Thursday, March 5, 2009

Notes from Basic

This is a letter I wrote in Basic Training during the summer of 2008 to a buddy of mine.

Dear Brian,
On the day before I left for Basic, the commander of my Minnesota National Guard Unit called me. First he invited me to a Twins game later that evening. I politely declined; it was too great a distance on such short notice. So then he invited me to Iraq in January. I told him that I had college-first non-deployable status for two years.
This was news to him. He switched me to a PFC Cassinos, who had waived her non-deployable status earlier in the year and who had been instructed to seduce me into doing the same. We shot the bull for a while, and eventually she asked me if I was going to be “relaxin’ at Ft. Jackson.” I told her that I had been under the impression that I was, but alas, Ft. Benning, home of the infantry. She paused.
“Oh, so you’re going to the hard one.”
Everyday I think about how much easier I would have had it at Ft. Jackson. I’d be having milk and cookies every night and be sleeping in every day, probably.
However, we do get to do some high-speed shit here at Ft. Benning. So far, I’ve shot the M16A4, the M203 grenade launcher, the M2 .50 cal MG, the M249 SAW, the M240B MG, the MR19 automatic grenade launcher, and the AT-4 anti-tank missile.
I’ve thrown hand grenades, detonated a claymore, survived tear gas, rappelled off an eighty foot wall, used close quarter optics red dot sights, administered an IV, and learned how to land nav, how to administer combat first aid, and how to clear a room.
Our company, Delta Company, started out with about 240 soldiers, although three have gone AWOL and one of those three is now in Mexico.
The company is divided into four platoons, each with three drill sergeants.
My platoon, 2nd Platoon Maddogs, has fifty-eight soldiers, half of whom are still in High School. There are 29 different states represented and over 33 different MOS’s, with one heat stroke idiot who’s going home, one suicidal who prompted a federal investigation, three idiots we kicked out of the platoon, one forty year old mid-life crisis who steals candy and does whatever he wants, six idiots who gave each other jailhouse tattoos are now facing destruction of government property charges, and three perfect PT scores; one of them is mine.
The Army Physical Fitness Test is scored out of 300 and consists of two minutes of pushups, two minutes of situps, and a two mile run. At least 72 pushups, 78 situps, and then a 13 minute time are the requirements for a maximum Physical Training score.
The first APPT I did 91 pushups, 73 situps, and ran a 12:17 two mile. This was good enough for 292 points, which is not maximum but still the highest in the company. The second time I, along with two other privates, maxed out; I got 81 pushups, 78 situps, and ran a 12:04 two mile.
I got an Army Presidential Fitness Award patch and ice cream, plus if our platoon as a whole continues to score high on the PT tests, we should get Honor Platoon. Which is an honor, I guess.
Our platoon actually kicks ass, probably as a result of all the smokings we get from our senior drill sergeant, SFC Alan Barton. He is a ranger, a war hero who received the Bronze Star for valor for his work securing the first crash site during Blackhawk Down, a forty-five year old machine who still maxes out his PT tests, a father figure who treats us like men, and a living legend whom we all respect and for whom would probably take a bullet.
Our company as a whole has a very squared away cadre: we have three rangers, two SWAT commanders, the current and former drill sergeants of the year, the runner-up drill sergeant of the year, the current and former NCOs of the year, and the first female drill sergeant ever stationed at Ft. Benning.
But enough; I’ll leave ya with a few notes.
• How is Obama doing? What’s up with Russia? How are the Twins winning?
• I am definitely in the Army. The Army has two components: Active and Reserve. Reserve is then broken down into Reserve and National Guard. Believe me, the drill sergeants, and the paperwork people: I am Army.
• I’m not having any problems with authority. As a matter of fact I’m having troubles taking the initiative and not waiting to be told what to do.
• I am having troubles shooting, but I’ll be fine.
• America lost the Vietnam War. Deal with it.
Quotables
“Why are you looking at me soldier? Why are you looking at me? Do you want to fuck me in the ass or something?”
“I am not the one you want private. Do you realize I’m so hard that I can stir my coffee with my dick?”
“Sorry Drill Sergeant? Are you calling me a sorry drill sergeant?”
“I’m going to skullfuck the shit of you with my knee, Private.”
“Yes? Yes what? Yes drill sergeant? Or yes motherfucker?”
“That’s as wrong as two boys kissing in church.”
“Privates, do you know the shortest point between two points? A straight line? Wrong! Haven’t you privates ever heard of Einstein? Here, take a piece of paper and draw two dots. Ok, now draw a line between the two. You see the distance? Now fold that paper over so that the two points touch. You see that distance now? It’s zero, privates! Curvilinear space! That’s a college education, privates!”
“I gotta piss so bad it’s like I have a piss boner.”
“Here’s a story privates. Private Loser goes on Myspace and finds himself some ugly ass chick. They go to dinner or something gay like that and she invites him to her apartment. It’s dark, and they’re fumbling around, and she asks him if he wants a handjob. He hands her his dick but then she says, “Sorry, but I don’t smoke.”
“You want an outrageous story? Fine, but you’ll have to listen to both parts. See, alright where I live there’s a town called Delhi, and it has like twenty people. I was working for some of those people, and they told me that there once was a mayoral election, and it was tied 10-10 or something like that. So what they did was flip a coin, and whoever won got the job. It was on the news and everything. Turns out though, the guy who won apparently sent a picture of himself to Playgirl Magazine. People were outraged and he was run out of town. Now I’m riding along with this girl a couple weeks later, and I tell her this story. At the end, she says, “Wait, that’s my dad.” So she pulls out that very issue of Playgirl Magazine out of her glove compartment, and sure enough, there’s the very naked picture of her father. I asked her, “Why the fuck do you have a naked picture of your father in the dashboard compartment of your car?” Turns out, her father got run out of Delhi so fast the only thing in the world she has to remember her father is that naked picture in Playgirl Magazine. And let me tell you, that girl was fucked.”
Sincerely,
J. Prince Lawrence

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