FROM BOOT CAMP TO VETERANS DAY 2019

The greatest way to see what the rest of humanity looks like is by joining the army and going through boot camp.

From the mild mannered kid who turned into Sergeant Rock with his provisional rank, the college grad who joined to become an air traffic controller, they all had dreams.

First they had to endure bootcamp.

One Saturday the entire training company got spiffed up for the first hardcore boot camp inspection by a big-time officer: Colonel Blackjack something or other.

With everything polished and shined to the max we waited for the big moment. We even had are weapons out of the armory so Blackjack could walk by and snatch them out of our hands, look at them, and throw them back into our hands.

It was an exciting moment, especially with the promise of more PT if any of us screwed up.

But the colonel new showed; the captain wasn’t there. The drill sergeants fixed things by dragging a new 2nd Lt out of office duty. The guy came out looking pretty marginal. He was in uniform, but not the spit-shined perfection called for.

Turned out he was an ROTC guy on some kind of leadership training rotation.

The drill talked to him before he approached the first guy. When he tried to snatch the rifle, he accidentally dropped it.

For the next guy he tossed it wrong and the trainee dropped his rifle.

It went from bad to worse, and after the fourth screw up, the Senior drill executed a formal salute and dismissed the officer.

We were impressed. Then he did the rest of the inspection like a hard-ass, which he was, a professional hard-ass.

The take away on this Veterans Day was the immeasurables every veteran leaves the service with: high rank doesn’t mean competence, low rank doesn’t mean moron.

It’s a special observation made more special once you live under the rule of rank, where everyone was higher than a trainee.

2

One boot camp trainee was screwing around in the cafeteria line. The acting platoon guide with provisional rank saw him and told him, “Drop and give me twenty.”

The platoon guide was also a trainee, but with a leadership edge. The two guys knew each other, had joked with each other, but now everything changed.

“Really? Drop and give you twenty?” the trainee said.

“That’s right, drop and give me twenty. NOW,” the rank guy said in his powerful voice.

“Why don’t you make it worthwhile and give me forty. Since I’m down there I might as well get a workout.”

“Give me forty.”

“Why not show you’ve got a pair and double it up.”

“Drop and give me eighty.”

The trainee dropped and knocked out one hundred push-ups in a row, hopped to his feet and took his place in line.

Trainee-leader walked to him and said, “I could never do that.”

“That’s why I did it. And you should have been down there knocking them out with me to show the rest what you’ve got. But you haven’t got it.”

The most measurable of the immeasurables veterans carry the rest of their lives is how to process direct orders.

And how to give them.

At ease, and happy Veterans Day.