Pushups in the Rain

“Eat mud, Donaldson!”

The other recruits and I were in the middle of morning PT. Every day, it seems, the drill instructors find some new way to make our training more hellish. Today it was pushups and situps in the rain, in the mud, no doubt followed by a morning run in the rain and the mud… all before breakfast. Not that I was especially looking forward to breakfast anyway. Our cook never seemed to graduate beyond mud pies.

I’ll never forget my first day in Basic Training. Standing at rigid attention, in what we thought were neat ranks, in our newly-issued, ill-fitting, starchy and scratchy new uniforms, with our heads buzz cut and everything we owned in duffel bags at our feet. Handing over ID to a pint-sized corporal as he screamed at me from an inch away, screaming at me again for daring to look at him. I’m handing my ID to someone I don’t know and can’t recognize? But a minute later I was abandoning my belongings too, and running breakneck across the parade ground with the other boots, chasing some ad-hoc order. (I remember being glad my duffel was labelled with my name in permanent marker.)

Form ranks over there by the tree in thirty seconds, MOVE! Then form ranks again back by the Jeep in twenty seconds, MOVE! It always seemed impossible, and even when, by some miracle, we managed to do it to time, it was never good enough. Always there was a line not quite straight, or Somebody Or Other who made it just after the allotted time. Or else the DI would just make something up, like me getting there late when I clearly didn’t. (That ticked me off. I knew Basic was supposed to be harsh, but I didn’t expect that kind of harshness.) And then there were the punishments for not meeting expectations; running, crawling, and pushups.

For some reason there were always pushups. I always hated pushups, probably because I was never very good at them. No doubt the idea was to build upper-body strength. I don’t know; I did plenty of pushups, but I can’t say they ever got easier. Maybe I was getting stronger, but I didn’t feel stronger.

Then again, maybe they didn’t particularly want me to feel like I was making progress. I had always assumed that Basic Training was intended to mold me into a soldier, and that the yelling and the insults and the physical tests to the point of endurance were a means to an end. But sometimes it felt different; that the insults and the degrading nonsense were the point. I guess every recruit, at one time or another, has felt that.

But it sure is convincing sometimes… such as this morning, with me struggling to do my pushups in the rain, and Corporal Chavets leaning over me, screaming in my ear to go lower. He must have thought I didn’t go low enough; he put his boot on my back and applied weight, and down I went, facefirst in the mud. Then he made me finish my pushups like that.

(Does he have it in for me? If any of the DIs personally hate me, Corporal Chavets is the one. God help the recruit who accidentally calls him “Corporal Shove It”. I never did, but I got accused of it once, and he screamed that he’d make me do pushups until I puke. I did, and for once he wasn’t standing right next to me, so I didn’t even have the satisfaction of puking all over his boots.)

And then there are the fine motor control punishments. Sometimes, just for fun, they’ll make us run flat-out until our lungs are burning and our guts are ready to come out, and that’s when we’ll have to control our trembling hands long enough to disassemble our personal weapons. God help you if you drop a single piece. I did once, and caught hell for it. Once the recruit next to me did it, and I got accused (unfairly) of jostling him, and I caught hell for it anyway.

There Ain’t No Justice in boot camp; that’s my motto. But at least we graduate in two weeks, and then I’ll be stationed somewhere — as an actual soldier, not a recruit. Before I enlisted I had my ideas of where I’d like to be stationed, and what I’d like to be doing, but I frankly don’t even remember anymore. Just as long as I’m somewhere else, anywhere else, away from this miserable camp and these lousy sadistic gorillas.

Time here is a blur. We wake at the crack of dawn, or earlier, and get up to another punishing day. Sometimes we get to see the schedule of the day’s training, but often we don’t… and when we do, it frequently gets changed without warning anyway. The days of the week don’t matter, and neither do the seasons. It’s as if this Godforsaken camp has one season only — gray skies, with the threat (and sometimes promise) of rain. Our choices are dirt or mud.

