I buried my face in a bag full of all my issued equipment and things I bought at the Post Exchange. Instantly I passed out, two hours of sleep that night wasn’t enough for me to run off because I wasn’t used to it. At first I tried to fight the sleep, but then I just kinda let it happen. Lord knows I needed it.

I woke up what seemed like an hour later but in fact was only about 10 minutes. I watched out the window as trees passed by and about a minute later we came to a complete stop. I looked over at my battle buddy who I’d come to know over the last four days, he was a cool guy, Childers was his name. I tapped him on the shoulder.
“Hey man, wake up. We’re here. They’re going to give us a task that we cannot complete, they are going to yell. Don’t let it get to you man, stay strong and we’ll make it through. You’ll be fine.” I whispered to him.

I felt like I had the mentality and I was ready to take on anything they would throw at us. Although I was a little nervous, I was ready. I saw a round brown, another name for the drill sergeant’s signature hat, rise in the front of the bus. I was prepared for screaming.

“GET THE F*** OFF OF MY BUS, MOVE, MOVE”, he bellowed.

Immediately adrenaline pumped through my exhausted body, I got off of that bus as fast as possible. All the drill sergeants were standing outside of buses screaming at us to make a formation in front of what would be our company area for the next 10 weeks. I ran faster than I ever have in my life with my laundry bag in front of me. I was exhilarated, I had finally made it to basic training after waiting 17 years to even be able to enlist.
I thought back to MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Station). I thought about how a female Second Class Petty Officer from the Navy had been briefing us and was unbearably slow with every word she said. I swear we were being tortured for their own amusement. We went through paperwork first which seemed like an eternity. We basically just had to write our names on our folders and on a bunch of other paper packets along with our social security number and maybe our date of birth every once in a while. After all the paperwork we had to move out to continue our in processing.

Next stop was getting our blood taken. I was a little nervous, I admit. I don’t like needles a whole lot. I told the lady who was taking my blood about my nervousness and she was very nice and helpful. She asked me what my job in the army was going to be and some questions about school and whatnot and before I knew it we were done. The lady told me to keep pressure on the hole and I’d be fine.

I walked off to the waiting area feeling a little bit dizzy. I sat next to another enlistee and we started to talk.
“Dude, it’s only 8:30. We’ve been awake for almost 4 hours, isn’t that insane?” he said.

I laughed, “Crap man, you’re right. Wow, I really don’t even feel all that tired. I just want to get this stuff done with.”

I sat there for a few seconds when I started to feel really dizzy.
“Hey, I feel extremely light headed” I said as I started to lose my sight.
“Do you want me to get someone?”
“Yes… please.” I murmured.
He got up and went to the help desk we were right in front of and told the person that I was starting to get really dizzy and she called someone to come help. I remembered a doctor walking up to me and telling me to just sit back, relax and take a few deep breaths. I slid really far down into my seat, took a few deep breaths and that was the last thing I remember before blacking out.

30 seconds later I regained my consciousness. First my vision came back and I looked around and I was surrounded by about ten people. My hearing came back a few seconds afterwards and all I remember hearing was “lift up his legs, put ‘em on this chair”. I looked around completely clueless as to what had just happened.
“Alright, I need you to listen to me and answer the questions I’m about to ask you. What is the time and date?” a Chief Petty Officer asked me.

“Approximately 8:30, today is the 27th of January, Chief.” I replied.

Someone off to my right made a comment on how he didn’t even know what day it was or the time.
“Do you know where you are?” the Chief had said with a half-smile.
“I am at the Military Entrance Processing Station, Chief.”

“Alright, I want you to just lay here for a minute until you’re confident that you can stand up. If you start feeling dizzy again, let one of us know, relax and take a few deep breaths. Here’s a cup of water.”

I leaned up from the ground and took a few drinks of the water. A doctor came over and talked to me for a few minutes and explained what may have happened. He told me that basically, my heart rate had become incredibly slow and I passed out because the lack of blood flow, that’s why they needed to lift my legs. Doing so would allow my blood to go back to my heart and it’d start pumping a little more quickly. I was embarrassed and we laughed about it for a little bit before he went back to his duties.

I looked around at my battle buddies in front of our company area. A drill sergeant in front of our formation told us when given the command we’d need to sit on our laundry bags with our hands on our thighs flat, fingers joined and extended.

“Listen up s*** bags! You’re going to receive a briefing from your company First Sergeant and company commander. You will follow them with your ugly ass faces and listen to what they have to say. I guarantee you it is important, so if we catch you f***ing up, we will not be afraid to scuff you up, IS THAT UNDERSTOOD!?”
“YES, DRILL SERGEANT!” the familiar chorus rang through the air.

