Bits of Basic

         This is all a psychological game.  I repeated those words to myself while boarding the bus that would take all us new recruits from Reception to the barracks where we would begin our training.  Every soldier ran to the bus, laden with the clothes and supplies we would use over the following nine weeks.  The training began the moment after every person sat in their seat.  The world around us erupted with screams and orders expected to be followed without question.
         Yes, movies come close to depicting the Army Basic Combat Training experience with remarkable accuracy, but watching others go through it on a screen could not prepare one’s psyche for the sudden onslaught of threats, profanity, and the sheer volume of even the smallest of the Drill Sergeants’ voices.  I understood the Game and I thought I came well-prepared for it all, though my pounding heart and sweat-slicked palms argued otherwise.  The way my neighbor gripped his bag agreed entirely with my own sentiments at this point:  What the Hell had I gotten myself into?  We raced out of the bus and the awaiting Drill Sergeants lined us up into our respective platoons.
         “Front-leaning-rest position.  Move!” came the barked order.
Every one of us quickly came to hate those five words, but we all quickly learned and assumed the position to push dirt by the Sarge’s count.  Unaccustomed to the pushups, most people tired out quickly, but the Drill Sergeants made certain to push every one of us to the point of muscle exhaustion before ordering us into the barracks for more mind games and physical torture before bed.
         They did not call the first week of training “Hell Week” without reason.  Every night, we arrived so exhausted, many of us fell unconscious on our bunks without changing – something we were not supposed to do and inevitably payed for the mistake in the morning.  Mornings came with more yelling, the Pledge of Allegiance, and a recital of the national anthem.  We changed into our physical training uniforms – warm-ups and running shoes – and met outside for an hour of intense exercise, or PT.  Almost every PT session ended with a half hour of running to the instructor’s cadences.  After PT, the Drill Sergeants gave us a generous ten minutes to eat before what remained of our meals ended up in the trash.  My bad habit of eating slowly shattered after the first morning I missed most of a delicious, warm breakfast and I went hungry until lunch.  I never again took my time or declined an offered meal.  Even drab MREs tasted delicious after a strenuous day outdoors.
         There exists a commonly-held belief that every Basic Combat Training platoon has its own version of Gomer Pile – the total klutz who incessantly gets the others into trouble by his inability to follow directions.  Luckily for everyone else, our Drill Sergeant made me his Battle Buddy.  That meant him and I followed one another around throughout the day, practically joined at the hip.  If he got himself into trouble, responsibility fell on me, too.  It didn’t help any that he was also my bunk mate and he snored in his sleep.  I dreamt of smothering my dear ol’ Battle Buddy on more than one occasion, but in the end, unlike the “Full Metal Jacket” character, he managed to drag himself past his deficiencies.  I survived without so much as sneering at him for the extra exercise the sergeants forced on us.
         The Drill Sergeants conducted most of the non-physical aspects of training in classrooms or by hands-on learning in the field.  Although sleep-deprivation plagued all of us, the consequences of falling asleep during training kept most on their feet, reasonably awake.  The most memorable parts of our training came in the form of an enormous tower and a gas-filled chamber.
         Victory tower consisted of an obstacle course of one, two, and three-rope bridges, swings, and jumps, and ended by rappelling down a fifty-foot tower.  My fear of heights has never been more profound than in the moment I leaned over the edge of a five-story drop with nothing but a harness made of ropes, clasps, self-tied knots and my death-grip on the rope to suspend me.  The exhilaration I felt at the descent, however, made a liar of my acrophobia.  I got in line for another try the moment I landed.
         After being somewhat traumatized by a “Faces of Death” gas chamber execution at the impressionable age of nine, the prospect of entering a gas-filled chamber filled me with dread.  After being assured repeatedly of CS gas’s nonlethal effects, we entered a large room and exposed ourselves to tear gas.  Before being allowed to leave, we removed our masks and took a deep, choking breath.  Every one of us ran out of that place with tears and snot pouring down our faces, eyes burning and blind, and our exposed skin tingling uncomfortably with the exposure to the gas.  If nothing else, CS gas would work beautifully as a decongestant, though I doubt it would catch on nearly as well as NyQuil.  I decided not to get in line again for this particular training exercise.
         Throughout all of our training – the mind games, PT sessions, quick meals, classes, Victory Tower, the gas chamber, and all other parts of Basic – every soldier developed a common bond by means of shared experiences.  It never ceases to amaze me how well I can get along with another Army soldier or veteran by sharing stories and laughs of our training.  It creates within us all an unbreakable bond, a kinship with our fellow brothers and sisters-at-arms.  Though my path in life has parted ways with the Army lifestyle, it yet remains a part of me.