The first few weeks of Basic Training were hell – as they were meant to be. I don’t know who thought South Carolina in June was a good time for lots of runs and road marches…in wool socks, but they were very wrong. I lost 10 more pounds.
Some genius thought putting 50 women in a room sharing six shower stalls and eight bathroom stalls made sense, but it didn’t. There were literally three at a time crammed in the shower fighting over a lukewarm stream of water; and no, it was not even the slightest bit sexy. To get that idea right out of your head, I’ll tell you that not a one of us shaved our legs for the entire eight weeks. It was kind of like ‘Survivor’ – only with 50 cranky women. And if you dared to take the time to button up your pants and tuck in your shirt before exiting the bathroom stall, you would more than likely be beat up by the gang of desperate girls waiting impatiently in line.
So that kind of sucked…a lot, but what was worse was that the drill sergeants hated me. I know – hard to imagine! I just had a problem keeping my mouth shut and may or may not have corrected them more than once in front of the entire platoon. But yeah, they hated me and life was pretty awful.
I also learned that push ups weren’t my only weakness, though by halfway through the eight weeks I could do 20 with no problem. When they don’t like you, they make you do LOTS of pushups – so I was really quite adept. But I was even worse with running. I ran so slow and stopped so often that I once lost my own platoon and tried to blend in with another formation running far behind them. I was discovered when we got back to their barracks. My drill sergeant had to get a Jeep and pick me up. More pushups. Lots more pushups.
So it went on like that. The only other major development in South Carolina was that I injured my knee on an obstacle course toward the end of my time there. My female drill sergeant took me aside and told me that it would behoove (that was one of their favorite words) me to ‘suck it up’ (also a favorite) and just get through the rest of the training. No doctors…just drink water. I’ll bet you didn’t know that drinking water cures everything from athletes foot (which all of us had at one time or another) to swollen, painful joints!
Anyway, to go on to the next phase of training, I had to pass a physical fitness test. For me, it was 11 pushups in two minutes (I got this!), 60 sit ups in two minutes (my ‘core area’ was never a problem; ‘half’ shirts were the style back then, so I was always doing sit ups) and a two-mile run in 19 minutes…on a broken knee, with former pack-a-day smoker’s lungs.
Twice I failed. I cannot tell you how I dreaded that quarter-mile track. I hated it. But on my third and final chance, high on Motrin, belly full of bananas, slathered in ‘Ben-Gay’, I did it. I think at that point, my drill sergeants were terrified that I’d be ‘recycled’ and land in their platoon again. Because all three of them got up when it was still dark out and ran next to me the whole way, making threats and screaming obscenities the entire time. It worked. I was on my way to Advanced Individual Training.
Look out, Georgia…Private Princess was on her way. Yes. That’s what they called me. Whatever.
Some genius thought putting 50 women in a room sharing six shower stalls and eight bathroom stalls made sense, but it didn’t. There were literally three at a time crammed in the shower fighting over a lukewarm stream of water; and no, it was not even the slightest bit sexy. To get that idea right out of your head, I’ll tell you that not a one of us shaved our legs for the entire eight weeks. It was kind of like ‘Survivor’ – only with 50 cranky women. And if you dared to take the time to button up your pants and tuck in your shirt before exiting the bathroom stall, you would more than likely be beat up by the gang of desperate girls waiting impatiently in line.
So that kind of sucked…a lot, but what was worse was that the drill sergeants hated me. I know – hard to imagine! I just had a problem keeping my mouth shut and may or may not have corrected them more than once in front of the entire platoon. But yeah, they hated me and life was pretty awful.
I also learned that push ups weren’t my only weakness, though by halfway through the eight weeks I could do 20 with no problem. When they don’t like you, they make you do LOTS of pushups – so I was really quite adept. But I was even worse with running. I ran so slow and stopped so often that I once lost my own platoon and tried to blend in with another formation running far behind them. I was discovered when we got back to their barracks. My drill sergeant had to get a Jeep and pick me up. More pushups. Lots more pushups.
So it went on like that. The only other major development in South Carolina was that I injured my knee on an obstacle course toward the end of my time there. My female drill sergeant took me aside and told me that it would behoove (that was one of their favorite words) me to ‘suck it up’ (also a favorite) and just get through the rest of the training. No doctors…just drink water. I’ll bet you didn’t know that drinking water cures everything from athletes foot (which all of us had at one time or another) to swollen, painful joints!
Anyway, to go on to the next phase of training, I had to pass a physical fitness test. For me, it was 11 pushups in two minutes (I got this!), 60 sit ups in two minutes (my ‘core area’ was never a problem; ‘half’ shirts were the style back then, so I was always doing sit ups) and a two-mile run in 19 minutes…on a broken knee, with former pack-a-day smoker’s lungs.Twice I failed. I cannot tell you how I dreaded that quarter-mile track. I hated it. But on my third and final chance, high on Motrin, belly full of bananas, slathered in ‘Ben-Gay’, I did it. I think at that point, my drill sergeants were terrified that I’d be ‘recycled’ and land in their platoon again. Because all three of them got up when it was still dark out and ran next to me the whole way, making threats and screaming obscenities the entire time. It worked. I was on my way to Advanced Individual Training.
Look out, Georgia…Private Princess was on her way. Yes. That’s what they called me. Whatever.
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