Last day before Basic training

By this point in the story, I am shaved-balled, shot up with more needles than I remember, and sufficiently sore as crap from the smoke session/breaking in our uniforms. I wish I could say this is where basic training started for me, but it is not. There were a few more days of pre-basic training to get through. Which mainly consisted of waiting around and getting yelled at for… well, about everything. Did you know you could breathe wrong? I Never knew that personally. Lucky for me, Drill Sergeant Culp let me know I was doing it wrong.

Our barracks building then was a very old-World War II barracks building. But, overall, they were not too bad compared to some other places the Army had me sleeping over the next 20 years. These old wooden buildings were two stories tall, made nearly of all wood, and had a very open concept which people desire in houses today. They were so open that we all had one arm's length between bunks. At the end of each bunk, we tied a laundry bag for dirty clothes, and we each had a locker to store personal items and issued military gear (temporarily). Still not too bad, though. There was enough space for sleeping, and the mattresses were high quality, too, as long as high quality was considered about 20 years old and lumpy.

That was our sleeping/living space until our barracks were ready for us. On the other hand, our latrine area was very different than anything I had ever seen. The sinks, toilets, and showers were all in the same room, with nothing dividing them from the other. The toilets, like the beds, were an arm's length away from each other—no walls, no stalls, no barriers, just the comfort of a porcelain throne. The sinks were about ten feet away from the toilets. There were maybe five feet of space from the sinks before you ran into the shower area. The showers were in a recessed portion of the latrine area with a beautiful concrete floor covered in mold and mildew. As I learned throughout my 20-year career, mold, and mildew in government buildings are very common unless high-ranking Soldiers (CSM and COL and above) work in them. And even then, sometimes they have the same problems.

It did not take long for most of us trainees to start wasting time and acting like fools. Trainees were jumping from bunk to bunk, messing with the intentionally painted shut windows, and trying to convince anyone who would listen that Drill Sergeants did not scare them. One trainee even started to carve his name on a wooden pillar right next to countless other names. Some of the trainees even started holding hands while using the toilets. Cause nothing says, I trust you more than holding someone's hand while you take a crap. I think that is way beyond the line. I can show trust in other ways. I forgot to mention that when we were dropped off, the Drill Sergeants appointed one Platoon Sergeant and three Squad Leaders to be in charge of us until dinner chow was ready. Those four people ultimately failed to keep us from acting like idiots. They did not protect us from ourselves and the consequences of our actions. Fine, we knew they were in charge. But most of us did not listen to them. Probably because we did not understand what our lives would be like yet. We did not understand what it meant to be part of a team in the Army. We would not know that for another few months. Some of my fellow trainees probably never learned what it meant.

So, there we were. Most of us stopped wasting time and were sitting around on our bunks waiting for chow. Next thing we know, all three doors to the building burst open, and six Drill Sergeants flooded into the room, cursing and yelling a storm. Most of us responded with "o fuck” and jumped up and went to parade rest while the Drill Sergeants tore us all a new one for everything we did. They listed everything we did and who did it. Like they were spying on us somehow. They knew it all. I even made the guys holding hands while taking a crap to wash their hands about five times and separate them from each other. After verbally reducing them to about the size of an ant, that is.

That is when I was introduced to the, more than likely, PTSD-stricken man who helped shape me into a Soldier. That is when Drill Sergeant Culp told me I was breathing wrong.

Don't get me wrong. Drill Sergeant Culp was an outstanding NCO and a fantastic Drill Sergeant. He was doing his job, making us into Soldiers. After he taught me how to breathe correctly, he let me know that he would keep his eye on me very closely.

That terrified me.

All of us trainees rushed outside to get marched to chow (dinner). It was a slow and painful process as we could not march properly. We never turned together, were never in step, and frequently trainees were pulled out of formation and destroyed by a Drill Sergeant for "looking sideways at them." I believe the chow hall was a half mile away, but it took us about an hour to get there. We had to make frequent stops to get the shit smoked out of us. In addition, the Drill Sergeants wanted us to be hungry for dinner by burning off every extra calorie we had saved. By the time we got to the chow hall, I probably had done about 150 push-ups and countless burpees. Pain was my known default mode in life for a while.

My first experience in a chow hall was. Well, probably like most of yours. Hurry up and stand in line at parade rest, snap to attention, march forward one step or two if you were lucky, and go back to parade rest. Repeat until you get to the trays. Unfortunately, the wait through the line was always much longer than it should be. The Drill Sergeants would wander up and down the line asking the trainees questions. Questions like "what is my name private?" And if you looked at the name tape, you got sent to the back of the line. I am sure they were doing to fuck with us and to make sure we remembered some things.

We ate the typical chow hall food, nothing special, nothing I even remember for the most part. However, our march home, I remember that well. We made it outside the barracks with only a few stops. Which I think was reasonably damn good. We were all feeling proud of that. Then the Drills Sergeants with us decided it was time to smoke us again. Why, you may be wondering? Well, if you are a fellow veteran, you know why.

Because.

