Tales from "Basic Training"
As some of you may know, for years I have wanted to go to Boot Camp - without going to war. I’ve researched online trying to find Boot Camp techniques I could do on my own, I’ve tried so-called “Boot Camp” workouts, but nothing can really be like Boot Camp, except Boot Camp.
No, I didn’t enlist. What I did do is sign up to audit the Army Physical Fitness Training at the university, which is listed as a fitness course that teaches us “how the army trains its soldiers”. Oh, yes.
It was to be taught by ROTC Cadets. I thought it would be a mentor situation, that we’d have a rotation of Cadets coming through, teaching our class of fifteen or so. I was wrong. I was wrong about a lot, and it’s been such a crazy experience so far, I thought I should chronicle it here, for me if no one else.
I have the class three days a week - Monday, Wednesday and Thursday - at 6am. (I’m told it used to be Monday, Wednesday, Friday, but so many people wanted to go out drinking Thursday and they had so many people absent on Fridays, they just gave up.)
I am technically seven sessions (roughly two weeks) in, but to begin at the beginning...
Tales from “Basic Training”
Day One
I can’t find the class. As it is, I get lost on campus all the time and I simply can’t find the gym where we were told to meet. I run into another student who has the same problem. We both go home and I sleep.
I suspect this is why I still don’t know formation commands.
Day Two
I can’t find the class. On the way in, I see a large mass of people in black shorts and grey shirts congregating on the field outside the building. I wonder who they are and go inside to find my class, which I can’t.
Coming outside, I see my instructor coming in to find me.
That large mass of people on the field is my class. This is when I find out that, no, ROTC Cadets will not be coming to us; we will be coming to them. I hurry out and my instructor introduces me to Megan, an ROTC gal. She’s blonde, cute, and carrying a few extra pounds; the sort of girl I could see being friends with. She asks me my name - “no, what’s your last name?” - and I join formation.
I join formation.
Holy buckets.
They’re all dressed the same. I’m in long exercise pants and a t-shirt. Ergo, I stand out. We are told proper uniform - but the fitness class doesn’t have to worry about it. We are told proper haircuts - and again, the fitness class doesn’t have to worry about it.
We are told to come to attention, and I have no idea what to do, so I do whatever Megan does.
That day, we run around the track twice. I walk part way, but do my best and I’m speedwalking, so I tell myself it’s okay. We do sit-ups and push-ups with partners.
When I leave, I’m just glad my ROTC partner crapped out at fifty sit-ups like I did.
Day Three
We run.
I’m not a good runner and this is the part of training I’ve been most worried about. I have a bad hip that’s troubled me for months; tendonitis, arthritis, something worse - I don’t know; but it can be excruciating to walk on in general. Exercise only makes it worse. On my own, I’ve been trying to work up to jogging a mile.
Today, we’re going at least two.
We start out running in formation. It’s six o’clock in the morning. It’s still dark out. I’m smack in the middle of a group of strangers all in the same uniform and we head out, running in cadence, our feet hitting the earth in unison. Tramp, tramp, tramp.
I grin.
This is why I wanted to do this.
A fact I try to remind myself in a mile when my legs hurt, my lungs burn, and I’m gasping for breath.
We run through campus at dawn, down streets that are deserted now, but will later be overfilled with students, cars, and bicycles. We cross intersections together and I feel bad that I’m ruining the image. We’re a tight-looking ROTC unit, all dressed alike - except for the girl in pants and a white t-shirt.
For a long while, I felt fine. I did a systems check: legs not tired, lungs not laboring, mind clear. I can keep going, I can keep going. But the other side of my brain keeps telling me, I’ve never gone this far. I’ve never gone this far. I can’t go this far.
That side wins out. I’m the first to walk. One of the leaders - someone who, I’ll add, is probably at least six years younger than I am - urges me to “keep moving.”
“I’m moving!” I laugh.
After a moment, he clarifies, “Keep running.”
About halfway on the run, this leader - I find out later his nickname is SilverFox because he’s such a swift runner - comes back to me and the four or five others lagging behind. “We’re going to circle around up here and put you guys in the front,” he tells me.
“That sounds like a terrible idea,” I joke.
“Nah, it’ll be all right.”
“Won’t you have people walking in the back then?” I ask.
“Nah,” says SilverFox, and then he hesitates. “We leave as a unit; we come back as a unit.”
He runs on to keep leading and it occurs to me that people in the Army don’t talk back; I’m not sure he knew what to say when I did.
I try to keep running, but it’s hard and I’m struggling. Leaders urge me to stay in formation, to catch up to the person ten feet in front of me, to “dress to the right,” which I figure out means keep with the person on my right. “I’m trying,” I tell them, and don’t realize until after that’s not what they want to hear. They want me to just do it.
Toward the end, another of the leaders, a girl, runs right there with me and I sense that SilverFox is grateful. I’m not sure he knew what to say to a girl who’s struggling when she’s not even in ROTC. “Keep moving,” she says when I walk again.
“I am moving,” I snap.
“Keep running,” she says.
A few seconds later... “I’m sorry I snapped at you,” I say, running again.
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” she says. “I’ve been there. I know exactly how you feel.”
I’m not the worst. I finish with another ROTC girl. A girl from my fitness class had to stop and throw up. But this is why I wanted to do this. The only way I’d ever be able to run as far as I did would be if I were being chased by thirty ROTC Cadets - or something that wants to eat me.
By the time we stretch, I’m grinning like a fool. Oh, I’m exhausted all right, but proud and feeling good.
