gauges their readiness to serve. And I did just fine, thank you very much. Earned my right to eat cake today.
It wasn’t a score to brag about to the active Army guys, but it was in the top quarter here: 62 push-ups, 65 sit-ups, and the run in 14:37. Safely above graduation requirements. Good, but not great. I aim for 75, 80, and 13:00 by the time I leave. That’ll give me a perfect score. Power to my battle buddy, Mard, though, who completed the run in only 12:06. That is fast.
After our PFT adventure, we grabbed some very quick breakfast and ran over in our full battle-rattle (armor, LCE, helmet, pads, etc.) to a fascinating little simulation right outside our battalion headquarters. The Army has contracted out with a company that has built a computerized marksmanship program. Special M16A2s are hooked up to special magazines, which in turn are hooked up to gigantic computer screens. We lay prone on sandbags and simulate range firing. No safety issues, no ammo expenditures, no range maintenance…it’s an excellent system. Very well done. I spent most of my time there just staring slack-jawed at the technology involved. Good stuff.
The rest of today has been spent cleaning our weapons, our boots, and the Bay. A nice relaxing day. Excepting, of course, the vengeance smoke session we received from DS “M.” That hurt in ways I cannot describe. Just know that for th rest of my life, I will start sweating and looking anxious whenever I see body armor and playing cards in the same place. I won’t describe any further. Just let your imagination soar. Man, did that hurt.
Tomorrow is more cleaning, plus we get to go and see the Fort Benning Air Show. One of the benefits of White Phase: they sometimes let us out of our cage. Only for special occasions. I don’t know much about what will happen tomorrow, but there are rumors that candy might be available for purchase. And coke. And all the other forbidden goodies. So I’ll report on that tomorrow. For now, good night, sweet dreams, and don’t let the 1st Sgt. hear you. Take care.
-Jeremy

03/16/2007 Friday

2007-04-02T17:59:00.000-05:00

Dear All,

We’ve had a very busy past few days. We marched off to our first field exercise as scheduled at 0530 on Wednesday morning. The journey as only three miles, but this was made much more uncomfortable by the presence of: body armor, helmet, weapon, light combat equipment (belt and suspenders of two canteens and two ammo pouches), and about forty pounds full of rucksack. This brought the total weight, in one soldier’s estimation and experimentation with the Bay scale, to about eighty pounds. Really not all that bad of a march. To graduate, we’ll be doing 9.3 miles under these loads. But some poor guys only weight about 140, so the loads were pretty rough on them. And later we found out that by some miscommunication we were the only platoon not told to remove the plates form our armor vests. That stuff is heavy.

Fortunately, despite the extra load, only one man in our platoon fell out of formation on the march. Second platoon was right in front of us and not as fortunate. They lost five or six of their guys, and Second Platoon’s DSs instructed the remainder to let them go. “Don’t help them. Ignore them. They cease to be soldiers when they drop out. Don’t even give them the courtesy of a second glance. They don’t deserve it.” Harsh. Regardless, I’m proud to say that I was leading our formation by the end of the march. I started near the back and just kept advancing until I ran into the back of our standard bearer and couldn’t go farther. Thanks to Mark and Alex for getting me prepped with our little hiking adventure earlier this year. Whatever my other failures, which are many, it turns out I am a hiking machine.

The rest of Wednesday was spend in the field. We set up tents, established a perimeter, dug in to fighting holes, and generally just lay prone in the dirt for hours while waiting for the mythical enemy to show up. Wednesday night was spent much of the same way. We slept in shifts of hours while our buddies lay prone and challenged DSs who made a point of testing the perimeter by trying to sneak through during the night. I embarrassed myself in front of Cpt. Fort again when I challenged him…he was walking very close to the edge of the perimeter but was still on our side of it. I figured that I should be on the safe side and challenge him anyway. Maybe he had slipped by my buddy’s position unnoticed, I thought. But no. It was Cpt. Fort, coming form our side of the line, and he gave me a gentle mocking after my “Halt, who goes there?” And yes, that actually is what you say. Well, at least he knows I was alert. Stupid, but alert. And it was pitch-black so he doesn’t know who he was talking to (thank God!). But it seems fate has destined me to be a total moron around this man.

Long of the short of it, I spend a long, cold night in a dirt hole with Lewis. We didn’t sleep much. And despite rumors of a DS-led nighttime invasion, complete with blank rounds and fireworks, the mythical enemy never showed up. The following morning, after enjoying some more delicious MREs, we filled in our fighting holes, repacked the tents, and then spent the day practicing combat maneuvering. Simple stuff: how to rise, run, drop, and crawl while under fire. And we did it over and over. Truth be told, I had some problems getting it down. The drop and roll somehow confused the heck out of me. I got it in time but needed some “assistance” before it became automatic. And DS “assistance” always makes you wish you’d gotten it right the first time.

Speaking of the DSs, we’ve picked up a fourth. DS “S” is preparing to deploy for another tour in Iraq. He’s not leaving during the cycle, but obviously there is paperwork and family time that interferes with his role as Senior DS. So we now have DS “A.” He speaks with an Italian (?) accent so thick we can barely understand him, and his screaming, which we experience often, is practically a foreign language. We just hear a torrent of jibberish interspersed with cursing that would make Lucifer blush. I mean foul stuff. Mostly the guy just yells obscenities and insults our intelligence for not understanding simple orders. At least that’s what I think he’s screaming. I can’t really tell.

I also have the overwhelming urge to sit down with DS “A” in a nice, calm environment and check his b lood pressure. It isn’t healthy to be angry as often as this man is. There may be something wrong. Nevertheless, he’s ours now. Or we’re his. Depending. The man isn’t that bad. Maybe it’ll take some time for us to get used to him, and to get used to the fact that we now have a total of four individuals working around the clock in shifts to torture us.

Now counting the Company 1^st Sgt. Years from now, when I’m sitting around the table with my own children, this man will find his way into the conversation. He’ll be the family boogy-man. “If you don’t finish all your spinach, 1^st Sgt. “B” will come and get you!” I’ll warn them. “Nooooo!” they’ll scream, while turning with renewed vigor on their vegetables. Seriously. I don’t know of a man more feared than the 1^st Sgt. He’s one of those people that curses at you for telling him “Good morning,” which is customary greeting everywhere else. And then he’ll ruin your morning. If there is anything wrong with you—one bootlace not entirely tucked in, a pocket not tally secured—he notices instantly. And then you pay. Salute an officer incorrectly? Problem. Salute an officer incorrect in the company of the 1^st Sgt? Disaster. Of epic proportions.

I just can’t explain this man adequately. Take all of your personal doubts and fears, all of your worst nightmares, and compact htem into a little black diamond such as the one on, say the insignia of 1^st Sgt. Then give it a body and a name. The body and the name are significant, but secondary to the terror they represent. The man is terror embodied. To walk by him is dangerous. To talk to him is suicide.

He reaffirmed my opinion today, on Friday, when he “congratulated” us for our phase change from Red to White. In White Phase, as I’ve mentioned before, we receive more breathing room to conduct our own affairs. Less screaming, mostly. Showers at our own time. During the brief ceremony where we changed our platoon banners form red to white, the 1^st Sgt. said a few words to the effect that we were scum, undeserving of any leniency, and that this change would only grant him more opportunities to test our knowledge of Army affairs. Any screw up, he says, and we belong to him. I imagine a dark basement somewhere waiting for offenders. And I pray, “Oh Jesus, please no me. I’ll be good. Not me.”

Not that we’ll be in White Phase long. Oh, no. I think we’re going right back to Red Phase tomorrow. Two of our “restarts” in the platoon, individuals who cycled back in after some kind of problem in their original platoon, had to go and get in a fight over something nonsensical this evening. And then one of them just had to blurt it out to the Drill Sergeant when explaining why he was late to Flag Duty. Of course. Maybe, at some level, this happened because we as a platoon never really embraced these “other” guys and made them full parts of our team, giving them something to prove. Maybe this is just a manifestation of the personality traits that got them recycled in the first place. Or maybe, just maybe, they’re both juvenile little hotheads with no understanding of where they are, what hey signed up to do, and how much their moronic antics could cost the platoon. But I’m not bitter. Oh, no. Just hunky-dory over here.

