My Experience in Basic Training (Part 2)

Dear God, here they come. As the white buses get closer, my stomach drops to the floor. What the fuck did I get myself into? The buses stop and the doors open. Drill Sergeants come storming out, and I stand perfectly still with my ID's and dogtags out. Great, haven't attracted any attention yet. They give us a timehack to hurry and put our hat and gloves one. I had them in my bags and I couldn't find my glove fast enough, arrrrghh! Putting those fuckers on isn't so fast as I'd like. I get yelled at for not being in uniform. They have us stick our black bags in a pile so get transported to the company and we keep our green dufflebags. We go on the buses and I'm sitting in the front. "PUT YOUR HEADS IN YOUR BAGS! YOU DON'T NEED TO SEE WHAT'S OUT THERE!" I close my eyes to try to get relaxed on the way there. The ride last about five minutes. "GET THE HELL OFF MY BUS!" Yeah, how original. We run outside with our arms still wrapped around our bags. "KEEP RUNNING!" All right, I guess I'll just follow everyone else. I manage to get a lap around. "KEEP GOING!" Man, this damn bag is starting to get heavy, I eventually start walking. "HEY, WHY YOU WALKING? RUN!" Okay okay fine. After the next lap we double time it over in the PT bubble. They make us do push ups, push ups, and more push ups. "GO GET YOUR BLACK BAGS AND HURRY UP!" Awesome, they're all in a big ass pile. Each time we missed the time hack, we went inside and did more push ups. It must've been the third time before I finally found mine. I run past a Drill Sergeant and he yells at me to go behind him and don't let him see me again. I get too tired for push ups so I'm laying there flopping like a damn fish. "OH MY GOD, YOU CAN'T EVEN DO ONE SINGLE PUSH UP. YOU AIN'T GONNA MAKE IT! HOLY SHIIIT!" Wanna bet? Figures he'd end up being my Senior Drill Sergeant. He said something to me but I couldn't understand him so I said, "Yes, Drill Sergeant. IT'S SENIOR DRILL SERGEANT!" Couldn't understand him again so I repeated, "Yes Drill Sergeant. IT'S SENIOR DRILL SERGEANT!" Oops, my bad. After that ordeal. They have us take inventory which I lost half my shit, I was able to keep that secret hidden from them. We hold our bags up for a long ass time while Drill Sergeant M takes accountability. "Private, you are going to hold those bags up or I'm going to ruin your day." Ugh fuck me. I pick them up over my head for the little while she's next to me. Finally, they have us to go the company. I barely made it, having to carry two heavy bags. Thankfully, I had a buddy next to me supporting me. I go inside then I have to climb two flights of stairs. C'mon just make it stop! After we get to our bay, we meet a couple or our platoon's Drill Sergeants. First one in was Drill Sergeant B. He was just a couple inches taller than me, couldn't see his face with his hat and sunglasses on. He had us filling out paperwork and assigned us rooms. We also put our black bags up in a closet. We hurry back into formation and we miss the time again. "FRONT LEANING REST POSITION, MOVE!" Ahh man not this again. We stayed in the push up position for the longest time. I got too tired so I fell on the ground again flopping around. Then Senior Drill Sergeant C comes in. Oh no, this guy again? "Look at that, same guy as earlier. HOLD YOUR BODY UP STOP BEING WEAK, HOLY SHIIIT!" That should be his quote, he said that so often. Well, its dinner time. Being me, I fuck up again and go to the wrong platoon. For some reason, the accountability was still good, maybe I wasn't the only one to fuck up. They marched us to the DFAC which was a bit of a walk. Welcome Senior Drill Sergeant W, the laughing stock of the Drill Sergeants. Not saying he was bad, but he was so easy to imitate. "ONE SCOOP AND GO WEIRDO! HEY YOU, ONE SCOOP AND GO. C'MON PRIVATE, WE DON'T HAVE ALL DAY. WEIRDO! WEIRDO! WEIRDO!" I don't know his obsession was with that word, but it was funny. After we eat, We go back to the company and fill out more paperwork. When all of that is over, we finally get some sleep. That was only the first few hours? Oh no.... It's gonna be a long 2 months.