Just the same, I’m sore all over the rest of the day. When I first stand up to walk, it takes a few seconds before my abdominal muscles will relax enough to let me stand at my full height. I walk like an old woman.
And I keep giggling like a little girl.
Day Four
I walk self-consciously onto the field in black shorts and a grey t-shirt.
I consulted the night before with a friend who had been in the Army. My dilemma: I couldn’t figure out if looking like them would be respectful, or if impersonating them would be insulting. He said they’d probably appreciate it if I tried to look like them.
I thought of us running across those intersections in front of early-morning drivers, a clean-looking unit and decided I would dress like them. And I would learn to bite my tongue and not talk back. They were kind enough to let civilians into their training. I should be respectful and obey their rules.
First discovery of self: I do not have a military mentality. I don’t really want one either, but for the sake of this experience, I’ll pretend.
We get in formation for attendance. There are over twenty people absent from the entire company. “Jesus Christ,” says Megan next to me. “Where is everybody? You guys aren’t even in ROTC and you’re here!”
In my bid for advice the night before, my Army friend, Chad, also told me that quitting is psychological. If I can break through the thought that I need to stop, I could go a long way.
Just the same, we don’t run today, and I’m so very grateful.
We do push-ups and sit-ups instead. My arms are so tired from the last time, I can barely do them modified. I could do crunches all morning if they asked me to.
‘Course, the way we have to do them is funny and unexpectedly Army. I have a partner - a fit young ROTC fella, which describes 75% of the people out there in the morning with me. I’m instructed to get down on my elbows and knees. My partner puts his feet on my back and does thirty crunches. Then, he kneels and I use him to do mine. Switch back and repeat.
I’ll admit...looking at the boys paired up around me...I think I’ve had this fantasy.
I’ll also admit I’m a little weird.
Later, we’re told to run the track. Monday, I had to walk part of it. After running over two miles Wednesday, even when I’m winded this time, I remind myself I’ve run farther. This track should be nothing. It’s remarkably easy when I think of it that way.
Afterward, we do sprints. I wish I could say therein lies my strength as a runner. Nope, I’m in the slowest group of sprinters, too. But I keep going and they’re fun. We run in rows, probably twenty or so per row. At one point, I was slow enough that several guys hit the end, touched the ground, and turned around - only to find me still coming at them.
I’m embarrassed to say I lifted my arms across me like a cartoon woman recoiling from a mouse as they dodged and blew all around me. Then I laughed, touched the ground, and took off running back to home. I wasn’t the last person. I had company.
An unanticipated side effect of dressing like them is realizing that, from a distance, I look just like one of them and poof! gone is any excuse I had for not trying my hardest. If I look bad, we all look bad. My god, what is this I’m feeling? Could it be pride in my platoon?
I walk off the field with the other girl from my class. It turns out she threw up on the run yesterday not only because she isn’t used to running, but also because she’s pregnant. Yikes.
As we’re leaving, a biggish-wig from the Army - a sergeant or maybe a colonel - stops us and asks how we like it. I answer impulsively. “I love it. It’s kicking my butt, but I love it.”
“What’s hardest?” he asks.
“The running. But I’m working on it.”
“Oh, that’s nothin’. We get up to four and five miles. Not a lot, but we have a couple days.”
“That sounds terrible.” I laugh. He says it’s all about thinking through it and I tell him that, yeah, my friend’s been through Basic Training and he told me I have to think through the desire to quit.
The guy’s eyes sort of brighten and he folds his arms across his grey Army shirt. His stance widens as he settles into a natural authoritative pose. “So, you thinkin’ about enlisting?”
I look at my classmate beside me and she looks at me. How to say “Not on your life” without insulting the man...?
“I don’t know,” I say. “I think this is enough for me right now. It’s a great experience and it’s so great of you to let us be out here with you guys.”
He seems content with that and we make our polite goodbyes.
Later, I tell Chad about this encounter. His response is that he will not, under any circumstances, allow me to enlist. In fact, he might track down this sergeant and ask him what he thinks he was doing by suggesting it.
Of note: My “Army friend” often wears a shirt that reads, “I’m already against the next war.”
Day Five
Another Monday, and I felt good. Wednesday I’d been so tight and sore I could barely walk and laughing hurt all over. Whatever we did on Thursday evidently loosened me up or broke something enough that the tightness and the pain went away. Everywhere but my hips, but they’re anomalies anyway.
Today, we’re missing Liz, my pregnant classmate, and I wonder if we’ve lost her for good. That run was hard and it’s early in the damn morning.
We stretched first, as we always do, and that’s an event I should tell more about. This is military stretching, baby.
We’re in platoons for attendance, then we all “Fall in on first unit,” which means we all gather together with the first platoon. When we do this, we yell unintelligibly, a sort of long, drawn-out, “Huuuuuuuuuuah.”
Then, we stand at attention again. Until we’re told to spread out, which is done by lifting our arms and moving to the left until we have arms-lengths between everyone side-to-side. This is accompanied by another “Huuuuuuuuuuah.”
Then, we “Left face”, and all turn to our left (clever, no?). When fifty people do this, you can almost hear the movement. It’s the coolest thing. Then, we spread out again, the same way as before. “Huuuuuuuuuuah,” and we leave our arms up until instructed to let them down.
We stretch as a unit. Our leader will say, “Okay, groin stretch seated.”
The company replies, “Groin stretch seated!” And we get into position when we’re told. This goes for every stretch. “Hamstring stretch standing! Chest stretch! Lower back stretch!”
