Life change 5

I had my license for long enough that my parents trusted me to drive down every weekend. I had started working for my dad and had quit my previous job so my weekends were always free. As long as I had the money for gas I would drive down and see her.

What I was doing after high school was kind of up in the air but I thought about my situation and came to one decision. I had not done very well in school and college was going to cost to much if I lived at home. My parents were also to a point now where my mother had moved in with my sister and my dad still lived in the old house. They were not technially divorced but they were pretty much on there way to it. My father started dating a week or two after he signed the divorce papers and as this does sound somewhat suspicious they had been seperated for several months before the papers were signed and I think =this marrage was on ice long before that
Tammy was also a big factor. It wasn’t a matter of if she pulled through but more along the lines of when she pulled through. I knew I loved her and I think at the time she loved me. I couldn’t get her to commit to anything simply because I think she wasn’t sure what was going to happen. I knew that when she pulled through I wanted to marry her and start a family. I wouldn’t have the money to do that working for my dad and I knew that she’d need insurance.
One day as I was driving around town I drove by a recruitment center. I had been thinking about it for few weeks and I walked in and enlisted in the army. I think both of my parents and everyone around me was somewhat shocked but it was my decision and I made it. It was one of the few decisions that I have made on my own in my life. Much of the time I would consult my sister or my mother and on rare occations I would concult my friends. This one though did not involve anyone which when making life changing decisions is an odd one for me. I know Tammy was mad about it and I didn’t tell her it was because of her. Her and her mother didn’t like the idea but I was going to do it.
Recruiters are like used car salesmen. The car they are trying to sell comes in several different models and bought with two to twenty year commitments. The engine always seems to run fine and they seem to know exactly what you are getting into. All the previous owners of this car absolutly loved it and he knew I would to. Recruiters like used car sales men and all sales men do not lie about their product because most of the time they have no idea what the product has in store for the new owner. They simply tell you whatever it is they think you want to hear in order to give you a good opinion about your new car.
Over the years the army has become quiet adept at getting new trainees. The longer you sign up the bigger the bonus is that you get. The more hazardous the job is the bigger the bonus is that you get. These are some of the hooks while other are more valuable. Paid college and training in certain fields are a couple of the good ones. I ended up having a drill sergent who had been in for twelve years and had his bachellors in four different fields and was working on his masters in one of them.
I had about three months before I left so I kept going down every weekend. I nearly failed high school so I was forced to take a summer PE class in order to get the last half credit. This ended up having a double benefit of helping me get in shape and getting my degree. Between the class and the trips to Memphis my summer was pretty much filled.
Two weeks before I left we cuddled in bed together and we talked most of the night. I could not sleep for the life of me and she said I could keep her up if I wanted. I purposly kept her up just to talk to her. It was us talking about what life would be like when she got out of the hospital and how we would live if I was in the military. She finally ended up falling asleep and I remember she looked so peaceful but you could tell she had been through a lot.
I tried comparing the face I was looking at to the one I first saw when I met her in the hallway. As had been the case over the past few months she looked worn out and tired even while she slept. Her face was swollen from the steroids and it saged under the stress of the whole ordeal. Her head was still bald seemed to strain for breaths due to a tumor in her throat.
We woke up the next morning to her mother feeling her head. She went and got a thermometer and stuck it in Tammy’s mouth and when it came out to 102 we went to the hospital. They kept her out of ICU but started feeding antibiotics through her port and kept a consistent watch on her.
I left Sunday not really sure what to do but I promised I’d come back the next weekend. It would be the last weekend I’d see her before I left for the military.
The following weekend I went down and she was in ICU. Her condition had worsened and they were going to put her on a ventilator. Her lungs were filling with fluid and it would basically breathe for her. While on a ventilator she was basically drugged into a near unconscious state. She was able to respond to what your saying and I even got her to laugh a few times but she would not remember any of it when the drugs wore off. I stayed with her as long as I could but had to leave the following Sunday.
Tuesday, July 27th was the day I shipped out. My basic training was to take place in Fort Benning, Georgia which is located about a half hour away from Columbus. I called from the airport both in St. Louis and in Atlanta where my plane landed down.Several people had told me that I would not be able to talk for the first month or so. I would not be able to contact home or Tammy so I made the most of the time that I had.
Before I left I talked to everyone with any expience in the militabry on what to expect from Basic training. I trained for several months on things that I though would help me through the three months like running and pushups. For the most part my body was ready for what it was about to take. I was in good shape going in was sure I would be in better shape coming out. Despite all of this I was still not prepared for what I was about to undertake.
