Recruiter School Day 0

     In the middle of the night my roommate arrives. I woke up to greet him and share a short conversation before he fetches the rest of his things. I fall asleep some time after this. His name was Joe, but I would find out later that it was actually Joel but I misunderstood him. He didn't correct me when I said Joe though. Seems like a nice enough guy.

     My alarm wakes up me up at 0530, which I promptly snooze about 3 times. I have the intention to ride my bike for exercise this morning but I see that it is still very dark outside so I wait until the dawn breaks to start moving. I get dressed and walk down to my car (A white Ford Escape, nothing special.) to pull my bike from the inside. It's a 2017 Trek Marlin 7, which is a pretty beginner front shock mountain bike with 29er tires. It's a large frame when I am most certainly a medium at best. However, beggars cannot be choosers. I tactically acquired this bike by keeping my eye on it and a housing complex. After almost 9 months of watching the bike begin to rust under a stairway from lack of use. I decided it was time to liberate it from it's lack of use. I left a note where the bike was to text my number should anyone want it back. Which I most certainly will return should I receive a text. 

     The ride is pleasant enough, no rain and nobody ran me over. I did however make a solder mad because I rode past them down a hill. That's his problem though for not having such a cool bike! I visited the cadet land where my wife has done many summer training's for ROTC. It was an empty complex of old dark red brick buildings; normally by this time of year it's teeming with college cadets. I ride all around my barracks to build a mental map and help orient myself to the immediate area. I determine that I need a softer saddle for this bike.

     Breakfast consists of a mass gainer shake and minimal DFAC food. I later regret this as the mass gainer shake gave me enough gas to power a hot air balloon for a few hours. I went to the main exchange to get a new laptop after my old one, and I mean like over 7yrs old, poops out one final time on my desk. I get a nice mid range HP laptop. 8Ggb ram, 256gb SSD, touchscreen, i7 processor and hp's own version of a graphics card. I don't plan on doing anything beyond school work and watching YouTube so I should be okay.  It set me back several hundred bones but a personal laptop was stressed to be successful for the course. I just do as I'm told ya know.

     I set up my laptop and have the second microwave meal as a snack. After piddling around on the new laptop I go to lunch. Lunch was, coincidentally, korean beef and noodles. This in combination with the other korean beef noodles and the mass gainer was not good for my gut. 

    I lay around in my room until the 1400 formation outside the barracks. We are all gaggled outside and take role from one of the instructors. subsequently, we are marched across the street to the classrooms on the first floor of a 3 story brick building. The building does look like a normal college building but it's as if the rest of the campus disappeared. Due to the pandemic (COVID-19) we all have to wear our masks inside the building. All Day. Thankfully we are in and out of there after about two hours. The entire time I was either fighting to breathe in/out of my mask, adjusting the mask to not fog up my glasses or holding back the pressurized methane building up in my colon that was putting up a pretty good fight to get out. I eventually gave up and released some pressure but if anyone else was aware they didn't say anything. Thanks battle buddies. 

     I went back to my room to change quickly and head to the PX for some small items. I end up walking around the PX way longer than I should have. To my credit, they were remodeling and I had to deduce that because of this, the kitchen aisle was now located between the baby girl clothes and the women's underwear section across from the men's dress wear. 

     I talk with my wife and kids while I eat some chow to go from the DFAC. I can't remember the food because it wasn't satisfying in the least as my gut was still aching from the days gastrointestinal events. I go to bed with an aching belly, unhappy about the 0430 wake up in the morning and a feeling that I should have taken a shower. But the day 0 was done and only 40 to go. Not the worst thing in the world, but I wish I could have done it online.

Recruiter School Day -1

     Here at Ft. Knox, attending the Army Recruiter School at the prestigious Army Recruiting College. The call it a college to make is sound better and bigger than it is. Don't get me wrong, it's a nice place but if it was a real college it may be the smallest college in the U.S. beyond 1980. 

     Anyways, I arrived here on Saturday evening around 1900 at the staff duty desk for the school house. I was given a room key and told I was too late for chow. Not to worry though, I got a nice microwave meal from the shoppette; chicken basil or Korean beef? Choices must be made and I chose both. 

     The room is surprisingly spacious and neat and tidy inside. You open the door and are greeted with a generously sized common area/kitchen area that's about 14' x 14'. The kitchen table is not torn up and the floors were clearly swept. No terrible smells detected or horrible sounds coming from anywhere, a good sign. There are even bowls, plates, spoons, forks and various other basic kitchen things to compliment the electric 4-burner range, full sink and full size fridge. (I didn't say anything about a microwave because you have to have one in a barracks room. How else can a barracks soldier survive if they can't reheat that pizza from yesterday's yesterday?) The bathroom is immediately on the right when you walk in and is full size tub, shower and toilet with a single sink and mirror. Nothing to write home about in there; I will however spend alot of time in there conducting official business.