And when we count, it’s in unison. Our leader prompts us, “One-thousand...!”
“One!” we all yell.
“One-thousand...!”
“Two!”
All the way to ten, but it’s not “ten.”
“One-thousand...!”
“One-zeroooo!”
Anything above ten is one-something. “One-two! One-three!” And the 20s: “Two-zero! Two-one! Two-two!”
“And relax,” says the leader when we’re done with an exercise.
“Never!” several (not all) of the company reply. Always. By rote. With enthusiasm.
More sit-ups and push-ups today, and then more running around the track, but this time we broke into times, as in people who run a mile in thirteen minutes and under in one group, those who run between thirteen and fifteen minutes in another, and those who do a fifteen- or more minute mile in a last group.
Guess which one I was in.
Now, I thought that after last week’s two-mile run and then the easy jaunt around the track, this would be nothing. I was wrong. It took all the strength of will I had to keep running. I kept repeating to myself that I could do this; it was just my mind telling me to stop. Everything on me felt fine.
The leaders ran with us and shouted encouragement, but I’m finding that, “Keep moving! C’mon, stay up! Run harder!” doesn’t really encourage me at all. In fact, in those moments, my instinct is to spite them: I’m doing just fine for myself, I decide, and they can fuck right off with their group-think.
We did one lap, then paused and did another. The second time round I was struggling even more, but I did more running on that two miles, I told myself. I’ve done more than this, so step up!
There’s a certain leader here who is either less experienced or just more relaxed than the others (they all have very different personalities). This one is more likely to just casually say, “Okay, yeah, fall in” when the others will bellow, “Fall in!” in a voice that reminds me of every Army movie I’ve ever seen. Also, his workout plans seem a touch more sketchy, though it’s possible he’s just not as good at hiding his mistakes as the others. He’s a dark-haired stocky kind of guy with a sweet face, bold eyebrows, and he rarely smiles.
So early on into the second lap, Sketchy falls back to run with me. SilverFox is all over the place, running back and forth to those in front and those in back. Sketchy stays right with me, keeping an eye on me and the ROTC gal who’s fallen even further back.
I’m struggling and I can’t hide it. He speaks softly to me. “Try to calm your breathing down,” he says. “Take it easy.”
I try to do what he says.
“You’re doing all right. Lift your head up. That always makes it easier on me.”
“Ah, but then I can see how far I have to go,” I joke, forgetting my decision to bite my tongue.
“Eh, you’re all right,” he replies. “Almost there.”
As we near the final bend, he tells me I’m going to sprint as hard as I can to the finish line. “Okay,” I say.
We near that last turn. “Ready?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I pant.
We hit the corner and he yells, “Go, go, go!”
I sprint for all I’m worth, lengthening my stride, feeling an exhilarating lightness to my feet as I get going fast enough that my toes barely make contact with the ground. Behind me, Sketchy urges the others who’ve fallen behind to run, too. “Catch her, catch her, go, go!”
And I feel and hear feet pounding behind me as the others run to catch up and a few of the leaders fall in, chasing me. I run, and run and when I hit the finish line I slow to a walk and just keep walking straight to my water bottle at the other end of the field.
I hear the leaders call out “Good job! Nice!” and don’t regret until later that I was too tired to respond or thank them. I’m not even there for a grade, let alone a life career in the Army, so they could ignore me if they wanted and I wouldn’t think twice about it. It seemed above and beyond, then, that Sketchy gave me such one-on-one attention, and I appreciate it.
Then I realize that they probably don’t want to hear me say “I’m trying” or “Thank you.” They probably want me to just shut up and do.
Day Six
Another Wednesday, and I have a very real fear as I wake up that morning that Wednesdays are run days.
For once, I’m not wrong.
It’s a cold morning. Other days it’s been 75 degrees at 6am. Today, it’s 60. The cool is nice. I hope it’ll help.
We run in platoons this time, instead of the larger groups we were in last time. Because of absences, our platoon is maybe a dozen people. Today is the first day I even figure out we’re called a “platoon”. Better yet, I think we’re the 2nd Platoon. At least, that’s what they kept calling us.
We start running and my heart is pounding nervously. My stomach swims. I’m anxious and I’m a little afraid of failing. I don’t want to walk again. I don’t want to be the one who slows us all down.
Liz is back, but she can’t run, she says. She has a doctor’s appointment on Monday and won’t know until then how much physical activity she can do during her pregnancy. I feel like I see a hint of something else in her eyes - maybe guilt at leaving me to fend alone, or just plain relief that she has a decent excuse not to run this time. She does two miles on a stationary bike instead.
I file off the field with my platoon, heart already racing.
We start running. And I’m okay. The hills are tiring, but I’m doing okay. My mind tells me I want to walk, so I do a systems check: heart good, lungs good, calves a little tight, but acceptable. All systems go. In fact...my god, I feel perfectly fine. I feel like I can keep running, and better yet, I can keep up with my platoon. No one’s passing me, I’m not falling behind. I’m right there, dressing to the right without being commanded.
Silverfox isn’t right with us today. He runs with the 1st Platoon behind us. I can hear him calling out to them and dimly hope he sees that I’m pushing myself and doing better this time.
In charge of our platoon is “Da-gone.” I don’t know his real name, but he’s probably all of twenty-two, a short, lean little thing, who is only the second person I’ve ever met in real life who honestly uses the word “Da-gone” to express surprise. (The first is a terribly round, hickish sort of man who shops at Borders, drives a huge pick-up truck, and also uses the phrase “Get ‘er done” without irony.)