The image you get when people talk about basic training is something along the lines of road marches, pushups, being yelled at and crawling in the mud. It is true that all of those things happened to me but overall that was only about ten percent of it. The other ninety is sitting in a classroom listening to a drill sergeant drone on about military protocol and fighting to stay awake. You know that if you fall asleep you are going to wake up to a large man about two inches from your face telling you to walk to the back of the room so he can give you some hell to keep you awake. Your short nap, due to a sleep schedule that you body has yet to adapt to, has earned you the honorary gift of a torturous amount of pushups. Truth be told I never fell asleep in one of those class. I have watched many guys take that long walk to the back of the room after dozing off only for a few seconds.
Thus we have the term “smoked”. I am not sure if there is an actual definition but it is what our drill sergeant would say whenever he was about to punish you. “I’m gonna smoke the shit out of you privates if you don’t get in line” would promptly make us get in line. If he was feeling like it or had been ordered by someone above him to make sure we got punished a lot today because we had not been punished enough lately he would find a reason to smoke us.
You could go into the military with the ability to do a thousand pushups without stopping. It would not really matter though since normally they will not give you a simply number and say do that. The drill sergeants will simply tell you to start doing push ups and when they think you are about to collapse or they think they have sufficiently worn you out they will tell you to stop.
Shortly after getting off a plane in Atlanta airport we were put into eight to ten man groups. Each group was assigned a bus to get on and we thus rode that to the base. It was a long two and half hour ride from Atlanta to Columbus and we talked about what we joined the military for and how long we had signed up for. Many of the guys on the bus as well as myself had signed up for the infantry. We had a few communication guys but the majority of trainees at Fort Benning are infantry.
After arriving at the base the bus driver (who was a civilian) started telling us what to do when we got off the bus. He told us to line up in two lines when we got off the bus and try and make them as even as possible. We all stepped off and he helped get our line nice and straight and put us in our proper positions. After that he walked through a set of glass doors with his clipboard full of names and started talking with a group of Drill sergeants. A couple of them glanced at us and laughed a little and then went back to talking to the bus driver.
As this was happening all of us were watching through the glass doors and this was really our first glimpse of a Drill sergeant. To skip ahead a little bit a lot of the guys in my training unit put on about 10-12 pounds of muscle by the end of basic training. Normally Drill sergeants will do every thing you as far as exercise is concerned. Now basic training is their life and they have probably already been five to six cycles you can guess they were pretty big.
Out of the four Drill Sergeants that were standing there only started walking toward us. He was a tall man that was probably around 6’2. On top of that he looked like he wrestled wild animals for a living. He probably weighed in at around two thirty to two fifty and I can tell you that he probably had about a four percent body fat count. As he walked toward us one of the guys let out a “holy shit” followed by a few other curse words. As soon as he opened the door everyone went quiet.
He told us to stay in line and file in to a group of benches that we arranged in the room. We did as ordered and we stood in front of them. No one was willing to sit down yet because no one had been told to. We knew better then two make assumptions and all of had heard one was or another that you were supposed to do exactly as you were told. He told us to file in and stand by the benches. There was no mention of sitting down.
The large man walked in and stood in front of us. After giving the order to sit down we all took our seat. He then asked if we were hungry and no one responded. Another Drill sergent immediately said that if we would like to eat something then we had better speak up and it was going to be a while till our next meal. A few of us including myself raised our hands and we filed up and got a packaged meal.
After walking back to our seat none of us were really sure if we should eat it there or wait. We had not been told to open our meals so we set them under our chair and waited. The drill sergeant then showed a video introducing the area and the base. This took about an hour and by the time we finally got done with the presentations it was two am. None of us had touched out meals and the original drill sergeant told us to stand up and prepare to file out.
Another one noticed that no one had opened their meals. This started off a long stream of curse words followed by more yelling which eventually lead to us putting them back in the box they came from. Shortly after we received our uniforms and pt clothing and were sent to bed hungry.
By the time we actually made it bed there really was no point in even sleeping. It was three am when I went to sleep and wake up call was at four. The nervousness and hunger kept me up to around three thirty and from their I was promptly woken up by the florescent lights located only a few feet from the top bunk bed I was given.
This was the first night of Basic. It summed up many other nights when we would get relatively no sleep and be expected to stay awake during mind numbing lectures. You could argue that it taught discipline but at the time it seemed like an annoyance.
