Day of Rest (Basic Training) Day 12

A close up of our "Kill Zone" All the painted area was off limits,

we had to walk around it.

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.

Today is Sunday, the only day we don’t have training – not even a workout (unless we piss of a DS and get smoked). We got to sleep in until 5am, but I had and hour of fireguard shift from 2-3am. The fireguard shift is basically a cleaning detail in the middle of the night with different tasked for each hour. (pretty much the same as in reception, but the DSs check a lot more on the work you’ve done) My job was to finish mopping the floors. Once back in bed I was out very quickly.

Breakfast was a rushed ordeal. I have had biscuits & gravy everyday since I’ve been here! I think I’m going to have to mix it up a little. I went to church today. It was really nice to get away from everything and do something different. I haven’t been to church since my ex-wife left me years ago. The start of the first song, I had a flood of emotion was over me. A few tears even rolled down my cheek. I think instead of making me a stone cold killer, the Army is turning me into a soft mushy emotional guy. Since I’m pretty much completely cut off from the rest of the world all I do is think about family and of course try to memorize everything else they are throwing at me. The service was good and it was nice to see some of the other guys I met in reception there. We even had a few minutes to socialize before the service, which doesn’t happen any other time. 

When we got back we were all rushed through lunch. The last guy in line said he only got two bites and a drink before we were forced out. It’s funny because there are all these nutritional posters and stuff, but we are always forced to eat so fast it can’t be healthy. 

Right now I’m on laundry duty. Our platoon decided to have two people do laundry for an hour and keep switching off. We just do whatever bag is next in line and go. So far I’ve only watched machines run and write this letter. We have the 1-1-1 test tomorrow which is an evaluation of our fitness test. I wonder how out of shape I’m in after doing no running since before reception. 

When I mentioned that we didn’t do any training, that didn’t mean we were not busy. The DS had us cleaning all kinds of stuff. The craziest thing was picking up all these tiny leaves from the ground by hand. There were no rakes available and it was in a courtyard with rock and pebble areas where we couldn’t use a broom. So the whole platoon had to puck up all these tiny leaves one by one. The barracks also got cleaned from head to toe. It's all just busy work to keep everyone doing something.

Me and a couple of guys who were unable to connect on the phone with people were allowed to try again. This time my wife answered, but about half way through she couldn’t hear me anymore. I had to go to another pay phone and try again for my last few minutes. It was awesome to hear her voice, but when I got off the phone tears just started streaming down my face. What the hell! I had to go back up and get in formation at my bunk. I couldn’t pull it together quick enough and a few tears still made their way down my cheeks. Everyone seemed to understand, surprisingly, even the DS. Tonight we got 1 minute showers and we all thought that was awesome. LOL . Crazy how your perspective can change here.

Random DS Quote: “When I talk to you in the shower, don’t turn around and go to the parade rest position and have your dick pointing right at me.” (Every time the DS or any other NCO talks to us, or we talk to them, we have to stand in parade rest position. In parade rest, you stand with your feet shoulder width apart and your hands behind your back. The DS came in and was telling the last guy how much time he had. The guy quickly jumped and turned toward the DS and snapped to parade rest position. Everyone couldn’t help laughing when the DS told us this.)


Anonymous
 
 
I am ready to find out what has gone on over the last week...I need my fix.
 

Wednesday, April 28, 2010 - 04:13 PM

The Volunteers (Basic Training) Day 11

A picture of our bay from near my bunk. The "Kill Zone"

in the middle was off limits to all except the DSs

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.

Today was a pretty crappy day for me all around. It started off bad and just stayed that way the whole day. Somehow I put my shorts on backwards and almost made it out the door before someone noticed. That would of sucked!! I quickly was able to swap them around before heading out to PT. In the chow hall, I forgot to take off my hat and got chewed out for it. We had a whole bunch of classes that were boring and very hard to stay awake in. People were getting smoked left and right. One DS even jumped up on a desk and onto another desk and started screaming at a kid. I try and take notes and that seems to keep me from sleeping, but even that is not fool proof. I caught myself almost going a few times.