We turn down a main road on campus and Da-gone tells us the next house on the right is his house. In unison, he has us yell, “Wake up, Jimber!” to his roommate.
We pass the place I had to move to the front last time and I feel a burst of pride. I daydream about telling my friend at work that I ran the whole way this time, I didn’t have to stop. I hang in there until probably the last quarter mile and then I hit the wall hard. I go from jogging along, tired but steady, to frickin’ dead on my feet, gasping for breath and fighting for every single step.
The same ROTC gal from last time comes to run with me. She’s tiny and wears librarian glasses; I’ll call her Tina Fey because that’s who she reminds me of, only without a discernible sense of humor. (I should learn real names, but they seem to yell them so infrequently and I rarely know who they’re addressing when they do.)
Anyway, Tina Fey’s back there running with me and she’s leaving me behind. She tells me to catch up with her. I try and honestly can’t - something in me gives out. But I don’t walk. I wouldn’t let myself. I remember Chad saying that if I let myself walk, it was all over and I could feel that in my legs: if I let them walk, they wouldn’t run again any time soon.
We turn a corner and up ahead, I can see where we stop. I can see my platoon mates gathering into a halted group. Tina Fey tells me to sprint. “I don’t know if I can do that,” I say, and instantly regret making excuses. Don’t make excuses; just do. So, I do. I try. I put on a last desperate burst for speed and try not to feel the embarrassment as the rest of my platoon turns to watch me run toward them on the sidewalk. This is my hurdle, not theirs.
I slow to a walk and keep walking. Too soon, they have us get back in formation. We’re called to attention, but I keep stepping side to side. I can feel my blood slowing in my veins, dropping after the sudden halt in movement, and I know that if I stop moving, I’ll pass out. When I trained to be an aerobics instructor, they told us about that risk. I’d never experienced it myself before.
We walk back to the field and stretch a bit. I chat briefly with Megan - the first semi-real conversation we’ve ever had - about how she fell during the run. We commiserate about how hard those hills are and how we could run downhill all day long. I like her. There’s discussion about how far we went. We were told it’s about 2.3 miles. Then, it becomes 2.7 miles. By the end, there’s talk of it being closer to 3 miles. I try not to think about it.
I feel good, but I’m so exhausted I can barely think, so when I leave, it’s in silence.
Day Seven
I got so dirty yesterday, I had to do laundry, so I come in in my freshly cleaned “mock-uniform.” For a brief, glimmering moment, it seems Sketchy is deliberating keeping us standing during our stretches and off of the dew-soaked, muddy ground, but...
“Groin stretch seated,” he says.
“Groin stretch seated!” we reply.
And we’re on the ground.
It’s cold out again. 55 degrees at most. I’m shivering, but it’s so much better than being hot.
Today, we’re doing Circuit Training. The company is broken into smaller groups, which dissolve the moment they’re put into action because none of us had any idea what was going on. I end up in the smallest group - just four, and I’m the only girl.
We start out doing one full minute of each station exercise and each is different. There are eight, in order: Flutter kicks, over arm claps (yes, please; so easy!), bicycle crunches, basic push-ups, crunches, wide-arm push-ups, close-arm push-ups, and the plank. One or two leaders (I found out today they have a ranking, M3 or M4, but I don’t know what that means; must do research) are at each station. And we have to sprint in between.
Do note that several of these exercises involve being either flat on our fronts or flat on our backs. There’s not a part of me that’s not covered in dirt.
By the end, I’m happy just to sprint from station to station without doing a face-plant right into the wet ground. I’m not as tough as I’d like to be at any station. The leaders keep making comments about how we’re whiners. “After these first two weeks,” they say, “it gets hard.” Sketchy seems particularly irritated, but then, he got the station orders mixed up. Did anyone else notice we had two push-up stations in a row?
A cute fella mans the crunch station with Da-gone and I wonder again how I thought this was a good idea, to put myself in a position where I’m surrounded by good-looking guys while wearing no make-up, an unflattering outfit, sweaty and covered in mud. The cute guy (who, honestly, I think I’ll be hard-pressed to identify in the future; guys with crew cuts all look so much alike!) asks us if we have any jokes. I start thinking and he looks at me.
“I can see something brewing,” he says with a laugh. “You’re thinking something. It’s okay if it’s dirty.”
“Two men walk into a bar. The third one ducks,” I say and drop to the ground to get ready for crunches.
It takes them a good twenty seconds to get it, and when they do, they laugh more at their inability to figure it out than the joke itself. “Fun with words,” I sing-song, and think I must be the dorkiest person in the world.
We finish out the day with long sprints, which I feel is an oxymoron, but I doubt anyone wants to hear that. Apparently, folks in the know call them “super-gassers.” I’m not very sprinty in my sprinting and I’m damn tired. I wish I were faster if only so I wouldn’t have to be watched by everyone who finishes before me.
Everyone gathers in formation and we stink. My god, do we all stink. Cruel to put us all that close together after all that work on the ground. The ROTC kids gather together with their mentors for two full minutes of push-ups. The fitness class kids are dismissed. It’s the first time we’ve been allowed to leave before all the exercising is over. For a moment, I’m hurt - until Alex, another classmate, reminds me that I don’t really want to do two minutes of push-ups. He’s not wrong.