     Opposite the entrance are two doors labeled A and B. I am on the right "B" door. Inside this room I am once again happy to see about a 14' x '14 squareish room and minimal furniture. I don't much like having alot of furniture when it's just me living in there. I tend to live rather spartan when I am alone, and I was often told when I was a single soldier that my room was too bare and that it had a neat/clean serial killer vibe. Can't a guy be a clean minimalist anymore? I digress... the room is nice; it has a lovely desk with overhead lamp and bookshelf. The bed is the Army standard twin blue mattress that could spring an elephant a few feet in the air accompanied with a wooden frame who's integrity is generally in question. There are too many drawers for clothes for my liking. I fill up only three drawers worth of clothes and my bedside table drawers with my electronics and other knick knacks. For a 45 day course I have brought the following clothes: 1 set of OCP's, two pairs of boots, two pairs of running shoes, 1 pair of leather dress shoes, my full dress uniform, 10 green army shirts, 5 civilian shirts, 8 running shorts, two pairs of cargo shorts, a pair of cargo pants, 15ish pairs of socks and underwear, two jackets, PJ pants and two full sets of Army PT's. Nice. 

     I get settled after I make a few trips to haul my stuff upstairs and tuck into my basil chicken. After that upsets my stomach I put the finishing touches on my room while I chat with my wife on the phone. My service sucks and the Wi-fi isn't working. They said it was free wifi so I guess it working right would warrant paying for it. Thankfully there isn't a wake up the next morning so I stay up and chat with my wife till we say our good nights. I am already beginning to miss her and my boys. It's almost torture to video chat them because I am so hands on with the kids playing I can feel my boys hair as I play around with them, rough housing on the large pillow/mattress thing in our living room. I must do what I must do though; for the sake of taking care of my family and keeping this career going. I attempt to remain stoic but I am not that disciplined. Perhaps it's not the discipline I lack but rather the need to still feel some emotion. I have been told I am too emotionless, robotic even but I still feel. Especially for my boys.

     I can't sleep well, but at least I can sleep in. I listen to the bible app read through an old testament book throughout the night as I toss, turn, and generally get little sleep...

I write this from Tuesday, the 30th of June. 

AIT Daily Grind.

     Ahh the long and dreadful days spent in AIT... I don't miss them at all other than perhaps all the time I had for reading my sci-fi novels at the end of each day and jaw-jacking with my buddies. For the most part, each day was the same for the respective two phases we went through: Phase 1 - EMT & Phase 2 - Combat Medicine. The days generally went something like this for phase 1: 0500 wake up followed by a 0530 Physical Training formation which lasted until about 0700. We would always go eat chow directly after PT and then shower. The worst part so up to this point was waiting in line for that breakfast. One of the worst parts about being in training in the military is the lack of freedom in eating whatever and whenever the hell you want. After chow, we marched to our barracks, showered and changed into regular duty uniforms and headed down stairs for our morning formation to march to the class rooms. We marched alot and everything was at least a ten minute march. We all did pretty well staying awake for the death by powerpoint that is EMT phase. There are little hands on skills to learn but a ton of information to absorb and be tested on. This being an introductory course into the medical field it was all fresh knowledge to most of us and therefor challenging. Except for the doctor we had from Cuba who easily passed every exam with no study except for his own personal study to keep his own credentials. He only joined for the citizenship, good for him. After morning class we marched to the chow hall and waited what seemed an eternity to eat. We always waited because there are training companies Alpha through Foxtrot that are also competing for chow time. Each company has 4 platoons and each of those platoons has around 50-75 people. We waited for chow a lot. 

    It was worth it though because chow hall food at Fort Sam was bangin'. That and my group of buddies formed early on into an extremely tight clique. We were known by our classmates; they knew where we sat so we never wandered to look for different seating. Our gimmick for meal times was that it was a constant flurry of insults at one another for anything and everything. Any tiny failure was dug up and amplified to the applause of the rest of the group in sneering laughter and smirks! Any victory was cast to the pigs who trampled it down into the mud so as no pride could be had and no joy was shared when talking about individual successes. It was ruthless and humorous beyond belief. I think I laughed more during these times than perhaps in my entire life! Eventually we would grow tired of insulting each other and occasionally hold a dinner for schmucks kind event. Either a member invited another student to sit down with us or someone unwittingly sat too close and they became the target for our pack of wolves. Sometimes the guests would leave, wounded and usually bent out of shape. Other times we found them to be enjoyable and good sports and would dish out insults that were fresh and cut like a weapon of which we had not seen before. They were good times and bad times. Was it right? Was it healthy? Probably not, but we laughed our asses off almost every day and that's just how we coped.