Outside they had the whole company get together for a demonstration – they asked for a volunteer and a guy jumped up and ran out there. He found out soon that they were demoing the procedure for when a person over heats. It gets hot here at Ft. Benning and they say people have died here before in basic training. So the first thing they do is strip the guy down to his underwear and then lay him on a blanket that has been soaking in a chest full of ice.They continue to add more blankets around his “hot spots” (groin, head, underarms) and then place one on top of him. The whole time they are wringing out ice water on him. To top it off it was still too early for it to even warm up.

Later on I was in class and the DS had a volunteer come up and take off his shirt. He then proceeded to show how to use plastic from an MRE and duct tape to seal a chest wound. Of course when he was done he had to rip that tape off his harry chest. 

I’m having a little information overload right now there is so much crap that we are supposed to know. When we are marching we have to say stuff, but nobody can ever remember so we just sound like crap. I need to memorize something called “the Low”, the chain of command, & the army song. I’m glad tomorrow is Sunday.

We were able to go to the PX today. I didn’t need much, but it was nice to see a change of scenery. I picked up some laundry soap & a small notepad. We were also given a chance to use the phones. I tried calling my wife, we only had 10 minutes inside this room with a bunch of phones that cost $1.00 (no phone cards allowed). My wife didn’t answer so that really bummed me out. To tell you the truth, I almost cried there on the spot. I ended up just leaving her a 10 minute message on her voicemail.

We learned today how we should be organizing our lockers. I’ll need to take a little more time tomorrow, but it will be nice knowing where everything is. Because 1st Platoon (us) pissed off our DSs by having people fall asleep during class, we were only given 20 seconds for showers, 20 seconds for brushing teeth. That was stupid, not a lot you can do in 20 seconds. Our platoons this cycle are smaller than normal I guess. Our barracks can fit 60 or so, but we only have 35. There are 3 DSs per platoon, so it seems they are everywhere and always yelling. What’s funny is that 2 of our DSs and a number of others have lost their voices already!

Random DS Quote: “Hey you…with the glasses…the face…and the ears”  (way to be descriptive there DS!)

I am Gladiator! (Basic Training) Day 10

My new home for the next 9 weeks or so...I had the top bunk

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.

Yesterday was pretty crazy once we arrived, non-stop activities until late in the night. Today was just the same. I am in 1st Platoon Bravo Company and we are “The Gladiators”. There are four platoons that make up all the people that shipped at the same time as us from reception. The other platoons are “The Outlaws”, “The Terminators”, & “The Warriors”. There is a ton of yelling and screaming going on it seems at all times. Everything we do something as easy as preparing to take off our hat, the DS will call out the instructions and we sound off with the Army values. Lunch time is the craziest (and the noisiest). We stand in formation and the DS will have all us yell a bunch of stuff. When it’s time to enter he’ll say next 10 and we count off the next ten and we run to the doors screaming a battle cry, LOL. It gets pretty noisy there! Speaking of food, something a little strange happened at dinner. A dude was sitting and eating and I guess he looked at the DS wrong. Before he knew it there were four DS around him screaming at him. He just stood there and didn’t say anything. Finally they got tired of yelling and told him to sit down and finish his food. (There was also a dude on the first day who almost got into a fight with the DS. Not sure what happened, but he stood up and actually pushed the DS and said “come on”. A bunch of DSs ran over and the senior DS took him away from everyone and they had a talk. I guess his grandmother passed and his temper got the best of him. I thought for sure he would be gone, but they just gave him a warning). We had two guys in my old bay that didn’t make it here. One is getting out because of high blood pressure, the other had his appendix removed while at reception - he’ll be out for a while, then be able to start back up.

