BCT Day 57

The following information is a portion of “Marck’s Boot Camp Diary”. The information contains a straight-forward look at Basic Training Life on a daily basis. The information contained within this page is used with the express written permission of the author. For more information about the author view the “Author’s Information” at the bottom of the page. Some choice phrases have been censored.

September 19th, 2002

Man it feels good to be back to civilization. We’re back in the barracks, turning all our **** in. I am done with training. I am a soldier.

We slept last night for like three hours on gravel. No shelter or anything. Straight up pointy little rocks, so I got very little sleep. At around 0200 this morning we started heading back via 15K road march. The march was not bad at all for me. I was highly motivated. I knew the sooner I got back, the sooner I’d go to rites of passage, where we’re officially recognized as soldiers. We got back at like 0600. Rites of passage is a little ceremony with a torch and lots of fire. Somebody goes blah blah blah, you’re a soldier now. As we got near Victory Field, Destiny’s Child’s song “Survivor” was playing. That was disappointing. Then they played “Bad to the Bone.” I felt a little better. The ceremony got to me a little. What’s that, like three of four time I got a lump on my throat? I’m a *****.

Today will be a long ass day consisting of cleaning all our sweat soaked gear so the next ten generations of privates can use them. Seriously, this **** is so old. As I was unsnapping some buttons on my ruck sack, half of them ripped right off the cloth. Even our M16 is obsolete. They use smaller rifles with lasers now.

Damn, I’m tired. If I stand still long enough, I guarantee you I will fall asleep. Man, I’d give anything for 10 hours of sleep. By the time I go to sleep I will be awake for 24 hours, because I have fire guard tonight. I hope we get mail. I want to get one last letter from you all.

I’m pissed. I sent clothes to laundry service including my class As uniform to be dry cleaned. Today is pick up day. There were more clothes than ever. Everyone got their uniform pressed. Well, the ************* didn’t return my ****. If I don’t have it, I can’t graduate. That **** better come back tomorrow because I have no clean underwear.

Ah man. Today is going SLOW! I’m so delirious right now from sleep depravation and exhaustion that I am drunk. I’m yelling at people and acting a fool. We got a radio for our barracks today! Sooo happy. I didn’t expect Kentucky to have real music. I heard System of a Down and some rap crap.

It’s interesting how nothing can touch me at this stage. I don’t get mad, I bend rules, and I act goofier than usual (Impossible, I know). Only six days left I’ve said it before, the theme for this week is I just don’t give a ****. I’ve played the straight role the whole time It’s time to let lose.

With my current way of thinking I’m noticing how stupid people act. Like Webster, our platoon guide. He yelled at a private for kneeling down to tie his shoes today because we were supposed to be standing up. God damn. People need to relax. He would’ve ended up on his face from tripping on his shoelace anyway. Damn, this is uninteresting writing. I told you I have the symptoms of a drunk. I will return if anything happens, or after I sleep.