I stretch by my car before the sun is up, bending to touch the road, and inadvertently turning the dust from my hands into mud on my dewy car. I’m sweaty, exhausted, covered in dirt, and it turns out that Kroger has fresh cantaloupe today. It’s a good morning.
No, I didn’t enlist. What I did do is sign up to audit the Army Physical Fitness Training at the university, which is listed as a fitness course that teaches us “how the army trains its soldiers”. Oh, yes.
It was to be taught by ROTC Cadets. I thought it would be a mentor situation, that we’d have a rotation of Cadets coming through, teaching our class of fifteen or so. I was wrong. I was wrong about a lot, and it’s been such a crazy experience so far, I thought I should chronicle it here, for me if no one else.
I have the class three days a week - Monday, Wednesday and Thursday - at 6am. (I’m told it used to be Monday, Wednesday, Friday, but so many people wanted to go out drinking Thursday and they had so many people absent on Fridays, they just gave up.)
I am technically seven sessions (roughly two weeks) in, but to begin at the beginning...
Tales from “Basic Training”
Day One
I can’t find the class. As it is, I get lost on campus all the time and I simply can’t find the gym where we were told to meet. I run into another student who has the same problem. We both go home and I sleep.
I suspect this is why I still don’t know formation commands.
Day Two
I can’t find the class. On the way in, I see a large mass of people in black shorts and grey shirts congregating on the field outside the building. I wonder who they are and go inside to find my class, which I can’t.
Coming outside, I see my instructor coming in to find me.
That large mass of people on the field is my class. This is when I find out that, no, ROTC Cadets will not be coming to us; we will be coming to them. I hurry out and my instructor introduces me to Megan, an ROTC gal. She’s blonde, cute, and carrying a few extra pounds; the sort of girl I could see being friends with. She asks me my name - “no, what’s your last name?” - and I join formation.
I join formation.
Holy buckets.
They’re all dressed the same. I’m in long exercise pants and a t-shirt. Ergo, I stand out. We are told proper uniform - but the fitness class doesn’t have to worry about it. We are told proper haircuts - and again, the fitness class doesn’t have to worry about it.
We are told to come to attention, and I have no idea what to do, so I do whatever Megan does.
That day, we run around the track twice. I walk part way, but do my best and I’m speedwalking, so I tell myself it’s okay. We do sit-ups and push-ups with partners.
When I leave, I’m just glad my ROTC partner crapped out at fifty sit-ups like I did.
Day Three
We run.
I’m not a good runner and this is the part of training I’ve been most worried about. I have a bad hip that’s troubled me for months; tendonitis, arthritis, something worse - I don’t know; but it can be excruciating to walk on in general. Exercise only makes it worse. On my own, I’ve been trying to work up to jogging a mile.
Today, we’re going at least two.
We start out running in formation. It’s six o’clock in the morning. It’s still dark out. I’m smack in the middle of a group of strangers all in the same uniform and we head out, running in cadence, our feet hitting the earth in unison. Tramp, tramp, tramp.
I grin.
This is why I wanted to do this.
A fact I try to remind myself in a mile when my legs hurt, my lungs burn, and I’m gasping for breath.
We run through campus at dawn, down streets that are deserted now, but will later be overfilled with students, cars, and bicycles. We cross intersections together and I feel bad that I’m ruining the image. We’re a tight-looking ROTC unit, all dressed alike - except for the girl in pants and a white t-shirt.
For a long while, I felt fine. I did a systems check: legs not tired, lungs not laboring, mind clear. I can keep going, I can keep going. But the other side of my brain keeps telling me, I’ve never gone this far. I’ve never gone this far. I can’t go this far.
That side wins out. I’m the first to walk. One of the leaders - someone who, I’ll add, is probably at least six years younger than I am - urges me to “keep moving.”
“I’m moving!” I laugh.
After a moment, he clarifies, “Keep running.”
About halfway on the run, this leader - I find out later his nickname is SilverFox because he’s such a swift runner - comes back to me and the four or five others lagging behind. “We’re going to circle around up here and put you guys in the front,” he tells me.
“That sounds like a terrible idea,” I joke.
“Nah, it’ll be all right.”
“Won’t you have people walking in the back then?” I ask.
“Nah,” says SilverFox, and then he hesitates. “We leave as a unit; we come back as a unit.”
He runs on to keep leading and it occurs to me that people in the Army don’t talk back; I’m not sure he knew what to say when I did.
I try to keep running, but it’s hard and I’m struggling. Leaders urge me to stay in formation, to catch up to the person ten feet in front of me, to “dress to the right,” which I figure out means keep with the person on my right. “I’m trying,” I tell them, and don’t realize until after that’s not what they want to hear. They want me to just do it.
Toward the end, another of the leaders, a girl, runs right there with me and I sense that SilverFox is grateful. I’m not sure he knew what to say to a girl who’s struggling when she’s not even in ROTC. “Keep moving,” she says when I walk again.
“I am moving,” I snap.
“Keep running,” she says.
A few seconds later... “I’m sorry I snapped at you,” I say, running again.
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” she says. “I’ve been there. I know exactly how you feel.”
I’m not the worst. I finish with another ROTC girl. A girl from my fitness class had to stop and throw up. But this is why I wanted to do this. The only way I’d ever be able to run as far as I did would be if I were being chased by thirty ROTC Cadets - or something that wants to eat me.
By the time we stretch, I’m grinning like a fool. Oh, I’m exhausted all right, but proud and feeling good.
Just the same, I’m sore all over the rest of the day. When I first stand up to walk, it takes a few seconds before my abdominal muscles will relax enough to let me stand at my full height. I walk like an old woman.