The next day was long and exhausting. We were grouped into different bunks and each bunk had its own sergeant. Ours was Sergeant Edwards. He could not have been more then a few years older then I was and he rather thin and scrawny. His personality was nothing short of Napoleonic. Officially he was not a drill sergeant but in his mind it seemed he thought he was. Normally you are supposed to be able to ask your leading sergeant questions if you are unsure of what is going on. It came to a point when we were afraid to ask him for fear of pissing him off. Everything we did seemed to be an annoyance.
The first week is not even considered basic training. When you first sign up your recruiter tells you that you will be training for a very specific amount of time. Mine was fourteen weeks but what they do not tell you is that there is an indefinite amount of time before basic training that does not count towards that. Basically it is just filling out paper work and getting certain key gear items like ruck sacks and clothing. This seemed like the longest week of my life. I remember talking to one of the guys and I had thought we had been there for at least two weeks and it turned out only be a few days.
After about four days of signing my name by the dot and getting shots of different vaccines we were finally done with everything that was involved with the introductions. We spend the next two days sitting in our bunk trying to fight off boredom. The worst possible situation for a bunch of guys is one where they have nothing to do. After inventing a few games to play and clearing out a space in the bunks so we could have our own fighting arena it finally came down to sitting around someone’s bed and talking.
Another lesson we learned here was how to respect those who are above us. The military’s sense of respect is simple. Those who are above you are always right. I got lucky and learned this lesson with little repercussions. While sitting at lunch one day not talking to anyone around me as told and simply eating my meal, one of the drill sergeants was walking around asking us where we were from. A few of the guys around me responded with the various states they were from and when it came to me I responded with Illinois. The mistake in that I made was not to pronounce the s at the end. I lived here all my life and have heard it pronounced both ways but the majority of people have left off the s.
He was quick to correct me and started to walk away. Without thinking I said that it was pronounced without the s. The moment I said this every private around me turned and looked at me as if I were insane. He continued to walk away until it clicked that I had defied him and I knew as soon as I had said it I should not have. The drill sergeant got down in my face and got into a long drawn out lecture on how it had an s at the end so it should be pronounced. He then asked me if I had ever met one of the Illinois tribe members. I responded with no and he then felt he had proved his point and said that since I had not met one of them I really had no right to judge how it was pronounced.

We received one phone call throughout the entire week and it was a day before we were sent to basic. I opted to call Tammy because I figured that her mother could contact mine and let her know what was happening. The trouble was that there were probably two hundred of us and sixteen phones. This would not have been a problem if we had a few hours but we only were given one. If you do that math that leaves you with about four and half minutes per man and since everyone had someone they wanted to talk to we only had one or two guys not use the phone. On top of that you have the problem of about four of the phones not working so that leaves you with roughly four minutes. Once you got done waiting for the phone card to connect and typing in your twenty digit card number you were left with about one to two minutes.
She was still on the ventilator so she could not talk but I did talk to her mother. Her mother said it was going to be a matter of time before she was off. Her body was trying to fight off a virus of some kind so the doctors were waiting it out. Nothing had really changed and she was not better or worse. This was more of a relief because after I left I really was not sure what was going to happen with her. All I really wanted to know was that she was doing alright. I said goodbye and told her to talk to my mother for me then I hung up and let the next man have his chance.
After that one call we were told we would not be able to call anyone for at least a month. I was not really sure how I was going to deal with it and to be honest I was scared to death. Anything could change in that month and I would not have the slightest idea it had happened.
During the first few weeks the thoughts of almost every trainee is that his decision might have been a mistake. Maybe he should not be here and that joining the military was a bad idea. I had similar thoughts but it was more along the lines of what if something happened while I was gone. It was not like I could just leave at my own will. I was stuck here and there was nothing I could do about it.
The next day we got all of our gear together and lined up in formation. It was time to ship out and first time we saw the drill sergeants who were going to train us for the rest of the cycle. They seemed less intimidating then the drill sergeants that we had been with during registration but they still had that element of fear.
When I say ship out that was really just the term they used for when you were leaving basic. We were not actually shipping out to anywhere. In fact basic was only about two miles away and we ended up walking there.
After a role call we started out first march. We walked in full fatigues with belts and canteens on. All the way there cadences were shouted by the drill sergeants and echoed by the privates. Everyone now and then you could hear a drill sergeant yell at someone and tell them to get back in step. On rare occasions you would see one of them run up to the man who was out of step and would not respond to their warnings. Then the sergeant would began a barrage of yelling which promptly got that man back in step.
When we arrived at what seemed to be our destination they marched us into a large field of sand. After all the formations were in place they check out lines and promptly smoked anyone who was out of place. When everyone was in place they announced that we would have to get our bags and place them in front of us.