At least I finally got to fire my M16A2 yesterday. Only blank rounds, but still quite a kick. We were running around firing at the “enemy,” the other half of the platoon in this case, while conducting combat maneuvers. A lot fo fun. Quidachay’s first couple rounds put a gigantic silly grin on his face, which quickly caught the eye of DS “S.” “What’s so damned funny, soldier?” he yelled. “Drill Sergeant,” Quidachay replied, “I’ve never fired a weapon before. Never even played with toy guns! I didn’t know it would be like this!” “Then here, soldier,” DS “S” replied with a grin, “ have some of the extra ammo. Go crazy!” I swear, I’ve never seen this man so happy. He fired over a hundred rounds and giggled like a maniac the whole time. Don’t worry, the man wouldn’t hurt a fly. But he does love that rifle.

We’ll be spending a lot more time with our weapons. We’re entering the Basic Rifle Marksmanship section of our training, or BRM, and we’ll be firing until we’re sick of it. Maybe in White Phase, maybe not. But more on that tomorrow. I have to go wax a floor. Take care.

-Jeremy

3/13/2007

2007-03-31T14:10:00.000-05:00

Dear All,

First off, happy birthday to Hope! Hope, who decorates cakes in her college off-season, is notorious for throwing some fancy shindigs. And the company is generally much more attractive than the sordid fellows with whom I now find myself. Seriously. Guys in the platoon are starting to give sincere second glances at the women who work in the Dining Facility. Age and weight are becoming immaterial to these guys…There are too many men here. Always. There is no alone time. You sleep, eat, march, and suffer with 49 other men at all times. And the mere idea of seeing a woman sends half of us into convulsions. Six more weeks. Man.

Today was a bit of a disappointment. A gigantic blister-like object appeared on my lower lip on Friday. It grew every day, swelling and swelling, until eventually everybody from my Battle Buddy to the DSs were telling me to go to Sick Call and have it checked out. So I filled out the form on Monday night. Early Tuesday morning, around 0300, the thing must have popped. So I didn’t get to find out if I hatched baby spiders of anything. It did, however, leave a smaller blister and a large damaged area. The nurse at Sick Call took one look at it and immediately moved me to the Troop Clinic. The folks there took a look at my lip and started gathering crowd. They would poke and squeeze it, and then jump away in disgust. I felt just great. (And I’ll be pleasantly surprised if Hope even looks at me after my recent graphic descriptions of grossness.) After some time of “observation and experimentation,” the nurse there took a sample of the area and has decided to process it. I’m supposed to return on Friday to find out what it was. My bet is that a fever blister got infected and started swelling. My guys in the platoon had all become very interested in this hideous swelling on my lip and were a bit disappointed when I came back unable to tell them what it was. They were all ve3ry curious about what came out when they squeezed. Only blood. How boring.

Fortunately, I had the nurse check me out and take a look at my lungs while I was there. My coughing is still very bad and tends to keep my neighbors awake. Sure enough, I’ve had bronchitis for about two weeks. No, really. All the horrible coughing after exercise suddenly made sense. After every run I would cough until I started gagging. I don’t think bothered to mention it, but I have been forced into vomiting some nights during my hacking spells. It’s been a blast.

Bronchitis. Huh. Mostly I can’t believe that I’ve been keeping in step…close to the front even...with bronchitis for two weeks. The nurse told me I’m practically healed at this point. Still bad in my left lung, she says, but I seem to be coming out of the woods. The batter of antibiotics I received will speed that up. She tried to prohibit me from marching and running for three days, but I quickly dissuaded her. First, we have a Field Exercise for tomorrow and Thursday. So I need to march. And second, if I’ve been taking care of business during the worst of the bronchitis, it would be sill to stop now that I’m practically healed.

Still. Bronchitis. Jeez. I had expected more from my body. I’m disappointed that I succumbed so easily. But I should be back to normal in no time now.

The real disappointment is that I missed the bayonet assault course today. I had to spend the time in waiting rooms, exam rooms, and manning the Company Quarters desk while I waited for the platoon to return. And when they did come back, dragging themselves in full gear, muddy, soaked, and sweating, I knew I had missed some fun. At least I got to rejoin the platoon for the pugil fights. I was chosen to fight Mard, my Battle Buddy and the perfect soldier. Mard also ended up winning the Company Championship for his weight group, so I feel pretty good about holding out as well as I did. Oh, I lost. I definitely lost. But I lost still standing and still fighting. The guys said I actually didn’t fare too badly. I got some real good shots in. A lot of fun. Tiring, though. A good pugil brawl will wear you out.

On a different not, I met the new Company Commander today. Cpt. Fort seems to be a great guy. We met in what could have been a very bad situation for me: I was at the CQ desk on guard when I saw a man approaching with a walk of authority. HE was still a bit far out but he was wearing a patrol cap and not a beret so I assumed he was a DS. “At ease!” I shouted, which is the cry announcing the entrance of anon-commissioned officer. I assumed the position of parade rest. The man, still a bit far out, casually told me to carry on. So I turned a bit towards him as I prepared to sit back down and notice…captain’s bars. “Oh, God,” I mumbled to myself. It was too late, but I figured I might as well make an effort to fix my mistake. “Attention!” I shouted and snapped the smartest salute I could manage. I tried to keep the terror out of my eyes. “It’s all right, soldier. Carry on,” he replied with a brief return salute. “Yes, sir,” I responded. I was stunned that he’s let me off after that embarrassing faux pas, and even more stunned when he stayed to chat for a bit. He asked about the platoon, my recent clinic visit (the only reason people man CQ during training), and how I liked it. I kept my answers as brief and polite as possible. Still petrified. After all, now he’d remember me. But he seems like a great guy. An officer more concerned with the welfare of his men that with the protocols of military discipline. This would be in line with his history as an infantry officer. It will be interesting seeing how his style changes in the world of Basic Training.

We aren’t like the actual military. We’re an over dramatized parody of Army life, an environment where your personal side is buried, not fostered. I wonder how it will be for an officer coming out of the real Army life to adapt to the style of our little theatre here. Anyway, he seems like a good guy and I’m sure he’ll do well. And I’m sure you all understand why I’m studying the officers here with such interest. Time to look for role models.

Tomorrow we march out with over 50 pounds of gear on a 3 mile march. Shouldn’t be too bad. When we arrive, we’ll dig foxholes, set up tents, and generally just learn the way of the field. We sleep in our foxholes. Thursday evening we’ll march back. Should be quite an adventure. As it happens, this probably means I won’t be able to write tomorrow. So I’ll give my report Thursday night. Everyone take care, and I’ll write again when possible.

-Jeremy

3/12/2007

2007-03-31T14:05:00.000-05:00

Dear All,

More wild and crazy times in Fort Benning! Most notably, we received mail today. The company is especially slow in getting it to us, so today I received mail dated form March 2-6. It was fantastic. Many thanks to my sister-in-law Alicia for her care and support and a big thank you to Peter and Ellie, my nephew and niece, for their cards. We have some budding artists among us. Mark Knight’s letters were a blast…except that one of them had giant, cute puppy-dog face stamps on it. The Drill Sergeant couldn’t not notice, and I had to knock out a few extra push-ups for receiving a “cute” letter from a man. Thanks, buddy. Thanks. But the letters were great. Another thanks to my Mom, ever concerned for her sons, and as always a thank you to Hope for maintaining the Blog as often as she does.

Looks like we’ll only receive mail once a week, but that’s growing on me. Because today was like Christmas all over again. Morale could not be higher post mail call. Whenever it gets rough over here, I just remind myself that I’m not doing this alone. The support really does help. While I’m on the point, though, Mark: don’t you even think about sending me cookies. The Drill Srgeants will do horrible things to me, which I in turn will one day do to you. Some day soon.

We started the day with an “Ability-group” run. Early on we were broken into 4 groups, Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Delta, based on our running speeds. I’m in Bravo group, the second fastest. The run wasn’t’ bad at all this morning, despite the hacking effects of my residual sinus illness, and I felt pretty good afterwards. So did a few of the other guys. Enough that DS “S” decided we should move up to Alpha…which scares me. These guys haul and high speed.

Lewis and I both got “promoted,” and we share the same concern: we’re better than Bravo, but Alpha might just tear us up. But I guess it’s the only way to really improve.

After breakfast we put on our uniforms, helmet, body armor, light basic equipment, and pulled out the rifles. We then had bayonet training in Sand Hill for a number of hours. In the sun. In body armor. We were dying out there. But we kept going. Bayonet training, though perhaps a bit antiquated, is still required for soldiers in training. The possibility of bayonet combat still exists. This remote possibility, plus the aggression and “motivation” that the training imbues, means that we all still spend time fixing bayonets and giving a smashing-good thrust to those Johnny Rebs.

Point One: A combat knife fixed to an M16A2 just looks ridiculous. The weapon is too short to serve as a spear. The reach is too short to be effective. And the image of a modern assault rifle equipped with a knife just strikes me as absurd. Seriously, I have 30 bullets per magazine. If you aren’t dead yet, I sincerely don’t think the knife will finish you off.

