A Letter From Basic Training

 

 A Letter from Basic Training

 

 

11/2/03

Mom and Dad,

 

You have probably heard from Philip by now about my BRM (Basic Rifle Maintenance) qualification, if not, now you know. I am a qualified mark smith, and I passed to white phase which is the next stage of training.

We just had the infiltration course. This course requires a lot of low crawling which feels like barbed wire to the scrapes on my arms.

One way to crawl is the low crawl. This is when one side of your helmet and face is in the dirt, and you throw your hands out while you lie on your stomach, and use your firing leg or your right knee to push you forward. There is a problem that often occurs. While low crawling the soldiers tends to veer off to the left this makes his journey seem longer. To straighten out, the soldier has to tug on his left cargo pocket with his left hand, and slide his head up so he can see where he should be. I have to do this a lot.

There are two infiltration courses. One is day time. One is night time. To get ready for the day we first have to learn how to cover someone.

Your battle buddy would yell out, “Cover me while I’m moving!”

You yell, “I got you covered!”

Your battle buddy would then yell, “Weapon on safe, Movin,” as he would run to an obstruction lying between him and the “enemy.”

The same thing is done over and over, and the roles, as well as, what is said are changed.

Before the real thing we went through the mock one. It has rained the last couple of days so the course had puddles sprayed sporadically throughout, and the terrain was muddy.

                        Here is some background information. A couple of days ago we had a SST test. This test is information taken from out of the soldier manual so we can be tested on. Some of the things we were orally tested on was military time, rifle maintenance, rank structure etc. Another one was addressing an officer. The officer was actually a drill sergeant. I knew how to do this even though in a real setting I do my best to avoid an officer. But I step with my right foot and not my left. This was while he was talking the usual drill sergeant trash.

                        “Oh not this guy. Just go ahead and sit down.”

                        I went ahead sat down like I thought he told me to do with a grin. He saw the grin as a smile and promptly plotted revenge.

                        This particular drill sergeant pointed me out of the handful of soldiers still waiting in line.

            “Jepson, fall in over here.”

                        He, of course, wanted me to fall in a line that most of us were trying to avoid. The reason we were trying to avoid it was because there was a puddle in the middle of it. We were already freezing wet and caked in peat moss.

                        I started crawling while freezing and hacking up the residue from what I thought was my sinus infection. The ground ripped the skin away from my elbows. I reminded myself I wasn’t the only one with burning elbows.

                        “Ahhh It’s Jepson!” The drill sergeant yelled as another one came over. Both of them weren’t even in charge of the platoon I was in.

            “Why are you so slow Jepson?”

                        My glasses were smeared with the mud. My knees felt bruised and disfigured while my elbows lost feeling.

                        “Your battle buddies have left you, Jepson. You are moving as slow as a turd!”

            I kept moving and hacking, hacking and moving.

                        When I was finally able to stand back up again, I noticed how behind I really was. I had to rush to get in step with the rest of my platoon as they prepared for the day infiltration course.

                        This “sinus infection” was making me unlawfully slow.

                        We had all of these contraptions attached to us and our rifle. They were leftovers from the old school possibly Vietnam. We were forced to wear old training equipment that would normally be used for a laser tag kind of live combat situation. We weren’t using it for laser tag though. It was used as extra dead weight that we had to carry. Our rifle had the transmitter attached to it, and a red box at the end of the barrel.

            Each squad in our platoon was then matched with another squad so the platoon would be split up.

                        This was where our fun started. We were at the bottom of a hill, and were suppose to storm up it like in a real combat situation. We all had fun with it as we lay in the prone unsupported position, decorating our BDU’s and helmet with mud and leaves on the ground. Most of the helmets looked like a floral decoration you would see at an old lady’s house. We were all really in to it.

            Every once in awhile we were waiting in line someone would yell, “Let’s take the hill!” or “Viet not!”

                        This was in the midst of war recordings being played from speakers attached to the trees. The recordings were screams and explosions making the battle more realistic.

            Our mission was to always make sure our buddies are covered as we advanced up the hill, elbows burning, knees bruised with no feeling after pressing against roots and tiny pebbles on the ground.

                        At the peak, “they” were firing at us. “They” were volunteers who the drill sergeants decided on to make this situation more real. “They” could only fire blanks, and we returned with the same. 

                        I let my battle buddy finish or go ahead of me. When we finally came to the end of the course, he ran out of the course which left me alone with blanks. There was someone a couple of yards in front of me firing. I let some others go in front of me, as I fired back at the stranger wearing the same camouflage I was wearing. After a couple aimed shots to his head and torso, I stood up and walked to the finish line. I turned the corner and took out my magazine. I noticed who I was shooting at. It was Von, who is the squad leader. My jaw dropped, I felt terrible, and I couldn’t believe how swept away I became. I was swept away towards something that was obviously fake.

            I just kept staring at him, and he laughed.

                        The drill sergeant said, “You would probably be one of the once…” That’s all he said. I had no idea what he meant by that.

                        I started walking back from the artificial war as I heard the squad leader tell someone else, “That’s loyalty.”

                        Back in formation, there was no afternoon chow, and still a full day ahead of us, but at least the sun was heating things up a little bit. I was still cold.

