Another day, another 10 hours wasted....

Well, if I’m gonna stick with this, I might as well add a little every day. Today was another interesting example of time wasting at Drill Sergeant School. We were scheduled to take the final APFT for the course this morning, but thanks to our good pal Hurricane Dennis, the event was cancelled by (rightly so) safety-conscious cadre members. Our follow-on training event, the Eagle Tower, also got the no-go from the weather, so we found ourselves with a bit of time today that was – charitably – “unscheduled.”

So, in a fit of right-thinking (a seldom-occurring event, I might add) they decided we should conduct a review session for tomorrow’s counseling examination. They blocked off 2 hours to study for a 30 question multiple guess… covering subject matter that only took 2 hours to teach in the first place!

Mmmkay, once we get past that little piece of wisdom, try this on for size: they scheduled an hour for bayonet cleaning! Now, anyone who’s ever served a day in the Army knows the issue bayonet is basically a big frickin’ knife that breaks down into three components, none of which require an hour to clean singularly or collectively. I mean, even if you stirred concrete with the damn thing on Thursday and waited ‘til Monday, it wouldn’t take that long.

Oh, wait, it gets better.

Since we were going to be in “the field” today, we were scheduled to eat MRE’s (Meals, Ready to Eat) for lunch. Although the training had been cancelled last night, nobody thought far enough ahead to alert the dining facility of our need to eat lunch. Since Fort Benning allegedly proscribes eating MRE’s in garrison during training, we had to march away from the watchful eyes at Building 4 (The Infantry Hall, home of Benning’s leadership) back to our barracks, get issued MRE’s, and THEN be released for an hour to eat wherever we wanted to.

So, in effect, it went like this: “Here’s your MRE for lunch, since we were either unable or unwilling to procure your meals in the dining facility. Now, since we are perfectly aware of the fact that none of you want to actually eat this meal, feel free to go away for 60 minutes and find your own chow.” Arrrgh. I swear, my bullshit meter is about worn out from its hourly journey to the end of the numbers, waaaaay into the red “Danger, Will Robinson” territory.

Now, one bright and shining moment to tell you about – we were, in fact, released early for the day today, probably as they had no other meaningless tasks for us to perform. That gave me ample opportunity to turn in my dress uniform for cleaning, and get a few name plates made. I got a haircut too, although I think it may have looked better before its battle with the clippers. I swear some of these Benning barbers must be on a work release program from the meth rehab clinic. I’ve never felt more sets of shaky hands holding clippers to the back of my head in my life. Anyway, this shining moment has dulled for me already – word on the strasse is they’re trying to call all of us back to school as I write this for one more formation – as if we’re running short on those – to put out more useless information. As yet I’ve received no calls, so I can truthfully say that I’ve not ducked any, or avoided any calls at all… but that’s not to say that I won’t if the opportunity presents itself!

I have to say before I close this – not as a cop out or anything to those who may ultimately read this little blog – but by and large, the vast majority of the Drill Sergeant Leaders (DSLs) at this school have it together. They’re great NCO’s, solid drills, and I wouldn’t mind either working with them or spilling a beer with them sometime in the future. On the flip side, there are a few who make this time at DSS creep by. You can spot them a mile away – or hear them, more appropriately. To those few I say this -- whether or not you’re acting the part for us is immaterial – we understand what one must do to be an effective leader. We’ve been doing it long enough on our own. What we need from you is not to be treated like privates (even if we act like them on occasion), we need your guidance on how to deal with them in this new environment that many of us haven’t experienced since we went through it the first time. You see, we’re good NCO’s – and we all have a pretty fine-tuned sense for bullshit when we smell it. Frankly, this whole course REEKS of it on a semi-regular basis.

I apologize for the rancor at the end. This is a little therapeutic for me, frankly, and if I didn’t let loose a little that would be bad on me.

I tell ya, I’ve never missed broadcasting more than I do right now. Here’s hoping duty on the trail won’t be as insanely retarded as these 9 weeks, 2 days, have been thus far.

Oh, well. All I can say at this point is – 23 days and a wakeup – as Gunga Dan used to say at the end of the CBS Evening news – “Courage!”

A much-needed update!