This seems like a menial task but we had several factors against us. The Drill Sergeants were calling out how much time we had left on our original five minutes. Everyone was really nervous which lead to stupid behavior and clamoring over each other in order to get done as fast as possible. Worse of all was the fact that you had two hundred guys rummaging through two hundred bags that weighed about twenty pounds looking for a set of little black letters that said our name. In the end it turned out to be nothing more then a big mess.
At the end of the five minutes only about twenty people had their bag in front of them. Since this left everyone else without a bag everyone was smoked. Once the smoking finished we were given another five minutes with likewise results. Finally after getting smoked six or seven times everyone had their bag.
Another role call was taken and we were told to run up the hill whenever our name was called and follow the Drill Sergeants who were giving ‘polite directions’ as to where are bunk was. My name being near the end left me waiting for quiet sometime. After about an hour of standing my name was finally called and I took off running with my bags.
Our bunk was nothing more then a large room with bunk beds and wardrobe style closets all the way around. When I entered everyone was standing by there bunk waiting for the last of us to come up. I was directed as to where my bunk was and stood in line with everyone else.
While the last few came up I took the chance to look around whenever the Drill Sergeant was not around. I had a really short guy to my right and a guy who was about my height to my left. Just beyond the shorter guy was a guy who was probably a good six inches above me.
We were briefed on what was going to happen for the rest of the day. All it really ended up being was more paper work. Our Drill sergeants introduced themselves as Drill Sergeant Cox, Debois, and Gee. Cox was going to be our head Drill Sergeant but that did not necessarily make him a high rank. We found out later that they simply rotate for each cycle.
After they left we were given a chance to put every thing in our bags into our closets. This also gave us a chance to get acquainted with the guys around us. The shorter guy was named Williams and the guy to my left was Weining. The taller guy was named Wilson.
Williams would later become by battle buddy but this was not by choice. His bunk was above mine and thus he was automatically designated to me. Williams in a lot of ways was my curse through basic training.
A battle buddy is basically someone you need to baby sit and they in return baby sit you. The two of you have to make sure the other is not doing something stupid or dangerous. On top of that you have to make sure that they have all there things in proper place and everything is clean. This can include making sure there bed is made, there boots are cleaned and making sure there closet is arranged right.
When I say he was my curse throughout basic I mean he rarely if ever did anything along the lines of cleaning. His boots were normally dirty and his closet ended up being nothing more then a pile of crap the almost always got us smoked. When I say us I mean I got punished for the things that he did wrong.
Infantry training can be divided into two parts. The first would is about a month long and consisted of nothing more the lectures on military etiquette and regulations of the military. This is what they call somewhat of the detoxification part of basic. For about the first week or two the guys who are either drug addicts or alcoholics will become known because of either the screaming in their sleep or the shaking spells they go through. It is also a time what you get used to military food and the idea of having a permanently healthy diet. The cafeteria normally served very health conscious foods and we were restricted to the amount of deserts we could get. All we drank was water and All sport and the All sport was just to replenish our electrolytes.
An average day would consist of waking up at four. This was followed by shaving, brushing teeth, and cleaning up the barracks. Formation was at five where we would all line up in the staging area. Role call was held to make sure everyone was present.
From there we would march out to the same sand field that we had first gathered on and have our morning PT. This varied from certain calisthenics to running long distances depending on the day of the week. PT was much easier the I expected it to be. In my mind I had vision of back breaking workouts and endless amounts of running. It actually turned out to be very easy workouts and the running seemed to be over before I knew it.
After about an hour of this we would reform in the formation area and get ready for breakfast. I was always very hungry and this is probably due to the fact that we were not aloud to snack between meals as most of us Americans do. Meals were always very healthy yet filling. I almost always would enter hungry and leave feeling satisfied full. Normally you had to the choice of items you received but were limited on the quantity they gave you. You could of course supplement this by picking an item from each group and then have a very large meal at the end.
Breakfast would be followed by whatever morning activity they had in store for us. During the first month this was normally time spent in a large classroom. After the first month it was still spent in a class format but normally it was field training. This is a bit more interesting then the former because it was a lot more hands on.
The first field training exercise that we went to was first aid. Training for this took two days so each day after breakfast we all loaded up into the busses and rode out there. The base was not much to look at considering that most of the area is covered in woodlands and this blocks your view of just about everything. It must have been tough to build the base most of the trees are very large and the forest it self is very old and thick. Adding to the complications is the fact that many of the firing ranges are nothing more then large grassy areas. Quiet a bit of woodlands had to have been cleared for this to have been made possible.
