Tales From "Basic Training"
Day Eight
Another Monday like the last and as I went to bed last night, my stomach felt knotted with anxiety. I’m scared each morning that I won’t be able to do what they ask, despite knowing that it hasn’t happened yet. Then again, this was the week people said it would “get hard”.
It’s 50 degrees out this morning and we’re all a spattering of summer uniforms (t-shirts and shorts) and winter uniforms (long-sleeve t-shirts and long pants). We weren’t instructed to be in winter uniforms, so most of us go with summer. I would choose to anyway. I’m shivering, but the cold feels good. I went walking here with my parents on Saturday afternoon and the field feels so different in the sun and warmth. At this hour, the field lights shine down goldish hues on us. Everything else is black.
We get good and stretched after thirty jumping jacks - randomly called the “side straddle hop” in this situation - and then settle in for push-ups. I go to my knees early and wonder why. For the first time in two weeks, I could actually do standard push-ups to start; I should have pushed myself harder, I think. After twenty seconds rest, I’m given the opportunity and yeah, not a lot of standard push-ups in me...
Not a lot of standard push-ups in anyone.
We all pause between sets, completely silent. Silverfox, who leads us this morning says, “Did anyone go out and get drunk last night?”
A couple of weak “Hoo-ahs” sound from the back and we all laugh. Behind me, the high-ups are cracking up. Even Silverfox laughs. I hear one of the high-ups behind me say he’s never see a group this quiet.
“You guys are killing me,” Silverfox says.
“You’re killing us,” someone quietly replies. More laughter. I find this hilarious for some reason.
For the next exercise, my row is told to make an about face. Which I sort of know how to do now. My dad spent time in drum core as a boy - a lot of time, it seems, and out on that Saturday walk, he stopped and showed me. He did it once for me, pretty crisp, and looked up at me. “Not bad for not having done it in thirty years,” he said.
Anyway, so I about-face completely wrong to find my partner - only I’m facing no one. There’s a gap in the rank behind me, leaving me partnerless. For one exercise, I sneak in with an ROTC guy and another fellow from my class, a big guy, carrying maybe 70 or 80 extra pounds. For the sit-ups, I claim Liz’s partner because the doctor told her not to do sit-ups. My partner, then, is a very skinny Black girl with cornrows and a girlish face. She tells me last time she was partnered with someone who had gas, “and it was awful.” She counts along with me and Liz cheers us both on.
After that, we run laps, again divided into time groups. With me this time, however, is the big guy from my class. He’s struggling already, but hanging in there.
We do our laps and the ROTC kids leave us behind. I’m a hundred feet behind them; they watch me run in to complete the first lap; my classmate is maybe another hundred feet behind me. Second time around, I notice the ROTC kids aren’t as far in front of me as they were last time. In fact, I even pass one. I’m pretty sure I’m running the exact same pace I was before and think to myself, “Okay. I’ll be the tortoise. I’ll be the fuckin’ tortoise.”
I come in, slow and steady, and finish up, get my water. My classmate stopped running several yards back and is now walking with an ROTC leader, who I imagine is trying to get to him to jog, or maybe just talking to him about how it’ll get better, how he has to push himself, etc. The rest of us are told to fall in for stretches. Then, Silverfox tells us to cheer on this last guy coming in, and the company breaks into applause and encourages my classmate as he crosses the finish line.
It’s moments like that when I think this Army thing is pretty damn cool.
Day Nine
Easy day today on account of our PT test (which I’m interpreting to mean Physical Training test) tomorrow. We do extended stretching and run two laps, which is just shy of a mile. It’s tough, but not impossible, and I leave feeling like we did almost nothing.
But I get to go home and wash up in my own shower. That’s pretty grand.