My Experience in Basic Training (Part 1)

Well here it goes, a long story. It's good to be back. Let's start off with the day I left. I woke up, my dad dropped me off at a diner next to the recruiter office since they were closed. I had some coffee and waited a long time for the sergeant to pick me up. We went over to MEPS real quick to grab paperwork then it was off to the airport. Waited in the area for about an hour, I decide to not charge my phone while I have the chance (a decision I later regret). I get on the plane at around 1pm in the pacific timezone. The ride last about 5 hours and in 2 timezone ahead now. It's already nighttime in Missouri. Well, I head the USO and I'll always remember hearing the guy up front say "Sucks to be in the Army, get used to it." Damn, thanks for making me feel good about it, guy. Time for the bus ride, yay. It's a two hour ride from the airport to Fort Leonard Wood, so the bus driver puts on a movie (much to my surprise). The name escapes me at the moment but it had something to do with the military and aliens, very shitty movie. Sometime after the end credits, we finally make it there. We stop in front of a building and we see a Drill Sergeant. Everyone is shaking at the sight of him. It gets worse, more of them come out. One of them gets on our bus! OH NO! "You're going to make two lines in front of the building when you get off the bus." Well shit, not what I was expecting. I walk in with the others and I see more people in front with these seat with their shirts tucked in. They leave and it's our turn. Basically we just take everything out of our bags and get searched, plus the shirt thing. They feed us a nutrigrain bar and some gatorade. I'm thinking this'll be our last good meal before we're eating slop for the next couple of months. We fill out some paperwork then it's down the hall to get some stuff. I get my PT uniform in medium which was the wrong thing to do. I still get made fun of for having too big PT clothes. We finally go outside and walk a bit to our barracks. We stand outside in the cold for a little bit then I hear "Is there a problem?" Shit, that must be our Drill Sergeant and somebody fucked up. He takes us inside to sign in and get our books, we stick those in our laundry bag. He rushes us and yells at the slowpokes. Some girl isn't taking it seriously and she causes us to go outside and stand there. Great, someone ruining it for everyone else. This sets the tone for the rest of my time in basic and AIT. After that ugliness, we go to our bay and the Drill Sergeant tells us to go to sleep and enjoy it because we'll be waking up in two hours. Fuck my life. Another group comes in, about 70 more added on to our 10, and they get told to go to sleep. Poor guys won't get as much as I did. Well we did get more than two hours of sleep, so I guess he was trying to stress us out after all. It was four hours I believe. Over the intercom they wake us up, tell us to put on winter PT's and shave. Ahhh damn it, I don't have anything to shave with. I ask everyone for a razor but no one has any extra. Well, time to go downstairs. I get inspected, "I see that frikkin' mustache you're trying to sneak by me, go upstairs and shave!" A guy comes to help me out. He doesn't have a razor for me. I go back and ask and finally one guy can help me out with a damn razor. Wait a minute, I asked him earlier!!! Mother f--- why didn't you help me before!!! Well, we get rushed my I cut myself maybe three times and still didn't finish. I'm bleeding like a mother fucker out of my lip and around my ear. I suck on my lip the entire day so they don't see me bleeding. We go back in the very first building I went to the night before, and we get organised into a line in alphabetical order. I was number 064 if my memory serves me right. We go into the cafeteria to eat, getting yelled at all the while. My drinks taste best with my cups to my chest and my food tastes better with my heels together. This is basic? It was just later when I found out that this is just reception. We get our records done here. I spent the better part of a week here, about 6 days. I got so many shots, I definitely felt the one in my ass. We got all of the gear we were going to use in basic in reception. We got OCP's which is the new uniform. If I had come just a week earlier, I would've gotten ACU's, those hideous gray ones that are no good for camouflage. Nobody had to shit the first five days there, probably because we all knew what was coming. On our last day, we had to carry those heavy ass bags to the building and line them up between our feet so we couldn't move. It was our first experience of a Drill Sergeant yelling at us to prepare us for later. He kicked my bags in because I had trouble lining mine. After lunch, we finally go back outside to await hell. It seemed like such a long time, but then the buses came...