White floors, white walls, a white ceiling, and mostly white linens. This place lacked character of any sorts minus the sheets of paper pinned up to the wall with basic military knowledge printed. We were meant to learn these things very quickly and would be quizzed often. The Army kept a few expectations, we were all stripped of our identity, given an identical buzz cut, an identical uniform, and our first names were now considered "irrelevant". Exhaustion set in quick and we all bore the same dark bags under our eyes. We came in looking in our early 20's, and now we looked 40. We all stood around a neatly taped rectangle in the floor in the center of our barracks room. The bunks lined the walls, giving us about three feet of space between our heels and the bed frames. Our drill sergeant affectionately referred to this taped rectangle as the "kill zone". I could only guess that was because every time we found ourselves lined up here, we were given a hell of a workout that made us feel like he was intentionally killing us.
Right now, our drill sergeant paced back and forth in the kill zone, the sixty recruits including myself who lived in this room were standing in a perfect rectangle, tracing the shape around him. This was Drill Sergeant Wilson, and he was my favorite, but everyone else's least favorite. Nobody liked him because he was strict and loud, I liked him because he was reasonable, well, as reasonable as a Basic Combat Training drill sergeant gets.
"You," he pointed at one of my unfortunate battle-buddies, "what's your second General Order.". Drill sergeant spoke in what could only be described as barks.
The recruit, Private Second Class Martinez, stood there at the position of attention in silence. He didn't know. In any scenario, none of us could reasonably blame him for not knowing, we were given a lot of information. In this scenario, we were all about to be punished for his lack of knowledge on this question, so that made it harder not to hold a grudge.
"Front leaning rest position," The drill sergeant started after a good ten seconds of silence. "Move!"
Simultaneously with the last word, move, we all planted our hands firmly on the floor in front of us, sending our legs out behind us to put us in a plank position. We held it for a few seconds before the Drill Sergeant spoke up again.
"How fucking hard is it to learn a few general orders when you all are up here every minute of every fucking day?" He screamed. He was right, none of us had our cell phones, we turned them in day one. All we had to do up here was exercise and study. One week for three general orders, a soldiers creed, and an army song seemed reasonable enough. "Down." He yelled, and we all lowered ourselves into the first count of the push-up, arms at a 90 degree angle, parallel to the floor, or marching surface, and bodies off the ground, moving as one unit. "Up!" His next command brought us up to starting position. Push-ups were never hard for me, but holding the plank position for a good ten seconds before doing the slowest pushup known to man was a quick way to get tired.
This went on for God knows how long, but most of us were able to push out 30 of these, the rest sank low to the ground and couldn't hold themselves up anymore. That was the fastest way to annoy a drill sergeant, dropping to your knees when you're doing pushups.
"Position of attention," He started. "Move!"
We all sprang back to our feet. Even the ones who were too tired to push up anymore knew better by now than to stand up slowly from this position.
"Someone help your battle-buddy out." Drill Sergeant paced around some more. A little attention to detail would show you who he was looking for, if you looked nervous, if you were not firmly at the position of attention, if you moved even a little, you would be picked. It was a shame that the least confident in this group were the ones to be noticed. I guess they need more help than the rest of us, but still, it's frustrating. "You." Drill sergeant pointed at another hopeless recruit, I couldn't see because of his hat, but I was sure he was grinning. "Second General order, what is it?"
"Um...I will guard everything within the limits of...uh, my post...and only quit..." The recruit started in a shaky voice.
Wrong answer, I thought to myself. Not only was that the first general order, but it was severely butchered. Ask anyone, saying 'Um' is a quick way to a drill sergeants shit list.
"Wrong." He interrupted in his signature booming voice. "Front leaning rest position, move!"
We all got back into the push-up position, most of us were just getting frustrated. We knocked out a good twenty more, by this point, very few of us could actually manage to do them all. I was proud to be able to say that I was one of them, but I knew I wouldn't be able to keep up with the next set. I knew all the general orders, I knew the soldiers creed, and I knew the army song. Unfortunately, one person knowing everything won't save a group. Drill sergeant would never call on someone twice if they got the right answer.
"Position of attention, move!" We all sprang to our feet again. "You all are going to piss me off!" Drill sergeant practically screamed. "Instead of studying like you were told, you all want to play around up here playing grab-ass or whatever the fuck you do!" He paced angrily, looking every recruit in the eyes. "If you think you're going to pass Basic Training like that, you are dead wrong! I will recycle this whole fucking platoon if I have to!" I tried not rolling my eyes, I hated his empty threat already, it was used a hundred times a day. "Clean my barracks and study your shit! The CQ roster is up front, uniform will be full summer PT's. Do not make a fucking sound when I leave or I'll bring you all outside to sleep!"
"Yes drill sergeant!" Came a simultaneous, rehearsed response from every recruit. Well, not every one, there were a few shit-bags who never wanted to respond.