Well, what are Sunday mornings for if not to catch up on what you haven’t done in awhile? In my case, it’s to make any entries in this blog. This is definitely a by-product of my ADHD side… blogging was cool for like a week or two then I got into something else. Well, an update for those of you in the need to know category:

When last we left our hero, he was on the cusp of greatness: after having entered the Army’s Broadcast Journalist of the Year category of the Keith L. Ware Journalism Competition, he awaited the results anxiously. Well, yee-frickin-haw, he won. Or I won. Whatever. That third-person speaking stuff was getting annoying. Anyway, I won for the Army level but missed out on the DoD competition to a Navy petty officer. No sour grapes, of course, but at least I shot all my own video and edited all my own pieces!

Anyway, like 5 days after the Secretary of the Army nailed on Army Commendation Medal on my chest, I took off for Drill Sergeant School at Fort Benning, Georgia, henceforth known as DSS at FB. The first few days were not the shock to the system that I originally had assumed they’d be, with getting screamed at and pushing up FB being the logical assumption. Instead, there was a lot of talking – corrections were made on us that were framed around how we’d react to the same infraction when committed by one of our Initial Entry Training (IET) Soldiers that we’ll eventually be responsible for training. For example, if we were in formation and we swatted a bug or wiped some sweat from our brow, it wasn’t “why are you moving, Sergeant? Do push-ups,” it was more like “you’re not going to allow your Soldiers to make secondary movements at the position of attention, and neither will I!” In the end, you still may end up pushing J but it doesn’t feel as punitive.

The first few weeks have pretty well flown by on retrospect. It was a pretty greasy slide to the 4th of July weekend, where we got a four day pass. I returned to Northern VA to house and home, wife and babies. What a great weekend. I went out to Burke Lake Park and took Ellie in a rowboat out to the middle of the lake. Like any three year old, she was enamored with the idea of going out on a boat, but the magic didn’t last too long!

My boy is finally up and walking around. At 20 months old today (or like most men would say “almost 2…”), he damn well oughtta be walking around, but he’d been taking he’s sweet-ass time at it. Now, he’s toddling around like he’s an expert. Good stuff indeed. Something really cool about going for a walk with my son!

The first day back from the weekend was horrible. Absolute misery – like the marching cadence – “Misery, misery – look at what the Army’s done to me…” – I think the first thing I noticed after returning to my room in billeting was the smell. The institutional smell that I’ll always associate with my days at boarding school – Pine Sol and old paint, mixed with a slight hint of floor wax. As you probably can tell, it was not the most welcome olfactory sensation. I couldn’t sleep that night at all, and it’s up in the air whether or not it was because of the lack of a warm welcoming body next to me or the lingering dread I felt at the thought of another 4 weeks without my family.

This past week has been an asskicker without peer. The duty drill sergeant – the Drill Sergeant Leader (our instructors here at DSS) responsible for the training that week – is one of those drills who gives the impression they are unsure how to train – so to make up for their lack of knowledge or ability, they scream, yell, and generally act stupid. Now, this may seem an unfair slight against someone I barely know, but humans rely heavily on first impressions – and that’s mine of him.

Anyway, from day one this week, his attitude and demeanor towards the class have just stunk. I haven’t been compared to a private this may times since – hell, since I WAS a private! It doesn’t help that the class has sort of reverted back to day one since the return from the weekend. It’s like we’ve never gotten in a formation before when they call for us to fall in. We drift over into the area instead of moving out smartly, we sort of take our time getting aligned when it should be a pretty smooth and swift process. Well, this irritated the drill, and in his defense I understand why. So, I have to say we’ve executed quite a number of pushups in the past 7 days.

This coming week looks to be a ballbuster as well, though not because of the personality of the duty drill. This is based more on the training schedule than anything. Tomorrow is our class’s final Army Physical Fitness Test. We are required to score a minimum of 70 percent in each category – push-ups, sit-ups, and the 2-mile run. I’m a little apprehensive about the run – I’ve got an upper respiratory infection right now that I’m in the process of shaking off – I hope it doesn’t eff my run up at all. After the PT test, we’ll be heading out to Eagle Tower, a confidence builder of sorts that requires one to climb across rope brides, roll down cargo nets, and rappel down a tall wall. I think with the hurricane rolling in, that training event may go by the wayside, but we’ll see. The remainder of the week has us out one night until 2300 bore-sighting PAQ-4’s and CCO’s. Don’t ask me for explanations for the acronyms – I’ve been out of grunt land too long to know. We also have to show up to work Thursday at like 0150 for night land navigation, transitioning right into day land nav. Yuk. We should get off by 1500 if all goes well. Keep your fingers crossed.

I’ll try to update later!