Point two: our “motivation” today was a little peculiar.
We swing the weapons like berserkers and scream “KILL!” at each other with every stab. Every now and then the Senior DS shouts out, “What makes the grass grow green?” And we all scream back, “Blood! Blood! Bright red blood!” Truth be told, I found it a little disturbing. These are not healthy things to scream out at people. But I guess it’s the Army way. And at least I got to hear my favorite quote of the day during instruction: “ Soldiers, in this world there are predators and there are prey. And right now some of you all look like little fluffy bunnies.”

Point three: there is no such thing as a respectable “war face.” Any of us screaming like hell pawn and swinging around a bayonet think we look intimidating, but really we look downright silly. Especially in BCGs. Viking warriors we are not.

And that was bayonet training for today. Tomorrow we do the bayonet assault course and then fight each other with Pugil sticks. Thee are sticks with colored pads to simulate the bayonet and butt of the rifle. We pad up and go at each other. Grudge matches are fostered by the DSs. They want us to challenge the guys in our platoon that we don’t get along with. I’m looking forward to beating the holy snot out of this guy who keeps talking in formation. He’s MINE tomorrow.

To end the day, Bravo Company held our change of command ceremony for our new Captain. This meant standing in formation before a Colonel, a Lt. Colonel, and bunch of civilians in the sun for another hour. I was practically a heat casualty by the end of the day. Between the bayonet training and the ceremony, we got totally wiped out. Thank heavens we had it light this evening. And from what we hear, we’ll be leaving Red Phase on schedule. Our platoon is doing relatively well.

Quidachay and I have taken to singing Disney songs during our night latrine cleaning details. It’s pretty surreal. The two of us just spontaneously break into song while scrubbing urinals. “I can show the world…” we harmonize, “shining, shimmering, splendor…” The younger guys in the platoon all think it’s the highest travesty. It does not fit into their high-speed image of the Army at all. The older guys join in whenever they know the lyrics. I can’t explain the appeal. Maybe it’s just a way to compensate for our training to be “ruthless killers.” Singing Aladdin in the same day that I declared I was here to “kill, kill, kill with cold, blue steel” strikes me as pretty…different.

Anyways, it’s lights out. I’ll write when possible, and I should have time tomorrow. Once again, thank you all for your support. I’ll write soon.

-Jeremy

3/6/2007 and 3/7/2007

2007-03-27T20:43:00.000-05:00

Forgive the mix-up of the dates; this letter was slow in arriving.

3/6/2007

Dear All,

Have had an interesting two days. Of first priority: we got mail!!!! I have received a lovely letter from Hope and from my parents, and I was elated. We pay for our letters with push-ups, but by God, those are the best push-ups ever. News from loved ones outside….I think I read each word three times. Life outside of Basic. I’d heard rumors about it, but first contact was so much more exciting than I could have predicted. It was great.

---End shameless plug for more letters---

Yesterday we crammed two days of First Aid Training into an eight hour block. Fascinating stuff; everything was focused around bullet wounds, bomb debris, and other items never covered in my community CPR courses. The process of relieving chest pressure form an upper-torso wounded soldier was particularly graphic. Not quite so much as the abdominal patient…but I’m sure you can imagine on that one. A sobering thought. We learned the bare basics (and were tested constantly to make sure we retained it) and then went into a simulated field exercise to practice. Our squad came “under fire” and we crawled forward in combat formations to assess casualties and administer primary treatment. We are under orders not to touch anything but arterial bleeding. The rest must wait for the skilled hands of the medic at the CASEVAC.

By the end, we were tired and covered in the charms of the great outdoors. Especially tired since we had to march to and from our training position, only 1.5 miles each way but much more complicated in full uniforms with body armor, helmet, light combat equipment, weapon, and full rucksack. Our graduation is a 15K march with similar equipment, and that scares me. Should be an adventure.

Today we were again graced with DS “M.” This man is essentially a good guy, but he’s really taken the “bad cop” role and decided to run with it. We were smoked maybe half a dozen times today. And since smoking implies muscle failure, you can understand how burned we wree by the end of the day. We’ll be in good shape by graduation. I don’t have access to scales, but I know I’ve already lost at least five pounds. I’m clearly slimming down.

Today, other than receiving punishment, we were sent from place to place inventorying company equipment. We’re having a change of command ceremony for our Company Commander this month, as he is sent to Iraq, and we’re making sure we have a count of everything for the new guy. Pretty mundane work made painful by the sadistic interferences of DS “M.” He loves dishing out pain. I’m writing this during a punishment Firewatch which I randomly received in the name of the whole platoon: we kept screwing up a drill, and he gave me and my battle buddy the “honor” of paying for our comrades. Well, at least I have the chance to write.

He also layed in pretty heavily on our problem guy. Poor devil. DS “M” all but set the guy up for a blanket party (if you don’t know, don’t ask) by setting him apart and making him sit while th rest of us were smoked, giving the rest of us fireguard shifts whenever he screwed up, and generally by trying to raise animus against him. Some of our more hot-headed souls are buying into DS “M”’s implications of complacency “should something accidentally happen.”

I, as well as a few of my buddies, feel it is my duty to stop any such thing from happening. It won’t help the poor guy, and he really isn’t as bad as DS “M” makes him out to be. Bad, yes, but not deserving that. Too much to lose and nothing to gain by it. Further evidence in my mind that an Officer’s real mission is to restrain, rather than foster, the natural aggression of the men. We can turn into savages in an instant. Sometimes I think we secretly want it; we secretly desire the excuse to throw our civility away and reveal our darker selves. Some of us, if not all of us, have killers waiting beneath the surface. A chaotic battle situation would be just the place to bring that out of someone, unless capable leaders are able to restrain that rage and channel small portions of it into focused directions. Seriously, I think some men would turn against anyone if they had the chance. The fact that so many of my battle buddies have been manipulated into violently hating an innocent man because they are told he’s responsible for their pain…it’s a little frightening. It’s a behavior that must be restrained.

Anyway, I’m keeping close watch and an ear to the ground. The group of us that feel we need to protect all our buddies is making a point to befriend this guy and give him a few shoulders to lean on while the Drill Sergeants tear him down. And I can’t understate what’s happening to this guy: this is the kind of stuff that breaks a man. No kiddy-toys here. This guy is really getting both barrels.

Tomorrow we have a classroom block of instructions on land navigation. Thursday is unknown, but Friday is the gas chamber. More on that later. I have to rotate the laundry before I tuck into bed; love you all, will write soon.

-Jeremy

3/7/2007

Everyone,

Today our platoon was once again subjected to the smoker. At this rate we’re starting ot smell like good BBQ. DS “W” was in a good mood, which is always fun, and he felt like putting us through the motions. Same physical exertions as under DS “M,” but DS “W” is the good cop. He makes it almost enjoyable. Towards the end we were even swapping jokes with him—while in front-leaning rest position—and asking for more pain. “How about one more for the 3^rd Infantry Division, Drill Sergeant?”—“How about another for the civilian who just passed by?” Really. We were asking for more and enjoying it. That’s the difference in good cop-bad cop; they can do the same things to you, but the good cop makes you feel gung-ho about it. Makes you want it. The bad cop just makes you feel worthless. Put them together , and they make a great team. Our platoon’s senior DS, DS “S,” (the GI Joe) is more of the father figure. He’ll hurt us is we need it, but generally he’s the only one who treats us like professional soldiers. Which is, I guess, what we are now.

They’re a good trio. They can pull out any tool from their collective arsenals when necessary. We need a sharp reminder? Get DS “M.” Need a gentle (well, relatively gentle) practice session? DS “W” will be ther to get us up to speed. Serious business? Here comes Daddy. They’ve worked this out well. Unfortunately for us, that generally means we get smoked at least a few times a day. But we are getting stronger.

The land navigation course was the slowest thing that ever happened to me. It took everything I had to stay awake for the day. It isn’t pleasant if they catch you drifting off, and they have sharp eyes. But I was almost ready to risk it. I have only one desire from my time here: more sleep. I’m starting to crave it. Probably just one of the phases of training that I’ll surpass soon, but for right now, I shudder down to my very soul when I see another duty to be performed at Fireguard or the CQ Desk. At least tonight it’s from 2100-2200, which is ideal; I’ve had a few at 0200-0300 or the neighboring hours. That will ruin a night of sleep. Three hours of sleep, wake up and get in full uniform, perform duty for an hour, and get undressed for two more hours of sleep. It makes the next day’s PT…unpleasant. Thank heavens I finally went to Sick Call for my cough a few days ago and picked up some Tylenol. That makes the morning torture a little less severe.

