The Gas Chamber

Dear All:
It’s officially the last day of my first full week of Basic Training. If nothing else I can tell you that it will go by much faster than a semester of law school. Already the last few days have held some new and exciting challenges that I didn’t expect to come so soon. Yesterday we had our first road march. It was only about a mile, but it was fun to stretch our legs and yell out some cadence. It brought us to the obstacle course (you know, the one with the walls to jump over and the barbed wire to crawl under that you see on the commercials). And it pitted our 2nd Platoon (the Titans) against the other 3 platoons in Echo Company for the best time. So far in Basic our platoon has been huge underdogs and gets picked on by the Drill Sergeants running the other squads. It doesn’t help that our guys consistently do dumb things like having your weapon on “burst” when you enter the Chow hall or always having the highest percentage of soldiers to get sleeping during classroom sessions. Even as their APG (assistant platoon guide) I can only do so much. But we’ve got quite the spirit (we adopted the aura from the team from “Remember the Titans”) and that makes things a lot more fun. Still we ended up 3rd runner up (only off the lead by 20 seconds) but it some of the soldier a while to realize that meant we were last. For me, it was good to realize how far we have to go over the next 9 weeks.
Then today we were bused off to the gas chamber. Let me set the record straight and say that walking into a 10x10 room full of tear gas is a terrible idea. However, the purpose of the exercise was to develop confidence and to show us just how much trust we should be putting in our gear. And let me tell you, I am converted. I will believe and trust anything the Army tells me because that gas mask worked. They lined us up by Platoon with our masks sealed and escorted us inside. Then after showing how they held up, we had to remove our masks, place our helmets on, buckle them, place your hand on the soldier in front of you and wait for the command to leave. It was the equivalent of pouring Tabasco sauce on pepper, lighting it on fire, and pouring it down you throat with a funnel. You’ll never hear any group cough, gag and cling to life than we did today. And everyone having a cold didn’t help since it cleared out our sinuses. I know for a fact my Drill Sgt. had a great time snapping a few pictures of my snot-covered face. But at the end, I survived. I have stepped, willingly, into a gas chamber. What else should I be afraid of?
Tommorrow Tomorrow (sorry, it too late to spell) is the Leadership course—an obstacle course that requires teamwork and direction to complete. It should be fun, but I hope it’s not as cold as it was today. Other than that, things are going well. We’re still getting smoked regularly because a few soldiers still aren’t catching on (we couldn’t successfully complete a “shower drill” today in which our 60-man platoon must be showered and dressed (there are 8 showers) in 20 minutes). So we spent the 7-minutes we were over by doing flutter-kicks, naked, on the floor of our bay. So I guess you can say there’s a little bit of everything here in training.
I hope everything is going well at home. Getting mail is a good feeling. Talk to you guys soon.
Love,
Nick