The Squawks of Pain

When I think of inside jokes one in particular comes to mind. Me and my friends enlisted in the army at the same time but had different ship out dates. I was the first to leave and the one who wrote back home to prepare the others for the shitstorm that was about to brew.

I was placed into a platoon of sadistic animals disguised as humans. My drill sergeants hardly seemed human at first. They were ruthless, antagonistic and vengeful. Anyone who dared cross their path would pay for the slightest wrong. I loved it and thrived in this environment, and came to respect them greatly towards the end.

This didn’t change the fact they were still in my opinion horrible human beings, but great soldiers and teachers. My friend heard all of the horror stories I had to tell when I returned from bootcamp during my Christmas leave. He was slotted to begin in January of the next year. We both were sent to Ft. Leonardwood aka Ft. Lost in the woods. He had the pleasure of being in a different company but under the same training battalion that I was in.

My drill sergeant's punishment of choice was squatting directly after we ate because why not. They called us fat lards and hoped we stuffed our faces with bread. Because they were going to make us throw it up. “Squuuuuuuatttt” they screamed and we followed orders.

“Now pushups go”, so we switched to pushups.

“SQUATTTT”, okay back to squatting.

Not everyone was quick enough to please the drill sergeants so they focused on the slower people. Walking right up to them and getting in their faces. “Why aren't you squatting PRIVATE”, they screeched. There was always some excuse but it fell on deaf ears. “I guess you all want to play games, okay I like playing games”, They said. We in fact did not like playing their games.

I remember their screaming commands because it reminded me of a parrot squawking "SQUUUAT." You couldn’t help but chuckle at it especially when the drill sergeant with the funny Asian accent is screaming it at you. God forbid you laugh, because then more pain would come.

Well, my high school friend had hands down the greatest show on earth before him when he saw my old drill sergeants. He remembered my stories and he got to see first-hand the ruthless drill sergeants at play. We were their dolls and suffered greatly. Luckly for me they had new playthings, and he got front row tickets. He would watch them line up for food at the Defac and hear the SQUUAAT that I had come to know so well.

Everyone is mostly in close proximity and he watched as the new soldiers suffered. My drill sergeants knew no boundaries however. They didn’t care what company you belonged to. They would come for you too. They loved to pick fights with fellow drill sergeants and then punish their privates too.

So, when he returned home, he too was horrified at the experience of basic training. Over the years we have made it into an even bigger joke. One of us will yell SQUATTT and the other replies YES SARNT. Then we get in real close to whisper “Private”, followed by another “yes sarnt?” Then back to “SQUUUUAATT’.

This game keeps us on our toes and forever traumatized. It's our trauma joke, and hilarious to us. One of those you had to be there. More like you had to experience the pain to understand why we laugh about it now. I wonder how many other people are traumatized by those screeching SQUATT commands. Bless all those who endured Bravo Company 2-10 at Ft. Leonardwood or just the 2-10 battalion itself.