Actually, it’s getting less severe in general these days. I practically look forward to the morning routine. They stretch us, torture us for a bit, run us, torture us some more, and then feed us. It is a pretty nice way to wake up.

Tomorrow we have a Land Navigation exercise in the great outdoors. I may be lost in the woods for a few hours. Should be an experience. And Friday they stick us in a chamber with CS gas and watch us vomit for a while. I’m praying that I respond with composure and decorum, but I really have no way of knowing what I’ll do. I fear I’ll be one of those guys of legend who run around screaming, vomiting, and snotting until I find the exit and crash into a tree. There will be cameras present, to add to the potential for shame. Drill Sergeants are the first to admit how much they love watching recruits suffer in the chamber.

So the remainder of the week should be fun. Our problem recruit is improving in some ways, but screwing up pretty badly in others. He doesn’t make his lot any easier. Bless him, he tries…but he is insanely absent-minded. Just today he lost his dog tags and forgot to secure his wall locker. The Drill Sergeants trashed the Bay and sprayed shaving cream in there as retaliation. He’s currently wearing his tags by a shoe-string around his neck. I just don’t know what to say. But he’s still quite safe; we’re diffusing any violent reactions from the communal smokings we receive for his mistakes. We make a point of having him do additional physical training—his greatest weakness—in public to show the hot-heads that he’s making an honest effort. We’re not going to fall into DS “M”’s trap. This team is going to stay together, no matter what our teammates think. No infighting. One team, one fight.

I hear my gung-ho attitudes of earlier may have scared my Mother. I’ll make this a bit more clear: I’m in a totally new environment living a totally new lifestyle. There is no civilian equivalent except for maybe prison. So my gung-ho attitude is partially a natural inclination towards this lifestyle, but mostly it’s my reaction to the advice my Dad was given back in his early days of the Navy: if you’re going ot be raped, you might as well enjoy it. These people have me totally in their control. It doesn’t make sense to fight it.

Anyway, I’m off to more Fireguard. Bring it on, I say. Talk to you all soon.

-Jeremy

3/11/2007

2007-03-19T23:14:00.000-05:00

Dear All,

We are now approaching the end of Week 3. Yesterday while we were on the range we had a surprise inspection from the 1^st Sgt. We passed, thank God, but not by much. Some other platoons were not so lucky. The end of week 3 is very significant for us: it marks the end of Red phase and the beginning of White Phase. Red Phase is Total Control, and in White Phase the platoon has more freedom. Some more personal time, we march ourselves to chow, showers longer than two minutes...there are a lot of advantages to moving to White Phase.

If we are allowed to, that is. If we don't have our act totally squared away, we could very well stay in Red Phase. For all of training. We could graduate under Red Phase. Our Drill Sergeants go home earlier in the day, back to their families, in White Phase. And even earlier in final Blue Phase. If they have to stick around under permanent Red Phase...well, it wouldn't be pretty.

Seeing as Sunday is reserved for cleaning and thus pretty boring, I think this is a good opportunity for a few more words on the guys in the platoon. I'll give a basic profile of the few I'm closest to.

My battle buddy, Mard, is a 29 year old OCS guy with a background in computer engineering. He has a wife and three kids, who he misses quite a bit, and wants to be a pilot. Mard has a reputation in our platoon for being a PT stud and generally the most squared-away guy here. There's little he doesn't get right the first time around. This makes him an ideal battle buddy. We never get each other in trouble, we sleep in the back of the Bay, and we are generally ignored. It's perfect. They just let us be.

Lewis, my bunk neighbor, is a 27 year old former chemicals marketer from Chicago. His job was to booze and schmooze, and he took a significant pay reduction to join the Army as an OCS candidate. He's generally squared away, but he has a tendency to desire leadership a little more aggressively than is ideal. This singled him out to the Drill Sergeants early on. He's usually on point, but his persona means he gets a lot of grief from the DSs, especially DS “M”. Just too many questions and too many instructions to other soldiers. Good guy, really. Just an ideal DS target. But they like him enough to give him responsibility as a Squad Leader. He thinks they're out to get him, but I think they're actually fostering his leadership. Tailoring it to the Army style. The man has potential.

Chong is an enlisted man in his mid-thirties. He's a Korean immigrant who earned his citizenship a few years ago. His wife, however, did not, and he joined the Army to earn it for her. If that doesn't work, he says, then he's requesting a duty station in South Korea so as to be near her. Really a fantastic story. He's quiet, reserved, with a good sense of humor and a keen sense of direction (he was on my Land Nav team). The extra tragedy is that he's been here in BCT for months. Last cycle he caught pneumonia nd was recycled here. He'll make it through with us. He's a good man and an able soldier. Sometimes I catch him sitting alone and staring off into space. “Wife-sick,” he explains. I'm sure he'll get to see her soon, one way or another. He deserves it.

Pittman is our problem guy. He's a good guy in general, but as I've explained earlier, he's found himself centered in the DSs' sights. He's here for the skills and the money; the Army is his escape from a dead-end job and no prospects of higher education. He has a tech-school degree as opposed to a high school diploma or a GED. His dream is to get through this successfully, return home, and marry his girlfriend. The Army is his key to everything.

It's just a pity he's so bad at it. In time, with effort, he'll be squared away. I fully expect to graduate with him. He just needs time and effort.

We have four seventeen-year-olds in our platoon. Their parents, with their consent of course, signed them away to the Federal Government. One was kicked out of high school for disciplinary problems (and he's a problem here). Another just disliked high school and dropped out to earn his GED at 16. Some of them are good at this, some of them are not. But they all need some time to mature. We all get so mad at them before we remember how young they are. It's easy to forget here. They are young in all respects, and I know BCT is changing them. They're almost growing up in front of us. Easterling and Dunn are our oldest. Dunn is 41 and Easterling is 40; both are older than our Drill Sergeants. Both are OCS. They're pretty quiet about themselves and their families, at least around me, so I don't know too much about them.

Johnson is a former police officer. Another of our guys worked as a contractor in Iraq for years before he decided that he'd rather serve the Army directly. We're a motley crew of men: we range from 17-41. 23 of us have bachelors degrees. Another three have associates. Our civilian annual earnings ranged from $0-110,000 annually. We have talkers and quiet folks, big and small, American, Mexican immigrants, Koreans immigrants, citizens of American protectorates like Guam and Puerto Rico. Cops and gang-members. We're truly a diverse group of men, in the Army for a hundred different reasons, struggling to function as one team. It's fascinating to be part of.

I wish I cold go further into more of these guys. I just don't know enough about them. Quidachay is from Guam and is in his mid-thirties with a wife and three kids. He's very large and originally got a lot of flack for it. But everyone immediately learned about the real Quidachay: the overweight man from Guam with the cheerful disposition is a warrior at heart. This guy takes it all in stride and pushes as hard as he can. Nobody expected him to run. He stays with us as long as he can, which is always much longer than we expect, and it practically kills him. Want push-ups? He's on the job. The man just has heart. Drill Sergeants have taken a great liking to him. Just yesterday morning, as I was about to lap him on the track, a DS running in formation with is platoon saw Quidachay and started shouting at his men. “Do you see this man?” he screamed, “I want this man in my Army! Look at him! He's huge! There's no way he can run, but he is, and he's pushing hard! Look at this man and then try to tell me that any of you have an excuse!” And as he passed Quidachay, “You! Fat body! You are an inspiration, soldier! You inspire me! Keep running! You show these men what determination looks like!”

They've also made him squad leader. They all respect him. It was amazing to watch. On Day 1, everyone from our junior DS to the Company Commander was on this guy and giving him grief. By Day 2, nobody dared insult him. A real success story.

But enough for now. There's more work to be done, and I'll have plenty to talk about tomorrow. We're all in good moods today, Red Phase is almost over, and things are looking up. It's a good Sunday. I hope the upcoming week will be goods; it'll make us or break us. I'll write soon.

-Jeremy

3/10/2007

2007-03-19T23:12:00.001-05:00

Everyone,

Today I fired an AT4! Well, a modified version with only 9mm rounds instead of the actual missile, but it was still a lot of fun. Laypeople would probably refer to the AT4 as the bazooka. It's an anti-tank weapon, should-launched, disposable tube, single-fire. It's ancestor was the bazooka, but the system has changed a number of ways since WWII. This thing was fun. We got on buses and arrived on the range by mid-morning. After a series of safety and instructional lessons, they lined us up, supplied us with modified AT4s, and directed us to a group of disabled military vehicles. Old APCs and tanks have been collected and placed on the range as targets. Now if we were using actual missiles to train with, which is implausible seeing as they cost over $1000 a piece, these vehicles would have disintegrated a long time ago. Instead, we fire 9mm bullets (tracer rounds) through the modified AT4 tubes to simulate the process.

