Basic training the worst Job

The Worst Job Essay
Basic Training was the first ten weeks of my career in the U.S. Army. Next to the Marine Corp’s Boot Camp, the Army’s Basic Training program is the most physically and emotionally intense. It is where they take every day individual citizens and turn them into a team of warriors. First, Drill Sergeants strip you of everyone and everything that you would call your own. The Instructors, start to work from the ground up building you into a strong confident soldier. There are four levels to Basic Training that I had to survive. First, I had to go through Reception Battalion. Next, I had to live through phase one. Then, I had to get past phase two. Last, I got to experience phase three. Going through the misery of Basic training was the worst part of my job in the U.S. Army.
Purgatory, also known as the Reception Battalion was my first glimpse of what Basic Training would be like. It is where I processed into the Army’s military life. One aspect of military life I learned was to hurry up and wait. It should have only taken about eight to ten hours to get through reception, if it was ran smoothly. Going by Army time and standards it took about a week to get through. I went from station to station doing various tasks, such as getting eye exams and health checks. I also stood in line for hours to get a whole round of shots. You could tell who had gotten their shots because they were walking around rubbing their butts for two days. I was issued PT outfits, Uniforms, also called BDU’s, and Boots. Another thing I learned was how to make a bed the Army’s way. The bed had to have hospital corners and be nice and tight with no creases. I learned to sleep on top of the covers so I didn’t have to waist the ten minutes it took to make it. This time in Reception is also where I got to experience my first shake down. The Drill Sergeants had everyone bring everything they had outside, and dump it all out on the ground. They called out all the items you were supposed to have, if you had any contraband (anything they hadn’t called out) you were made to do ten push-ups for every item. If you didn’t get the items out fast enough you would have had to do push-ups for that too. At the end of my time in the reception Battalion, I was so ready and eager to move onto Phase one, but that thought only lasted for all of 30 seconds because they put us on a vehicle that looked strangely like a cattle truck.
After being yelled at, and told to keep my eyes in my pack, I arrived at my permanent resident; this was the start of Phase one also called “Total Control”. This was when I met my Drill Instructor, He appeared much larger, angrier, and louder than anyone I’d ever met. His favorite pastime was putting new recruits in the “front Leaning rest” position, also known as a push-up position. He didn’t care if it was one person, a group, or the whole platoon that he dropped. His second favorite pastime was to get about an inch away from you, getting eyeball to eyeball and shouting at you at the top of his lungs. This is also where I learned to do what I was told, when I was told, and exactly how I was told. They made us wake up to do Physical training at 4:30am, (to do more by 12:00 than most people do all day),and we had to be out at formation by 4:45am. We stood at attention for hours, and we didn’t even think to scratch an itch or wipe the sweat out of our eyes, or we could have expected even more physical retraining. Yes, I learned to use and take apart, and put back together an M-16 rifle, but I also got to use a bayonet, and go through other military orientated classes. We were so tired at those classes, we could barely stay awake. But you’d better not have gotten caught with even one eye closed or there would have been consequences. The confidence courses are no picnic in the Army either, but the worst one is the NBC (Nuclear, Biological & Chemical) course. We had to go into a small brick building wearing a gas mask, but we had to lift it up and say our name, rank, and social security number. Hopefully you didn’t have to breathe in while saying it. Then the Drill Sergeants told us to take it off. The chemical felt warm and tingly on my skin as I held my breath, but you can’t hold it for long. Eyes burning, coughing, hacking, and drooling they finally let us out. Hopefully you haven’t eaten a heavy lunch, for it would have come up.
Phase two was the gunfighter phase, the one the Rambo’s of the military like, I spent most of the time on one of the many dusty and hot training ranges. You would be surprised at how many ranges there are on an Army Post. On the M-16 rifle range I learned to shoot straight. There are close targets, far-away targets, and pop-up targets; we just tried to hit them. There was also a range where we got to throw a live grenade or two. This was the scariest range, because we had to duck behind a big thick concrete wall, and all I could think of was “I hope the darn thing doesn’t slip out of my hands after I pull the pin out. Towards the end of this phase I learned Drill and Ceremony. This was where we got to stand for hours on end at attention again, and march back and forth.
We started to wrap things up in Phase three also called the Warrior phase. We took our final PT tests. I had to run 2 miles in 15 minutes, do 60 sit-ups in 2 minutes, and I also had to do 25 push-ups in 2 minutes. It was so hard, I almost didn’t pass. The last week of this phase we headed to the field, which is also called bivouac or camping, for a three day training exercise. If you’re lucky like me it will rain the whole time. Our drill instructor made us do PT in the mud; like duck walks, bear crawls, and push-ups. It was really gross, slipping and sliding; by the time we had stopped no one could tell who was who. We had to sleep on the ground, we had tents but the ground was already wet, so it didn’t help to keep you warm at all. We dug foxholes for night exercises, which were 6 foot long by 3 foot deep holes, since it had rained all of them had a layer of mud. We stayed up all night but had to do night patrols, and do night fire exercises. We heard “Incoming” at least 30-40 times a night, so there is no real sleeping. While we were out there we also got to eat our meals out of a bag that was heated by chemicals, called an MRE’s. There was a very small selection of meals to choose from, and very few were even slightly edible. At the end of this field exercise we went back and prepared for an informal ceremony, to graduate the Basic Training program.
When the misery of Basic Training was finally over, I was happy to be done with it. But at the same time I was sad it was over, because it was something that changed me forever. I was stronger not only physically but mentally as well. I was in shock that I had actually completed it, and elated because I had done something that I thought I couldn’t do. I had gone to basic training when I was eighteen years old. Even though, I was young and supposedly physically fit, my time at Fort Lenard wood Missouri had been the most difficult part of my Job in the U.S. Army.