Day+4

  Boot camp traditions  3/18/11 Day 4 I awoke in the barracks of my rack (bunk bed) with the drill sergeant screaming order about everything. It was chaos; people jumping, running everywhere. It was just plain terrible in the confusion that me, clever enough to listen and hear what I needed to hear from the sergeant. He wanted us to get undressed all the way to our underwear. Why we didn’t know until the doc came in to check on us make sure nothing serious was spreading through the barracks. I personally cherished these quiet moments since it was quiet and energy conserving. But once the doc’s last toe left the ground of the barracks it started. We were led outside and put us into squads that consist of seven members each. They even named the squad members too. We were humiliated by these names; Cupcake, Snowflake, Snowball, Babycakes, Mermaid, Siren (girls who tricked/seduced sailors with their beauty), and Taco. I was named Taco but it still stunk because we were told to only call them by that name. After that whole scenario we were told to carry a drill sergeant to slick hill. We couldn’t drop him, make it bumpy and only two people could carry him for two miles each; no switching in or out to help. The last thing the sergeant mentioned was whichever team was first would win a prize, after that he cut us loose. Snowball and Snowflake (twins) were first to carry the sergeant. They were both young fit athletes who were sent here do to college issues. Cupcake signed up after high school. Mermaid chose this over prison for stealing. Babycakes grandfather signed him up. Siren wanted a permanent job to pay for his daughter surgery. After maybe an hour or two it was hard to see who was in first since all the teams were sent into different directions. But the sergeant didn’t make a sound not even a movement which was odd. In my wits I figured he was testing us on our companionship. I breathed out in and said while jogging/sprinting to start singing. The guys looked at me like I was dumber than a monkey since they feared the sergeant was in a nap. So I started to singing and yelled at the guys to start so they did and the sergeant opened his dark black eyes and started to sing with us all kinds of songs. Nearly to the hill we meet with the other squads who were either on the side of the road getting yelled at or were too tired or slow; and some who we passed were dead silent while we passed the switch positions flag while singing. It became my turn lug the gurney with Siren, and boy was it heavy after jogging twelve miles up this gosh forsaken hill. When we finally got to the top of the hill we put the sergeant down gently on the ground right before my arm muscles gave out. He got up and pointed toward base and barked “Run, Run so you can win!” We ran all right nearly falling luckily they had a wooden staircase near the top of the hill we could take as a shortcut. We sprinted and ran as fast as we could all of us carrying each other. But we weren’t fast enough; we were second because another team was just showing us up. We crossed the line defeated and stood at attention until the drill sergeants came down with their assessments of this whole day’s workout. One of the sergeants barked out “All have failed but one”. Our sergeant walked straight down the line of men; right were the first and second place teams and pointed. In such awe he pointed to us. The first team screamed and bickered, while we just jumped around in such amazement. When finally quieted down he said “You guys are such lousy singers that no wounded man could sleep!” he turned and said “you guys win your own barracks for your squad and an extra four hours of sleep; company dismissed until tomorrow.” The sergeant grabbed my arm and said “Try to prolong the tradition of winning as long as possible to survive.” By. ** Adam Garfola **