Phase Up! (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 86

This morning during our pt formation I overheard the sergeant talking to the barracks next to us (RBK 9 - Another company with a different MOS, but it does have some guys from my old basic training platoon in it). The sergeant was talking about one of their soldiers that up and left in the middle of the night. He is now AWOL.

Our pt this morning consisted of the normal warm up exercises and then a number of push-ups and sit-ups. I’m looking forward to this weekend and a rest from pt at least for a few days.

Once we arrived at school and were in formation we found out that yet another guy from Charlie company went AWOL. Holy cow people are running away like crazy! This particular guy just decided to not come back from the 4 day weekend and the sergeants were wondering if anyone had heard from him. 

In class today we had a moment of silence for the 9/11 victims. In fact the entire school house stopped what they were doing and observed this moment of silence. I still remember when the attack happened. I was at work doing my IT job at the local newspaper when I heard the news. We turned on the TV and I logged into our AP photos feed and started seeing all the pictures that were flooding in from AP News. There were of course the photos of the twin towers getting hit, but there were also numerous photos of people jumping from the towers to their death. As far as work that day, nothing got done. We all just stared at the TV in disbelief and viewed the tragic photos that the AP was sending.

The safety brief seemed unusually long today. There are a number of new soldiers in Charlie and the sergeant had to go over some ground rules since this is their first safety briefing. We then had to file in alphabetical order to receive our company shirts we had to order earlier. There is a challenge coming up called “The Centurion Challenge” in which each of the companies face off against each other in a number of sporting activities and such.

After picking up our shirts, those of us that were eligible to phase up were told to go to the Charlie day room. Woohoo we get to finally take our phase up test. I had been studying for the test by trying to put together all the questions from the previous phase up test and going over them with others. We were told that it would be the same test, but it turned out to be a little different. Our platoon sergeant decided to give us the questions orally and we would write down the answers on a sheet of paper. Some of the questions were the same, others were from the policy letter that he just went over with everyone during the last training session. There were also a few chain of command questions thrown in as well. Overall it was pretty easy since most of it was just either common sense or stuff we heard all the time. Turns out everyone in our platoon passed. We all phased up!

The next issue was that we had to wait for the actual phase badges and also for our names to get put into the system. This last step is the most important, because it’s the system that they use to do the morning roll on the weekends and if we’re phase V+ then we don’t have to show up. The process ended up taking a while, so long in fact that it was pretty dark out by the time we left Charlie company. There is a rule that states soldiers cannot cross Barton Field after dark, so we had to walk all the way around it. It didn’t bother me too much, I was still pretty happy to be phased up.

My happiness wouldn’t last long as I found out they decided to restart the weekend hall guard shifts from the beginning because of all the new people here at RBK. Unfortunately PFC Metal and I are the first room, so we get to do a hall guard shift from 12:30 at night until 6:30 in the morning. Oh yeah we also found out that our room didn’t pass inspection, so we have to have another inspection at 9:00 in the morning. We have to be in ACUs and it will include a locker inspection. FML. The things both of us were dinged on have not been brought up in any other inspection. They are little things and they are things that we never change. Stupid Stupid Stupid!!! So we will not be enjoying any of our new found phase V+ privileges until Saturday night and Sunday morning.

AWOL (Basic Training) Day 28

These entries are from the letters that Brandon has mailed to me. His writing at times can be a bit difficult to determine his words... bare with me, I do my best, especially with army terms.

I had the midnight shift for Fire Guard last night with PFC Metal. Everything started off normal until I did the head count. Originally, I counted my battle buddy, he had laundry guard the hour before and I just thought he hadn’t made it back up yet. When I went to turn in the numbers the replacement laundry guard said there was a note from my battle buddy saying he couldn’t take it anymore, he was going AWOL. It was either that or kill himself. This was reported to the DS on duty and after about 30 minutes everyone in the company had to get up and get in formation.

The Company Commander came in and the 1^st Sergeant came in. I had to tell them all I knew, which wasn’t much. I was as surprised as everyone else. Now they are on alert looking for him. He has a warrant out in all 50 states for his arrest. To top it off, I have to carry his rifle around, everywhere I go now. That is a pain in the butt. Oh...after the DS fired the cop he made me the new cop, oh yay! (Sarcasm)

We had a 5k ruck march. Our rucksacks are kind of like those huge backpacks that you see the serious hikers use. They can hold a vast amount of crap. Since we were going to do this march to do our camping trip, they decided to just do a 5k march in a big circle. It was pretty tough. Not just the march, but the strap on my rucksack broke about 2/3 of the way through. I had to hold my strap with one hand and my rifle with the other. The rest of the day my legs were like jello. It probably didn’t help that we had to do all those lunges the night before. One guy, from our platoon, fell out (PVT Spiderman), but he missed a lot of previous workouts to get him in shape because of the spider bite. We were told 6 people fell out all together from the company. The 1^st Sergeant and Company Commander were a little pissed, because this is the first time that has happened since he has been here. I have some sores on my feet because of the boots. I’ll try band-aids tomorrow and moleskin later if needed. 