The first day of first aid was spent in small groups being instructed by members of some divisions medical group. We learned various exercises like making splints and how to properly stop blood. I would have to go through basic training twice in order to know for sure but First Aid seems like the most logical starting point for all trainees. That way if we get lost and someone gets injured on one of the other exercises then we can take care of our selves.
The second day was spent testing on the things we had learned the first day. Testing formats varied little from training exercise to training exercise. Normally we would divide into groups and move from station to station and receive a signature for each station that we attended. The threat of being recycled would always be looming over us if we did not get all of our signatures.
The military uses somewhat of a system of threatened lies to motivate you into doing what you are told. The idea of being recycled is one of the biggest fears any trainee had. Even thinking about having to start your training over again makes you cringe. Our superiors of course knew this and purposely held it over out head. We would often times hear “Private if you don’t get thirty five out of forty on your first test then you are going to have to recycle”. This is an example of what we were told once about our marksman ship test. Probably seventy five percent of the company did not even make thirty out of forty and no one recycled.
After testing successful on all of our new found first aid skills we were then given a break for lunch. Lunch during field training exercises was always stressful because it was just you and the drill sergeants. Technically they have to give you a chance to eat the meal and they have to give you three meals a day but when it is just you and them who is going to know? We sure as hell were not going to tell on them. That would open a can of worms that might get us recycled.
This was the normal routine that we would go through. Basic training in one sense is nothing more then a three to four month long class. Granted it is a very stressful class and you are always on edge but in the end it is just a learning experience, hence the name basic TRAINING. Everything you do is in some way teaching you something that the military wants you to know or something they want to make sure you know. Very few things happen by chance and almost everything is planned out.
There was one day when the unit was testing on weapons functions and how to use them. We were given out lunch break and told to sit in small groups. After lining up and getting our meal we did as told and I sat with a few guys from my platoon. We sat enjoying our heavily processed food and quietly talking amongst ourselves. Normally talking was completely against the rules during meal times but when we were in the field we could normally get away with it.
During out meal we heard Drill Sergeant Debois yell out that one of the boxes of MREs had come up missing. This then lead to all of us getting in front leaning rest position. Front leaning rest position is essentially the position you get in when you are about to do push ups. It does not seem like much but try being left there for an hour. It starts to get to you. Your muscles start to ache so you try and change positions. After doing this several times you try and readjust your weight. You hands are firmly planted on some kind of brush or concrete and soon rub themselves raw.
Try picturing walking into a wooded area and seeing three large men on a hill top overlooking a hundred or so guys sitting in push up position. It had to be somewhat comical to look at from the third person perspective. There we sat in push up position waiting for the drill sergeant to let us get up. Debois was waiting for someone to fess up to the missing box of MREs. This went on for at least an hour or two and we listened to several lectures on how whoever took the box should feel like shit because they were keeping other privates from eating.
What will really make you laugh is that there never was another box of MREs. Well, there was but none of us privates ever saw it. No one ever claimed taking it because the box was sitting in the back of another drill sergeant’s truck. In reality it was actually a drill sergeant who had taken it. It may have been Debois or another one but in the end the whole thing was staged. The MREs were found shortly after we all got up and were passed out to the appropriate privates.
They did not do it to use to be mean. The drill sergeants did find it funny and I even heard them laughing about it later on. Maybe it was to reinforce our discipline or to reassure there power. Who knows the reason for staging something like that but I am sure they had there reasons. Maybe they were even ordered to do it. What ever there reasons were they did a good job at either pissing us off or wearing us out.

At first you could think of Drill Sergeants having one of the best jobs in the military and if you were to ask one of them how much they liked their job their answer would probably vary depending on if there were trainees around. If their were trainees around they would tell you that they love what they do. They would tell you that they get to be an asshole to those privates over there all day long and then promptly walk over to those privates and smoke them for some kind of made up reason.
If there were not any privates around and it was just you and him in a room and he spoke his mind his answer might differ somewhat. From what we heard the pay was not to bad but the hours were long and the job tiresome. If you think about it you have to be the babysitter from hell for three months. Each platoon had three drill sergeants and they would take shifts but often times if one drill sergeant had to drop out for whatever reason then the other two had to pick up the slack.
Drill sergeant Cox had a child during the last month of training and Debois was transferred so this left Gee to take care of us. There was a time when he did not leave for several weeks. That is several weeks without seeing his family or any time off. This was two are disadvantage because he was abnormally more irritable then usual.