And I keep giggling like a little girl.
Day Four
I walk self-consciously onto the field in black shorts and a grey t-shirt.
I consulted the night before with a friend who had been in the Army. My dilemma: I couldn’t figure out if looking like them would be respectful, or if impersonating them would be insulting. He said they’d probably appreciate it if I tried to look like them.
I thought of us running across those intersections in front of early-morning drivers, a clean-looking unit and decided I would dress like them. And I would learn to bite my tongue and not talk back. They were kind enough to let civilians into their training. I should be respectful and obey their rules.
First discovery of self: I do not have a military mentality. I don’t really want one either, but for the sake of this experience, I’ll pretend.
We get in formation for attendance. There are over twenty people absent from the entire company. “Jesus Christ,” says Megan next to me. “Where is everybody? You guys aren’t even in ROTC and you’re here!”
In my bid for advice the night before, my Army friend, Chad, also told me that quitting is psychological. If I can break through the thought that I need to stop, I could go a long way.
Just the same, we don’t run today, and I’m so very grateful.
We do push-ups and sit-ups instead. My arms are so tired from the last time, I can barely do them modified. I could do crunches all morning if they asked me to.
‘Course, the way we have to do them is funny and unexpectedly Army. I have a partner - a fit young ROTC fella, which describes 75% of the people out there in the morning with me. I’m instructed to get down on my elbows and knees. My partner puts his feet on my back and does thirty crunches. Then, he kneels and I use him to do mine. Switch back and repeat.
I’ll admit...looking at the boys paired up around me...I think I’ve had this fantasy.
I’ll also admit I’m a little weird.
Later, we’re told to run the track. Monday, I had to walk part of it. After running over two miles Wednesday, even when I’m winded this time, I remind myself I’ve run farther. This track should be nothing. It’s remarkably easy when I think of it that way.
Afterward, we do sprints. I wish I could say therein lies my strength as a runner. Nope, I’m in the slowest group of sprinters, too. But I keep going and they’re fun. We run in rows, probably twenty or so per row. At one point, I was slow enough that several guys hit the end, touched the ground, and turned around - only to find me still coming at them.
I’m embarrassed to say I lifted my arms across me like a cartoon woman recoiling from a mouse as they dodged and blew all around me. Then I laughed, touched the ground, and took off running back to home. I wasn’t the last person. I had company.
An unanticipated side effect of dressing like them is realizing that, from a distance, I look just like one of them and poof! gone is any excuse I had for not trying my hardest. If I look bad, we all look bad. My god, what is this I’m feeling? Could it be pride in my platoon?
I walk off the field with the other girl from my class. It turns out she threw up on the run yesterday not only because she isn’t used to running, but also because she’s pregnant. Yikes.
As we’re leaving, a biggish-wig from the Army - a sergeant or maybe a colonel - stops us and asks how we like it. I answer impulsively. “I love it. It’s kicking my butt, but I love it.”
“What’s hardest?” he asks.
“The running. But I’m working on it.”
“Oh, that’s nothin’. We get up to four and five miles. Not a lot, but we have a couple days.”
“That sounds terrible.” I laugh. He says it’s all about thinking through it and I tell him that, yeah, my friend’s been through Basic Training and he told me I have to think through the desire to quit.
The guy’s eyes sort of brighten and he folds his arms across his grey Army shirt. His stance widens as he settles into a natural authoritative pose. “So, you thinkin’ about enlisting?”
I look at my classmate beside me and she looks at me. How to say “Not on your life” without insulting the man...?
“I don’t know,” I say. “I think this is enough for me right now. It’s a great experience and it’s so great of you to let us be out here with you guys.”
He seems content with that and we make our polite goodbyes.
Later, I tell Chad about this encounter. His response is that he will not, under any circumstances, allow me to enlist. In fact, he might track down this sergeant and ask him what he thinks he was doing by suggesting it.
Of note: My “Army friend” often wears a shirt that reads, “I’m already against the next war.”
Day Five
Another Monday, and I felt good. Wednesday I’d been so tight and sore I could barely walk and laughing hurt all over. Whatever we did on Thursday evidently loosened me up or broke something enough that the tightness and the pain went away. Everywhere but my hips, but they’re anomalies anyway.
Today, we’re missing Liz, my pregnant classmate, and I wonder if we’ve lost her for good. That run was hard and it’s early in the damn morning.
We stretched first, as we always do, and that’s an event I should tell more about. This is military stretching, baby.
We’re in platoons for attendance, then we all “Fall in on first unit,” which means we all gather together with the first platoon. When we do this, we yell unintelligibly, a sort of long, drawn-out, “Huuuuuuuuuuah.”
Then, we stand at attention again. Until we’re told to spread out, which is done by lifting our arms and moving to the left until we have arms-lengths between everyone side-to-side. This is accompanied by another “Huuuuuuuuuuah.”
Then, we “Left face”, and all turn to our left (clever, no?). When fifty people do this, you can almost hear the movement. It’s the coolest thing. Then, we spread out again, the same way as before. “Huuuuuuuuuuah,” and we leave our arms up until instructed to let them down.
We stretch as a unit. Our leader will say, “Okay, groin stretch seated.”
The company replies, “Groin stretch seated!” And we get into position when we’re told. This goes for every stretch. “Hamstring stretch standing! Chest stretch! Lower back stretch!”
And when we count, it’s in unison. Our leader prompts us, “One-thousand...!”