            Next we got on some buses and went to the night infiltration course. The instructor informed us about the barb wire, the live rounds that will be fired over our heads as we complete the course, and the flares being shot at us.

                        These instructions ended in a warning, “Keep your ass down and stay away from the flares!” Easily digested.

                        The instructor then went on a tirade. The tirade began as the instructor told the story about the hostage situation in Iraq. You remember with the medics. Wasn’t her name Jessica or something like that? The instructor didn’t have the highest opinion of her. During her capture her and her crew never fired one shot off. They had their rifles, but they never tried to escape. They just surrendered. The instructor slammed a sandwich board down that had the description of the event. He then told us that a lot of soldiers in combat arms were killed during the rescue. She sold her story for a million dollars.

            Cav scouts are combat arms, and that sounded like a recon mission. No regrets here, as they say in the Calvary- “If you ain’t cav, you ain’t shit.”

                        At this point of the day, I was hacking up some blood, sneezing ever so often, and feeling miserable. I was so tired I had forgotten how to give up.

                        We went through the night course with the lights starting to dim signaling the end of the day. This was a practice run, and I was lucky enough to find the puddle so the sand would collect to me in clumps. I was the last one through the puddle, under the barb wire, low crawling etc. but not the only one on the course.

            There were three drill sergeants making sure I was still sliding closer to the end.

            This was only a practice run, and we still had to go that night.

                        “Put your face in the ground!” A drill sergeant yelled.

                        Sand was creating its own layer on the lens of my glasses. It felt like sandpaper was literary dragging across my elbows, chest, and knees. I still slid closer to a concrete wall which was the end of the course. I rolled off and ran to the boundary where the sand and dirt met.

                        The drill sergeant followed. They surrounded me like great whites surrounding a surfer.

                        “Why the hell did you join the Army?!” One yelled.

            Some others yelled their obscenities and profanities in my face. All I could do was stand at ease hoping that my knees wouldn’t give.

                        Luckily my lenses were smeared with a watery residue so I didn’t have to actually see who were causing me to become angrier by the second.

                        Next was chow, I ate my food shivering and hoping a lightening bolt would strike me dead right then and there. No such luck. I had to do the course again.

            The light gave way and the darkness took control in waves. It was time for us to go through it again.

                        There were rules added to this trip though. We could only move when it was dark which sounded easy since the sun had gone down. This is while tracer rounds would be fired. They lit up the sky like orange fire crackers. There was also the same war recordings were being played, duds would also be shot off into the sky, and flares thrown.

            When the flares touched the ground, we were supposed to stop low crawling. When the temporary illumination burns out is when you find out how close you are to the end of the course. When the flares go out you start low crawling again.

                        It was the same course, but this time I wasn’t last. I happened to beat a member of my old platoon.

                        My strength was beyond me, and everything around me reminded me of the freezing cold. The sinus infection felt like the war now.

                        The buses came to take us back to the barracks. Everything was coming out red. 

            Myself and another soldier had to stay back and grab the gear that was forgotten by our platoon. When we finally got on, we were on 3^rd platoon’s bus instead of fourth.

            The bus driver played music from a new rock radio station. The one’s who knew sang along. I tried to keep my head up so I could stay awake.

                        We finally arrived back to the barracks. We turned in our gear and tried to confine all the mud and sand on our equipment to one area. We swept what we could, and finally took a short cold shower, because the hot water for some reason was turned off. Lastly we are slowly yet willingly went to sleep.

                        I may have gotten pneumonia. My voice was fading to a hoarse, then to a whisper, and I was still spitting up blood. So I went to sick call thinking my muscles needed to go AWOL.

                        The morning was a blur. The doctor gave me bed rest, and it made me feel worse. I felt guilty, because other people in the troop deserve the same thing.

            Here’s the bad news, bed rest wasn’t back at the barracks, and instead, it was in the troop commander’s office building. We slept on cots right beside our first sergeant and Captain.

                        Normally, this would be nerve bending, but luckily we were so sick and slightly daze from the night before that I had no trouble getting to sleep.

            The next day I went back for a check up, and I was feeling better. They took some blood and I immediately went back to training.

                        I think I told you this over the phone last week. The blood test said I am anemic.

            This isn’t a concern of mine, because at every meal, I’ve made sure to eat a banana. I personally would like to explore this issue to see if this will be a problem for me later in life.

                        As for now we have just come back from throwing a grenade. The brochure said we would throw two, but we only threw one.

            It was an M-33 highly explosive. This thing could probably do a lot a damage to a car. We all had a lot of fun.

My Halloween was spent in the gas chamber. This was a major event in basic, because it didn’t matter how strong or how smart your are. The tear gas turned everyone into an arms flapping, featherless baby chick with glazed over donut eyes coughing up every inch of his insides. However, my sinus condition seemed better than it had in days. I could breathe clearly without an obstruction in my nose or throat. 

            Next we started our 8K road march.

                        Road marches happened to be one of my favorite things to do. Especially this one, we got to see a new area of For Knox. Most of the time we had been confined to the area around our barracks, but this was like a field trip. We hiked up Misery and hiked down Agony with our distance intervals almost perfect.  

                        Tomorrow we can talk on the phone for a half-hour. This is our reward for doing so well on the grenade course.

 

            Please write back, and remember to save the letters.

 

Jason