Dedicated to Drill Sergeant Lamont Williams
You made me believe that anything is possible and I’ll never forget your words. You are truly the inspiration to my life and Lord willing, I will turn out just like you.
Special Thanks to my Editor and Wife Jaima
If it weren’t for you, this story would not have an ending, and I would have finished this project 12 hours ago.
It was June of 2003 at Crosby High School in Waterbury, Connecticut and school was finally over. I couldn’t have been happier that my schooldays were now behind me. It’s not that I didn’t like high school; I just didn’t like the people who were there, the city it was in, or the building itself. Well, so maybe I just didn’t like it.
I did most of my youthful growing up in a small town in Arizona, where streets were clean, people were friendly, and school systems succeeded. I moved with my mother to Waterbury, Connecticut when I was 16, my sophomore year for high school. Once the initial culture shock wore off, I found I didn’t really blend with the people there too much. Sure I had a few friends there, and could get along great with just about anyone, but most of the people I remember from high school I couldn’t very much stand. The school itself lacked a certain organization. There was just something about the smoked up bathrooms, drug deals by the elevators, and ant pits growing tumultuously throughout the hallways that gave a person a real sense that the building is ready to be condemned. You could really tell that 80% of every tax dollar in Waterbury went to public schooling! One thing I did enjoy about high school was J.R.O.T.C. (Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps). This is where I felt as though I fit in. Everything conformed and made sense, in addition to the fact that people acted like they wanted to be there and learn. There was also a riffle club at school that I probably would have enjoyed, but there was no way I was going to stay after hours in this place, even if it was for one of my favorite pastimes. Perhaps it would have been more enticing if they had something more powerful than .22 cal long riffles. I already had a pump action pellet gun at home, and more pigeons in the back yard than you could shake a stick at!
Graduation came and went as I had suspected. My father had flown up from Arizona for the occasion. I always enjoyed seeing my father. He was always honest and knew how to point someone in the right direction. He is probably one of the few last good men in the world. Truth be told, sometimes I look back and think I should have stayed in Arizona. Those days have come and gone too though, and who knows if I would have turned out any better or worse. So I moved with my mother and turned out how I did, which I don’t regret! My mother is an expert at raising children. She knew how to give us just about everything we wanted, while depriving us of just enough to keep us from getting spoiled and not appreciative of what we had. I hope that I can raise my children the same way, but it hasn’t been working out so far with the puppy that runs our house now!
So school was over and I knew that once summer ended, I would be on my way to bigger and better things. I had enlisted into the United States Army and was set to leave on September 15th, 2003. Right now, though, was about preparing for the future, as opposed to what I was doing in high school (which I still haven’t figured out). I started running and doing pushups several times a day, okay, maybe just daily. Well, I suppose I could have done it more than just once or twice a week. Nevertheless, I was just happy to be living life freely and not having any responsibly for a few months before basic training. So I enjoyed a nice summer at home because I couldn’t drive anywhere as several months earlier I had been in a car accident and since barred from looking at, let alone driving, a car that didn’t belong to me. So, I sat at home most of the time - which was fine with me, I liked being home. At the time I also had a girlfriend I was close to, so we spent quite a bit of time together before I shipped off, fortunately she had a car so I wasn’t completely landlocked at home. My best friend Atlas also had a car, so I could still go out and do guy things too. Atlas’ real name is Matt. I had to nickname him atlas though because word for word he was a walking street map! I remember his uncle would sponsor a parking lot with the local Lions Club for a small town fair. We would work the lot and on a frequent occasion, people would stop by and ask us for directions. Now, I couldn’t have figured out how to get home from the highway, but Matt would jump in with extravagant directions that would rival MapQuest*, without the detours through China! I remember asking him once if he actually knew where he had just sent the people, and he looked at me with a frank smirk and said “No idea”. To this day I don’t know if he was joking, or if a sad couple is out there somewhere driving in an endless circle, lost, and never to have been heard from again.
Summer past and it was now time to leave my youthfulness behind and become the man I am now. Though excited, I must admit I shed a few tears to be leaving behind friends and family.
I met with my recruiter on September 15th and we spent the next hour and a half driving up to the MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Station) in Springfield, Massachusetts. There was one other guy with us who was on his way to infantry school. I remember thinking that if I were going to be on a battlefield, I would rather be in a tank. So that’s were I was heading. Besides, tanks are sexier and all around more badass; “72 tons of twisted steel and sex appeal”, as my recruiter would refer to them as. The other recruit was also sad about leaving behind his family, so it was, for the most part, a quiet ride. This was probably for the best because it allowed us a chance to mentally prepare ourselves for the road ahead, of which we only had a small idea of what it would be like. “They’ll break you down the first two weeks and spend the other fourteen weeks building you back up”, is what we had been told.