Simple as that. We were smoked until most of us puked, then sent in for personal hygiene and bed. That was day 2-ish. I remember going to bed thinking that this day was shit, I was not ready for the change in my life, but I was going to do it.

My head hit my pillow, and I fell asleep faster than I had.

The next thing I knew, Drill Sergeant Culp whispered my name, or maybe it was a combination of curse words followed by Private, not sure. He was perhaps a foot above my head in my rack, leaning over, and said, "wake up fucker, time to go." That whisper brought me out of my sleep at about the same time as four other trainees who had other Drill Sergeants doing the same thing to them. This was proceeded by a full-volume Drill Sergeant yell waking up all of us and giving us 30 minutes to shit, shower, shave, and get our bags outside.

Have you ever seen about 30 people jump out of bed and run around like chickens with their heads cut off? Well, that is what we all looked like. People were fighting over the sinks to brush and shave. Some guys were shaving in the shower, and I am pretty confident I saw soup sandwich using the toilet water to shave. Anyway, about half of us made it out in time, which resulted in another smoke session. It frequently happens, at least back then it did.

So, once we were all out, the Drill Sergeants picked a detail of ten trainees to clean the barracks before we left. The rest of us are waiting in formation, reading our smart books. On concrete…in August….in Missouri. It was hot, and when I saw hot, I mean roasting hot, so hot it melted most of our boots a little bit. Luckily the cleaning crew was done after six hours. (I hope you hear the sarcasm in that sentence). The rest of us held our duffle bags in a bear hug with our bags on our backs. That seemed to go on forever. Then I noticed the trainee in front of me had neo-Nazi symbols and other racist things on his bag. A drill Sergeant walking by saw it and immediately got in his face—asking/yelling questions.

"Private, are you fucking kidding me?" Private, have you lost your damn mind" Private, are you a fucking racist inbreed SOB?" That trainee garnered the attention of all the other Drill Sergeants out there. They swarmed this kid like a pack of coyotes around a dead deer. I tried to inch away from the kid slowly. I made it maybe two inches before one of the Drill Sergeants noticed me backing away.

"Private! Do you know this fucking racist in front of you?"

Now was my time to escape. I responded with, "NO DRILL, SERGEANT! HE IS ON HIS OWN, FUCK THAT KID. CAN I BE MOVED TO THE BACK OF THE FORMATION?!"

Not sure how this worked out so well for me, but the Drill Sergeant looked at me, gave me a joker smile, and said. "Well, I'll be damned, Private. You're not stupid. Get out of here." Let me tell you; I ran faster than the flash to get away from that kid and those Drill Sergeants. I never did see that trainee again. The last anyone saw him was escorted in a panel van by the Drill Sergeants to Battalion. I am guessing he was separated from the Army. Or disposed of (I am joking. We don't do that in the Army)

The cattle trucks showed up at that moment as if it was perfectly and magically timed. For those who may not know what that is, imagine a trailer…. with bars and tiered benches. With itty biddy windows, which do not work. That is a cattle truck. We shoved about 35 trainees in there—all "nut to butt," as the Drill Sergeants said. Just so we are clear, that means there was no room at all between us. Even though we were that cramped, we still had to fit two Drill Sergeants. Somehow, both Drill Sergeants climbed up on the support bars on the top and crawled around on them, yelling at everyone in the cattle car. For about 20 minutes. It was insane.

We then pulled up to the Alpha Company, 795th Military Police Battalion building. That building would be our home for the next 18 weeks of basic and AIT. It is where the shark attack occurred for us moments later. It is where life and the Army began to change me. Frankly, I believe I blocked most of it out. It was horrible and fantastic at the same time. I won't go into the week-by-week training since I don't remember what went where anymore. Honestly, I will skip to my first duty station after this.

If you read this, I appreciate your time. I appreciate you letting me tell my story, as best as I can recall. Thank you, and Merry Christmas!

Side note:

To be very clear, Drill Sergeant Culp never once forgot that he said he would pay attention to me. He frequently found me and smoked me, yelled at me, and corrected me a lot. Now that I can look back, I see Drill Sergeant Culp did it because he saw something in me that could be better than what I was then. Or maybe he just really liked fucking with me. I am going with the first one, though. Years later, I became an AIT instructor at Fort Leonard wood. About six years later, one day, when I was walking through the halls there to get to my class, I heard Drill Sergeant Culp yell out in his distinct voice, "Private Fucking Pehrson! Do you not remember your battle, buddy!"

I froze. I panicked. The Privates standing in the hall at parade rest all had the same look as I did on my face—panic, fear, and knowing the pain about to be inflicted by exercise.

Then I remembered. I was an SSG; I was an instructor. I was no longer a trainee. I turned and saw 1SG Culp (formerly Drill Sergeant Culp). I went to parade rest and greeted him. He smiled at me then. We chatted for a bit once the privates left the area. We even became friends.

One day I asked him why he fucked with me so much. He answered that he was trying to make me a better Soldier. He saw I could be. But, he said he also noticed that I was utterly ignorant of the Army and weak. So, he decided to smoke me whenever he could.

That man, wherever he is now, was one of many who helped shape my path in the Army. So I hope you are doing well wherever you are.