Army Basic Training

I am writing this article 17 years after this all happened; it had such an impact on me that I remember so many things vividly still today. I wanted to start by giving a quick before and after the Army. In high school, I was motivated to be there mainly for the social aspects of high school, and to play sports. In college, I was motivated to be there because my outlook on life changed. I wanted to be in school. I wanted to do well in class. I wanted to succeed. This was all because of the training and mindset that I received from the Army. Also, spending time in a foreign country (Germany), gave me prospective on the kind of life that I wanted to spend here in the United States.

I actually called the military recruiter and told him that I wanted to join the Army. It was easy for him. I knew that I didn't want to spend the rest of my life in the grocery store where I worked during high school, and I also knew that I didn't have the grades or motivation to go into college after high school. I took my ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery; horrible name for a test), and got a score of 112. At the time, this score meant that I could do most jobs in the Army. I wanted to be part of the Military Police Corps, but the waiting list was over a year and a half. I wanted to leave for training right after graduation from high school, so I took the job of a Fire Support Specialist (this is a Forward Observer, generally, go to the front lines, and call in artillery strikes).

First, I had to go to Basic Training. I was stationed at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. The Army gave me a free plane ticket and I was nervous going into Dallas/Fort Worth. I then got horribly nervous going on the "very small plane" flight to Lawton, Oklahoma. To make matters worse, on the plane, there was a man in the next seat to me who scared me to death. He began by telling me not to go AWOL (Absent Without Leave). He told me that it was his job to go after runaway soldiers. Being in a small plane, it was dark, and I had this guy telling me that I was going to go through the worst event in my life; not to run or he would catch me. Strike One.

I arrived at the base and went into this room with at least fifty other soldiers. It was nearing midnight, and we were sitting in chairs with desks attached, like I was back in school. They were telling us to get rid of "Contraband." At first, I had no idea what that word meant. They continued and told us to remove everything from out pockets and bags like: knifes, food, drugs. Since I didn't bring any of the above, I was safe. I avoided Strike Two.

I stayed at this area for three days and was treated fairly well. We got issued our new clothes: BDU's (Battle Dress Uniforms), even brown underwear and green socks. We got Physical Training clothes, full sweats and shorts and T-shirts . We got to wear our own running shoes. I mentioned that they treated us fairly well because it was a false sense of security. We got into a bus and went over to our barracks. WE WERE THEN MET BY DRILL SERGEANT TOVAR. He was nasty. A small stature man, he was an Airborne Ranger. He was of Hispanic descent, but in the two months that I knew him, I never found out from where. He could yell. We all had to rush out of the bus (there was several other buses as well in our convoy), and get into formation. There were about 25 to 30 drill instructors going around, yelling and screaming, getting into our faces, making soldiers do push-ups, and generally wreaking havoc. This is where the term, "Are you eye-balling me private," came from. You are not allowed to look at the drill instructor in the eye; you have to look through them. It is an art that I still use when a citizen wants to tell me how unhappy they are with being arrested, pulled over, etc.

We had a newer building so the barracks were nice, and clean. Oh, by the way, we were going to keep it that way as well. Every night, we had Fire Watch. This was basically one person at a time staying up in the barracks to ensure that yes, there were no fires, but also to make sure that everyone stayed asleep; no sleep-walking, no suicide attempts, etc. But Fire Watch was best known for "Buffing" the floors. Keeping the floors clean and shiny, that was the main goal. It also kept you awake for your hour (if you fell asleep during Fire Watch, the drill sergeants would come in and wake everyone up, and you would be doing push-ups at three in the morning).

Every morning we would fall out for PT (Physical Training). It felt like Hell Week in football every day. A run would be complimented with what seemed like forever push-ups, flutter kicks, mountain climbers, and jumping jacks. Just when you thought that it was over, they would find something to make you do more. The call would be something like this, "Oh, you guys want to mess around. Half right, face. Front leaning rest position, move." This meant that you turn right slightly, and got down to do push-ups. You turned to your right slightly so that you wouldn't hit the person in front of you when you went to the ground.

After PT was finally over, we got to take quick showers and then it was time for breakfast. Now the Chow Hall was an interesting place. I actually don't remember it too well since we would get in there, get out food, and then we were hounded to get out by the drill sergeants. I would be able to sit down, but there was no talking, just eating. There were a couple of soldiers who were too heavy, so they were on a drill sergeant imposed diet. They got to mainly eat fruit, and maybe a sandwich.

We would then go for the training of the day. It could be first aid, basic map reading, or hand-to-hand combat. The first day of weapons training at the range felt like the first day of training all over again. There was more yelling, and actually a couple of hits to the helmet for the soldiers who weren't keeping the muzzle of the M-16 down range. Since it was July and August at the ranges, it was HOT, and I mean, OKLAHOMA HOT. We would be forced to drink water, and even the water was hot. I actually drank hot water for some time after training since I got used to it.

We had some great obstacle courses. One of the obstacles was a tower that had no walls, just floors. This was meant to build teamwork and trust, a lot of trust. It went about 30 feet in the air, and the floors got small as you went up. You would have to lean out; reach up, and your fellow soldiers would get you up to the next level. As you went higher, without a rope I might add, it got more difficult to lean out. After you got to the top, you really trusted your partners and also had a great sense of accomplishment.

Drill and Ceremonies. We would spend hours marching. Just marching. It was fairly easy until they introduced the weapons into the marching. Trying to do the maneuvers with the weapon, all at the same time, became frustrating. There was always someone who wasn't on the same page as everyone else. This is where you would do things over-and-over again. When you would mess up during Drill and Ceremonies, the punishment was worse. Now, instead of just doing push-ups, you had to do push-ups with the M-16 on top of your hands. You would also have to stand at attention, holding the M-16 with both hands, stretched out in front of you, at a 90-degree angle.

I was made a squad leader after a couple of weeks and was in charge of about 10 soldiers. I had a good squad, except Flores. He was a good guy, but he didn't want to be there. One day, in the middle of the afternoon, he took a shoelace out of his boot. He went to the bathroom and to a stall. He wrapped the shoelace around his neck, and then to the top of the stall. He had only been there for a couple of minutes when another soldier saw him hanging there. From the sounds of it, it didn't really sound like a great suicide attempt. More of a call for help to get out of the Army; he did have a nice ring around his neck for the next month. After that, he was taken out of training, but he had to stay at our unit to wait for his discharge. He started to help passing out equipment, and other menial tasks. He wanted out so bad, the funny thing was, as we all graduated and got out of there, he was still there waiting for his discharge paperwork to come through.

The graduation from basic training was nice, but at that point, my focus had gone to my advanced training, and jump school. Both of these schools were going to be tough, and I was trying to prepare mentally and physically for both of them, especially jump school. I was actually so scared about jump school that I was thinking about canceling the training. I mean, jumping out of a perfectly good aircraft is not a natural act, and I was terrified.

Throughout basic training, I don't think that there was a day that went by without my wanting to quit. I think that is the way they liked it; pushing you to your edge, and then getting through it gives you a sense of accomplishment like no other.

Drill Sergeant Tovar, by the way, was nasty to the last day. I did learn a tremendous amount from him; about myself, and the Army. To this day, I would thank him for being so hard on us, and no, I would NOT give him a ticket if I ever pulled him over.