"I have a picture of De'on and it is in a frame I can see from here. She is crawling in a river in full military gear and she has her eyes closed. She said she did it on purpose because if there were snakes or something she didn't want to see them. If her son had left us with a picture of him in the same position, he would have had those eyes peeled and hoping to fight that snake...to maybe catch it in between his teeth. That is a God thing and a boy thing and a hero thing. She, of course, should have been back at the base making coffee. Eyes closed are very God and very girl and besides it keeps her safe for her Mother. That is a God thing, a girl thing, and a mommy thing.... " from Virgie Bell's March 8, 2007 post of "Boys and Girls" ++++
Doug and Aaron had only been in-country a few days when someone told me my name was up for the next class to attend the Primary Leadership Development Course (PLDC), which is the first school attended by those who are waiting to promote to a non commissioned officer (NCO), pay grade E-5. Though I was able to talk my way out of it for that month, by the next month, I was gone. “Gone” being to the Atlantic side at Ft. Davis for an entire month reenacting Basic Training as it were.
Aaron cried when I had to leave. It was just like all the leaves I’d taken in the past. I left at 4:30 in the morning and spent the next month at being graded as a leader, not only by the cadre, but by my peers. There is nothing quite like being under the pressure of peers. We rotated in different roles. We were graded on our performances as platoon leaders, squad leaders, platoon sergeants, everything. There were room inspections every morning by the current “actor” who felt it was their job to find something wrong with your AO, even though you’d spent half the night squaring it away (and it was!). I walked a fine line between finding enough things wrong with my peers (at least enough to keep the cadre happy) and few enough demerits to keep from making enemies with those that I would spend three days in the jungle with before the course ended.
It was a grueling thirty days. Practical tests such as Drill and Ceremony, leading PT, first aid applications and land navigation were all graded on a “GO” or “NO GO” basis. The troop had two shots at each test, but not even one “NO GO” would be acceptable. If the troop didn’t make it on their second chance, they were sent back to their unit, the permanent failure recorded in the troops’ permanent records.
In first aid, I drew the sucking chest wound, which is a tricky one. The wound is sealed with the plastic side of the bandage and must be applied at the exact time the “casualty” inhales in order to make a good seal. It’s a little like jump rope with two other friends. One must watch the rope carefully, get in tune with the rhythm and decide the exact second to go in. The “exhale” application would get the old “NO GO,” but I made it through that one on the first try.... I made it through PT on the first try, I succeeded at the difficult task of leading and inspecting troops, and I even made it through three days in the jungle acting as point man, platoon leader, radio man, commo or whatever the correct usage would be. All I remember about that is how heavy the PRC radio was and that since I was the one carrying the communication, I was my “enemy’s” number one target.
Out in the jungle I ran from “incoming,” ate MREs, fought with black palm and listened to the wild boars and chimpanzees at night. I pulled guard duty and was awakened in my hammock by someone on guard duty for overly snoring. “Austin, wake up! You’re giving our position away!”
I fell out of my hammock once (it was too high and when I tried to climb up into it, my balance and rhythm was off and out I came, hard on the ground, once again disturbing the “peace of the night.”
I suffered from “light discipline” (no smoking at night), used most of my allotted water to take a bath, flossed my teeth and fell into a river of water from being off balance with my sixty-pound rucksack on my back. Okay, maybe not sixty pounds to begin with, but it must have weighed that much by the time someone pulled me out of the lake. All the extra socks and toiletries I had packed—soaked. Too bad it was early in the morning when this triumphant act took place. I got to tromp through the jungle all day that way. Wet from the lake, wet from the humidity, my boots squashed each step I took and no dry socks to change into. The peer in charge of me that day couldn’t look at me without pure contempt.
I was fortunate to get a “GO” at all on land nav. I have trouble finding my car on a parking lot, don’t understand north and south, particularly out in a jungle, forget the number of paces I’ve counted and the best I can remember, much of the terrain had changed considerably since the maps had first been created. But I made it on my second try (a test with a three hour limit to find 4 out of 5 sites.). My partner was an E-5 already who absolutely had to make it through, so it was a horrible and stressful three hours.
The funniest thing that happened was during Drill and Ceremony when I marched my squad into a fence. I was thoughtful enough to call “rear march” when I saw the obstacle, but not before it was too late. The NCO was trying to keep from smiling as he looked over his grade sheet and announced, “There’s not even anything on here for marching troops into an obstacle!” I got it the second time around though and made it through. I was fortunate, because that cycle we lost nearly half of the troops. My platoon that started with forty was down to five by the time the month was through.
At the end, we had to evaluate the course, secretly, but perhaps the fact that I wrote my height and other particulars in my scathing evaluation (could it be?), my name was soon called. “Specialist Austin, the Commandant (Sergeant Major) wants to see you in his office!” Oh dear.
“Austin,” he said, while I was at the position of parade rest, “it’s easy to see how upset you are here from this evaluation.” He waved the slip of secret paper in the air. "This course shouldn’t discourage you from making a career in the Army….”
“Sergeant Major, I am thirty-five years old and this is just the first course. From here there are two other NCO courses.”
“Yes, yes, but they’ll be much more of a gentleman’s course. And you know, Specialist Austin, 11 Bravo (infantry) is the primary MOS of every soldier!”
“That may be true, Sergeant Major, but I still played with dolls when I was a little girl—not soldier!”
He looked up at me; speechless I guess, and said nothing more than “Dismissed.”
I graduated, rode back to the Pacific side next to my NCOIC from 536th in a hummer and walked back into Aaron’s life, once again. It took about a month to feel like I could talk or laugh or leave my own house messy without waiting on one of my peers to bump up their grade at my expense. But eventually the culture shock ended and 536th seemed like the best place in the world to be.
