The fun continues on when we board our bus to the base, and get issued some items and our feet scanned, and then the iconic "You have 30 seconds to get off my bus!" and fall out on the dots in formation and play "Pick 'em up, put 'em down" with our luggage for about an hour. We finally get upstairs to our new home for 8 and a half weeks and settled in around 3 in the morning, knowing our dreaded first wake up call was in just under 2 hours. Reveille went off on time, and we all literally jumped out of bed shaking in fear, only to find out that we were supposed to go back to sleep so we had a little more time to sleep and actually get our proper 'wake up' call. By the time they came up to 'wake us up' we were already up and dressed, beds made as best as we could, and they came up starting to yell in our faces, paused for a couple seconds as they're trying to figure out why are we already up and why have we attempted to make our beds, but still press on and get in our faces and screaming and spit flying everywhere. Our first dining experience was about the same, except we had literally 10 seconds to 'lick a biscuit and get the piss out' The rest of our first week was clothing issue and processing, shots, and even more 'fun' as we learned how to march in formation.
By Sunday, we were all worn and weary, and waiting for relief from our instructors, and it came in the form of church. Yup, church. Definitely something to look forward to get you going through the week just so you can get to church again because it was so amazing. The praise band and services were just what we have needed to keep our sanity through the rest of the week. After the first week and we've got used to our new lifestyle, it seemed to get a little easier, but just when we thought we were well adjusted, WHAM! More yelling, changes, and expectations are thrown in our faces yet again in week 3. The fourth and fifth week were said to be the 'fun' weeks since we're scheduled to go through the obstacle course, gas chamber, and shoot off M16's at the range. However, we got rained out for the obstacle course, the gas chamber was everything but fun (and whoever thought that was fun is more nuts than I am,) and the M16's, well . . . ok those were pretty cool, don't have any complaints about them.
The entire 6th week is known as BEAST week where we are 'deployed' to a tent city and live and defend our new temporary base from enemies and survive 'attacks' and recover from them. Lucky for me they were all exercises and not the real thing, or else I would have like died 7 times, and I was feeling lucky that week too, not! As soon as we get back 'home' (yes, we all couldn't wait to get back 'home' to our dorm with our TI's and section supervisor in our faces) we were welcomed back with a push party on the pad and treated as if we just got off the bus our first week. 7th week was all evaluations where they check how well we've kept our areas cleaned and in inspection order, they test our military bearing by screaming in our faces again and we have to stand perfectly still, they'll ask us to do drill movements, and more random inspections of our living areas. 8th week is preparing for graduation and then the actual ceremony and parade, followed by town pass where we are allowed to visit the surrounding area and then finally pack up and ship out to our tech schools, where I am currently located. So that just about sums up where I've been the past couple months. So, what did I miss while I was away?