Often times the four platoons would rotate on who got the company for the weekend. This was particularly important to us because we had our favorites among the drill sergeants. Third platoon normally had the best and we always enjoyed it when there rotation came around. At the same time first and second platoon had one drill sergeant each that we all despised.
Second platoon had a Drill Sergeant Bruss who would normally smoke you for being in his presence and that is no exaggeration. It came to a point when most of us would just avoid being around him if we could. This eventually led to a point where he would randomly call formation at two or three in the morning and essentially force us to be around him. We normally dreaded the weekend whenever we found out we would have him take care of us.
Fireguard is something some officer thought up when he was trying to think of ways to further make life for the private hell. The idea was that two people stayed up for an hour at night and “guarded” the bunk against invaders while also making sure that no one went AWOL. At the end of their hour they would wake up the next to people in line and so on. This went on until the last group woke everyone up. It was a rotation that went around the entire platoon and normally came to me about every two or three days. This normally was an uneventful hour but on occasion a drill sergeant would go to each platoons bunk and check the count with the fire guard. Often times if someone was in the bathroom or downstairs doing laundry then you had to account for them. When the Drill sergeant asked you what the count was you would normally respond with something like “52 in bunk, 7 doing laundry and 1 in the bathroom”.
If it was an easy drill sergeant then normally they would accept this and leave without incident. On a night where Bruss walked in and you were on fireguard he would normally go around and count for himself. If his count matched yours then he would leave but if you were one or two off then you had trouble. The chances of him being in a good mood were slim but if you got lucky he would just smoke you. If he was in a bad mood and you could not get your count to match his then he would wake up your entire platoon and smoke everyone. The worst was if he was particular pissed off he could smoke the entire company. Often times this would lead to the hour long formations in front leaning rest position.


One night when Williams and I were on fireguard we had a particularly easy drill sergeant. This lead us both to slacking off on our uniform. We appeared to have the proper uniform on but I was wearing the wrong uniform and socks and Williams boots once again were dirty and he did not have any rank showing. Normally this would not have mattered with the drill sergeant we had but when he came in to check our count he had a battalion drill sergeant with him. Unfortunately for us he was not as kind as we were used to and proceeded to check our uniform.
Sometimes unique punishment was taken and would simply be whatever the drill sergeant could think of. The one he chose for us was somewhat odd but fit the situation. He looked at his watch and told us we had six minutes to meet him down in the formation area with range of different uniform items on. One example would be fitness shorts on backwards, underwear outside of those, flip flops, army fatigues on backwards and inside out, hats on inside out and winter gloves on. When we finally did come out looking more like a golem then a soldier. We were nothing more then an almalgamation of different uniforms and parts. Of course the Drill sergeant found this absolutely hilarious and took great joy in it. He did this several times before letting us go back to bed. We did not meet any of our time goals but that really was not the point. The point was more along the lines of disciplining us to act like soldiers even when someone was not looking. By the time we actually did make it to bed we were only given an hour or so of sleep before waking up.
Fire guard is a legitimate idea as far as preventing people from going AWOL. It may not be the most effective but at least it is something. My unit did have several guys disappear if you want to call it that. To me sneaking away during basic training is more along the lines a change of mind to something that someone probably lied to you about up until now. I can not really classify going AWOL in basic training as actually abandoning your unit. In all respect to the idea of basic training the structure of it is largely to impersonate the military rather then to actually be the military. It felt like going through the motions of going to war but obviously we knew that we were not going to be fighting anyone. My guess is that Fort Benning will most likely not be attacked in the near future.
During the first week of training we were told that a couple of guys would go AWOL but I found it hard to believe. It seemed like an impossibly to leave this place. We were not exactly given a tour of the base and we were in a very remote part of the base and even riding a vehical it was at least a twenty minutes drive to the gate. There was a high way the ran nearby and some railroad tracks but other then that it was not exactly like you could hitch a ride from someone or ask for directions. Everyone around was in the military and would know exactly what you were as soon as you talked to them.
When you first arrived you are told several times that you are here to stay and there is no way to get home. The first few briefings are filled with inspirational speeches on how if you do this you will be recycled and if you do that you will be recycled. This is of course was the worst possible thing to happen to someone who did not want to be there. Recycling meant that you started the entire training program over again. Four months does not seem like much but the days drag by when you are in a place like that. The idea of doing it over again is the last thing in the world you want to here
This is another one of their creative lies to motivate you into staying and finishing your training. Most guys left either for medical reasons or misbehavior. In our unit we had a few guys who had medical reasons but the majority was misbehavior or just deciding that they did not want to be in the military after they got there. Normally what would happen is if the man was to the point of disrupting everyone else’s training then they would just send him to RHU. If he was not that disruptive then he would sit and watch everyone else train until the end of the cycle. It was a somewhat of a punishment for trying to get out. It was their way of saying you wasted our time up to this point so we are going to waste your next two months.
