FROM: drakar
SUBJ: Stories from Basic, Volume 2
Episode 2: Walking a long long way
The fourth or fifth week into Basic we took part in a Diversity Walk - some sort of event organized to celebrate the immense diversity of the Midwest (not quite, but you get the point). What is a Diversity Walk, you ask? Simply put, a lot of people walk somewhere. That's it. The whole brigade went for a walk together - you could see people in both directions for a looooooong way when we were on the road. That was pretty impressive, but the part where we walked 10 miles wasn't all that much fun.
At the end we got to eat a pretty decent meal (anything other than the DFAC counted as a decent meal in Basic, I think we had 2 of them). While we were standing in formation at the end a General was walking down the side high-fiving people, so I can now say that I high-fived a General. That's about the most exciting thing that the Diversity Walk had to offer other than seeing actual civilization aside from our little area of the base.
That walk wasn't too hard - 10 miles in comfortable shoes and summer PTs (shorts and a shirt) isn't too awful. What was awful was the march to FTX3.
During BCT you're supposed to go on a few road marches, from 3K all the way up to 15K. Our first march was on the way to FTX2 and was supposed to be 5K, but we ended up walking about 8K. Fun times... The next road march was the one to FTX3, all 15K of it. That's about 10 miles, a long way when you're wearing nice shoes. When you're wearing boots and carrying 50 lbs. on your back (plus an 8 lb. M16 in your hands and wearing a helmet that doesn't breathe) it's a lonnnnnnng way.
I had managed somehow to get sick a few days before - difficult in Basic since you live in a poorly ventilated, moldy room with 7 other people and shower with 35 others. Everyone was at least somewhat sick for most of the time, but this time I had a fever. I started feeling feverish on Friday, but it wasn't too bad then. Saturday and Sunday I was feeling worse, but there's no sick call on the weekend so I toughed it out. I probably could have gone on Monday morning, except for the fact that we were all getting up at 3AM to march 10 miles to our campsite. The march was also a graduation requirement, so if I missed it who knows how long I would have had to wait to repeat it and graduate. I did not want to stay at Fort Leonard Wood any longer than necessary.
Thus, I marched 10 miles with a fever of, I later found out, 103 degrees. Very fun. I think I drank about 5 quarts of water on the way there and sweated most of it back out. A drill sergeant asked me why I was crying - "I'm not crying Drill Sergeant, I'm sweating!"
Once we got to the camp site I asked to go to sick call and thankfully got to leave and spend about 5 hours standing in line at the medical center. I thought I had something pretty bad, but all they did was give me Tylenol for the fever and send me on my way, though I did get to spend the next day resting. You may not consider it resting, as there were explosives and CS gas being thrown around, but I got to relax for a little while.
The rest of FTX3 is another story.
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DATE: 27 JUN 2008 2241
FROM: drakar
SUBJ: Stories from Basic, Volume 1
Episode 1: Getting noticed is not good.
One piece of advice people will give you before Basic is to be invisible - if you make it to the end and the Drill Sergeants don't know your name, you have succeeded. This was my goal, which I achieved to some degree, but that's a story for another time.
Upon arrival at Basic Combat Training (that's also a story in itself) I was issued a bag of items by the Drill Sergeant. Among these items were hydration beads - beads that we wore to indicate how many 1 quart canteens we had drank so far that day. In the event that we fell over from heat exhaustion/heat stroke/etc., the DS would know how much water we had imbibed and could better provide medical attention.
I saw that everyone else was wearing their beads on their collar, so I figured out how they did it and attached my own. Unfortunately nobody else had noticed that the others were wearing beads, and I was the only one who had put them on. Also unfortunately for me, the Drill Sergeants notice that sort of thing - attention to detail, private! The new arrivals were all in a formation in front of the class, and it went something like this:
"There is one person in this formation who is wearing the proper uniform. Step to the front."
*ulp* That'd be me. I fall out and step to the front.
"Turn around." I do. They notice that my hair is departing my head.
"Damn, how old are you Goodrich?" "Twenty-five, Drill Sergeant."
"You're going bald already? That's f****d up." "Yes Drill Sergeant."
Welcome to Basic Training. Luckily they forgot my name shortly after that.
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DATE: 22 JUN 2008 1312
FROM: drakar
SUBJ: Somewhere warm froze over
Yeah, I bought one.
It's a MacBook. The horror, the horror...
Actually it's pretty nice, and if I can find some CDRs nearby I'll put XP on it and play some games. Cha-ching! Apologies for the cell phone picture but my camera options are a bit limited right now.
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DATE: 21 JUN 2008 2132
FROM: drakar
SUBJ: Let the Training Continue
Made it through BCT and now I'm into AIT, Advanced Individual Training. I'm allowed to have a computer here so I'll actually be able to get email and update my web page and nice things like that.
That's all for now, I'm too busy playing with my new computer. I'll say what it is later, the answer may be quite shocking.
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DATE: 12 JUN 2008 1644
FROM: drakar
SUBJ: Made it!
Finished BCT. Too easy Drill Sergeant!
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