Thursday, June 21, 2007

Episode 01: Before The Storm (Part III "You think, therefore I want to be")

"Ben laden's attack on the towers was nothing more than him, expressing his feelings. Our retaliation is no different."
-Mr. Nice Guy
Today was a little bit better than yesterday; all of the inductees, myself included got together with Mr. Nice Guy for "Future Solders Training" (Seemingly a small mix between class, and hands-on preparation for Basic Training). Although the lesson, which was apparently a refresher for Land Nav (Land Navigation; term used to describe using things like a compass, and map to find your way around) had me feeling slightly rusty around the edges. Although I knew the answer to nearly all of the questions (and he knew that, which is why he'd neglected to allow me to answer any of the questions... though I had no objections), I still felt obligated to answer them for two reasons;

1: They were being asked, and I felt like I needed to ensure that I knew what I was talking about.
2: I got tired of the dead silence as some people thought about each question, and others didn't bother to materialize an answer, becoming like the character "Ed" from the not-so-popular Cartoon Network series, "Ed, Edd, & Eddy".

In the end, I still ended up learning something new, and got to do a little more studying on one of the more confusing subjects of basic training. Outside, however was a different story. We fell in (tense of "Fall In", the executional command given to any given number of soldiers, immediately calling them to formation, at the position of "Attention") in the same fiery pit we usually do-- the open parking lot behind the station, right where the sun can see us the best, and got in bear drill. There wasn't too many commands I didn't have to think about to execute, but one in particular, I had no idea about. It was a modified position of "Dress-Right Dress" (Command given to soldiers in a formation to equally space them out, usually in preparation for marching, or just to keep organization) which called for, instead of classically using your entire arm, you bent it, and used your elbow to dress (position, in order to allow the next soldier on your left to measure, and move into proper position). Although when I think about it, if I did know about it, I had forgotten it in the near 2 years I had been out of A-JROTC (Army Junior Reserve Officer's Training Corps). It took a short second to get everything straight, and afterward, things went pretty smooth.

Not too long after, we fell out (Opposite of "Fall In"), and formed a circle around him, then started some land nav training, although we were quite limited (being in a parking lot the midpoint of Smyrna is quite far away from uncivilized territory, as far as I know), which I'd found out that I'm horrible at remembering numbers... You would think that I wasn't so bad at doing it judging on how I did on pointing out the given target (Was 1 degree off from the target) , but I took a standing guess by what I could remember about his stance, and direction from my point of view, which was directly on his right, almost like a potshot in the dark, where you last saw the flash of a 80-candlepower flashlight from 45ft away. During the training, a Lieutenant, and one of Mr. Nice Guy's inductees had materialized out of nowhere, and came to our little circle. She spoke a few words, basically did the same thing that the "Success Story Soldiers" do on those Army Strong commercials. We took a moment to get out of the baking sun, and let the two talk... which, barely knowing each other, the eerie silence ironically caused some of us to talk to each other about trivial topics, most not related to what we were previously doing in no way, shape, or form.

Afterward, we'd gotten back into a little more nav training, and heard the general "Safety Brief" which he gives after every day we all get together. We got back in the station, and things slowly calmed back down to the normal idle chat, and various jokes. After I'd gotten back home today, I had nothing on my mind but passing the test that would get me up to PV2 (Private 2nd Class) before I ship out. With that in mind, there is only one thing I will be doing for a while, tomorrow... and it is something I don't usually do--

Study.

好むものは何でもしなさい! "Sukina koto o nan demo shinasai!" (Do whatever you like!)

Yours, truly.