Do Not Break Ranks

Do Not Break Ranks

After the formation halted in the O’Neil Hall parking lot, sixth platoon fell out while fourth platoon stayed back so Pvt. Long could speak to us. While I was listening intently to the information being put out, around me I happened to hear a small uproar of soldiers yelling at the platoon guide that they could not hear him and that he needs to speak up. In addition to this cacophony of voices, several other conversations of various natures began to arise. Now, being that I was three ranks deep and near the end of the formation, I could not believe that even a few soldiers in the first rank supposedly could not hear what Pvt. Long was saying. By this time, it was almost 0800 and I am never late for class so, in order to hastily calm the situation I selected one of these disorderly soldiers at random, which happened to be Pvt. Goodrum in fourth squad, and told him to wait until later to ask a battle buddy, who was listening, about the information. This soldier proceeded to ask me why I wanted to go to class so early. As I quietly pondered that thought, not five seconds later did that same soldier say to me, “Yeah, go to hell and shut the fuck up.” At that point, I was incredulous because this soldier not only spoke out in formation and did not remain at the position of attention for the briefing, but he also deliberately showed me disrespect when I only tried to square him away. I regrettably acted on impulse and went to confront this soldier directly about his little outburst. To make sure I heard correctly, I asked him to tell me what he said to me and to my dislike he repeated his vulgar statement. I then told him that maybe if he was listening and not talking then he would have heard what the platoon guide had to say. Sometime during this altercation, Pvt. Long had ordered the platoon to fall out and Pvt. Goodrum could have just walked away and left this entire predicament to be nothing more than a minor exchange of words between two soldiers. However, that...

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