I didn't do too poorly. Of my 5 targets, I hit 4; the Drill Sergeant called out a target number that I couldn't locate, so I targeted a vehicle that I suspected was #8. I hit what I was aiming for, but it wasn't #8, so technically I missed. Stupid of me. But still fun.

The company was allocated two non-modified AT4s to fire so as to demonstrate the actual noise and destructive potential of the system. Two soldiers, neither from my platoon, were selected to show us the real thing. These things are loud. Both guys missed the tank, which was a real disappointment since there would have been a big explosion if they hit, but at least we got to see them blow up some trees. HEAT rounds are fun.

After the range we spent a few hours practicing for the change of command ceremony on Monday. This mostly meant standing in formation in the sun for a long time. Good thing we hydrate as often as we do. It'll be a pity to lose Cpt. Cruz; he can be a bit severe to mistakes (he fired our platoon guide of four hours for incorrectly saluting a few days ago), but he is always somewhere within the company, running beside us on runs, observing us in morning PT, and generally keeping close watch. He makes a point f being involved in our training. I haven't seen Cpt. Ford in action yet, so I'm unable to compare. But for some reason I've taken a liking to Cpt. Cruz's style.

For the rest of the evening we cleaned and received lessons on bayonet training. Next Monday and Tuesday will be spent stabbing things and with pugil sticks, so we should have some fun. A pity we lose an hour tonight, though. I was really looking forward to our extra hour of Sunday sleep. On the up side, at least it is happening on Sunday. Losing another hour of weekday sleep would be a lot more painful.

Speaking of sleep, I'm going to hit the sack. I don't have any duty tonight except for cleaning detail (2100-2200), so I'm going to get some relaxing shut-eye. I'll write tomorrow during Sunday cleaning.

-Jeremy

03/08/2007

2007-03-16T21:10:00.000-05:00

Dear All,

Land Navigation was today. Not the indoor class; no, they stuck us in the woods in small groups with a compass and a map and set us loose. Since I happened to be in the first row when we formed up on the range, I was selected as a team leader. So I had the map and compass. We were given instructions (e.g. on an azimuth of 184 degrees proceed 650 meters and record on the sign number there) and a three hour period to finish. Then they waited for dark and sent us out again. I am proud to report that my team attained a perfect score. My battle buddy's team missed one marker, and one of my friend's team made only one of the seven positions correctly. Poor guy got some special attention for that.

So our day was interesting, but there is little to report. For eight hours we walked in the woods. In the very late evening, DS “S” (Daddy) even provided us with coffee and soup on the range. It was perfect. I've craved coffee for my whole time here, and when my wish was granted on a beautiful starlit Georgia night sitting in the woods...let's just say that I whole-heartedly enjoyed the Army last night. For a moment it felt right. More days like Thursday could do me good.

But karma was waiting for payback on:

Friday March 9, 2007

Today was the gas chamber. You've all heard the legends. Some of you have lived it. Today I got a load of it. Procedure is as follows: you secure your NBC (nuclear-biological-chemical) mask and enter the chamber as a platoon. The CS gas is already running thick. A group of four Drill Sergeants in full protective gear (no NBC masks for them) wait inside to observe/restrain you. They walk you around the chamber a few times and then set you in groups of ten or so. Then they have you break the seal of your mask and reseal it...just to give you a taste of things to come.

Then they make you remove your mask. Once the mask is removed, you must put on your helmet and strap it, then pick up your weapon in your right hand and your mask in your left. You must then stand for about a minute with your eyes open, breathing “normally.” You then leave the chamber, holding your gear correctly, and must walk with composure around the perimeter outside for a bit.

Now for how it actually went: my mask did not seal correctly. I got a steady stream of CS gas..though just a small taste...during the walk-around. So my ask was full of snot by the time I had to take it off. I forgot to mention: I've been alluding to it but haven't said it, but I've had a nasty cough and bad congestion for about two weeks now. I couldn't sleep for most of last night because I was constantly hacking up my lungs. My lymph nodes have been prodigious. Everything is green. Unpleasant, but not crippling. So I've stayed on training. And today, my sinuses were CLEARED. When I took off my mask, I started gagging and snotting immediately. Liquid was coming out of every orifice on my face. I leaked ear wax. I teared up. I vomited myself...though I didn't even notice until later. It was awesome. But the whole time I maintained relative composure. I secured my gear. I stood and waited for instructions to leave. I don't know how I did it, but I maintained. And I walked outside to find a group of Drill Sergeants and civilians with cameras, come to enjoy the show. I was gross enough to merit a picture. The entire front of my uniform was covered in snot and vomit. But I was home free...until a Drill Sergeant noticed that my chin strap was hooked incorrectly. And I was told to go back in, report my error to the DS team inside, and come back out. So I had to first fix my chin strap, which is when I noticed I had vomited a little. A good portion had collected in the chin strap, which is why it had slipped off. I was just thrilled with how very disgusting this all was.

And I walked back in. Once again, I don't know ;how I did it, but I calmly approached the DS inside, reported my name, number, and reason for return, and requested permission to pass. More snot and gagging in the mean time, of course. And the DS decided to screw with me and pretended not to hear me. So I repeated myself two more times. I was just about ready to die when they let me go. But I did successfully complete the gas chamber.

And I managed to compose myself relatively well. We did have some runners and I did have the privilege to witness one. My mask was still on when this happened, so I was able to view it with only minor agony. He took his mask off. He inhaled. And then he freaked out. He dashed towards the door screaming, vomiting, and generally secreting liquids. It took five sergeants to tackle him and physically drag him back inside. It was amazing to watch. He actually fought them off for some time in his desperation before he succumbed. He wept pitifully between his wretching for some time before they released him. Another man, who I did not witness, had to go in four times. We only saw him outside between his second and third trip, begging the Drill Sergeants to spare him. As my battle buddy so eloquently understated, today was “an incredibly unpleasant event.” Or, as the 1^st Sgt. stated before he sent us in” “Be prepared for an extremely emotional experience.”

In short, it was really, really gross. And I'm sure I look positively disgusting in the picture they took. I just can't believe how very gross it all was. But my sinuses were clear for the rest of today.

More later. It's lights out and I'm exhausted from my adventures, so I'm going to grab some sack time. I'll report more soon.

-Jeremy

3/3/07

2007-03-09T22:26:00.001-06:00

I just noticed how fitting it is that I’m in Basic during the month of “March.” We do plenty of it. And life is good, except for whatever reason, the mail isn’t working. Nobody has received any letters. There are 49 of us, and many of us are married with children, so we know it isn’t a problem back home. No, it’s here. We don’t know what it is, but it’s starting to have a negative effect on platoon morale. First, it’s a federal offense to withhold mail. So we know it isn’t our Drill Sergeants. Second, this is our only form of communications with our loved ones. So we’re starting to get angry.

Long story short, I apologize for not responding to any mail. We have yet to receive it. If we haven’t by Monday, there may very well be a revolt. We’ll take just about any abuse, but damn it, we do want our mail.

The Bravo Company Combative Tournament went well. We each wrestled someone from our own platoon and then sent one representative forward in each of the four weight classes. I won my round but not by enough to receive the nomination for heavyweight, which was probably for the best. Watching the platoon heavyweights go at it was a bit like watching tanks maneuver. Slow tanks. And the little scrappy ones were a blast: they moved very quickly and with insane agility. Not much power behind them, but man could they move.

There are only three platoons in our company, strangely named 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th. I’m 3^rd Platoon. We lost today, but at least we weren’t stomped; we won 1 our of 4 of the championships, 2^nd Platoon won the other 3 out of 4, and 4^th Platoon is still doing push-ups. 2^nd Platoon also won the Obstacle Course race. We’re thinking about busting some kneecaps to level the playing field.

I have to go and clean the bay before lights out. I’ll write soon. And with any luck, we’ll be receiving mail by then.

Good Luck,

Jeremy

3/2/07

2007-03-09T16:43:00.000-06:00

Dear All,

It’s Friday, and we’re still in training. No surprises. Because it rained heavily yesterday, we were unable to use our obstacle course; instead we put the mats down in the classrooms and spent the day on hand-to-hand combat. Not as fun as it sounded. Some of our Drill Sergeants have high ranks in our Army Combative system, but they aren’t particularly good at teaching. They have trouble conveying purpose or meaning behind the moves they mechanistically imbued in us. This is a recurring problem and one of the only little reminders that our Drill Sergeants are fallible and mortal.

