Bay Leader - Reception Day 4 (Basic Training) Day 4

These entries are from the letters that Brandon has mailed to me. 

Just as I was about to finish up my journal last night all hell broke loose. First let me say that the DS comes at 20:30 every night and we are suppose to be at our bunks. The DS came up last night and 5 people were in the shower. The shit hit the fan! The DS freaked out and had us all start doing push-ups. Not just normal push-ups, he would make us pause in the middle of the push-up. Finally he left us get up and fired our bay leader. The he walked around looked at me and asked how old I was. I said “36 Drill Sergeant”. DS said you are the new Bay Leader. FML that is the last thing I wanted. It was already past lights out and I had to get the fire guard duty ready and I had to get the entire roster done since we are in a new bay. I also had to escort the shower people who got us in trouble to the DS office. Those guys ended up having to sweep, strip, wax the floor in on of the big classrooms. They didn’t get back til after midnight. I had to finish up with the fire guard paper work and laid down after 22:00, but didn’t sleep til after 23:00. Then at 24:00 I had to do my fire guard for an hour, luckily we woke up at 5:00am this morning so I a got a little sleep.

With all the "excitement" last night DS didn’t tell us where to go in the morning. I had to go down at 5:00am to DS’s office because a guy lost his keys. DS gave me a bolt cutter to chop off the lock.

So someone decided to have everyone line up outside. After I returned the bolt cutters me and my battle buddy joined them. You always have to travel with a battle buddy (any other soldier), wherever you go. DS came out screaming “Who all told you to line up out here?” Eventually one guy said it was him and we all ended up coming inside and doing a bunch more push-ups and holding mid way at times. It’s no fun doing that at 6:00am. Finally we all lined up, then out of the blue DS changes gears and just starts BS’ing with everyone until we left for breakfast. Crazy morning so far.

Today all of us were in “Classroom 1”. This is a big open room (where the drill sergeants office is as well). This problem is there are no chairs, so we either stand or sit on the hard floor. We were watching a power point on Army courtesies and customs and people started falling asleep. (We’re not allowed to touch our face and rest our head aka kickstand) The DS kept saying if you’re tired stand up. Finally he stopped the presentation and we all had to start doing push-ups (with the pauses). People just don’t listen. A guy at lunch got in trouble for talking which we are repeatedly told not to do. After we got back to classroom 1, the dude who was talking at lunch was smoked in front of everyone. Push-ups and then squats, the dude's legs were shaking! Just listen and do what you're told...it's not that hard!

After our lectures everyone went back except all the bay leaders…lucky me. All the other bay leaders have two; one leader and one assistant. The DS asked where my assistant was. I told him I don’t have one. He says, how did you become the bay leader and I told him that the previous bay leader was fired. So he told me to find a specialist and promote them to bay leader assistant. Yeah I get help. He also gave us a bunch more responsibility to do which sucks – now we are going to be held responsible for making sure everything is spotless. When I got back to the barracks I held a short meeting. I asked “who’s an E-4?” The first one to speak up I promoted. Then I had to let them all know what’s coming. I can’t babysit almost 90 people even with help. Everyone has to look out for their bunk mate and neighbors, as long as we work as a team it should go OK. We were suppose to be getting “mentored” right now.  Guys that are in the real basic came back and answered any questions we have. There were too many of us so now we're just hanging in the barracks. 

We had dinner and then were released for the night. Everyone broke out their cell phones (including me) and just hung loose. It was nice to just relax. I got the fire guard list done and I think we are good to go. Checked in with the other bay leaders and found out they are actually both older than me. One is 41 and the other 39. WOW!

One other note: my stomach finally felt normal today. I don’t know if I was catching something or if it was the fast pace that we’ve been forced to eat. My head felt good too!


Hew


bay leader mcguire...bwulpbwulp...awesome!
 

Saturday, May 1, 2010 - 11:08 PM