    After lunch was a slug fest for our brain and mental discipline. After loading up on food at lunch time, having been starved of any snacks, we would often succumb to the after meal comas and slip off into milliseconds of sleep. I actually fell asleep, sitting up at the desk once and snored myself awake. More than a few times an instructor would tell us wake up during the longer and more grueling afternoon learning sessions. Eventually after the 2nd week, our instructors started doing nap time right after lunch. After sitting down and getting accountability he literally turned off the lights and we would lay down on the floor. It was amazing. The EMT phase learning was tough mentally but we got through it. My buddies all did at least, a few people in the class did not make it and were subsequently reclassed to another MOS or were given the chance to recycle to the next class. 

    The combat medicine portion was much, much more physical. Not only did we have more practical exercises to do in the classroom but after the 3rd week or so almost everyday was spent outside doing something. Litter carries, patient drags, battle buddy carries, TQ drills and endless amounts of patient assessments. I meant we did the same stuff day in and day out for about a month and a half to the point where it was muscle memory. Your mouth would be saying the assessment as you went along but you wouldn't be aware of the words but rather the shapes of the words when your mouth moved just like the motion of your hands going over the patient, blindly following the commands of your mouth. That's exactly what the Army wants though: medics who don't think about treatment but simply execute when the situation arises. That's how it is with any Army training I've done that's related to combat scenarios: you train the same, simple, redundant task until it's carved into the lining of your skull so your brain can reference it at any moment. Airborne School, Air Assault School, Expert Field Medic Competition, Tactical Combat Casualty Care course... the amount of things I've learned are vast, deep and almost completely useless outside of pretty specific situations in the military. 

    Anyways, throughout AIT we all dealt with the grueling death by powerpoint, redundant physical training and constant badgering from the instructors and our platoon sergeants. After hours, which meant after we ate "Dinner" at 1700-1730, we were released until our 2000 bedtime formation. Around 3 hours of freedom a day!! Sometimes I studied, but usually not. Most days I would just mill about with my buddies or sit in my room and read novels. Half of the time I went to the gym or would go on additional runs. Bedtime formation was always a big ordeal because this was the formation most people were late too. Either they were asleep in their rooms, on post somewhere or actually skipping the formation the result was the same: we all stood there until every single solider was accounted for and present. Sometimes if it was just one person we would get dismissed, knowing that when that person showed up they would have hell to pay to the Sergeant on duty. Most nights I talked with my then girlfriend and read my novels to sleep. This girl is no longer my girlfriend but a bullet I dodged only by what I'll assume is divine intervention or dumb luck. She's in jail currently and my wife of almost 6 years now has a degree, serves in national guard and is a phenomenal mother to my two boys and the one boy in her womb. I am truly thankful that relationship didn't work out...

    Anyways, again, most nights sleep found me quickly as I read alot by my lamp light. My roommate didn't mind me reading and had an eye mask. He didn't snore and neither did I, so sleep came easy for us. We each awoke at the same time and motivated each other to get up when we didn't feel like it. We weren't buddies but we were roommates in a tough situation for 4 months so we got to know each other pretty well. I'm thankful I roomed with him and not the guy next in line alphabetically, because that guy was a prick and he's lucky I didn't beat his ass in basic training when he was my roommate.... Good times. 

    Rinse and repeat this daily cycle for four months and you've got AIT in a nutshell for combat medics. I wouldn't do it again ever unless my life or my families life depended on it. I just wish my lunch times were that amusing still!

Basic Training to AIT Transition

 I woke up the day after graduation of basic training still in my basic training bunk at the same time as usual: 0530. We spent the morning do one last room clean, turning in our linen for our beds and putting fresh new linen on the bed for the next class. We ate breakfast and then came the wait. We all waited, sitting on our duffel bags outside for hours so it seemed. The drill sergeants relaxed and talked to us about the "real" army. I had a drill sergeant tell us about life as a medic and what to expect into AIT. After waiting a long time and watching other groups get to walk away to their bus headed to Fort somewhere in whatever state. Even worse were the guys who woke up that day and walked down the road to the AIT barracks already on Fort Leonard Wood for either 31B training or 88M. I didn't envy either of them though because those jobs kind of suck.

