Part 3: The Upside of Basic Training
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In bad situations or tough times, what do you do? Can you find the humor, or anything positive? Well, I try to be an optimist in all situations; I don’t always succeed, but I do try. I’m no professional but I would consider Army Basic Combat Training a hard and tough situation to be in. I did my best to find a good and positive in the situation. Here are some of my stories.
I made the decision on day four that I would not cuss while in training. I had noticed a big difference in my attitude toward everything we did. I was more motivated, happier, and I smiled more. I had already signed the contract, and I couldn’t get out of it, so I figured I'd try and make the best of it.
The platoon of people that I lived with during my nine weeks with are people who I still hang out with regularly. We became best friends, and it was a great learning experience. About six girls were probably the most “high-speed” females that maintained their feminine attitudes in training. We were inseparable.
By the end of training, the drill sergeants knew that if they asked for one of us they were going to get at least three of us.
In the Army, we call everyone by their last names. Begay, Pipes, Lowe, Thomas, Oralova, and I made up the group. We were a mismatched group. Oralova was a Russian native and came to the United States with her mother who married a U.S. citizen. She was from Indianapolis and her famous quote was "stupid Americans." We made fun of her on a daily basis for being in the U.S. Army but later came to find out that she simply hated most American's way of thinking. She says we are close minded.
Begay was a Native American female who wasn't suppose to be a warrior. Her family tried to discourage her from joining, but they couldn’t change her mind. Before she came to Fort Jackson, she underwent religious ceremonies to help protect her from the evil spirits that could follow her on her journey.
Thomas was a 20-year-old mom and the best mom anyone would have ever seen. Her military occupational skill (MOS) was a chaplain’s assistant (CA) for a Christian chaplain. It then came up in conversation one day that she didn't know what role Jesus played in the Christian religion. She decided that she wanted to be a CA because she thought a chaplain would be out of harms way. Quite the opposite. A CA is the body guard for a chaplain, and she would have to not only know how to shoot a weapon but be really good at it. Chaplains do not carry a weapon.
Pipes was a southern Texas girl who honestly could out-ride anyone on a horse and out-drive anyone in a truck. She was simply happy to be outdoors and hear from her fiancé every few days. Lowe was a wild child from Nebraska looking for something bigger in life and finding that the wilder she gets the bigger life became.
I was the small town girl, with no military background, who wore a sweater to the first dance club I visited. We were a mixed-up group, but we became the best of friends.
We were laughing one day toward the end of BCT with our drill sergeant about which one of our group would make a good drill sergeant. They laughed when they got to me.
"No way, she couldn’t do it," they said.
Anytime there was tension in the air they reminded me I'd say, "Do ya’ll feel stressed? Do ya’ll want a break? Okay, no PT today. Let’s get some candles and go into the barracks and do some yoga. I’m feeling a little tension myself. I think this is needed. Okay, now don’t yell at anyone. Big deep breaths!! Good deal! Later after yoga we get to go the range and shoot really big guns, and maybe they’ll let us throw hand grenade."
I didn’t mind their teasing because it was accurate.
You might think I’m making this up. It’s all real.
We were doing combatives, or hand-to-hand combat, one day outside in the heat. There was a nice breeze, so it wasn’t so bad. We were practicing within our platoon getting ready for a large competition between the platoons in our company. Everyone had to participate, and I was pretty nervous. I hadn’t done well at the last event where we had to fight people, and I wanted to prove that I could do combat activities. I did really well with my weapon, but with pugils, a giant rod with foam ends used to hit each other, I wasn’t coordinated enough with my hands. With hand grenades, I could not throw as far as I had hoped.
I wasn’t exactly in the mood to fight or get angry because it was pretty outside, and I wasn’t excited to be fighting my best friend Pipes. So when we got called to the center ring the drill sergeant asked me if I was mad and ready to fight. I told him no, and said it would be okay to be beaten by Pipes.
Everyone around the edge of the circle yelled, “It’s Young, drill sergeant, she doesn’t get mad.”
All I could do was smile.
What happen next is off the record. The drill sergeant asked me to close my eyes. I did and he took my friend's hand and slapped me with it. All I could do was laugh and ask him if he really thought this was going to make me angry. So, he slapped me again with his own hand. Still I had no reaction, so he gave up and said to get ready to fight.
He blew the whistle. I honestly don’t remember what happen next, but they had to pull me off of Pipes before I broke her arm. As soon as I had realized what had happen, I was so upset that I couldn’t believe I had tried to hurt poor Pipes but, on the other hand, I was so happy that I had actually done a good job. It was an overwhelming feeling.
After that I was told to fight another girl for the top spot to go on to the company competition. Edmonds was her name, and she was big. She had about 20 pound on me in sheer muscle, and she was mad and mean. She walked like she had a grudge against everyone, and if you were in her way, she’d move you. She was so intimidating!
We went to the center of the circle; she wasn’t happy to be fighting me, and I was delighted to be doing anything but sit-ups at that point despite her size. When the whistle blew I gave a repeat performance. I had almost broken her arm when they pulled me off.
We fought three times, and the second round she pinned me using her weight on my neck.
On the third fight, I pinned her! I kept my head this time, and they didn’t have to pull me off of her. I was so excited I didn’t care about anything else at that point.
She demanded a rematch for the position. I told her she I wasn't interested, and if she wanted the spot that badly she could have my position in the competition. I didn’t like fighting. I just wanted to sit under a tree, and I honestly thought that if she kept her head she would do well. She did do well but not well enough to win.
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