It’s amazing the freedom we have. Everyone should try being without it in some form for at least a short while. One begins to appreciate those “Rocks” who played soldier as a little boy. For a long while, I didn’t use my curling iron or tuck my son in at night in his Mickey Mouse sheets without a small realization of what freedom means, as well as a new appreciation for those who fight out in the jungles of another land far from home or administer a bandage to a sucking chest wound on the breast of another.
Aaron cried when I had to leave. It was just like all the leaves I’d taken in the past. I left at 4:30 in the morning and spent the next month at being graded as a leader, not only by the cadre, but by my peers. There is nothing quite like being under the pressure of peers. We rotated in different roles. We were graded on our performances as platoon leaders, squad leaders, platoon sergeants, everything. There were room inspections every morning by the current “actor” who felt it was their job to find something wrong with your AO, even though you’d spent half the night squaring it away (and it was!). I walked a fine line between finding enough things wrong with my peers (at least enough to keep the cadre happy) and few enough demerits to keep from making enemies with those that I would spend three days in the jungle with before the course ended.
It was a grueling thirty days. Practical tests such as Drill and Ceremony, leading PT, first aid applications and land navigation were all graded on a “GO” or “NO GO” basis. The troop had two shots at each test, but not even one “NO GO” would be acceptable. If the troop didn’t make it on their second chance, they were sent back to their unit, the permanent failure recorded in the troops’ permanent records.
In first aid, I drew the sucking chest wound, which is a tricky one. The wound is sealed with the plastic side of the bandage and must be applied at the exact time the “casualty” inhales in order to make a good seal. It’s a little like jump rope with two other friends. One must watch the rope carefully, get in tune with the rhythm and decide the exact second to go in. The “exhale” application would get the old “NO GO,” but I made it through that one on the first try.... I made it through PT on the first try, I succeeded at the difficult task of leading and inspecting troops, and I even made it through three days in the jungle acting as point man, platoon leader, radio man, commo or whatever the correct usage would be. All I remember about that is how heavy the PRC radio was and that since I was the one carrying the communication, I was my “enemy’s” number one target.
Out in the jungle I ran from “incoming,” ate MREs, fought with black palm and listened to the wild boars and chimpanzees at night. I pulled guard duty and was awakened in my hammock by someone on guard duty for overly snoring. “Austin, wake up! You’re giving our position away!”
I fell out of my hammock once (it was too high and when I tried to climb up into it, my balance and rhythm was off and out I came, hard on the ground, once again disturbing the “peace of the night.”
I suffered from “light discipline” (no smoking at night), used most of my allotted water to take a bath, flossed my teeth and fell into a river of water from being off balance with my sixty-pound rucksack on my back. Okay, maybe not sixty pounds to begin with, but it must have weighed that much by the time someone pulled me out of the lake. All the extra socks and toiletries I had packed—soaked. Too bad it was early in the morning when this triumphant act took place. I got to tromp through the jungle all day that way. Wet from the lake, wet from the humidity, my boots squashed each step I took and no dry socks to change into. The peer in charge of me that day couldn’t look at me without pure contempt.
I was fortunate to get a “GO” at all on land nav. I have trouble finding my car on a parking lot, don’t understand north and south, particularly out in a jungle, forget the number of paces I’ve counted and the best I can remember, much of the terrain had changed considerably since the maps had first been created. But I made it on my second try (a test with a three hour limit to find 4 out of 5 sites.). My partner was an E-5 already who absolutely had to make it through, so it was a horrible and stressful three hours.
The funniest thing that happened was during Drill and Ceremony when I marched my squad into a fence. I was thoughtful enough to call “rear march” when I saw the obstacle, but not before it was too late. The NCO was trying to keep from smiling as he looked over his grade sheet and announced, “There’s not even anything on here for marching troops into an obstacle!” I got it the second time around though and made it through. I was fortunate, because that cycle we lost nearly half of the troops. My platoon that started with forty was down to five by the time the month was through.
At the end, we had to evaluate the course, secretly, but perhaps the fact that I wrote my height and other particulars in my scathing evaluation (could it be?), my name was soon called. “Specialist Austin, the Commandant (Sergeant Major) wants to see you in his office!” Oh dear.
“Austin,” he said, while I was at the position of parade rest, “it’s easy to see how upset you are here from this evaluation.” He waved the slip of secret paper in the air. "This course shouldn’t discourage you from making a career in the Army….”
“Sergeant Major, I am thirty-five years old and this is just the first course. From here there are two other NCO courses.”
“Yes, yes, but they’ll be much more of a gentleman’s course. And you know, Specialist Austin, 11 Bravo (infantry) is the primary MOS of every soldier!”
“That may be true, Sergeant Major, but I still played with dolls when I was a little girl—not soldier!”
He looked up at me; speechless I guess, and said nothing more than “Dismissed.”
I graduated, rode back to the Pacific side next to my NCOIC from 536th in a hummer and walked back into Aaron’s life, once again. It took about a month to feel like I could talk or laugh or leave my own house messy without waiting on one of my peers to bump up their grade at my expense. But eventually the culture shock ended and 536th seemed like the best place in the world to be.
It’s amazing the freedom we have. Everyone should try being without it in some form for at least a short while. One begins to appreciate those “Rocks” who played soldier as a little boy. For a long while, I didn’t use my curling iron or tuck my son in at night in his Mickey Mouse sheets without a small realization of what freedom means, as well as a new appreciation for those who fight out in the jungles of another land far from home or administer a bandage to a sucking chest wound on the breast of another.
1 comment:
All I can say is WOW!
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