Funny Basic memory thought would share..

[malmapus]

Just came back to me last night after my wife had found a photo of my Drill Sgts. Was a few weeks into Basic, and was a Sunday (I remember because that seemed to be the only day of the week that we had to clean our gear, polish boots and have some time to ourselves lol). But still were not allowed to sleep on the bunks till lights out.

I had finished everything and came up with the idea to crawl on the floor underneath my bunk and catch some ZZzzz's.

Before I knew it, I was awoken by the thunderous "AT EASE!!!" of my platoon (which of course had to call out when a Drill or NCO came into the barracks.

I quickly as I can gather myself and slide from underneath my bunk, looking up into the gaze of my Drill Sgt looking down at me.

"What were you doing down there Private?" I was asked.

As quickly as I could think came and jumping on my feet, "Pulling the sheets tight on my bunk Drill Sgt!"

Drill Sgt, cracked a grin looking at me and said, "Bull shit, I see the dried drool on your face." He then of course dropped me, can't remember how many push ups I cranked out for that little cat nap. Defiantly one of my fonder memories of Basic.



ON EDIT, here's another.


We were told that if we ever recieved care packages, there had to be enough for the Platoon. Well my mom was planning on coming up to visit one weekend (we were allowed to have family members come on Sunday's and meet in a Company common area). She had asked if she could bring cookies, and I let her know that if she brought enough for the platoon it was ok.

Little did I know that her and my aunt got to work baking. That weekend they came by with a trunk filling with cookies, I can't even remember how many. Oatmeal, chocolate chip, peanut butter.

My Drill saw then unpacking the car and asked me if I knew what was going on, when I told him he then yelled at me, "what and you're making them carry those for you...get some of your buddies and help them!!"

So, got some buddies and helped them get the cookies to the common area, and next thing whole platoon was called down. Was a very cool thing, and a nice visit.

Funny enough we could not finish what they baked. An entire platoon that had been having it's assed worked off, could not finish the amount of cookies they brought.

So after they packed the car and left, my drill smoked us all for making them take cookies back home, but now I think it was more to work off those calories we ate lol.

[Sequoia]

1. Funny!

I remember the quarter bounce on the tightly made cots with those scratchy wool olive green blankets. If it bounched you passed.

[malmapus]

4. Haha yeah

Ahh those scratchy wool olive green blankets. Just don't make comfort like those in the civi world!

[ryanus]

2. Ha ha! We had guys do this all the time

A couple of them figured out that you could stick your hands between the matress and the springs so that your arms would stay up in the "sheet tucking" position even when you were asleep. So would be these guys snoozing under their bunks with their hands up. And if you didn't pause to look, it did actually look like they were tightening their bunks.

Oh man, good times. I have lots of stories about basic. One of the best, and hardest, experiences of my life. It really is phenomenal how guys can bond when they are put under stress.

[malmapus]

3. lol dam didn't think to do that!

My other thing was to use that blanket that you had to fold and cover your pillow with. To keep myself warm at night.

I would sleep on top of the other blanket that covered the bed, then in the morning just had to tighten it back out and fold the other and cover the pillow and tuck it back in.

Saved a few previous seconds in the morning while making the mad dash to the bathroom to wash up and shave before another day of fun heh.

[zbdent]

5. Thanks for the laugh! That's really great ...

getting chewed out for not being able to completely polish off all the cookies!!! !!!

On the first one, you were technically correct ... I'm no member of the armed services, but I suspect that there would have been absolutely no good answer to your DS's "question". I'm sure he tacked on extra pushups for "lying"

again, thank you.

[ryanus]

6. I loved almost all my drill sergeants

I really felt like they had all of our best interests in mind, and they pushed us to mold us, not to inflict pain or to get a promotions or an awards or anything. They definitely were not our friends. They made that clear. More like a big brother that really wanted to see you turn out ok, and used tough love, but you new deep down underneath he never would let anything happen to you.

But they were still serious. There often was this humor with the drill sergeants. Like someone would get in trouble for something, and a drill Sergeant would smoke the guy (or group), and the guy would do push ups to the drill Sergeant's cadence, "one, two, three..." "One!", "one, two, three..." "Two!" And sometimes the drill Sergeant would like go into another room, or read something on his clipboard, or talk to another drill sergeants, and the punished soldier is still pounding his face, or just staying in that pushed-up position ("front-leaning rest position" my butt). The guy would be suffering, and then say something like, "Permission to recover" (meaning, "can I please stand back up") and if the drill Sergeant even responded after the first request, he'd usually say something like, "you can recover in a hospital." I didn't really understand what "muscle failure" meant, but I sure got to experience it quite a few times.

And if you thought it was just getting to hard, they would tell you that the quickest way out of Basic Training was to graduate. So true. We had some guys in the nearby barracks that just picked up cigarette butts all day...for months...because they wanted to go home. The paperwork apparently takes quite awhile.

Oh man. Don't get me started. I have a video that was shot of our battery in basic. CS gas, confidence course, you name it.

[malmapus]

7. Yup, I still hold my Drills in high regard to this day

Those first couple weeks they were all over us! But I remember afterwords like about week 4ish, they started to get more "friendly", those stories I posted were both toward the end, I remember because the way my Drill was grinning when I gave that BS about tighten my sheets. If I had done that the first week, lol would have had the brim of that hat in my forehead and him screaming at me.


But yeah, I wouldn't give that experience up for anything.

I remember too, my platoon was waiting to goto the mess hall for lunch I guess cause it was daylight. Were were the last in the company waiting. I got called on some infraction and had to step out and crank those push ups out again. Meanwhile, my platoon was able to move on into the mess hall.

I wasn't relieved, so while my platoon was marching off, I stayed in that front and leaning rest position .

I was there for a while till another platoon from a totally different company came up. Their Drill saw me, and asked in so many kind words what I was doing there. Replied that my Drill had marched my platoon on to the mess hall, so that Drill relieved me lol. I was not about to get up without being told I could hah!


Probably my worst time there was having just gotten out of the hospital. I spent just under two weeks there (almost was sent back to another class to restart Basic) from getting a bronchitis infection, and then pneumonia. But when I was sent back to my platoon, I when we would get smoked. Drill would have me stand by and walk around and pick out folks who weren't performing so to speak. Man I hated that, but Drill said if I was slacking and letting folks go, it would be worse for everyone else and he WAS watching lol. Luckily nobody took offense to me doing that, even became a sort of "good luck" charm for the platoon to have everybody graduate.

[ryanus]

8. ha ha. awesome stories