One Drill Weekend Down

The second day of drill pretty much made the first day feel like a walk in the park. It was the hardest workout I have ever endured. Ever. I've never wanted to quit something so bad and at the same time felt so determined not to quit. I think it was two hours this morning. I'm not positive, it might have been longer, but I'm positive that it wasn't one minute shorter. Towards the end it started to feel like torture, but then they yell stuff to you about earning the right to be an American soldier and that gets you through it.

I got yelled at a lot by one SGT who was always shouting stuff at me like "BLACK! PASS THAT GUY! BEAT HIM!" or "BLACK! GET YOUR FEET UP!" and "BLACK! LIFT YOUR HEAD UP OFF THE DECK!" As a result everyone in the company knows my name. He told me after drill though that he thought I did pretty well. I feel like I need to do better next month though. I definitely have my work cut out for me. So even though it sucks, in the end it's kind of rewarding to be done with it and feel like I accomplished something more than just surviving the experience.

Once PT was behind us we got to shower and then come back and do drill and ceremony stuff which I would ordinarily think was really boring, but after the PT exercises that morning anything that didn't require a lot of physical exertion was a welcome relief. We did that until lunch at which time I was shouted out by a different SGT because he's the recruiter at BYU and wanted to know why I used a different recruiter. He then sent me to the back of the line because I screwed up and walked in the wrong position. Fortunately I only got sent back once.

After lunch there was more formation, and then things started to wind down. We had a meeting in the classroom, cleaned the armory, and then everyone met back in the classroom to have a "shipper's orientation meeting," where people's family comes and they give a presentation on what it's going to be like when the recruit ships to basic, and answers family questions, and resolves concerns. There's another one in April, so I told my family to not worry about coming to this one.

As one SGT pointed out, it's kind of weird to think that someone paid me to do all that PT, while other people are forking over money to personal trainers, and not getting pushed nearly that hard. It's a terrible experience, but it feels so good to actually do it. Next month I'll do it even better.