Journey of Dedication: Basic Training Story 4500

I went to basic back in the 80's. Along with the usual fun and sun baked goodness of sand and pine needles, one of our fellow platoons was an ate up bag of dipsh*ts. The first time I remember even noticing them was just a few days into the first phase. They were in formation and their D.S. was giving them a serious chewing out.He had them all at the position of attention and said "You are all the biggest bunch of dumb ass pecker-heads that I have ever seen. Everyone take their right hand and using your thumb and fore finger grasp the skin over your Adams Apple and jerk it up and down."We, and by we, I mean my platoon and our D.S. watched as the whole platoon grabbed the skin at the front of their throats and began to jerk it up and down. Once the D.S. had his whole platoon jerking their throats up and down he said ..."now spit", which everyone did. Then he said, "Now say I'm a dick", to which there was a resounding chorus of "I'm A Dick."At this point our D.S. and our whole platoon were howling with laughter.

A week after that we noticed that their guidon bearer was marching with a furled guidon signifying that they were in trouble. And it just got better from there. A few days later the flag was no longer furled it was gone and they were marching with just a guidon staff/pole. One week later we had all progressed to a new phase and had new flags and that platoon showed up at the company formation with only half of a guidon staff/pole. For those who don't know, they come in two pieces.Anyway, within a day or so after that we saw them marching with a mop for a guidon. And at this point I'm assuming that their D.S. had to get a bit more creative because on the first day of the final phase, they showed up with a tree branch, stems, leaves and all. A few short days later the branch had no leaves, then shortly thereafter we saw them marching with the branch and all of the stems broken over, it was really sad looking. Predictably, and shortly before graduation, they were marching with just a stripped branch.We were all placing bets on whether or not they would get their guidon back for graduation. They did but I suspect that the chain of command forced their Drills to do so because of the ceremony which the public was invited to. On a side note though, for the formation the day before which was in front of all of the families, their D.S. had hooked them up with a fresh tree branch, full of green leaves and all...it was funny as hell.