“One!” we all yell.
“One-thousand...!”
“Two!”
All the way to ten, but it’s not “ten.”
“One-thousand...!”
“One-zeroooo!”
Anything above ten is one-something. “One-two! One-three!” And the 20s: “Two-zero! Two-one! Two-two!”
“And relax,” says the leader when we’re done with an exercise.
“Never!” several (not all) of the company reply. Always. By rote. With enthusiasm.
More sit-ups and push-ups today, and then more running around the track, but this time we broke into times, as in people who run a mile in thirteen minutes and under in one group, those who run between thirteen and fifteen minutes in another, and those who do a fifteen- or more minute mile in a last group.
Guess which one I was in.
Now, I thought that after last week’s two-mile run and then the easy jaunt around the track, this would be nothing. I was wrong. It took all the strength of will I had to keep running. I kept repeating to myself that I could do this; it was just my mind telling me to stop. Everything on me felt fine.
The leaders ran with us and shouted encouragement, but I’m finding that, “Keep moving! C’mon, stay up! Run harder!” doesn’t really encourage me at all. In fact, in those moments, my instinct is to spite them: I’m doing just fine for myself, I decide, and they can fuck right off with their group-think.
We did one lap, then paused and did another. The second time round I was struggling even more, but I did more running on that two miles, I told myself. I’ve done more than this, so step up!
There’s a certain leader here who is either less experienced or just more relaxed than the others (they all have very different personalities). This one is more likely to just casually say, “Okay, yeah, fall in” when the others will bellow, “Fall in!” in a voice that reminds me of every Army movie I’ve ever seen. Also, his workout plans seem a touch more sketchy, though it’s possible he’s just not as good at hiding his mistakes as the others. He’s a dark-haired stocky kind of guy with a sweet face, bold eyebrows, and he rarely smiles.
So early on into the second lap, Sketchy falls back to run with me. SilverFox is all over the place, running back and forth to those in front and those in back. Sketchy stays right with me, keeping an eye on me and the ROTC gal who’s fallen even further back.
I’m struggling and I can’t hide it. He speaks softly to me. “Try to calm your breathing down,” he says. “Take it easy.”
I try to do what he says.
“You’re doing all right. Lift your head up. That always makes it easier on me.”
“Ah, but then I can see how far I have to go,” I joke, forgetting my decision to bite my tongue.
“Eh, you’re all right,” he replies. “Almost there.”
As we near the final bend, he tells me I’m going to sprint as hard as I can to the finish line. “Okay,” I say.
We near that last turn. “Ready?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I pant.
We hit the corner and he yells, “Go, go, go!”
I sprint for all I’m worth, lengthening my stride, feeling an exhilarating lightness to my feet as I get going fast enough that my toes barely make contact with the ground. Behind me, Sketchy urges the others who’ve fallen behind to run, too. “Catch her, catch her, go, go!”
And I feel and hear feet pounding behind me as the others run to catch up and a few of the leaders fall in, chasing me. I run, and run and when I hit the finish line I slow to a walk and just keep walking straight to my water bottle at the other end of the field.
I hear the leaders call out “Good job! Nice!” and don’t regret until later that I was too tired to respond or thank them. I’m not even there for a grade, let alone a life career in the Army, so they could ignore me if they wanted and I wouldn’t think twice about it. It seemed above and beyond, then, that Sketchy gave me such one-on-one attention, and I appreciate it.
Then I realize that they probably don’t want to hear me say “I’m trying” or “Thank you.” They probably want me to just shut up and do.
Day Six
Another Wednesday, and I have a very real fear as I wake up that morning that Wednesdays are run days.
For once, I’m not wrong.
It’s a cold morning. Other days it’s been 75 degrees at 6am. Today, it’s 60. The cool is nice. I hope it’ll help.
We run in platoons this time, instead of the larger groups we were in last time. Because of absences, our platoon is maybe a dozen people. Today is the first day I even figure out we’re called a “platoon”. Better yet, I think we’re the 2nd Platoon. At least, that’s what they kept calling us.
We start running and my heart is pounding nervously. My stomach swims. I’m anxious and I’m a little afraid of failing. I don’t want to walk again. I don’t want to be the one who slows us all down.
Liz is back, but she can’t run, she says. She has a doctor’s appointment on Monday and won’t know until then how much physical activity she can do during her pregnancy. I feel like I see a hint of something else in her eyes - maybe guilt at leaving me to fend alone, or just plain relief that she has a decent excuse not to run this time. She does two miles on a stationary bike instead.
I file off the field with my platoon, heart already racing.
We start running. And I’m okay. The hills are tiring, but I’m doing okay. My mind tells me I want to walk, so I do a systems check: heart good, lungs good, calves a little tight, but acceptable. All systems go. In fact...my god, I feel perfectly fine. I feel like I can keep running, and better yet, I can keep up with my platoon. No one’s passing me, I’m not falling behind. I’m right there, dressing to the right without being commanded.
Silverfox isn’t right with us today. He runs with the 1st Platoon behind us. I can hear him calling out to them and dimly hope he sees that I’m pushing myself and doing better this time.
In charge of our platoon is “Da-gone.” I don’t know his real name, but he’s probably all of twenty-two, a short, lean little thing, who is only the second person I’ve ever met in real life who honestly uses the word “Da-gone” to express surprise. (The first is a terribly round, hickish sort of man who shops at Borders, drives a huge pick-up truck, and also uses the phrase “Get ‘er done” without irony.)