RHU was like being banished to a far away land of losers who were all screw ups as the drill sergeants would say. It was where you did not want to go and if you ended up there you were a screw up like everyone else who was there. We would see some of our guys who were sent to RHU every now and then and they would talk about video games and a big screen TV. We never believed them and always figured they were just bragging trying to make us feel like shit.
When you were going to be sent to RHU they would normally some time to actually get you there depending on how well they actually liked you. They never said they were holding you until the end of the cycle. If they liked you then they would “rush your paper work” but if they did not then your paper work would somehow take till around the end of the cycle. My question is why would you ever want to hold someone longer then you needed to. Is there really a point if you can get his paper work through with just a few signatures. Think about how much money it costs to feed and house that man while he was still there, not to mention pay him. The only explanation I can come up with is that this is just another method to scare the privates who are still training. It is a method “if we can treat the guys who don't want to train like shit then the ones who do want to train will be even more willing to stay”. This was not just in the drill sergeant's head. Many of the still training privates made fun of the ones who opted to take the drop out road.
The first guy who decided he did not want to be in the military took a bit of a forward approach. When ever we were in formation he would take off running and as soon as one of the drill sergeants figured out that he was running away they would normally sprint after him or order one of the privates near by to catch him. He would enviably be caught every time. This happened several times until eventually they just sent him to RHU.
One of the guys that I had been in my bunk during registration with was elected platoon leader one day and then disappeared the next. No one was really sure what happened to him or how he got out and he was gone for about a month and half until his girl friend dropped him off at the gate. They made him stick around until the end of the cycle but he did not train with us. About two or three weeks before everyone else was done they sent him to RHU.
We had a few others go because of bad backs and other injures. A few others refused to train and all of them eventually ended up in the same place. The drill sergeants made sure there lives were a living hell. They were constantly hounded and given the worst duties in order to discourage anyone else from quiting. Even the medical drop outs were made fun of, often times being called frauds and told they were faking it.
After the first few weeks I began to get fed up with the idea of not being able to talk to anyone on the outside. We had yet to be given mailing privileges and had not been aloud to make any phone calls. I had no idea what was going on outside of basic and the lack of knowledge was getting to me. The idea of not knowing what was happening to Tammy and how she was doing was to much to bear.
I began looking for ways to call without anyone knowing. The only phones that we knew about were all in what was called the staging area. It was essentially where we got in formation in the morning and every time we were about to head out. There was absolutely no way to sneak a phone call mainly because the drill sergeants walked by here about ever five minutes. With those out I had to find another way to get a phone call. I figured that asking for one was completely out of the question that left finding another phone
One day while we were marching I spotted a group of pay phones sitting by a brick building that had something to do with troop travel or something like that. I waited until after lights out when everyone was doing laundry and snuck out of my barracks. The nice thing about military clothing is that it is not very flashy and is made to not be seen. Security on the base is designed to keep people from getting in instead of actually making sure the people inside are doing what they are supposed to do. That is the job of your superior officer.
It was about a quarter mile to the pay phone and that was surprisingly easy on a military base. All I basically had to do was wait in a ditch along the road until the cars went by and when the ditch ran out there were enough trees to hide behind. Obviously military BDUs are meant to blend in with the woods and darkness so sneaking around wasn't to hard.
Now normally this is completely out of character for me. Growing up I was pretty much a saint. I had never touched any kind of drugs or alcohol and I had never snuck out of anywhere up to this point. The idea of sneaking out of a military barracks at 9:30 at night to use a phone would have been completely out of the question few years before. Love and concern go a long ways in certain situations and at the time I could have cared less if I got caught.
I got to a point where I could look at the phones and found them all to be in use by a group of guys who were staying in the brick building. This was bad for me because it was not like I could simply walk up and ask them if I could make a quick phone call. I was not really sure who was using them or why but I waited around for about an hour and finally gave up. I made my way back to my bunk and was surprised that no one had realized I was gone. Wiening asked where I went but was satisfied with the response of doing laundry.