Off to my right I could hear drill sergeants walking up behind other soldiers and screaming at them for various things such as moving too much or trying to talk. I was terrified I’d get yelled at for something. Then I realized I was slowly sliding backwards on my laundry bag. I knew if I tried to adjust myself I’d get a knife hand in the face and probably dropped and told to do a crap ton of pushups which didn’t sound like very much fun to me, I don’t like attention from drill sergeants. Basically for a good 15 minutes I squatted and slightly hovered over my laundry bag while I was falling farther and farther backwards. I felt beads of moisture forming and running down my hands. I was so concentrated on not falling down that I had no idea what either the First Sergeant or CO talked about.

Finally, we were given our next orders and told to get up from our bags. A few days later I came to the realization that while sitting on my laundry bag I had put too much pressure on my laundry detergent and it had made a crack on the side of the container. I put the detergent in a large Ziploc bag. All of my equipment was damp for a good week afterwards and I ran out of detergent earlier than I had planned but by that time I had some good friends who let me borrow some of their detergent.

After we were given the order to get off our laundry bags a drill sergeant then gave us our next objective. Our duffel bags were all in the middle of the PT pit and we were tasked with retrieving them and then forming up with our platoons which were color coded with our duffel bags that had a colored plastic device on them. Every minute that we were not with our platoon you had to drop and do pushups until the drill sergeants gave us the order to recover and then continue looking for our bag.

It took me a few iterations of pushups before one of my battle buddies, Grimes, screamed out, “HIATT”. In that moment I realized now I was more part of a team than ever. I was proud to be in the army, where not only would I look out for my people, but they’d also look out for me. Grimes and I had only talked a few times while at reception battalion, but we’d gotten along pretty well. Any time we talked I ended up laughing like an idiot. He was a pretty laid back guy.

Right when I got to him to get my bag we were dropped because another minute had passed, I knocked out happy pushups and ran straight to my platoon when we got up. Grimes was also in my platoon but he stayed back so that he could help anyone else find their bag. He was a leader.

After all of that was over and everyone had linked up with their respective platoon, we brought our bags into our barracks and were told to drop them and get back downstairs and outside in one minute. We accomplished our task and formed back up outside. Not even 30 seconds into us standing out there someone would not stop moving for whatever reason so our drill sergeant dropped us. We did maybe five pushups at a very slow pace because it was more painful that way. People started coming to their knees or arching their back, that just pissed our drill sergeant off. So, as punishment for such treachery, he had us arch our backs and then sag in the middle. Every time we arched our back we had to yell as loud as possible, “NEED MORE” and when we’d sag in the middle we had to yell, “DISCIPLINE”. I thought it was pretty funny but I didn’t laugh or anything because that would bring negative attention and that would earn us a longer smoking session.

Nobody likes getting smoked, it’s better to just do PT on our own time or during our daily morning PT. Getting smoked hurts people’s pride and stuff like that, but at the same time it also has the ability to better you. It just depends on your mentality.

After we had been smoked and our drill sergeant was less excited, we got back up from our pushups and had our first MREs (Meal, Ready to Eat). I volunteered with a few others to get the boxes that contained our MREs. We brought them to the platoon and passed out the packages and were given ten minutes to eat. They wouldn’t let us eat the candy. A drill sergeant walked by and said once we reached white phase in our training we could eat the candy. We were so excited for that, once the time finally came, he went back on his statement which made us all sad.

After our meal we had to go back to our barracks and we’d empty our bags and go over our initial issue clothing. There was about 1,500 dollars worth of equipment on each of us. The army gave us a lot of stuff that they trusted us with, if we lost anything we replaced it at our own expense. If we didn’t have it on us, we’d get in trouble with the army which is never a good thing.

A drill sergeant walked by and named things on the list and if we didn’t have them, we’d raise our hand and they would write our name down. I’m not sure what they did with the list but I never saw any repercussions from not having certain things.

After going over our issued things, a drill sergeant briefed us on how to fold things in an efficient way that left a lot of room for other stuff. He then taught us how to properly put all of the items in our wall locker. He made a lot of jokes and kept things lighthearted which made basic training that much less stressful. We were given some time to pack our wall lockers and then we were moved to a classroom.

My platoon was sitting in the room when our senior drill sergeant came in and told us to get out our cell phones if we had one and we’d get a plastic bag that we’d write our name and last four of our social security number on. After that, we were told that we’d be given five minutes to call home. I tried to call my mother but no one answered. I sent out a text to a few people letting them know I’d arrived at basic training and that was going to be the last they’d hear from me for some time. I began to tear up a little bit because I missed home already but I knew the army would take care of me.

When the phone calls were over, there was an eerie silence and sadness crept through the air. Our senior drill sergeant came in and made us write our name on a few papers, I was so tired that my eyes closed for a couple seconds. The wrath of a drill sergeant was almost unleashed upon my poor, tired soul.

She walked up to me and screamed, “CRAZY, ARE YOU LOSING YOUR DAMN MIND ALREADY?”

I screamed back, “NO, DRILL SERGEANT!”

She just walked away. I felt so relieved afterwards. It was getting to be late and we were soon dismissed to our bunks and told to go to sleep. That day seemed to be the longest day I had ever experienced in my existence. I was more than happy that it was over.