Someone will cry at Shakedown. If the Shark Attack does not draw some tears the Drill Sergeants aren’t doing their jobs.
Those are some nice personal possessions you’ve got there Private. Why don’t you dump them all on the asphalt so we can see them?
People cry at Reception. That is where it first hits people; Your old life is over. This is your life now.
Someone takes away all of your civilian goods and locks them in a locker.
You are assigned a bed more or less at random.
You are assigned a battle buddy more or less at random.
You are given boots of a size that is more or less random.
You are assigned a boss that appears to be picked at random.
Living conditions in Basic Training are the worst you will experience outside combat. The worst conditions in Basic Training are the reception barracks while you wait for Basic to start.
You get paid for that time. It does not “count towards” your nine weeks of Basic though; This is all bonus suffering no one told you about!
Welcome to the Army. Turn on the waterworks!
People screw up, get injured, or fail. It happens.
That hapless soldier will be handed something intolerable; They will be “rolled back” and join a Basic Training Company that arrived a few weeks later. You thought you had a month left? Now you have two months left! And all of your comrades are gone. Now you have to integrate with a whole new unit.
You want to hit me? Hit me.
You want to make me do pushups? Make me do pushups until I vomit.
You want to take my family memories from me? Feel free to dump my wall locker onto the floor and do a tapdance on my family photos until the faces are all ripped to shreds.
…but by God don’t roll me back and add a month to my Basic Training prison sentence!
What does your new unit know about you?
- You can be milked for information about the next four weeks.
- You are a screwup. Somehow. They probably don’t know the details.
- You are not part of their family.
Es no bueno. Cue the tears.
Everyone cries in the gas chamber. 'Mad Dog' Mattis cried in the gas chamber. It’s just biology.
Then people cry at Graduation.
I didn’t. I made a real point of making Basic simply an uncomfortable training experience and not a life event. I asked my parents not to come to graduation. I wish I had not.
Parents seem to really be moved by the whole “My daughter is a soldier now” realization. Strangely the men cry more than the women.
So yeah. Lots of people cry. There is a reason that we talk about blood, sweat, and tears.
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