Wiening and I had became good friends over the first month or so and I knew quiet a bit about him. He joined up because he was not really sure what he wanted to do with his life. His girl back home was still in high school and whenever the drill sergeants would taunt him about his girlfriend cheating on him back home he would practically break down crying. It was our job to take out the trash every morning and sometimes at night. On these walks out to the dumpster we would have long conversations on why we were here and what we were going to do when we got out. He knew all about Tammy and why I had joined up. He was a good guy but about a month after he got there all his motivation disappeared. He realized that the military was not some glorious life achievement and instead was hard and exhausting. It came to a point when he decided that he wanted out but he was not sure how. I honestly thought he was going to wash out but his problem was that he never had the balls to break out into an open run or sneak off the base. Wiening had more of a gentle nature to him and would much rather of asked to leave or taken a medical way out. Nonetheless he stuck it out till the end.
I wanted to tell him about the phones but I knew I could not because he would immediately want to go out and try and call his girl. It was understandable but he would not think clearly about how to get to them. I could just picture Wiening running down the street toward the phone. He also had a big mouth and word would have got around about the phones. If I had made a successful call then I might have told him but there was no point in raising false hope.
My mother had always said that the truth was the best option and after a few more nights of checking the phones and finding them in use I finally just gave up and talked to my drill sergeant. You can say what you will about drill sergeants but in the end they are people to. I told him the situation and he understood for the most part. I will admit that I lied a little when I told him that she was my girlfriend. Formally she wasn’t but what really is the difference?
I got a phone call from the office and talked to her mother for a while. She had come off the ventilator and I asked when they thought she’d be getting out and her mother simply responded with she probably won’t be. At that time I hadn’t really understood what she said and I asked her to clarify. Its painfully obvious now what she said but maybe I didn’t want to believe it. Maybe I refused to accept what she said but after she said it again I broke down. A lot of guys cry during there first few weeks at basic training and very few will admit they do but that was the first time I cried during boot camp.
After talking to her mom for a little while she asked if I’d like to talk to Tammy. I didn’t think it would be possible but she was able to speak a little. Her voice was nothing more then a whisper and so weak that with any outside noise I couldn’t understand her. She only got a few sentences before she lost her breath and had to stop. Tammy handed the phone back to her mother and she left the room in order to talk with out Tammy hearing.
She said her lungs were filling with fluids and that one had already collapsed. That was where the shortness of breath came from and Tammy’s blood CO2 level was slowly rising. This was a result of her lungs inability to get oxygen to her blood and remove the CO2. Slowly but surely her body was turning against her and there was nothing they could do. It was to the point now where her body would either pull through or it wouldn’t.
After the conversation I went back to my bunk and just laid there. A few guys came up to me and asked what was wrong but I didn’t really want to talk about it. After about a week we got phone privileges back and with that came letter privileges. I started writing a letter a day to her but I knew she was to weak to write back. It really didn’t matter though because it let her know that I was thinking of her.
This went on until about two and half month into basic training I was talking to her mother. Tammy had requested to see me and we weren’t sure how it was going to happen.
When your in the military the best way to get a message to a soldier is through the Red Cross. They work directly with the military to find out where the soldier is stationed and then the best way to get a message to that person. I’ve always said that knowing people and having connections is what gets you through life and this is a very good example.
I considered Nick to be my best friend at the time even though I hadn’t talked to him since before I left. His mother who I mentioned before was the district manager for the Red Cross in Mclean County. My mother called her and told her the situation and Nicks mother immediately went about sending the message.
My unit received it the next day and after talking it over with my Captain it was decided that I’d be granted a one week leave based on good behavior and the situation at hand. Within two days I was on my way home. The military only allowed me to travel back to Bloomington but as soon as I got off the plain I was driving down to Memphis.
After running across the parking lot of the hospital and hurriedly scribbling my name at the check in desk I was on an elevator leading up to the ICU. She had been here for several weeks ever since she’d been put on the ventilator. As the sliding glass door opened up I saw her mother sitting in a chair by the bed. Tammy was asleep and her mother gave her a light shake causing her eyes to open slowly. She looked over at her mother who was motioning over to me. Her head turned to look at me and she gave a short smile and eyes lit up slightly.
After giving her a hug we talked for a little while but every word for her was strained and she dosed of in mid sentence then wake up and forget what was being said. Sometimes it was so hard for her to be understood that she’d get angry and just give up. Sometimes she’d dose of for so long and we’d just let her sleep. Her body couldn’t sustain itself for very long and she ended up sleeping three fourths of the day. The rest was spent eating and talking with the people around her.
Her grandmother had come up from Florida to help her mother out with the whole situation. They would take shifts of one person staying in the room with Tammy while the other would sleep or go down to the cafeteria for a smoke break.