We arrived at MEPS and began a day long process of a medical exam. There are two things I remember from that day. First was when a medic gave us a speech explaining to us everything that our blood would be tested for. “If your blood tests positive for a controlled or illegal substance, you will not be able to join the Army. If it tests positive for alcohol, you will not be able to join the Army. If it tests positive for HIV, on top of the finding out that you will one day die of AIDS, you will not be able to join the Army.” I don’t think anybody there was worried that they might have AIDS, but it was one of those speeches that left you wondering (turns out I don’t!) The second thing I remember that day was the exam with the doctor. Sure, I had done a handful of physicals growing up, but none quite as memorable as this. First off, I was completely naked, which already sets the tone a little unnerving. Then I was instructed to do the “duck walk”. Thankfully the medic prepared us for this and showed us how it was done before we were naked with the doctor. It’s a process of holding your hand on the back of your head, squatting down, and wobbling back and forth in an attempt to move forward. I’m not sure if this has any medical benefit, or if they just thought it was funny to watch naked people wobble along the floor. I remember wishing I could have been the doctor in the ladies side of this story. I proceeded to do my duck walk with perfect style. If it had been at the Olympics, I would have received a perfect 10. The doctor said “great”, and I thought I was done. The next part, to this day, I’m not sure was an actual part of the physical, or part of a very strange man’s attraction to young men. I recall feeling as though I had just dropped the soap in the prison shower, because the next words out of the doctor’s mouth were: “now bend over and spread ‘em”. On top of being the first time anyone had seen my anus since I was, say, two, it is a memory that will forever traumatize me. After a quick look at my sphincter, the doctor instructed me to return to my clothes and the physical was complete. Thankfully, I never had to see the doctor again, and no one EVER spoke of the physical.
I would spend the night at MEPS and board a plane in the morning to head to Fort Knox, Kentucky. The Army sprung for a nice hotel room and I spent the evening at a local bowling alley playing Centipede on an ancient arcade machine with one of the other guys shipping off. After spending about $15 in quarters on the antiquated device, I decided it was time to head to my room and call it quits for the evening. I watched about half of the sequel to Planet of the Apes and thought that I should go to sleep, seeing as it was 2am and I had to be up at 6. I have yet to see the ending of that movie to see if the apes return to their own time period, oh well.
The next morning I was up at O’dark-thirty, for the first time since… I don’t remember much from that morning as my mind never fully woke up. I soon found that staying up so late the night before basic training was a very bad idea. The next 40 hours were spent sleepless in a waiting game of in-processing for basic training. In-processing is the time you spend at basic training before you actually start basic training. You aren’t really assigned to a unit yet to train with, and the Army barely has any accountably as to who you are. It can range from 4-6 days, to 4-6 weeks. It was the second worst week of my life. I recall another guy, Walsh, who had enlisted from Connecticut, also to be a tanker, left a month and a half before I did, but was still waiting to be assigned to a unit when I got there. We ended up in the same unit and became pretty good friends.
I was in-processing for about a week. It was a week of hurrying up to wait. We stood around in a magnificent formation for literally hours doing absolutely nothing but watching the backs of the people in front of us. If we talked, we did pushups. If we moved, we did pushups. I remember the worst day; we stood outside in blistering heat with our fancy haircuts* for 6 hours. I’m not sure if this was by design, or if the Drill Sergeant had forgotten about us. At several points, other drill sergeants would walk by and say “The fuck ya’ll doin’ out here?”. We pleasantly answered and presumed to do pushups. Needless to say we learned to keep our mouths shut. Later when our Drill Sergeant returned, I assume he realized he had forgotten something, like leaving the house without his wallet, he asked a question to which I don’t recall, but when we all kept our mouth’s shut, we did pushups. It was a win/win situation! Assuming you like doing pushups. I don’t! There was a rumor going around that if you wet the bed, you would be kicked out and sent home. This week was so horrible that I don’t think there was one of us that hadn’t considered it for just a moment. Imagine, 260 guys all wetting the bed at once - frightening.
After a week of living only to eat three square meals a day, stand around in formations, and wake up at ungodly hours, I was assigned to my basic training unit. Delta Company, 2nd Battalion 81st Armor Brigade. A prestigious unit, with a history dating back to World War II in Germany. The unit fought at the Battle of the Bulge, and many other tide changing battles of WWII, under the command of the greatest war mind to have lived, General George S. Patton. I was just happy to be out of in-processing!
* My haircut consisted of skin and mosquito bites, later to be followed up by a few mischievous ingrown hairs