      Eventually my bus came and we all eagerly piled into it, ready to be free! Even if it was just for a bus ride to Fort Sam Houston. One of the drill sergeants that taught my platoon saw us off. One of our buddies said "Good bye drill sergeant!" to which he replied with a stoic face "I hate you all.". As we drove away some of us waved, to him and another drill sergeant. My drill sergeant gave us double middle fingers as we drove away. Having been in the Army for awhile, I understand why that was both super funny and well deserved on our part. 

     The bus ride was a solid 18 hour ordeal. We only stopped once about 6 hours into the bus ride at a gas station. We each eagerly made purchases of snacks, sodas, phone chargers, tobacco products and energy drinks. For the time on the bus was our only freedom and we knew it. The bus ride honestly sucked and I wish it would have gone by faster. I didn't really get too much enjoyment from our freedom at the cost of just sitting down and holding my poop in until we got to Fort Sam. Which we got to at approximately 0300. 

     I was expecting to get there at such an hour and get a bunk and a few hours sleep. That did not happen. We filed off the bus and were immediately got called into a formation and waited. (You have to wait for everything in the Army. Sometimes you get put on a waiting list, just to wait.) We were given in-processing forms that were not something you want to fill out in the early morning hours after not sleeping on the bus ride. Eventually we finished our inprocessing and were told to go to sleep in any empty bunk we could find. As it turns out were we stuck at the dreaded golf company. Alpha through Foxtrot company were the real training companies for medics. Golf company was only for those who were in-processing or holdovers because they were going to have to retake the course. After finding a bed and laying in it for about 15 minutes I was awoken for morning formation. I didn't sleep a wink and just was gonna go about the rest of the day that way. Cool. We got yelled at and eventually ate breakfast. The best thing about eating breakfast was that were told to go in, eat and be back outside the chow hall in 45 minutes. This was great because 45 minutes to eat was about 40 more minutes than I had ever had to eat at a basic training chow hall! I even got to sit and talk with my buddies for a little over some excellent chow hall breakfast. 

     The rest of the day consisted of trying to look busy and waiting around. It was rumored that some people waited weeks, if not months to pick up for the next class. Golf company is sort of a limbo stage where anything can happen. Where it is both laid back and uptight. You aren't training, but you have to being doing something.... but what? Anyways I wasn't about to let that happen to me or my battle buddy. The air was tense at around 1600. Suddenly there was a call from the NCO running the place to form a line outside his door. I grabbed my battle buddy and headed for the door. There was already a substantial line, which I cut to about the 4th person in line. A smaller kid behind me said that I couldn't do that. I flexed my arms that were pretty big from all the lifting I've done over the years and told him to shut up or I'd punch him into the wall. He didn't say anything else. The line turned out to be who was going to be in the next class! I was excited to have escaped spending only a mere 18 hours in golf company. 

     We were told to grab all of our stuff and march about a mile to a particular soccer field. We met our platoon sergeants who would be with us for the 4 months we were there. These platoon sergeants were not nice and were acting just like drill sergeants. We even got yelled at and had to dump out our bags again just like at basic, what fun! Eventually after a few other fun games we got told to go stand outside a certain room number and stay put. I was on the 4th floor, which really sucked, and I wasn't rooming with my battle buddy. But that's okay, we still were inseparable friend throughout our training there. My roommate was a short and stocky mexican kid who gave me a weird vibe. But he was cool and we got along well. After getting our room locks set up with our cac cards to open them we got to dump our stuff, eat dinner and form up for evening formation. We were told that the very next day we were going to start training. Which I thought was crazy, after only being on Fort Sam for like a day we were going to start training. No joke the next day I got certified to conduct CPR. Welcome to Army training.

