June 4, 1997 - Processing and Forming

970604 - Woke up @ 0300. Got rifles. Stood a lot. Went to dental. Headache is either doing nothing or getting worse. Trying to keep my eyes on God. tomorrow I have my IST. Praying my headache will subside by then. Assigned to keep the head clean from 1800-1900. Then I sleep. Scared + discouraged but trying not to be.
I didn't know this at the time (because for some reason the Drill Instructors never thought they should run things by me to keep me in the loop), but the first couple of days were spent in what's called a "forming" platoon. Over the course of these days, we were processed into the military. This involved lots of administration: clothing issue, gear issue, blood and urine tests, vaccinations, dental examinations, medical examinations, and the Initial Strength Test. Once this was all completed, we would be placed into our actual platoons with our actual Drill Instructors.

In this journal entry, I mentioned a headache. My senior year in high school had been fueled nearly exclusively by Mountain Dew and Surge soda. When I got to boot camp, my body had to instantly adjust to zero caffeine. It was rough, to say the least.

For example, everything in boot camp is to be done "with a sense of urgency." To help facilitate this, Drill Instructors would often count down from ten or twenty to get recruits moving. The count would typically quicken as they went along. It was usually something like,

"Ten.....Nine.....Eight...Seven..SixFiveFourThreeTwoAaaaaaandOne."

When the Drill Instructor got to "One" the recruits were to snap to the position of attention and yell, "Done, sir, done!" whether or not we were actually done. Since we often weren't, we would have to start all over. It was a great way to pass the time, so long as being toyed with and harassed is your idea of a great way to pass the time. Anyway, during these first couple of days, I distinctly remember being told to tie our boots (at the beginning of boot camp, literally every portion of our lives was done together and with a countdown). The Drill Instructor began the count and I began furiously tying my boots. When he got to "one," I quickly stood and shouted "Done, sir, done!" As I did, a wave of searing pain shot into my head and I watched in wonder as the world in front of me disappeared. Fortunately, the blackout passed quickly and the pain from the migraine became more manageable, and the second and third time we had to untie and retie our boots (until everyone was actually done on "one"), the pain was much less.

In the interest of keeping my "no research" word, I haven't included any pictures of boot camp yet. However, I do have a yearbook from boot camp, so I have scanned some of the pictures and thought it might be helpful to see them as a frame of reference. These pages are in all of the yearbooks and are not actually pictures of my platoon. Some of them are very old and pretty outdated, style-wise, but the essence is the same.







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