9

_You'll be the first one out. It's called the shark attack,_ the short, bug-eyed, Latino kid from Callie said, over the roar and hum of the bus.
It was packed full of recruits and I was crammed against the door, my duffle bags and gear on my shoulders and hanging from my already-burning forearms. We were the first bus, and I was the first recruit to step out of it, and face Day One of Basic Training.
_The Drill Sergeants will all come at you at once, they’re gonna be right in your face, you won’t understand what they're yelling, they'll be telling you to stand on your number with your gear. Whatever you do, don’t let any of it touch the ground, okay, man?_
I had been separated from the other boys from my state, K___, C___, and H___. It was as if the Army had done it on purpose, making sure each recruit faced Day One alone. We had flown out together and had quickly bonded, dealing with airports, and watching the crowds, and limos, and well-dressed women of Chicago International.
During the week of In-processing the bonds were further solidified. We paired off into 'battle buddies': C___ and H___, K___ and I; we called each other 'battle' for short. It was new for me to be chosen, to be liked; an unfortunate contrast to what would follow, as the buses drove away from the In Processing Battery to officially 'cross the railroad tracks.'
The Roaring seemed to dim down the farther I got from God‘s Country and the state that harbored it, with its lush mountains and foothills, wild rural counties, and old-bad-blood-soaked beaches, and got closer and closer to the enormous, magnificently assertive, loud skies of the West: its thickly-populated, throbbing-star constellations, and its thickly-shaded, lustfully-colored sunrises and sunsets. I began using my natural voice, with its noticeably deeper, clearer, tones -- something that felt un-allowed in my home state.
I began keeping my natural posture instead of the sunken-shouldered one I had always felt was my only option. It was like living a whole new existence, haphazardly opposite of the one before. I found myself heading the bible study that naturally occurred at random after dinner chow each evening in the In-processing barracks.
The other recruits wanted to read verses they only vaguely remembered existed, and I would find the lyrics for them, since I remembered their place. I did this despite already knowing the inevitability of my leaving Christianity behind.
Despite the quick, temporary surrender of the Roaring, the numbness did not leave, because I still depended on it heavily, I just didn t know it yet.
Since I was in a new place, I was less reminded of what the Roaring kept trying to tell me. There was this great underlying Anger behind everything I did, that distrusted everything, and fueled the numbness by refusing to pay much attention to anything, Life having lost all credibility with me.
This underlying Anger got in my way despite the Determination of my hard-trying. If I had experienced an ideal Basic Training, like the kind expressed in films, my Drill Sergeant would have noticed this about me, and pulled the anger out, and resolved my obstacle. But the war was in full swing by then, Army personnel levels were minimal at best, and Drill Sergeants were overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of recruits.
I would receive my training from three different batteries. The first was considered the most Abusive on the Fort; The second was considered the most training-oriented. The third was geared to see how we handled our first bit of freedom and the hard realization that being a soldier, as opposed to a civilian, was not something handed to you like a trophy, or title, or certificate, but would turn out to be a difficult choice, reaffirmed moment to moment, day to day, every day of our short lives.
The first battery, due to unfortunate scheduling, got unusually lucky. Only a few recruits would arrive the first day, the rest, the bulk of the battery, would arrive late the next morning. Each platoon of three Drill Sergeants received only nine or ten recruits the first day. In my platoon, we were called the Original Nine, a respectable title, due to the fact that we would receive a much-more hard-core Day One than the other recruits. It began with four straight hours of physical training in our barracks: running, pushups, situps, etc., with only 10 second water breaks. Some recruits cried, others fell out completely; all ending with an exactly 20 second shower and a bit of too-little sleep.
I tried to keep an eye out for K___, and wondered if he was even in the same battery as me, and if I would ever see him again. We seemed a natural match as battles. He had this underlying confidence, so that though he found this new existence difficult and challenging, he never found it personally accosting. This trait, though good in and of itself, and up-to-military-standards, also encouraged his tendency to step-out-of-line. He was my age, with chocolate skin and eyes, and an athletic, slightly-heavy build.
Meanwhile I was afraid-for-my-life and too numb to know it, which gave me an interesting, misleading set of qualities. I toed the line, didn t say much, seemed un-afraid. Having assumed my-chances of graduating were slim to none, I genuinely tried very hard.