Basic Training part 3

      After a few days of messing around in the woods and conducting drills we got down to the real show. Live Fire range. I actually can't remember what they called it, so for now that's what I'm going to call it. Anyways, live fire range was this big deal because it could potentially kill you. What you had to do was march down to the very end of this rectangular shooting range and low crawl from the back end up to the front. In between the start and the end were things like C-wire, hulls of cars, pits of mud, metal corrugated pipes half filled with water, etc. The best part was that the whole time your doing the low crawling the drill sergeants are at the top of the range, several meters above the rest of the range, firing machine guns above the range. Now we were told that there really wasn't any danger as the drills would be firing well above standing height, but before the range started a crusty civilian range safety told us a story of an unfortunate young troop who stood up to run only to get shot in the thigh and die. Whether he was telling the truth or not I'll never know because I just kept my head to the ground and made it to the end of it, alive, just like everyone else in my class did.
      There was some fanfare afterwards and speeches made by the commanding officer of whatever brigade/battalion. I honestly didn't know the difference between a platoon, company, or battalion at this point much less anything bigger than a brigade. I wasn't paying attention anyways, I just wanted to sleep and eat.
     Those two things pretty much summed up basic training; at any point I was either really hungry or tired. Or both.
     The out processing/graduation week went by pretty quickly and uneventfully. We all spent several days scrubbing every square inch of Army gear we were issued in order not to get held back the the issuing facility, who were notorious for kicking back items even slightly unclean or stained. Despite the hellish experiences this gear goes through, these cats expect it to look brand new. One of the more memorable moments for me at this stage was when I left my laundry bag out to dry in the sun. It was the last piece of gear I had to clean and dry for the inspection. As I was bringing it into the building a bird flew right over my head and took a nice crap right on the bag. No joke, this bird had wasted over an hour of my time and would waste an hour more by cleaning and drying this bag again but by this point all you can do, and all I did, was humorously accept it and just go through the motions. It does make for a laugh now and then after all, and what better laugh can a man have than at oneself?
      Family day came and went in a blur, my folks arrived with a duffel bag's worth of contraband and a new smart phone. I had never had a smartphone before but they'd figured my life would be easier with one so they got me a galaxy S4; which I would lose in less than a year, but that is also a funny story to laugh at myself about. We ate Jimmy John's, my favorite sandwich place, and I drank so much coke I was sick.
     The next day we graduated. I was awarded the iron warrior award for best APFT score of the class and for that I was also promoted to PV2/E-2. Which was pretty cool because alot of my buddies were still rocking a fuzzy chest and I got to have my mosquito wings. After graduation we got to spend a little more time with family, but not for very long. My parents sneakily drove by my barracks during our evening req time outside and I sneakily brought it into the barracks. The Drill sergeant at the door asked if I had any contraband inside. It did. I was opening my mouth to admit to it but he held his hand up and siad "As long as there aren't any weapons or drugs in there I don't care.". I said roger that, and walked through the door, went to my room and stuffed it into my wall locker. I went to sleep about an hour after that; it would be my last night there. Good Riddance.

Basic Training Part 2

The rest of basic training is kind of a blur in my memory. Day after day of firing our weapons, cleaning our weapons, cleaning the halls, rooms and anything that could potentially shine. This also included the Semi-Gloss coat of white latex paint that covered 99% of the walls within our barracks. (Some patches had been chipped away by hand over years to expose bare concrete and more than likely some lead paint.) There were a few memorable days that stood out in my mind between the many days that blended together.
      The 4th of July was a special day for us in training. We were told that we would not work at all that day. We were pleased to not be awoken at 0430 but rather at 0600 to hold formation at 0630. This was nothing short of a dream come true for the many of us who stayed up reading our religious texts/letters well past the hours of 2100. After breakfast we were marched to a building where we gathered around a projector screen and sat on the tiled floor to watch one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Gettysburg (1993). Fun fact, I particularly loathe the time in history that is the American Civil War. Yes it was the bloodiest war in American history besides WWII, but I have little to no interest in reading or studying this topic. or even to watch the movie about it. I sat and tolerated the 4.5 hour long movie on the increasingly uncomfortable floor and wished I could be doing almost anything else. Thankfully this soon came to an end and dinner chow was served. No special food was given out, no cake or soda or anything like that. We marched back to the barracks and were told to make it look like we were cleaning for several hours, which meant just walk around looking busy and try not to run into a drill sergeant. At lights out there is only one drill sergeant left on duty past 2100, and he or she has to stay all night. I am thankful that my platoons drill sergeant was left behind because he had a darker sense of humor and let us listen to rap battles of history, which was a popular YouTube series at the time. Not having heard music or anything like that in the past few weeks it was a nice thing to hear blaring over the intercom at 2100 while we all lay laughing in our bunks. It was a pretty good day.
After that the days blew by having gotten the swing of things after the first month. Every day blended together between classroom training, going to the range to shoot M4's, doing the same drills for PT in the morning... It all was fairly homogenous except for the two field exercises (FTX) and the final gauntlet. I remember the first FTX vividly as a 4 day stint in the woods of Fort Leonard Wood wondering how it could get so cold and rainy in July. 40-50 degrees at night and not much warmer during the day. The weather was fickle and unpredictable in our world of Fort Leonard Wood. (I think this was mainly due to the fact that we couldn't check the weather at all during basic because we had no means too. Another mind game.)
The second FTX was spent in hard stand buildings and the weather was actually really great, sunny skies and cool breeze. I remember sneaking an extra nutri-grain bar in my sleeve to give to my basic buddy, Minich, for his birthday. The nutri-grain bars were as close to dessert as it got in basic so it was like I gave him a birthday cake... That he ate in a porta-potty out of fear a drill sergeant would see.