We received an update on my battle buddy. Evidently he made it off base. He went to a Walmart and bought civilian clothes, then checked into a hotel room at 2:00am. The MPs or DSs or whoever were actually planning to pick him up there, but he woke up and left at 6:45am before they got there. They had his accounts frozen and let his relatives know he was AWOL and also they could into trouble if they help or harbor him. From what the DSs say the relatives were extremely helpful. They know he now only has $100 and no more access to his account. 

We practiced some more team and buddy movements in the big sandbox. So everyone was pretty sandy by the end of the training. We always have so little time to do anything (we had to get everyone showered and changed into PT uniforms… the entire platoon had 15 minutes). The DSs  then got pissed when there is sand everywhere. We just needed a few minutes to clean and it would be good.

We were also told that since some medication was found in someone’s locker that was left open the other day, that the entire company was going to get a shake down. I think they called it something like a health and welfare check. A number of DSs came in along with 1^st Sergeant and Company Commander and had us all just line up an watch as they tossed “everything” out of our locker. It really sucked watching all your stuff get thrown all over the floor. All my letters and personal crap, it pissed me off. They didn’t find a whole lot, just some cracker wrappers from the cafeteria in a guy's boot  (all food is strictly prohibited in the bay) and a blank bullet (no ammo of any type is allowed in the bay). So we’ll see what happens to those guys. The idiot with the cracker wrapper is a huge brown noser, so I thought it was ironic that he was caught. I think that will be my new name for him… PVT Brown Noser. We were told at this rate we’ll be in red phase until we graduate…please no!!! I guess the other platoons were a lot worse...so I guess that is a good thing. 

At the end of the night, we heard that the my battle buddy called the DS and apologized. The DS said he’d be back tomorrow. Very interesting, I wonder if he got caught or if his parents convinced him to make the call...we’ll see.

Random DS Quote: “Can you see yourself doing that? Get naked and get in a sleeping bag with your battle buddy…just don’t get a hard-on, that would be wrong!” (A DS explaining a way to warm up someone with a cold injury – body temp drops too low)

Private Home School - Reception Day 3 (Basic Training) Day 3

Pvt Home School trying to do push-ups with the help of

a battle buddy and the encouragement of everyone else

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

Not much has happen yet today, just a shot and breakfast. There was a guy at my table who drew all the DS’s attention, he was shaking and not looking to good. The DS asked him what was wrong and why he has a medical bracelet on. He said the bracelet was because he wasn’t thinking very good thoughts and he had to visit medical. The DS asked what was wrong now and he said he couldn’t finish his food. The DS said well get up and get out of here. Having four DS’s around your table while trying to eat isn’t comfortable!

Now onto a guy I’m going to call Private Home School. He seems to have lived a very sheltered life. He is the guy who I think is going to break. Today after breakfast right outside of the D-Fac he threw up! I know my stomach hasn’t been right, but I hope that doesn’t happen to me.

While in formation, a guy walked in with a DS. The DS said this guy loves ice cream. That got my attention. The DS started yelling at him. He ended saying “Ice cream is like sex for the first time. Once you start enjoying it, it’s over!”

Right now we’re in our barracks learning how to make our beds. Everyone was done and shooting the poop (I was writing today’s note). The DS came in and saw two people on their phones and took them away. Wonder what kind of trouble we’ll be in? The DS was like a ninja, came in and nobody saw him until it was too late. 

So just as I was about to write another update… DS comes in again all pissed off. He “heard” someone whistle at a female sergeant. No one did. I think he was still pissed off from the phone incident earlier. We got our first official smoking. Everyone had to get in the starting push-up position (the up position) and hold it while the DS walked around asking who did it. No one fessed up, so the DS flipped a few bunks then left.

Back to Pvt.Home School...today is his 20th birthday. A bunch of guys wanted him to do 20 push-ups. He was really struggling after 5. He’s gonna be in some deep shit soon! I can’t believe he didn’t try to get in shape before coming.

So it's a bit later in the day and I’m pretty sore and tired. We had to pack up everything and move our stuff to another barracks. I had my huge bag, my laundry bag and my personal backpack all at the same time and upstairs. It got a little warm. LOL! We also got our second smoking. This time we started in the up position for pushup then DS said down, everyone laid down and he screamed “Do not lay on the ground”. We had to hold ourselves up about an inch off the ground. We only had to do a few. Lots of grunts and groans, just a little taste of what’s to come.

Later on…what a day. We have be on our feet so much today everyone was complaining. Blisters and sore feet because of these new boots. “Number One” nickname for this huge guy in our company, (number one is his roster number and it just stuck) had to guard a guy in another company most of the day. The guy went AWOL, just tried to run off the base! We haven’t even started basic yet and this guy flipped out! With “runners” I found out they take their shoelaces and they have a medical bracelet on, Pretty crazy!

A clip from a DVD I purchased near the end of basic training.

This shows the process we went through to get our hair cuts at Fort Benning.