Back to today – This place is really like a prison. Everything you do is planned and monitored. I haven’t even gotten to know anyone yet because we’ve been so busy. No time to even talk to each other. We had to get up at 4:45am and then we went out for morning PT (exercise)...that was pretty easy. We had MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) for lunch. They are pretty good! I had chicken and dumplings. They come with a little bag that you put a little water in and through some sort of chemical reaction it starts heating your bag of food. The damn thing got so hot, I burned my fingers on it when I was throwing it away. We had to turn in any “contraband” (aka candy) that came with them. We then got issued a whole butt load of more gear. Then we had to carry all that crap on our own backs and fronts on a hot Georgia day. I was sweating like a pig. We also got issued our rifles, an M16A4. Pretty cool, except now we have to carry the damn thing everywhere (lunch, the classroom). I got smoked later on with three other guys because I couldn’t get all my crap fast enough. We haven’t even had any time to organize our lockers, so I have crap everywhere. After lights out tonight I took some time (with the help of my flashlight) and organized it a bit. Tonight because everyone was too slow we got a 45 second shower & a 45 second time to brush our teeth. Crazy!


One way..haha
 
 
It still pumps me up when i say " I am a Gladiator"..miss it man !!
 

Tuesday, March 29, 2011 - 10:45 AM



Brandon
 
 
LOL...those were some crazy days indeed!
 

Tuesday, March 29, 2011 - 09:30 PM

Down Range (Basic Training) Day 9

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. 
 

So far today as we have been preparing to ship, two people have been caught using the cadre’s latrine. They both had to stand at attention and “guard” the cadres latrine. I was one of the lucky 15 on the end of a row to go clean two bays of barracks. I guess it wasn’t too bad because everyone is just sitting and sitting and waiting and waiting. Finally, we took off for lunch, while in line the DS saw a guy who didn’t even shave. He made the kid run back to the classroom where his stuff was, grab only a razor and come back to the formation. Then the kid had to dry shave in front of everyone. After that he  had to hold the lunchroom door open for everyone. He was the last one to eat. Now we are sitting & waiting again. They moved our time from 15:30 to 13:00. Everyone is excited and nervous for the looming “shark attack”. Most, like me are just glad to get this started. It seems Ft. Benning has tried its best to try and stop germs. They have anti-bacterial dispensers everywhere you look. It seems though that almost everyone has a cough, stuffed nose, or sore throat. My nose is stuffed at the moment. One guy in the front even had to get in the famous “front leaning rest” position after coughing while at attention.

Finally the buses came and hauled us all off. Unfortunately none of the people I know very well are in my platoon. The shark attack was exactly like I expected. Drill Sergeants everywhere you looked, all screaming and yelling as we got off the bus. It was pretty crazy because we all had to run carrying everything we have. Everything we do here has to be at a fast pace. They did a shakedown to see if we had any contraband. The only problem is that we had to do it in the dirt. Dump everything out in the dirt for them to pick through. To make matters worse the bottle top of the foot powder I just bought came off, so there was white powder over everything. Going to bed now at 21:30 and I have CQ duty with my new battle buddy – a young kid who I don’t even know his name yet. I don’t even know exactly what "CQ" entails...we’ll see. We ate dinner outside and once everyone had their food, we all started eating. We were given 3 minutes and then everyone had to stop and throw the rest away, We had to be in class a few times and all the DS were looking for anyone about to fall  asleep. At night we went in groups of 8 to shower and brush our teeth. We had 1 1/2 minutes for each. This place is so different than reception. Everything is under total control. There is the DS office right in our barracks. The DSs here are much much worse than in reception. I’m on CQ duty right now. This is a one hour shift in the middle of  the night (just like fireguard). 2 of us will answer any calls and also log any events. We also log the fireguard bed counts that they bring down to us. The desk is outside and we are not allowed to sit down. 

Overheard Quote: PVT Home School “I wish I would keep my frog voice, it sounds more manly than my kid voice.” 


Hew
 
 
damn brandon, this is awesome stuff...
 

Sunday, May 2, 2010 - 02:26 AM

Anonymous
 
 
Wow, I'm going there in Jan and this blog is really making me nervous.
 

Tuesday, August 3, 2010 - 10:39 PM



pfc halgat

 
Just grad at alpha 3/47 my parents have been reading this and they said it's very simulator to my experence, im going to read over it and see how alike our experences are
 

Friday, September 10, 2010 - 11:39 AM

Last Day Reception - Reception Day 8 (Basic Training) Day 8

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.

