on boot camp

TL;DR: despite the fact that service members, veterans, and military culture itself leans heavily to the political right, i found it funny that most of the lessons i learned in the military, especially in basic training, were communal, socialist, and stressed personal sacrifice for the team, and the needs of the unit outweighing the needs of the individual.  i don't understand why more members and veterans of the military aren't liberals.

 

why did i enlist in the US Army?

and why did i later choose to accept a commission as an officer in the US Army?

when people i talk with learn that i spent a few years in the army, some ask me what was boot camp like? and what were things i learned there that i remember now?

sorry trumpist "conservatives" you're not going to like this shit at all.  best stop reading now.

:-)

in short... every life long lesson i learned in boot camp was socialist, communal, and emphasized the greater good of the whole over the individual.

did you just feel a chill up your spine?  good.  fools...

for those who've never served, it seems to me, the general public's impression of boot camp is mostly from the movies.

so in that model, boot camp is pretty much about how some tough battle-hardened bastard in a campaign hat yells at you, identifies your weaknesses, flips your bunk, dumps your lockerbox, makes you run and do push-ups, makes you clean stuff way beyond clean, and forces you to drill every skill over and over until each one is automatic, and you conform to what they see as "training to standard".

you might hear things about about needing to "break you down", followed by weeks of "building you back up", or something like that.

those images are impressive.  they move your emotions.  they're entertaining. and on one level, most of those stories have a lot of truth to them.  but at the same time, i think they miss the point completely.

would you like to know what i think is the most valuable lesson i learned in boot camp?

i'll get there, but you need to read some more to get there.

i was 17.

i there for the most part, because a plain clothes recruiter came to my house and spoke to my parents. told them how far i exceeded on the asvab test.

i qualfied for ANY "occupational specialty" in the army. signal corps, military intelligence, whatever. i chose eleven bravo infantry anyway. i figured if i'm going to join the army, i may as well be an infantryman.

the recruiter told my parents that my love of country would serve me well through hardship.  and he got them, to allow them, to take government possession of their spawn a full year ahead of legal consent. in other words, if i'd waited til i was 18, they wouldn't need them to sign off.

but y'know... my parents were fine with that.

here's how i think they saw it:

my father volunteered for the marines in '67, and was half way thru boot camp at parris island before the army drafted him. (ha).  then served honorably in vietnam, receiving 3 purple hearts, a marine corps combat action ribbon, and others.

and i will never in my life forget the most important part, that he volunteered.  

(he might have had bone spurs too, i dunno. he didn't let anyone find out. i doubt that would have stopped him anyway, because he was in fact deaf in his right ear... completely deaf... he hid it.  he picked up a rifle and deployed to southeast asia, because that's what his country asked him to do.)

my mom trusted me, and knew that i knew what i was doing. i earned that trust through hard work, and she was fine with that.

ok here goes.

i learned a lot of things in boot camp:

- how to make my bunk. at hard angles. to the point where even after a long day, you stare at it a few seconds, and you're afraid to sleep in it... seriously.  sometimes you slept carefully on top of it, so that you could buy 10 minutes of sleep the next morning not having to remake it.  seriously.

- how to brush my teeth and wipe my ass (because apparently i've been doing it wrong my whole life,  thanks mom) ;-) 

- how to display my locker  

(hint, there is no "one way". just do it the way everyone in your platoon does it... uniformity is more important than conformity. 

meaning, if your squad leader puts six rolled up wool socks on the left side of the bottom drawer, 3x2, then that is where your socks better fucking be.)

- how to get beat on the side of the head with a trash can lid when i don't wake up and stand to, in time.

- how to lower my heart rate using breathing patterns, in order to knock down a tiny target 300m away with a 5.56mm round using nothing but iron sights and passionate focus, else i can eat later than everyone else (even though after a morning 5 mile run, and an evening 10 mile ruck march, i'm pretty fucking hungry)

- yes, when it comes to learning how to kill something at age 17, they figured out that hunger is the most powerful motivator.  it works.  i never failed after that first day to knock down that target 300m away.  (i like to eat)

- how to shine my boots to mirror finish using black kiwi, spit, and nylon stockings from the PX that i bought off this guy for $5, from the next company over, who i met on CQ tour, and he was two cycles ahead of me. cotton cloth doesn't work.   gotta go with the nylon.  i'm sure he only gave me a piece of it, and he paid less, but i didn't fucking care. my boots looked awesome after that, and so did those of everyone in my squad, for free.

