Basic Training Story 4733

We had finally made it “down range”. Most of us were gung-ho to be done with OSUT and get into the fighting. Not everyone, though, and the drill sergeants smelled blood. Their first game was to round up all the privates and have us write down names. The names were all people we think should be kicked out of the Army.Enter PVT Eyebrows. Imagine Groucho Marx with a buzz cut and birth control glasses. Now imagine that, instead of being funny, he was a whiny ass bitch. This early exercise must have given him ideas, ideas that it could be genuine.

The first week, of course, is when you get all the bullshit classes out of the way. The drill sergeants would also crank up the heat in the classrooms to try to make privates pass out, and then fuck with them once caught. That was all just too much for PVT Eyebrows.Once again, a ticket out was offered, only this time you had to announce (loud and proud) that you wanted to quit, and Uncle Sam would let you go. Once he outed himself more casually, he had to repeat it at the top of his lungs: “I QUIT DRILL SERGEANT!” As loud as he could sound off, you might have mistook him for a man if not for the context. So, within the first week, he was made to bounce around from platoon to platoon.PVT Eyebrows managed to make it all the way to week five, bless his heart. He couldn’t quit exactly, but he had another out. While we were being smoked one day, with our dummy rifles, he decides to rifle butt another private. Maybe he was stupid enough to think the Army would separate him then and there? Some weeks later, I saw him enter our chow hall (I presume with some sort of detail) wearing the vest of shame. I wonder how much punishment he received. Perhaps it was...a year’s supply! It’s actually somewhat impressive just how easily some people collapse under pressure.