The Beast Experience

Six weeks down and I am still standing. I have felt reborn being able to use phones and the internet to communicate with the outside world again. None the less the past six weeks have flown by. It feels like of yesterday that I was sitting in Ike Hall, on R-day, with a full head of hair and civilian clothes. The man at the podium got up to say, “You have 90 seconds to say good-bye” From there we were rushed to put tags on our bags and bussed out to Thayer hall. It was here that I said good-bye to my civilian bag and hello to a standard issue military “flight bag”. We shuffled through like cattle to each issue point where we got all of our army clothing. Slowly that flight bag began to fill to the brim. The volunteers working the check points were so nice and had smiles on their faces as to say, “I hope they know what they are getting into.” From there we were shipped to report to the cadet in the red sash which went a little something like this, “New Cadet Young reports to the cadet in the red sash for the first time as ordered” (It is easy to remember it after the fact but my heart was beating through my chest at the time!) There was a similar greeting which I gave to our company first sergeant who directed me to my room. I rushed into my room threw on my white over grey and was straight out the door again for drill and parade practice. We marched around for what seemed like 3 hours practicing our left turns, right turns and anything else essential to the parade later that day.  And then it came, the moment we had all been waiting for….the R-day parade. This is a moment that I will never forget. Marching out onto that field in front of all our parents in uniform, and taking an oath to defend the constitution and what it stands for will be a life-long memory. At this point I was higher than the clouds. I didn’t care what had happened the 6 hours preceding because I had just began the journey I had been waiting for. My dream was coming true. However, that feeling quickly disintegrated as I sat down at the dinner table and was slammed with these:

1. You will stare at the crest on your plate for the duration of the meal.
2. Will not speak unless given permission by the table commander
3. Your  plate is to be one thumbs distance from the edge of the table at all times
4. You must sit one fists distance from the back of the chair and maintain good posture throughout the meal
5. You will place your fork down after every bite you take.
6. You are limited to 5 chews when you eat your food (so take small bites)

All of these rules and not to mention all of our duties that needed to be done at the table:

Ø  Announcing the cold beverage for that meal

Ø  Announcing the dessert and cutting EQUAL SLICES!! (Luckily our squad leader didn’t really care about that!)

Ø  Setting the table so that it is symmetrical on both sides

Once everything was complete the last thing was getting permission to eat, “Sir/Ma’am the new cadets at this table have preformed their duties and are now prepared to eat.” And hopefully you got a one word response in the form of, “Eat!”

                To be honest the next few weeks were a blur. It was a lot of 5 AM workout sessions, briefings, briefings, issue points and more briefings. The day I got issued my M4 assault rifle I knew things were looking up! We carried that thing everywhere. It came with us to briefings, meals and I literally slept with it.

                The last three weeks I can count on my hands the number of times that I slept in a bed! The field was my home and tents……haha what are those?? Poncho, 550 parachute cord, a stick and maybe a rock is all I need. But it better be a good hut because it rains every night you are in the field. I swear! And when it rains here it POURS.  They should have issued this, “CAUTION: You are far more likely to get wet than to stay dry while in the field”

                But let me assure you there was plenty of fun to be had. Here are some of the highlights:

• Soldier First Responder (SFR), where we learned how to access casualties out in the field and treat them
• Putting IV’s into people and setting up the IV bag
• Land navigation, plotting points, using compasses and being able to trek through the forest in the dark of night
• Shooting M4’s and qualifying with  them on the range
• Learning how to tactically move on patrol and take down targets on the move (that day was one of my favorites)
• Using crew-served weapons like the AT4, M240B, M249, and M203 grenade launcher (check out those weapons online! Pretty awesome weapons)

After all of our training was complete we packed up and headed out to Camp Buckner for the last few days. The first day we took part in the “Neal Challenge” in honor of 1^st Lt Neal who was killed in action.  The entire challenge consisted of marksmanship, land navigation, SFR, and solving a problem at the end. It was a long a grueling day taking our squad five hours and fifty-five minutes to complete, which was the best time in our company. To get back to Buckner we decided to leave the ground and take off in a Chinook. I have never ridden in a helicopter before but let me assure you it didn’t disappoint! It was so awesome!

        And finally the march back! It was a long twelve miles but it was definitely worth it knowing that if we made it through beast! I thank everyone for all the letters, kind words and support!

To Be Continued…