Red Cards, Bullets, and One Red Crayon

A friend of mine found out I had enlisted in the Army. He kept telling me that boot camp now featured little "red cards" that a recruit could use if they were feeling stressed out by the training. I kept needling him about it, I never believed it. Until they handed the little suckers out on day three of boot camp.

Sure enough, we didn't even make through week one. Some wimpy kid held his card up while we were all in drill formation being blasted for not being able to march in step.

What part of holding up a red piece of cardstock and saying "Your yelling is making me feel bad," in any way creates a soldier capable of scaring the enemy off the battlefield?

The company commander saw the red card and simply said "oh! I can't yell for a few minutes! Okay!" So he then continues in a nearly quiet voice: "Since I can't yell, I can quietly order you all to do push-ups!" And this is exactly what he proceeded to do. He whispered for the rest of the day. Made it almost impossible to follow his orders, simply because you never heard them if you weren't looking right at him. Compounding the issue was that if you are standing at attention, you can't turn your head to look at him without being punished for a failure of military bearing. And since you didn't hear his order, you can be punished for failure to obey. A perfect catch twenty-two, if you're the company commander.

I learned a valuable lesson about self-discipline in the next few minutes while the company commander cycled us through the paces of "On your feet!" and "Push-up Position!" followed by the orders of "Up! Down!" or my personal non-favorite: "Halfway Up! Halfway Down! WHY ARE ANY OF YOU MOVING?!?!"

It's a cheap trick to identify the thinkers in the group. "Halfway up" and "halfway down" are both the same thing. He's telling you to hold yourself halfway off the ground and leaving you there. Like I said, it's a non-favorite.

As for the lesson about self-discipline I was talking about: it was extremely difficult to overcome the rage inspired by the punishment brought about by a moron with a piece of red cardstock. We did something far more sinister later on, however. We encouraged the card-waver to develop an injury that would get him out of our company and make our lives easier. Three days later he did.

I've heard it said that some people are like Slinkies: they aren't really interesting at all until you push them down a flight of stairs.

But boot camp was not all fun and games. During the second week of boot we were issued our standard rifles. Every single person in the company got a rifle and two magazines, and a class about how to clean your rifle and make sure it works. I grew up on a farm, so for me being around a rifle was pretty old hat. My own opinion of the training on the rifle range was that it was fifteen minutes of new material painfully compressed into a whole week; but it's boot camp, and the company had people from all walks of life. You had to learn a little patience.

You might have thought that "all walks of life" meant red and yellow, black and white, like the Sunday School song. No. Not what I'm talking about at all. Some of these people were definitely NOT precious in the company commander's sight, and he made no bones about revealing their utter lack of ability to be on, survive on, or even be near a modern battlefield or even the equipment in which we who were capable would ride into that same battlefield.

As he was drumming one recruit out of the ranks and onto the bus home, he even made it clear that the only time he wanted to see that guy in a war zone again was as a retreating refugee. The bus driver is about to close the door and drop it in gear, when the commander slaps a hand on the closing door. "Driver," yells the commander into the open door, "the human waste of space you just picked up is not worthy to be in my beloved Army! I suggest not only the shortest route to the gate, but I also recommend speeding! And make sure that idiot kid's ticket home is in crayon so he can read it!"

Apparently, this happens often in boot camp. Not only did the bus driver speed away as best he could, but no one even looked twice when the bus driver made a genuine attempt at the shortest path as he started using sidewalks to cut between buildings.

We later found later out that the human slinky was on the same bus; the driver hit a speed bump at about forty miles per hour and bounced him around a second time.

I actually had a chance at boot camp to show off my outdoor skills a little; we had some basic camouflage training, where we would try to hide from our sister company and then pull off an ambush attack using basic tactics we had already learned.

I picked my spot where I would lay in wait for the ambush. There was a shallow depression in the earth near the path where the ambush was to take place. The other company was going to come by soon. So I covered up in the hole, and waited for the ambush. As the other guys were coming up the path, two of them actually stepped on my right leg. Their scouts had been warned we were nearby, but they didn't investigate why the ground was soft right where I was. They had missed their chance at ruining our surprise.

The company arrived, and was walking down the path in loose formation.My spot was well chosen; I realized I would be behind the entire company when the firing started up front. I could jump early and scare them into panicking into the ambush. We had a chance to deliver a complete rout instead of just an ambush. I jumped up and stepped forward out of the hole. I raised my weapon full of blanks, and just as I pulled the trigger on full auto I became aware of a second person to my right. It was the company commander, ambushing with me, firing bursts at aimed targets. The ambush up front started into full swing.

The other company, caught by surprise, lost a good bit of their military bearing and took heavy casualties. It was only fair. We had lost just as badly the week before. As we were cleaning up and helped the other company back into ranks and completing their introduction to maneuver training, the commander pulled me aside. "Recruit," he said, "the next time you pick your ambush hide site, please make sure someone else is not already covered up at the bottom of it."

The company commander had already dug the hole I was hiding in, and pulled the loose sand back around him to cover up. He must have been breathing through the hollow root that was in the hole with me. He had been under me in the sand the whole time.The two guys who stepped on me were sick with embarrassment when they were told what they had done. The company commander had chosen that spot in an attempt to get them to do that; by hiding there also I had stolen his thunder about military discipline and how it gets the job done.

I was not rewarded for my success in the ambush. I was given fifty push-ups for stealing his thunder. I was however, given recognition for my initiative. The company commander gave me seven men to form a recruit squad and help them with their training. Suddenly, I was responsible for every mistake made by seven men. If one of them dropped for push-ups, I was dropped as well.

On the last day of boot camp, I became aware that I was hating life because my boldness had caused me so much extra heartache. The seven men the commander had given me were not misfits by any definition, but they certainly did screw up enough. In fact, more than once I considered smuggling an M.R.E. to make up what I was sure was a calorie deficit caused by the extra push-ups I had been doing. But it was the last day of boot camp, and all that was behind me now. Until the company commander pulled me aside for what could only be one last jab before I was packed off to my active duty unit.

"Soldier," he said, "You may have noticed that I was harder on you than I was on some of the others. And this is true. I deliberately kicked you harder than all of them. You have great military bearing, and incredible self-discipline, but you don't have the lesson that helps you understand why I was hard on you. Are you listening, soldier?"

"Sir, I am."

"Call me sergeant, soldier. Sir is for recruits, which you are no longer one of. The lesson is simple. The bearing and discipline you have are much sought after in my beloved Army, and you seem to just be made of them both. They come naturally to you. Not so with others, who must grow both. Now remember this: to one whom much is given, from him will be expected all the more." As he said it he handed me a sealed envelope, to be given to my division officer of my active duty unit.

As for the moron who told me about the stress cards, I got home on boot leave for two weeks of showing off. I found the moron and told him they made it easier to deal with boot camp. I learned later he had joined the Army, and been just destroyed by push-ups because he kept trying to use his red card. I wonder if he ever learned I had just completely trolled him when I said it was easier.

I couldn't resist it; I opened the letter the command had given me for the division officer to whom I would soon be reporting. It contained two envelopes, one with my name on it. So I opened it first. The letter to me was simple, and to the point:

"Soldier, I told you not to open the letter. Give the other letter to your new division officer unopened, just like I told you; or did you forget you're in the Army now?"

He had neatly signed it with a crayon.