Wake up at 0400 and you could feel the November chill of the Missouri air seeping through the ancient windows as you rush to throw on your bare uniform. This was the morning that our life as we knew it would change. The drill sergeants were on the way to the reception area to pick up their fresh recruits and at the time I was excited. We were told that we better eat a nice sized breakfast due to the fact we were in for a very long day, but with all the anxiety of what was to come that task was harder than it seemed. After morning chow was finished we were yelled at to line up alphabetically with our duffel bag on our backs and our personal bag on our front. As we stood there waiting to find out which one of these screaming drill sergeants we would be going with the weight of ourselves and these two bags started taking their toll on us.
By the time they started shuffling us toward the buses the sun was beaming down and making the cool morning not so much anymore. They had us throw our personal bags into a cattle truck and then run ourselves, duffel bag in tow, to a horrid looking bus. This “thing” didn’t even look like it was capable of hauling a stack of papers let alone sixty people and their duffle bags.
Once we were all crammed and nowhere near being comfortable the drill sergeant instructed us to put our faces in our duffle bags. For the next twenty minutes all we could see was hunter green and hear the drill sergeant screaming instructions for when we arrived to our destination, but the problem was he had such a strong accent we couldn’t understand. That’s when I knew we would begin our first steps off the bus with failing to do whatever we were supposed to be doing. About the time the bus came to a halt we were on our feet trying to scramble to get outside in hopes we would be dropping our bags and wait for further instruction. However, that was far from what was about to happen. Instead we listened for our names to find out which platoon we would form...