We ship out tomorrow "down range" or "up the hill" to start our basic combat training. I can't wait to finally get this started so I can start counting down the days before I see my wife.

I have to bitch a little now… I tell you, these guys just don't know how to shut-up. I know most of them are straight out of high school. They still act like this is high school. Whenever we are all together as a group and the DS leaves the room or the area, everyone starts talking. It starts off quietly talking then it continues to get louder and louder. Every once in a while someone will shush everyone, the process starts all over again in a low rumble getting louder and louder. Even when the DS or cadre are in the room people just can't stop talking. We've been smoked for it a few times and the DS and Cadre have yelled at us for it. But nothing changes. I imagine when we start basic that crap will stop fast...I hope, or else I'm going to get very very strong.

We had inspection again the morning and other than the DS telling a few people to straighten their bunks there were no issues. We've come a long way. I had to assign people small, but specific task they are in charge of to keep everything in order. Hopefully we'll keep it all clean. A couple of people had to shave again and the DS took down one person's name for not shaving at all. What a dumb ass. We all know he'll be checking our faces, now he'll be spending some quality time with the DS tonight instead of sleeping.

We were all sent out for formation at 7:45, after waiting a little bit we were told to come back in an hour. So at 8:45 we went on the "nature hike".  We walked out in the woods and the DS & Cadre showed us some examples of formations. After that the DS sat down on a stump and had us all sit down around him for some questions and answers about anything. It was a nice change in scenery and very laid back. When you don't have any privileges, something as simple as that is pretty cool.

We also got our BCG glasses. They are these really huge thick brown glasses that everyone has to wear if prescribed. Picture a bunch of people walking around looking like "Revenge of the Nerds" only in army uniform.

We started watching a movie (some war movie with John Travolta as a guy who is interrogating an army ranger - I didn't catch the name), but after 45 minutes it was cut short. A captain came in a wanted to do some Q & A to find out how reception was for everyone. After that we had the pleasure of standing in line for dinner at attention for an hour. Standing still doesn't sound that hard, but it starts to get tough after a while! People the DS saw moving hat to get out and do push-ups in front of him. Every time he would start talking my first reaction was to look at him because he was talking to us. Doing any movement (even following him with your eyes is not allowed). I'm in the barracks right now resting my feet!

I have fire guard duty right now. Which really sucks. 3am-4am and we are waking up at 5am. Each hour of the fire guard shift has a different set of duties and responsibilities. Some of the earlier shifts have cleaning and all of them at some point have the fire guard head count. My special duties include talking out the garbage and taking out any laundry that is still in the washer & dryers.

Tomorrow is the big day, we are finally shipping "down range", I feel like they have just been fattening us up here in reception. It will be interesting to see how things change and how the people will be changing.

My Bad - Reception Day 7 (Basic Training) Day 7

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. 

(Side note: I've since tried to go through all my entries and correct spelling errors & other terms that my wife made mistakes on...usually due to my poor handwriting)

I have to start with something I forgot to write about... "The Rangers". A Ranger recruiter came and gave everyone a briefing. It started with a short promotional video, then a PowerPoint, and finally a Q & A. The recruiter threw out the F-bomb about 3 or 4 times a sentence and and he never lost a chance to let us know "We Kill People". If there is a bad guy out there, we don't mess around. We just go in and kill the "effer". Everyone was given the requirements to apply and the MOS (jobs) that are available to apply. And yes even if your MOS is in HR, if the team leader likes you, he can invite you on a mission and you can kill people! I think they are a little too gun ho for me. LOL

This morning our bay was inspected by the DS. We won the honor of having the dirtiest bay of everyone. After that we headed to chow and then my 2nd haircut (which I had to pay for) in the week that I've been there. I forgot if I mentioned the clippers here before, but they have vacuums attached to them (I've been telling my wife forever that, that would be the coolest invention - no hair anywhere, just nice and neat.)