Difficult to remember that when they hold the power to ruin your life. For instance, we just got done doing push-ups until one of our guys passed out. Actually passed out. Unconscious, had to be safely revived. A lot of push-ups. Good times. He’s fine now, thank heavens.

We had to do these push-ups because our space-cadet recruit accidentally touched the Drill Sergeant’s hat and got caught. Well, to be fair, he was trying to hand the hat to he Drill Sergeant and just didn’t understand his great error. Those campaign hats are taboo. This is the same man who can’t do a push-up correctly. He can’t march. He can’t run. He can’t drill with weapons. And he’s being eaten alive. All the Drill Sergeants are focused on him. Every chow line, he has to stand in front and PT. Every evening he’s humiliated in front of the platoon. I’m sure he cries in the latrine. His life must be hellish.

And sympathize as I want, he does tend to deserve it. He is not military material. He can’t get it right. The most prudent move would be for the government to cut their losses and send him home. They’ve got him for four years, though, and they’re going to make an effort to get him in line. He won’t enjoy these four years. I’m also getting “snap” vibes off of him. He could lose it soon. (Heeey, Snoowwbaaalll…)

Which reminds me: watch Full Metal Jacket if you haven’t already. Seriously. It’s accurate. The training is for the Marines, but it isn’t at all a far cry from Army Basic. And I love our marching cadences. We sing a kind of “soldiers’ blues” while we march, and I find it hilarious: “Everywhere I go/ There’s a Drill Sergeant there/ Everywhere I gooo/ There’s a Drill Sergeant there/ Drill Sergeant/ Drill Sergeant/ Why won’t you leave me alone/ why won’t you just go home.” Other subjects include our haircuts, the chow, the uniforms, the mud, the boots, etc. And all of it is a wailing, mourning dirge interspersed with “Left, left,” etc. I love it. It’s too silly to be real.

I have an extra shift tonight because I was caught wearing the wrong style of underwear with my uniforms. I had mixed my PTs with my ACUs, which is a big no-no. But I was thrilled when the Drill Sergeant had to ask my name before issuing my punishment. Thank God I’m still mostly anonymous. And this incident certainly won’t do much against me.

So I can spend a few words on our daily adventures. Wakeup is 0500 (really 0445) on all days but Sunday, when it’s 0600. Lights out is at 2100, though everyone’s sleep is usually interrupted by extra duty or patrol/watch. But the sleep is adequate. I’ve learned ot sleep over my sheets to save time in the mornings (a joke for my parents; I always slept over my sheets). This is condoned behavior. Since the beds must be impeccable and nobody has time, we all do this. So ha ha, Dad. I guess the Army decided to side with me on this one.

Sleep is usually light. I’ve been having this recurring dream that pulls one from sleep at about 0100; I’m convinced that orders are being shouted at us and I have to obey them. The bunks are actually stations in a formation and I’m in the wrong one. I’ve had to stop myself form waking up my battle buddy and trying to move him. I also sleep by the latrines, which are lights-on the whole night. But all in all, the sleep is good and plentiful. I average 5-6 hours a night.

PT is enjoyable. Stretch, upper body (push-ups, normally, plus a few other tortures), and running. Now that I’m not sick I find myself almost wanting more. The chow is pretty good, though we can only drink Powerade and I’m starting to hate it. We have to chug two glasses at every meal and it’s always the blue crap. It’s pretty gross. The food is plentiful and decent. Breakfast is great, especially after the PT.

Free time is spent cleaning up the Bay and environs. We’ve got that down to an art form. Sundays are for cleaning, church, and a little training. In the evenings before bed we clean some more. It was frustrating at first, but now I kind of like it. They’re successfully equating free time and cleaning in my head. Unbelievable.

Tomorrow is the Army Combatives Tournament for Bravo Company. We’ll take what we already know and pair it with what we’ve learned and take each other on. Could be fun. At least the time will move quickly. And Sunday will be easy. So this week will pass soon and without incident. Week Two should be a breeze. Maybe I’m speaking too soon, but I’m going to stand by my declaration yesterday: I can do this. No problem. I’ll write when practical.

Good Luck,

Jeremy

3/1/07

2007-03-06T19:27:00.000-06:00

Dear everyone,

It’s Thursday in Fort Benning. It has now been one week since the shark attack (the first day of Red Phase), and life is well adjusted. I’m even mostly healthy. I’m still coughing like crazy (Drill Sergeant M heard me and said it sounded like SARS) and I had to drain blood and snot into a Kleenex for an hour today, but I’m healthy. I had the added pleasure of watching a new platoon get attacked as they arrived this afternoon. Even though we’re both groups of recruits and I should think of these new guys with sympathy, I found myself maliciously wishing the Drill Sergeants would lay it on extra thick for them. Maybe I just wanted to be sure that they were as scared and miserable as I was on the first day. I wasn’t disappointed.

I know I’ve lost weight. We don’t have access to scales, but I can tell. Maybe five pounds this week. Not surprising, given the work we’ve been doing. We wake up at about 0445 and stand in formation in our PT uniforms, brushed and shaved, at 0515. We then proceed to march to the Sand Hill, a gigantic pit of sand maybe a little larger than a football field with track. We then begin our morning PT. Arms, legs, abs, followed by a group run. Nothing too extreme (for most of us). For the rest of the day we train on drills, classes, marching, or field exercises. We’ve moved through two obstacle course: the Confidence Course, which involves single and group climbs of high objects and was a lot of fun, and a Race Course, where groups raced to climb ropes, crawl under wire, etc. Both were loads of fun even while sick. I performed decently but without distinction in both. I didn’t fail at anything but I did move a little slowly.

Our weapons are still only props. We won’t begin firing them for another couple of weeks. But we’re learning them pretty well and growing familiar with our drill instructions. We’re starting to look like soldiers.

Well, some of us. We have a few duds in the platoon. One poor man can’t do a single push-up. Not one. No one knows how his recruiters let him get this far. It was a major mistake, and this man’s life is subsequently hellish.

Every Drill Sergeant in the company has targeted him. I don’t think they let him sleep anymore. Everything he does, he does wrong. He’s cursed. And at the rate they’re tearing him down, I think he’ll completely snap by the end fo next week. I don’t think he’ll be able to hack it.

And a few more of our enlisted recruits need some serious help. One is seriously overweight but completely dedicated to soldering, and this man has become an inspiration to the others. He’s a jolly, middle-aged Guamanian, and despite his size he’s always ready to volunteer for extra duty or physical labor. The Drill Sergeants all started by mocking him ruthlessly, but after about two days it all stopped. They’ve seen his character. Overweight or not, the man will make an outstanding soldier.

Others are not so good. Some have no rhythm and can’t march. Some have no coordination and can’t weapons drill. Some can’t climb ropes and some can’t run. All are enlisted recruits, except for one OCS recruit dud: this guy just can’t seem to get it right. His feet are everywhere but where they should be. He never catches a trick order (where they order you to do something you shouldn’t just to see if you do). It’s like he just zones out and follows the line like a zombie. I don’t know enough about him to judge him, but given what I do know, I’d be hesitant to put him in charge of a platoon in combat. It’s like his brain just shuts down.

I have to go for now. We have hand-to-hand combat training tomorrow, and that should be fun. But now I have to practice stripping my weapon. I’ll write soon.

-Jeremy

2/28

2007-03-05T17:29:00.000-06:00

Dear all,

I’m still kicking over here. Signs of life. As of about 1800 this evening, my fever finally broke. I began sweating again. I ate a whole plate of spaghetti (hadn’t been able to keep anything down for two days). Think I’m just about healed. And what a story to bore my grandkids with, you know? I’m going to sit them down and tell them about how I went through my first week of Basic with the plague. I actually can’t believe I kept going. We ran, we climbed, we did obstacle courses, and maybe a couple thousand push-ups, and I didn’t give out. Amazing what the human body can do in a tight space. I actually was so numb and dizzy through it all that it wasn’t the epic feat I make it sound like. You’re numb. You just dress right, toe the line, and obey. So I regret that my mind/personality/emotions gets no credit for this adventure…no, they were all missing in action. Props to the human body. We can take one heck of a licking and keep on ticking.

The training itself is downright enjoyable most of the time, though arduous. I’m starting to get a feel for Red Phase. Should be much easier now that I’m not carrying a feverish, mucus-filled, voiceless, migraine-bedridden deadweight around. A few good nights of sleep (that means 5 hours) and I’ll be better than new.

