Basic Training Story 4691

There were quite a few things that happened while I was at Fort Benning back in ’93 from the Pvt. that spilled his cup of milk while drinking and walking back to his table and having to clean it up and then go to each table with a super full glass of milk stating, “You should not drink and drive it will cause accidents.”On to my story.It all started about week 12 at Benning when we were doing out AIT out in the field doing live fire exercises. One evening after we had completed a run or two of the live fires there were a couple of unfortunate soldiers getting Article 15s so we all had to run to a formation being called while cleaning our rifles at dusk. I pack up my stuff to finish, throwing all my small parts (bolt, cam pin, fire pin, fire pin retaining pin, etc.) into my shaving kit.The article 15s were read and we came back to finish cleaning our weapons and I could not find my cam pin. After a ton of searching, I could not find it so I found out who was on Kitchen Duty the next day so I could swap a part or a weapon. I found the person from my platoon and convinced them to let me borrow their weapon.The next day arrives and we are all set to do another run and the person that was supposed to go back did not go back as it was decided that one of the profiles could do the job of Kitchen Patrol and I had to give the weapon back to the other guy in my platoon and fess up. Needless to say, it did not go well and I got a light smoking and I thought I was in the clear.The next day one of my Drill Sergeants, DS. M was yelling from the quad down below for me to come down, the words were, Pvt. L., you should die a 1000 deaths for what you have done and it is time for you to start paying for them. I came down quickly and told DS. M. that I had Kitchen Patrol and I had to report immediately. It was the truth, so he told me to get out of his face and not to F* up like I did in the field.I made it through KP and kept my head down for the next few weeks through the IFV school and to the day before graduation. We were all cleaning up and packing to graduate for the next day when I was called to the front of the Bay. DS. M. and our other high speed Ranger DS. B were both up there. They had both come from X Ranger Bat. Together and were buddies.DS. M. told me to tell DS. B. what I had done with the weapon and how I had lost the cam pin. So I stood at a modified parade rest and began to tell DS. B., what had happened while talking and pointing with my hand and tilting my head to the left and the right just as DS. M did. DS. B, started to laugh a little, trying to hold it back and DS. M, told me to stand at the proper parade rest and lean forward and put my neck into his hand. I leaned forward and did so.DS. M’s hand started to tighten around my throat and I started to choke and I stopped talking. He yelled in my ear to keep talking and I did so until I started to black out and collapsed to the floor. I then caught my breath and assumed the push up position and he kicked me in the a$$ and said let that be a lesson to never lose a part to my weapon again.I went home on leave for two weeks before going to my duty station and was going through my shaving kit and found that I had a hole in the bag on the inside to a pocket on the outside. I unzipped that pocket and found my cam pin.I still have that cam pin to this day, and of course never lost any part to my rifle or equipment since……Read more Basic Training Stories here.