Welcome Home - Chapter VII

Everyone got back to post okay and right away we could tell that Drill Sergeant had missed us. As a formal welcome back, he took us straight to the pit for a good smoking*. The pit is exactly that, a 50x50 foot sandbox that is there solely for the purpose of torturing, err, I mean, expanding the physical capabilities of soldiers. This was a sacred place to drill sergeants all around post, and dreaded by every soldier.

Drill Sergeant used to try to trick us every now and then by asking us questions like “Ya’ll wanna go to the movies? I hear there’s a special playing. It’s called A Million Miles to Low Crawl. Staring Drill Sergeant Williams and featuring 4^th platoon!”

Another time he had allowed us to order pizza for the first time. We were all so excited and thought it was a reward for everyone in the platoon passing our first big test. Everyone ordered a large pizza for themselves and promptly gobbled them down when they were delivered. After Drill Sergeant made sure there were no leftovers, he took us for a relaxing evening stroll…right to the pit. Once there, Drill Sergeant insisted we would not stop until he saw every bit of pizza again. And yes, Drill Sergeant got his wish.

So, our first day back, Drill Sergeant said hello by taking us to the pit. Once that was over, we took all our things into the barracks and unpacked. Later that night, Drill Sergeant performed another barracks inspection in which everything went flying in every direction once again. He really must have missed us!

The next morning we were gently wakened at 5:00am sharp to the sound of a several metal trashcans being hurled down the hallway. I must admit my first thought was being worried that the floor was scratched! It was, and we had to fix it. Nonetheless we were up early that morning for a reason. As promised, Drill Sergeant was administering our urinalysis! Everyone was good, of course, because someone would have to be a complete moron to think that Drill Sergeant wouldn’t make good on the promise of a urinalysis, right? I guess not because within the next week, 4^th platoon lost 2 soldiers after their urine came back positive for THC*.

There was another soldier in our platoon who thought he could outsmart the system. He had waited until after the urinalysis was complete and then that night he promptly consumed the small stash of crystal methamphetamine he had snuck back from leave. The drugs made him obsessed with cleaning. He did not get a wink of sleep for at least 3 nights. Each of those nights he volunteered to do everyone’s fire-watch duty. Fire-watch is a guard duty each night in which teams of 2 soldiers will roam the halls of the barracks in one hour shifts to ensure there are no fires. On top of it being a lost hour of precious sleep every night, it also became the one chance we get to buff and polish the floors up to Drill Sergeant’s standard**. So he cleaned for 3 nights straight. This was probably the only reason that no one said anything about it to Drill Sergeant. After all, we all enjoyed 3 good nights of sleep! I think Drill Sergeant new something was up though, because that same week we had a second urinalysis, and shortly thereafter, 4^th platoon lost one more soldier.

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* Smoking is a fun past time where Drill Sergeant makes us do an ungodly amount of pushups, running, or anything else he can think of for an ungodly amount of time.

* THC or Tetrahydrocannabinol is the chemical from marijuana.

** Drill Sergeants standard was that it is never shiny enough.