The Drill Sergeants are still coming down hard most of the time, but they are showing a human side every now and then. And they leave me alone. Except for Drill Sergeant M, who occasionally tells me to stop looking like I’m about to cry. No one knows why he says this. Everyone assures me that I in no way look like I’m about to cry. Yet still he seeks me out. I just take it in stride, but I’m starting to get self-conscious about this. I just have big eyes, these hideous BCGs do nothing to help with that. Yeah, I look downright ugly. But thank God I don’t have to keep the hair and the glasses.

Things are going better, all in all. It’s been a rollercoaster ride. I’m good, I’m miserable, I’m good…but I am cautiously going to claim that I’m on the up swing now. I’ll write again when practical, and in more depth. Sorry I can’t be more detailed about the past few days; I wasn’t really there. All that’s important is that despite it all, I’m still ahead of standard, the DSs don’t bother me, and the days are going in the right direction. I’ll write soon.

-Jeremy

Mailing Address

2007-03-02T00:01:00.000-06:00

Dear All,

I am writing this on Staff Duty at 2400 here in Red Phase at Fort Benning. When it hit midnight I finished my third day here; what generally is considered the hardest part is now behind me. I haven’t had a free moment to write until now. I really can’t explain what’s happened over the past 72 hours. Those of you who’ve done it know, and those of you who haven’t…can go rent Full Metal Jacket. But it isn’t a montage. Unlike the movies, the scenes here extend for full 18 hour days. The screaming practically never stops. You can do nothing right. The Drill Sergeants come at you in pairs and gather round you with their noses practically touching you as they shout obscenities and find excuses to smoke your platoon.

What is “smoking” like? Go to the Front-Leaning Rest Position, the “up” position of the push-up. Now stay there. You have to hold it for minutes at a time. No placing your knees on the floor. No placing your rear in the air. And you can’t just give up; no, they have more devious tortures if you don’t meet standard. And standard is very high.

Red Phase is “Total Control.” For the first 3 weeks you can’t do anything without being surrounded by Drill Sergeants, all eager to make you hurt. I really can’t explain what it’s like. Surreal, really. But that might just be aside effect of the 100+ degree fever I’ve had for the past few days. Miserable. Just miserable. Easily the worst days of my life. But after the first 72 hours, I’m told they start laying off a little. That would be nice.

They didn’t learn my name until today. This is outstanding. If they know who you are, that means your constant screw-ups have drawn their attention and you’ve receives a lot of “corrective training.” I was slow, red, and burning today, assembling and disassembling my weapon (we have M16A2’s) while I was shaking from the cold. I soldiered on for the day, completing a 1-1-1 APFT (look it up) with competitive scores and surviving the extensive smokings we had all day. So, even though I was sluggish and made a dozen little mistakes, I hope I got some credit for not giving up.

This place can only get better. It has to. Otherwise, people will start to lose their sanity. This is HORRIBLE. But at least I have a mailing address now. I’ll have to pay for my mail with push-ups and other tortures, but trust me. It would be worth it. I would deeply appreciate any mail.

Now for a few words on my platoon. There are 49 of us, and about half of us are OCS candidates. It’s the same with the other platoons. This is obviously an anomaly, as the Station Commander told us, and our cycle has more OCS that they’ve had OCS for practically their entire history. I think we’re an experiment of some kind. Additionally, the Drill Sergeants mock you and punish you excessively if you are OCS. Every little thing becomes huge. They’re prone to tirades about how you wasted your tuition, you’re obviously a complete idiot, and you’ll get soldiers killed with your incompetence.

Given the breakdown, we can’t have assigned Battle Buddies picked for their diversity. My BB is a 29-year-old OCS candidate with excellent physical conditioning and a sharp mind. This guy will be an awesome officer. He’s got his head together. The two of us share a bunk on the far end of the Bay, and we never get in trouble, so the Drill Sergeants generally don’t give us any one-on-one time. Thank God.

Now my Drill Sergeants: when we were first introduced to the Senior Instructors here, when they stood on the stage before coming down into our ranks to abuse us, I couldn’t help but notice one picture-perfect DS. The man looked like a GI Joe. Just perfect; I think he could be the Drill Sergeant they use on all the posters. It’s unreal. He also made it know by his actions that he would be the toughest. In a moment of insanity on Day One, I wished that he would be my platoon DS. Careful what you wish for. Yes, I’ll walk away from this proud of surviving, but man, is it a hassle right now.

My Staff Duty shift is just about up. I’ll write again as soon as I’m able. My return address is:
SPC Jeremy Lyon
Roster #327
B Co 3/47 IN REGT
Ft. Benning, GA 31905

Thanks to you all.

-Jeremy

Tuesday 2/20/07

2007-02-26T21:33:00.000-06:00

I think I love the Army. God help me, I think I do. Today was all speed; we were issued our ACUs (our battle uniforms) and received the inoculations, plus a number of other processing items. Tomorrow is the last day before we ship downrange to Red Phase.

It’s the Drill Sergeants I love. They are wonderfully honest individuals. A few examples: while we were getting massive injections of penicillin into our backsides, on recruit let out a yelp of pain. The DS immediately screamed at him to shut up and deal with it. Another recruit moved to give blood a little slowly, still rubbing his rear, and the DS yelled, “I don’t care that you’re in pain! Nobody cares! You move fast, or I show you pain!” We’re trapped standing in formation for hours in sub-freezing temperatures, turning blue, and someone finally complained to a DS that it was cold. “A pity, too, but we say out until I say otherwise. And you just earned another half hour!” And at dinner: “Stop looking around. Do not speak. Scoop your food in a shoveling manner and consume! Food isn’t for your enjoyment! Eat it and move on! You!” he screamed to the man opposite me, who was dining on a large sausage link, “don’t waste time cutting that thing! Just pick it up and cram it in!”

Yes, I’m tired and sweaty. Yes, my wakeup was at 0200 and sackout is at 2100, again. Yes, that is interrupted by firewatch. But by God, I think I love it. You are a tool to these people, a living machine, and they tell you as much. “We don’t care about your little issues,” one told us today. “We don’t care if your girlfriend cheated on you or you didn’t like your stepfather. None of that petty crap matters a thing to us. You are a soldier. You perform a function. You are useful to us as long as you maintain functionality. Lose it, and we cut you loose in less than favorable terms. Loose your discipline, and you become expendable. Another number in the casualty list.”

Try saying that to your employees at the office. Honesty this refreshing is worth all the pain. And it looks as if the pain is here to stay; they say we’re staying at Benning. Hooah. I don’t know how long this will last, but tonight I love this place. Bring it on, Drill Sergeant. I will eat this up.

We have another formation coming, so I have to go and get ready. I’m just eager for Red Phase. Let the real pain begin. This may be presumptuous of me, but I think I’m starting to get a handle on this place.

-Jeremy

Monday 2/19/07

2007-02-26T21:22:00.000-06:00

Govt. holiday, so we were idle. We formed, disbanded, reformed, and disbanded again for hours. Chow, formation, repeat. Tomorrow is going to be busy, though; they need to get us ready for Red Phase on Thursday. It’s about to get ugly. Still no word as to where, though.

Tension is high in the barracks. Some “individuals” (severe insult here) are causing problems, flipping bunks, etc., and some of their victims are getting frustrated. They don’t share the humor, apparently. The OCS crew generally tries to play peacekeeper, but some of my colleagues are growing weary with all of this. So sometimes it’s just me and some other recruits trying ot keep things from getting violent. The OCS guys try very hard not to mention or pull rank, and the other recruits typically don’t know that we outrank them (we’re E-4, they’re E-1 or E-2). But the Bay Leader (also OCS) is starting to argue that we should lend some authority to our instructions by busting out the chevrons. I disagree. We’ll let the Drill Sergeants make the corrections, even though we all suffer for it. That’s what teamwork is all about. For instance, last night one of our guys went into another bay and flipped a bunk. The orderlies asked for all guilty parties to step forward, and we all (against better judgment, perhaps) stepped forward to shield the offender from being punished alone. We all received discipline. Maybe that will have the added effect of playing his conscience and limiting his future “adventures.” Anyway, the moral is that all of these problems will be dealt with by trained professionals. My rank will hopefully stay an insignificant factor in my exchanges with these guys. Still, it took all my patience and sense of irony when one recruit demanded that we respect his rank of E-2 when we spoke to him.

