Basic Training Story 4734

When I first got started in basic, I had a feeling my platoon's SDS was going to despise me. Mind you, I'm female and only 5'5", so this man was friggin huge to me. He was a Tennessee native that came to FLW for DS duty from Ft. Bragg. Airborne, Air Assault, about 6'5", built like a tank, and had this glare that would make anyone damn near piss themselves.DS W (we'll call him that) had my platoon all write "Dear DS" letters, telling him why we joined, what our home lives were like prior, and where we wanted to end up. Well, me being one of the older soldiers in the group (25 at the time and a mom), I let it all out. Told him about how my mother had already broken me, for years, and that the only thing they could do now was try to fix it.Another platoon's female DS was exactly opposite. She was all damn mouth and barely came up to my nose. She was the "PT stud", and an 88M... and damn if she didn't sound like some husky voiced, "I'll kick you in the shins (cause that's as high as she could reach)" civilian trucker too. She had this inferiority complex, I think, because she got her rocks off on making people cry.

One day, in the barracks, she got in my face and started screaming everything she could think to throw at me, trying to break me down. I stood there, staring straight ahead and just drowned her voice out in my head. I kind of had to. She was standing on her damn toes just to come nose to nose with me and I could STILL see over her head!! So the only thought in my mind was "Don't laugh, don't laugh, do NOT FUCKING LAUGH!!"She walked away after about 10min of zero response from me and DS W was at the end of the hall outside CQ. He pulled me aside and seriously went straight up homeboy on me saying, "Dude, how'd you do that?""DS, I'm not sure what you're asking DS.""I seen that DS make every single female in this company bawl like little bitches and you just stood there.""DS, you read those letters right DS?""Yeah, dude, I read 'em all."

"DS, then you know that no matter what she says, I can't break any more. DS, my own mother has called me a piece of shit, said I never deserved to be a mother, and that I should have been aborted and the first one kept instead cause that one would have turned out right. What the hell could a perfect stranger that I gotta put up with for 10 wks do to me DS?"Then I paused.... and asked permission to speak freely.... he nodded....."Plus, no disrespect to that DS, but I seriously just got cussed out by a midget."Never, in my entire life to date, have I ever seen a black man with that dark of a skin tone turn so damn bright ass red... He had to take 3 steps back, turn around, and stifle his damn laughing. Turned around and told me he was gonna forget I'd said that and returned to CQ.Rest of basic, he looked out for me a bit. And when I got to AIT, I found out he was going back to Bragg after the next cycle, and I sent him an email thanking him for pushing me and for making sure my broken ass never quit.