Today we also got our dog tags and our ID cards, but they didn't trust us with the ID cards so after we verified the information we had to turn them back in. We also checked the contents of our duffle bag and then locked it up and left it in the classroom. I guess for transportation down range for Basic on Thursday.

During this time in the classroom there was a lot of shuffling around. (People going and getting stuff they forgot etc.) The guy in the bunk next to me bumped into the DS, but he didn't even realize it was a DS - he didn't have his big hat on and he's a short dude. The DS turned around and said "Oh, hell no… get down in the front leaning rest position." The poor guy had to stay there for a few minutes in front of everyone.

I feel a little more like a soldier now, that I have my dog tags around my neck! We had a chance to go to the PX (the general store on base) today. The DS & Cadre were pretty strict on us only getting essentials, they caught one guy getting a love card of some sort  "I miss you" and kicked him out of the store and to back of the line. I got foot powder & Band aids ( I also got some stamps too, didn't know if they are essential, so after I got'em I stuffed 'em in my pocket in case they check my bag on the way out). Everything takes a long time to do here. Just going to the PX took hours because they only let about 10 in at a time and everyone has to wait before and after standing in formation. My feet are tired and sore and the DS and Cadre were telling us we are not allowed to buy gel insole or any other comfort for out boots.

Since lunch we haven't done much of anything. The bummer is that we did most of the sitting doing nothing in the classroom, at least in our barracks we can chill or even clean. 

Random over heard quote: Pvt. Home School "people tell me I have my mother's body" I told him he shouldn't tell people that! LOL

Beat the Heat Drill Sergeant - Reception Day 6 (Basic Training) Day 6

A photo over each of the urinals I thought was kind of funny. You

watch your pee come out and compare the color of the chart above

the urinal to see if you are adequately hydrated.

 

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

This morning I had a fire guard shift - woke up everyone at 3:45 instead of 4:00am because we were told to report down in the classroom at 4:45am. When we got down there the DS’s seemed a little confused as to what and where we were supposed to go. After a bit of discussion they lead us all to the medical for guess what?… more shots! (with a couple of nasal sprays as a bonus) We got there before they opened and had to sit in a line on the floor in the hall ‘till they came and opened the joint. I’ve heard stories of people passing out, but after all these shots we’ve had, nobody has passed out yet. I think I may be immune to all diseases known to man now. LOL! 

Breakfast was after that, then we headed back to classroom 1 where the cadre (these are all the processing sergeants and staff) helped out everyone who had issues with their clothing or boots and such. We then headed out to a field where we practiced some of the basic movements such as “attention” and “about face”. It was warm here at Ft. Benning, so at certain intervals the DS would have everyone stop and drink. (We all have to wear these things called camel-baks. These are small back packs that we can fill with water, they have a tube that comes around the front with an adapter you can suck the water out of. This is part of our required uniform whenever we go outside here at basic.) So the DS had everyone shout “Beat The Heat Drill Sergeant, Beat The Heat”. After a bunch of those we would start practicing again. Lunch came and went, then the DS divided our bay up almost down the middle and had us all move to classroom 2. We were then informed we would be going down range (to basic) on Thursday for sure and that half this bay would most likely be "A Company". I sure hope so because there are some real jokers on the other side. One of those jokers I’ll call “Pvt. Pusher”. He likes to push everyone’s button, he's an agitator and doesn’t take anything seriously. He’s always doing something stupid in formation. That’s going to get him and his company in a lot of trouble.

Later the DS was telling everyone to drink, when he saw not everyone was drinking he said “open your mouth and suck on it, I wanna see everyone with the tube in their mouth.” Of course he saw someone who didn’t listen and we all had to get in “front leaning rest position” (there is no rest for that position). We also had the tube in our mouth while he made us start doing push-ups. People started coughing and choking. Luckily we didn’t have to do too many.

After dinner, bay leaders had to report to the DS office. This kind of sucked because it took forever and it was eating up my personal time. Finally we found out we’re getting an inspection at 4:45am tomorrow. We also have a list of items that everyone needs to have in their duffle bag. Tomorrow may be interesting.