We turn down a main road on campus and Da-gone tells us the next house on the right is his house. In unison, he has us yell, “Wake up, Jimber!” to his roommate.
We pass the place I had to move to the front last time and I feel a burst of pride. I daydream about telling my friend at work that I ran the whole way this time, I didn’t have to stop. I hang in there until probably the last quarter mile and then I hit the wall hard. I go from jogging along, tired but steady, to frickin’ dead on my feet, gasping for breath and fighting for every single step.
The same ROTC gal from last time comes to run with me. She’s tiny and wears librarian glasses; I’ll call her Tina Fey because that’s who she reminds me of, only without a discernible sense of humor. (I should learn real names, but they seem to yell them so infrequently and I rarely know who they’re addressing when they do.)
Anyway, Tina Fey’s back there running with me and she’s leaving me behind. She tells me to catch up with her. I try and honestly can’t - something in me gives out. But I don’t walk. I wouldn’t let myself. I remember Chad saying that if I let myself walk, it was all over and I could feel that in my legs: if I let them walk, they wouldn’t run again any time soon.
We turn a corner and up ahead, I can see where we stop. I can see my platoon mates gathering into a halted group. Tina Fey tells me to sprint. “I don’t know if I can do that,” I say, and instantly regret making excuses. Don’t make excuses; just do. So, I do. I try. I put on a last desperate burst for speed and try not to feel the embarrassment as the rest of my platoon turns to watch me run toward them on the sidewalk. This is my hurdle, not theirs.
I slow to a walk and keep walking. Too soon, they have us get back in formation. We’re called to attention, but I keep stepping side to side. I can feel my blood slowing in my veins, dropping after the sudden halt in movement, and I know that if I stop moving, I’ll pass out. When I trained to be an aerobics instructor, they told us about that risk. I’d never experienced it myself before.
We walk back to the field and stretch a bit. I chat briefly with Megan - the first semi-real conversation we’ve ever had - about how she fell during the run. We commiserate about how hard those hills are and how we could run downhill all day long. I like her. There’s discussion about how far we went. We were told it’s about 2.3 miles. Then, it becomes 2.7 miles. By the end, there’s talk of it being closer to 3 miles. I try not to think about it.
I feel good, but I’m so exhausted I can barely think, so when I leave, it’s in silence.
Day Seven
I got so dirty yesterday, I had to do laundry, so I come in in my freshly cleaned “mock-uniform.” For a brief, glimmering moment, it seems Sketchy is deliberating keeping us standing during our stretches and off of the dew-soaked, muddy ground, but...
“Groin stretch seated,” he says.
“Groin stretch seated!” we reply.
And we’re on the ground.
It’s cold out again. 55 degrees at most. I’m shivering, but it’s so much better than being hot.
Today, we’re doing Circuit Training. The company is broken into smaller groups, which dissolve the moment they’re put into action because none of us had any idea what was going on. I end up in the smallest group - just four, and I’m the only girl.
We start out doing one full minute of each station exercise and each is different. There are eight, in order: Flutter kicks, over arm claps (yes, please; so easy!), bicycle crunches, basic push-ups, crunches, wide-arm push-ups, close-arm push-ups, and the plank. One or two leaders (I found out today they have a ranking, M3 or M4, but I don’t know what that means; must do research) are at each station. And we have to sprint in between.
Do note that several of these exercises involve being either flat on our fronts or flat on our backs. There’s not a part of me that’s not covered in dirt.
By the end, I’m happy just to sprint from station to station without doing a face-plant right into the wet ground. I’m not as tough as I’d like to be at any station. The leaders keep making comments about how we’re whiners. “After these first two weeks,” they say, “it gets hard.” Sketchy seems particularly irritated, but then, he got the station orders mixed up. Did anyone else notice we had two push-up stations in a row?
A cute fella mans the crunch station with Da-gone and I wonder again how I thought this was a good idea, to put myself in a position where I’m surrounded by good-looking guys while wearing no make-up, an unflattering outfit, sweaty and covered in mud. The cute guy (who, honestly, I think I’ll be hard-pressed to identify in the future; guys with crew cuts all look so much alike!) asks us if we have any jokes. I start thinking and he looks at me.
“I can see something brewing,” he says with a laugh. “You’re thinking something. It’s okay if it’s dirty.”
“Two men walk into a bar. The third one ducks,” I say and drop to the ground to get ready for crunches.
It takes them a good twenty seconds to get it, and when they do, they laugh more at their inability to figure it out than the joke itself. “Fun with words,” I sing-song, and think I must be the dorkiest person in the world.
We finish out the day with long sprints, which I feel is an oxymoron, but I doubt anyone wants to hear that. Apparently, folks in the know call them “super-gassers.” I’m not very sprinty in my sprinting and I’m damn tired. I wish I were faster if only so I wouldn’t have to be watched by everyone who finishes before me.
Everyone gathers in formation and we stink. My god, do we all stink. Cruel to put us all that close together after all that work on the ground. The ROTC kids gather together with their mentors for two full minutes of push-ups. The fitness class kids are dismissed. It’s the first time we’ve been allowed to leave before all the exercising is over. For a moment, I’m hurt - until Alex, another classmate, reminds me that I don’t really want to do two minutes of push-ups. He’s not wrong.
I stretch by my car before the sun is up, bending to touch the road, and inadvertently turning the dust from my hands into mud on my dewy car. I’m sweaty, exhausted, covered in dirt, and it turns out that Kroger has fresh cantaloupe today. It’s a good morning.