With that, the drill sergeant threw a clipboard onto the desk on his way out the door. We were on the second floor of a three floor building, there were, all together, four sleeping bays. Bay one, that was us, bay three next to us through a heavy door, bay two just above us, and bay four, the female bay, next to bay two on the third floor. Our platoon, the Reapers, consisted of all sixty in this room and twenty females from bay four. All together, three platoons made up Bravo Company in the 1-50th Infantry Battalion, part of the 4th Chemical Brigade, Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. We were an honor company, a fact that all four of this platoons drill sergeants made sure to bring up at least a dozen times a day. Not all of us were the 'proid' soldiers that American citizens thanked on the daily. I already knew this was going to be a shitty time because of the amount of ignorant, arrogant, shit-heads in this platoon. I wasn't on the CQ roster tonight, good, I wanted uninterrupted sleep.
I went to my bunk, one I shared with Private First Class Morgan, I didn't know his first name yet, and I didn't know if I wanted to know it. I opened the lock on my bunk and lifted the bed frame portion to reveal a large compartment for storage of our PT uniforms, hygiene supplies, and other miscellaneous shit we would need here. I grabbed a towel and a wash cloth with my bar of soap and shampoo. Showers here lasted maybe five minutes total from getting undressed to getting dressed. You learned to wet yourself, wash quick, rinse off and get out. If anyone walked out of the latrine after lights out, there would be hell to pay, and we had less than an hour with sixty recruits wanting to shower. There were six shower heads, you do the math. I slept without socializing tonight, I wasn't in the mood for the nightly routine of chatting and pretending to be human. I slept soundly until wake up call at 0415.
Wake up went as it usually did around here. 15 seconds to jump out of bed, put your socks and shoes on, and then line up. Nobody ever made this hit time except the few who weren't too lazy to get up five minutes early and squeeze that shit on, climb into bed, and jump out immediately when the drill sergeant came crashing in. We always ended up doing about fifteen pushups waiting on our team to get ready. Mass punishment for the win, right? Breakfast was a shitty MRE that we weren't even allowed to heat up, so cold chili and beans outside on the drill pad in fifty degree temperature in shorts and a T-shirt. Today was the day we were supposed to learn the prep-drill for PT, but due to an issue processing a few of our recruits, we had to go back to inprocessing as a team and wait for them to be done. I knew that meant we would be out there all day. I stood at Parade Rest for six hours in a line that never moved, without the ability to move myself, until they sent us away to come back the next day. US Army orientation was frustrating. I closed my eyes as I sat outside in the sun, waiting for our recruits to be done with their processing. I pictured my wife and daughter, and the last time I saw them. They took me to a nice restaurant to enjoy a good breakfast with them the day I was set to leave for this place. I remembered the tears in my wife's eyes, she tried so hard to keep it together for me. I'd never been so close to breaking down in public as when my wife leaned over the table, grabbing my hand and telling me she would miss me, but she would wait for me. I loved her so much. Even thinking about her, my eyes started to water. I had to shake those thoughts quickly. Nothing brought drill sergeants circling like vultures faster than tears.
"Murphy," A familiar voice. "I need to use the latrine, battle-buddy me?" one of my unlikely friends asked me.
Private Lawrence, a short man of maybe five feet, six inches was standing over me in his OCP, or operational camouflage pattern, uniform. He was one of our men that actually took this place seriously, but he was definitely not happy to be here.
"Sure." I said, standing up.
I followed him over to our female drill sergeant who watched over us outside. We immediately took up the position of parade rest, the only authorized way to speak to a drill sergeant unless you want to spend the next hour on your face.
"Drill Sergeant." Lawrence said on a loud voice.
"What do you want, Private?" She asked.
"I need to use the latrine." Lawrence said, maintaining position and submissive yet clear voice.
"Make it fast, you have five minutes." She barked.
That was our hint to run to the latrine. It was inside the large building, he lead the way to the latrine. Since I didn't have to go, I waited outside for him, waiting at Parade rest. The position restricted movement, head and eyes straight forward, feet shoulder width apart, hands folded neatly behind your back. I couldn't look around the room which would actually be pretty if it weren't for the cloud of anger and resentment in the air. I waited for several minutes, then several minutes turned into almost a half hour. Our female drill sergeant from outside was starting toward me now, furious. Uh oh, I thought.
"What the fuck is taking so long, Private?" She screamed in my face.
"Drill sergeant, I'm waiting on my battle-buddy." I responded.
"Tell him to hurry up!" She yelled.
"Yes drill sergeant." I obliged.
I started inside the latrine, looking inside to see if I could spot Lawrence before I had to knock on a stall door. I moved my way over to the only occupied stall.
"Lawrence, we have to go, Drill Sergeant isn't happy." I said through the door.
I waited for a response, which was odd, Lawrence wasn't the type to ignore me. I knocked on the stall door, and it swung open. Evidently he didn't lock it. I wasn't ready to see what I saw. Lawrence was in there, but he was in there covered in blood. His wrists had been cut. I turned around, seeing broken pieces of the mirror above a sink laying on the floor. There was a bloody mark on the mirror where he'd obviously punched it. A shard of glass lay at his feet, and blood drained into the toilet. He'd put his hands in the toilet to catch the blood so it wouldn't end up on the floor. I couldn't believe my eyes. Lawrence killed himself.