I dimly remember my time before Basic — family, school, friends. There was a girlfriend briefly, but at this point I don’t even remember her name. It’s as though my mind is filled with nothing but the present — today’s training, today’s screaming, today’s punishments for imaginary crimes. Graduation can’t come soon enough.

A week later. We got awakened before daybreak and we ran, as though the Devil himself were chasing us, in the dark, all the while with the DIs urging us faster! Faster! Faster!! I had been wrenched from a dream, a weird one, and I struggled to remember the details as we ran. I was older somehow, and a doctor, with a wife and family and a successful private practice. There was something in there about a girlfriend on the side, and about unscrupulous habits; I think I got arrested for selling prescription drugs under the table. But the details were fading, and soon all I could think about was the pounding of our feet and the burning in my lungs.

Later in the day I got gigged during weapons practice. I don’t think I did anything wrong; I was using my weapon correctly, and I even got decent scores hitting the target. But the Sergeant screamed that I’d aimed my weapon at him — I hadn’t — and started swearing that I was up for court-martial for sure. That was scary; we’d heard all sorts of stories about what a court-martial could be like, including for offenses that sure seemed imaginary. Then things seemed to die down for a while. But just before dinner (or what passes around here for “dinner”), I got hauled off and told I was reporting to The Lieutenant.

Yikes! The Lieutenant. Hardly any of us had even seen him. I’d heard him called El Diabolo, although nobody seemed to know why. (Probably what his mother called him.) But he was the unseen tyrant of all of us, and God help any of us who so much as mentioned him. And now I was going to see him… presumably for that court-martial! I found myself standing outside a wooden door in a spartan office building, my knees shaking uncontrollably.

Then I was ordered to enter. I saluted and stood at attention before his desk. I was given permission to look at him… and he looked vaguely familiar, somehow. (Had I been dreaming about him?) He glared at me and said, “You messed up, Donaldson, you messed up real bad. Fortunately, we know exactly how to deal with people like you.”

I couldn’t help myself. I blurted out: “For aiming my weapon? Sir?”

The Lieutenant laughed. “Oh, no, Donaldson. Oh, no. For lots of things. A whole lifetime of things.”

I didn’t understand. I hadn’t even done what I was accused of. What else was I supposed to have done?

The Lieutenant smiled unpleasantly, and said, “I’m sending you back to the foot of the line. You’re not graduating Basic. You’re starting all over again.”

Oh, hell. Boot camp all over again? I could scarcely imagine it. I could feel the fury rise, and the tears come. I controlled them both and kept my face still.

“Begging the Lieutenant’s pardon, sir, but that doesn’t seem just. Sir.”

The Lieutenant laughed. “Who said anything about justice? But it is just, more just than you know. It’s justice for a lifetime of crimes. It’s justice for the people you scammed, the patients you misled, the malpractice you were only too happy to be involved in. It’s justice for your poor wife.”

Wait — what? That was a dream.

“No, that was no dream, Dr. Donaldson. That was you starting to remember… and we can’t have that, now can we? That is the real reason you’re here today. You started to remember your actual life, your real life, and so it’s time to restart the clock and send you back to the beginning.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. What was this, some sort of divine punishment or something?

“Now you’re getting it.” The Lieutenant smiled his unpleasant smile again. Why did his smile look like fangs? Did he have those before? “You and the others call me Diabolo, I hear. You want to know why? Because that’s my name.”

He stood. His smile looked more than ever like fangs. He waved his hand at me. “Time to forget and restart. Goodbye, Dr. Donaldson.”

“Eat mud, Donaldson!”

The other recruits and I were in the middle of morning PT. Every day, it seems, the drill instructors find some new way to make our training more hellish. Today it was pushups and situps in the freezing rain, in the mud, no doubt followed by a morning run in the rain and the mud… all before breakfast. Not that I was especially looking forward to breakfast anyway. Our cook never seemed to graduate beyond coffee made of mud.

I’ll never forget my first day in Basic Training…