- how to sneak in extra shit into your ruck, so that when your buddy gets caught short of something, he doesn't go without and get punished. (he will pay you back next time. buddies are good to earn.)

- how to bend rules without getting caught.  because in life, if you're not cheating, you're not trying. (by the way... in life, this works a lot too)

but the singular most important life lesson i learned in boot camp, that i think this country would be much better if everyone had a chance to learn this lesson, is...

how to silently and directly eat the blame, and bear the punishment, for something that wasn't your fault. 

how to resist the urge to lash back, to plead your case, to expect that life is going to be fair, and the expectation that the authority punishing you for the offense even gives a shit about the facts of the matter.

it's hard.

it's harder than 100 pushups.

when you're blamed, and you know it's not your fault, you want to fucking scream.

whenever something went wrong, and it wasn't my fault, and i got blamed, yelled at, judged, and punished for it, in my mind, i felt offended. i felt aggrieved. i felt that if i could just logically state my case, i would be absolved, and that justice would be served, and the leveling of the world would come back into balance.

i kept those feelings in my mind, to myself.

i learned that in life, fuck what you expect.

when something happens, bad, to you or your team, and they blame you. you fucking eat it.

eat. it. 

shut up.

forget it.

move on.

your team is counting on you. (life isn't about you)

drill sergeants. part of what they do is set you up in catch-22 bullshit. and if you keep expecting justice you will continue doing push ups.  hundreds.  and they hurt after a while.

they don't fucking care.

and life doesn't either.

and that's a GENIUS MOVE for teach a teenager this.

the moment you accept the blame, you will eat their anger they spit at you, but you won't have to do pushups anymore.

i've never forgotten that lesson.

prepare.

control what you can control.

and then reach out and help others who haven't prepared.

you might have to eat their blame, and next time, despite your best efforts, they might eat your blame.

but ANY TIME your buddy fails and they blame you. eat it.  that's the meaning of sacrificing to something bigger than yourself.

the mission is more important than your feelings.

the reason why this country could use a draft ISN'T because we want more teenagers to learn how to march, shoot, and get yelled at.  that's horseshit that don't mean nothing.

the reason why this country could use a draft is to GIVE EACH young adult the humility and HONOR they need to understand that while their own personal needs and desires deserve respect, the needs and desires of AMERICA require and deserve greater respect.

EVERY soldier who was maimed, or died, due to to the call of their nation, over the last few centuries, booked a debt that is your duty to pay back with whatever might, public or private, you have, to the progress of our nation.

i often fail to understand why those in the military are conservatives.

it's maybe because they're too young.
they respond more to strength than they do to logic.

or they apply socialism at scales close to them, but conservatism at scales larger than they can mentally wrap their heads around.

to salute the flag, is to respect the fact that we are a collective society.  we decided that joining together is a great way to deal with things best handled collectively, that we all use: highways, border protection, military, environmental protection, law enforcement, courts.

it sickens me when today's conservatives get their panties in a wad when someone doesn't do something with or toward The Flag that they find acceptable. especially those who never served. in doing so, they never grasp the perspective needed to understand what's really important and what's not.  what's worthy of being whiny about and what's not.

the one thing i always take away from folks on social media poppin off about what they think is right, what they demand as fair, is this: the more they whine, the more they show themselves to be soft.

when you talk hard but act soft, we're laughing at you.

i really wish we would bring the draft back.

it's not just about extracting service from those who benefit, for life, from the society built and defended by those who stand a post--no--it's more about how to eat shit for the greater good. to understand that, while your feelings have value, that value is worth exactly about 1/320 millionth of America, and not one bit more.

here's how to reclaim your worth.  reach down. grab the wagon handle.  pull it for us.  help people.  make the world a better place.  try... really try... to understand the perpective of someone other than yourself.  when you're in disagreement with someone, rather than seize the opportunity to force everyone to see how right you are, appreciate the opportunity to learn something new.  pay your taxes--and also get involved.  then at some point, die.  that's all you're worth.  you did a good job.

and if you do it right, someone might recognize you and give you a thumbs up. or not. the rest of us don't give a shit, k?