Can’t wait to ship downrange into Red Phase. Get the clock ticking towards graduation. Reception is good, but I think some of my compatriots need a drill sergeant on top of them and soon. Some of these guys have yet to understand what they signed up for; I’ve heard different people talk about “quitting,” or “resigning,” or just “canceling their contract.” I just stare in amazement. Don’t they understand what they are not? This is not camp. YOU CANNOT LEAVE. They own you and will do with you as they please. Don’t like it? Should not have raised your right hand. But they’ll learn soon enough. We all have a lot of learning to do. God, I don’t even know how much I don’t know. This’ll be fun.

But I have to sack out now. I have firewatch from 0200-0300, and since 0300 is wakeup, I’m actually pretty lucky. I’ll be dressed and awake an hour before everyone else. So good night. I ship downrange on Thursday and should have a return address by the weekend.

-Jeremy

Days 3 and 4

2007-02-23T12:30:00.000-06:00

Day Three:

Life is so much better. We got about 4 hours of sleep last night, and it did me a world of good. I can process information again. Only the army would be able to make me genuinely grateful for four hours of sleeping. Since I was in better shape than most of my colleagues last night, I volunteered for firewatch and cut an hour out of my sleep time. I was not alone, Platoon Bravo, Company Charlie (or Bravo Platoon, Charlie Company, depending) is an exception here at Ft. Benning. We are a non-infantry platoon. In this case, it means about a third of us are officer candidates. And just about all of the OCS recruits signed up for firewatch last night. We didn’t realize this until after the fact, but it seems we were handling this the best. Not hard to understand, seeing as many of these younger guys are only now leaving home for the first time.

Today is some kind of govt holiday, or something. Is it President’s Day? I don’t know. All I know is that I have downtime after morning formation and chow. No sleeping allowed, of course, and they are checking on us. But I can write.

We have spent the past few days processing, fitting for uniforms, health checks, briefings, marching, standing, standing at attention, standing at parade rest, standing at ease, standing chest-to-back and shoulder-to-shoulder in a sea of recruits, and generally more standing.

My tendency to eat fast is an asset here. In fact, I have to work pretty hard to get my food down in the few minutes they allot me. Just scoop and chug, chewing non-essential. I think Mom would just starve here. No talking; not at chow, not in formation, not in class, not in line. Only in the barracks. And, barring holidays, we don’t spend much time in here.

We’ve got an awesome crew up here. Ft. Benning is the hardest BCT in the army, and we know this to be true because soldiers who trained elsewhere agree with the claim. It’s just a given, and everyone agrees; this place is the BCT to be proud of. So the more dodgy characters, the ones who don’t really want to be here, are all elsewhere.

Had to stop the letter for a number of hours as our down time turned into an inspection, a class, dinner, and PT immediately after dinner. Some recruits in my company do not understand the no-talking rule well enough, and I think some others just have personal vendetta against silence. I hurt all over. Starting to realize that these instructors are serious.

We leave processing and enter BCT Red Phase (the one where they don’t stop screaming at you) on Thursday. Had another inspection as I was writing the last sentence. Informed of a late-night formation; “Be ready,” said the sergeant. Don’t know exactly when. They do keep us busy. Will write again soon.

-Jeremy

Day Four:

Sunday. Day of rest, even for the military. Well, kind of. We still have formation throughout the day and eat like speed demons and aren’t allowed to sleep, but they didn’t harass us much at all. I’m even looking forward to a full six hours of sleep tonight; our Squad Bay Leader (the oldest recruit in the Bay) got tire of asking for firewatch volunteers and started assigning people. Since the OCS guys and I had been taking extended shifts on every night, the Squad Bay Leader told us to take the night off. Things are looking pretty good.

On the bad side, we’re hearing reports that we don’t have enough Charlie-Bravos in the company to form a BCT company at Fort Benning. We may have to move to Fort Jackson, South Carolina next week so as to finish training in time for OCS. Jackson, known as “Relaxin’ Jackson,” is notorious for its lax standards. I would not be pleased if we had to go there for BCT, but regardless, I’m assured that OCS will bring Benning and Jackson recruits into the same shape.

The guys in the Bay are a little listless what with our idleness. Nerves, anxiety, sleep deprivation, alien environments, and nicotine withdrawal have begun to affect some of our company, and we had to break up a fight earlier. Being caught fighting is an Article 15 (or article 14?), which generally means a spell in military prison. So we kept it as secret as possible. There are four groups that have developed in the Bay: a younger group of infantry recruits, an older group of infantry recruits, the loners, and the OCS guys. The groups generally intermingle and get along well, but some tension escalated out of control around noon and the two infantry groups had a little issue that was quickly diffused by some other recruits and all the OCS team. All five of us have a tendency for order and control, so naturally we all came form our corners of the room at the first disturbance and dove into the middle. Fun stuff. No problems, though. Should be settled.

Race relations here are HILAROUS. Some of our black recruits have taken any pretence of racial tension and have turned it into a joke; whenever anything goes wrong for them, they make some quip about the oppression of the white recruits or some comment about how our whiteness explains our complete inability to march in cadence. These guys are popular everywhere. Whenever anything serous goes wrong, they jump in to settle it down. Just real good guys. Unfortunately, both are infantry and will not be shipping with us to BCT. They will be missed.

Some of our recruits have a serious problem with silence, though, and I wish I could be ther when they go to Red Phase and learn the hard way. They’ve gotten us smoked a few times (I hurt all over), and the knowledge that they’ll get what’s coming isn’t nearly as satisfying as seeing is happen. I’ll know on Wednesday if I stay here or have BCT in Jackson, and I’ll keep you updates. But for now I have evening formation.

-Jeremy

Days 1 and 2

2007-02-22T15:18:00.000-06:00

The first installment of Jeremy’s adventures came today. Enjoy!

-Hope

Day One: (and Day Two:)

Platoon 461 Charlie-Bravo is very, very tired. We’ve been awake and moving for 40 hours, when we began the transit to Fort Benning on Valentine’s Day. We’re pretty bedraggled now, decked out in army-issue sweats and looking beautiful with our freshly-shaved heads. We smell like fear and stale sweat. Every time one of us starts drifting to sleep or crosses his arms/legs, the screaming starts again.

I haven’t had a chance to write until now. Last night we tried desperately to make our beds army style, and naturally nobody earned the right to sleep. We’re starting to fall apart. The drill sergeants are only interested in equipping us with our new uniforms and supplies. This includes a canteen on a belt that we must keep full and drain 12 times a day. So there hasn’t been any physical exertion worth noting, but they’ve still managed to make me wish I’d never been born. Well, not that bad, but it is difficult to interpret and accurately carry out the orders of the drill sergeants when they come fast and only once. And you’re exhausted.

It’s the ridicule that makes them so good. They are masters of biting sarcasm. The screaming reverberates down the halls from D.S.’s smoking recruits on the other side of the building. Puts your hair on end. My thought have to be totally scattered; I know that this letter probably only makes sense to me. So, in brief: tired, frustrated, sore from standing in formation with gear for so many hours, and totally unconvinced that any of this is real. I’m waiting for the movie montage to start and speed me through all of this. Patience and good temperament is invaluable. Could use some more of both right now.

I’ll have more information for you soon. I’m still in the middle of things. About to play Taps; must be in formation. Love you all. Will ~~righ~~ write ( so tired…) as soon as practicable.

-Jeremy

It Begins

2007-02-13T12:52:00.000-06:00

Officer Candidate Jeremy Lyon, US Army, is heading out to training tonight. My Basic Combat Training (BCT) and Officer Candidate School (OCS) happen back-to-back in Fort Benning, GA. I should be finished in about six months.

My cell phone will not be coming with me, for obvious reasons, and I won't have access to the internet with any regularity. I am told that, if I am especially good, I can earn up to 3 minutes a week of telephone time on the base phones. So don't expect too many calls. In short, I'm about to reinvent the art of the written letter. I doubt I will have time to crank out too many letters given the constraints of training, so this Blog is a way to keep any interested parties updated of my status and share any particularly good or embarassing stories without breaking the bank on stamps or keeping me up into the last firewatch.

The lovely Hope Harvey will be my assistant with this magical Blog feat. I will write to her constantly with my journal and she will then decipher my handwriting and upload it to this site. This is obviously a very nice thing for Hope to do, so I would recommend that you praise her and lavish her with fine and expensive gifts as a token of appreciation for her sacrifice. At the very least, understand that she is certainly not to be blamed if this Blog is not updated religiously at noon every day. She is, after all, a very busy girl.

Thank you all for your support. I will have my address issued shortly and will have it available on this site. Recruits, as I understand it, love letters. I know that I love letters. Keep me updated with your adventures, please.

Now entering the dark side of the moon... we will return within radio contact in August. God bless.

-Jeremy Lyon