We Were Never Even Questioned
3708th Basic Military Training Squadron, Flight 262, Dorm A7, Lackland AFB, San Antonio, Texas. March 30, 1991.
Four o’clock in the morning. Maybe. Didn’t have a watch. It was f-ing early, that much I know.
They woke us all up at 3am yesterday in NYC, hustled us to the airport, flew us to San Antonio, ran us all over the place until we finally were allowed to go to bed at 4am. Forty-nine guys asleep and me lying there awake. On the first night of basic training, the guy next to me wouldn’t stop snoring.
Not just your ordinary snoring, of course, but the deep, wet, sloppy, “you think he’s done but then he’s not” elephant-snoring, the kind that ruins marriages. The kind that reduces concrete dormitories to rubble. The kind that keep me awake.
The beds were aligned side-by-side, but alternating head/feet directions so nobody breathed on each other at night or could look each other in the eye. So when I reached over to wake him up, I tapped his calf with the tip of my index finger.
He didn’t stop snoring. Heck, he didn’t even move. If anything the snoring grew worse. I pushed his leg. No effect. I shoved. Nada. I ever so slightly closed my fist and tapped him with that.
Zero.
I sat up and hit his leg. With authority. How could he sleep through that? He must be dead, but he’s still snoring, so he’s obviously not. And I punched his calf again. And again.
He. Is. Still. Asleep.
Now I was really torqued. From my fist, I extended the knuckle from my middle finger while keeping the fingers coiled, reared back like Tom Seaver, and blasted him in the calf with that. Twice. Three times! Stop snoring, you tree-climbing bed-wetter!
He was still asleep.
Whatever sense of rational thought I had left got up and hotfooted it back to the airport. Grabbing his ankle with my left hand, I drove my knuckle-fist deep and hard into his flesh, hoping to reach his bone and leave an imprint upon it. Although I didn’t make a sound, in my head I was screaming like a blood-thirsty warrior demanding my enemy submit to my will!
And he didn’t even flinch. But he did let out one h#ll of a good “snark-snore”.
OK, I surrender. He’s going to snore all night, I’ll just have to live with it. I laid back down and stared into nothingness as the snores shook the ceiling tiles. Eventually, thankfully, and fitfully, sleep finally took me.
GET UP!! Five in the morning and the guy bashing a trash can woke us up to blazing lights and screaming instructors wearing big black hats. Their invasion reminded us all that the previous day was no dream, we really were in basic training. We all jumped out of bed and stood quivering with our backs to the wall lockers and let them scream at us, as it seemed that’s the only thing that really made them happy.
Except our bed-side neighbor wasn’t with us against the lockers. He was on the floor, actually, screaming and clutching his leg. Nobody had heard him over the trash-can percussion and insult-chorus. What the heck was wrong with him? The instructors ran over to him and spat-screamed at him, demanding to know why he wasn’t making them happy and standing against the lockers.
They lifted him up and his calf was purple. He had tried to jump out of bed, but his leg gave out from under him due to the blindingly intense pain that was shooting up it. Wow, look at that mess. What the heck happened to his leg? Bedbugs? Scorpions?
…
Um. Oh. Yeah.
They made him shake it off and stand on one foot against the locker, then spat-screamed at him once more because they had stopped and needed to get their vocal-engines primed. And they all took off down the line, skipping me entirely. My face was quite dry.
On the one hand, I felt really bad. I’d never injured a defenseless person before. Honestly, in my sleepless delirium, I had no clue I was injuring him at all. Resorting to fisticuffs is just not how I roll.
But if I have to be completely honest, I must admit that I had to work really, really hard not to grin. I knew the instructors would’ve used it as an excuse to spittle-scream in my face. Which they never did the entire time I was there.
There are three more Airman Howell at Basic Training tales, minimum. No more injuries occur, but one involves a rather unpleasant and unfortunate reference to male genitals, while another permits me to get to tell one of my two famous Dancing Stories.
Which one should I write first…
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Much as my morbid curiosity wants to hear about the unfortunate, unpleasant genitals… dance dance dance!
(longtime lurker, first time commenter, terrible hunter, would be far worse without BRK)
Airman what is a 3-5 minute wavering tone….
Sir, a 3-5 minute wavering tone is “WoOoOoOoOoOo”….
TI walks off….
Great story BRK. Thanks for sharing. You seriously have the best stories. Looking forward to the next ones!
I vote for a dancing story.
I vote dancing too.
But only because I expect the wiener and beans story to be better.
I hate to have actually typed this, but:
“Your male-genitalia story has piqued my interest…”
Please justify my curiosity, for my own sanity.
GAAAAAAAAH! Brings back horrible memories of USAF basic training, August 1980. Week three, our first red line inspection, we are standing at attention in our freshly starched fatigues…not BDUs or ABUs as they are called now, but the gas station attendent green fatigues.
The guy in the bunk next time me is having his locker ripped apart by the TI (female too) when she opens his folded duffle bag. Yes they made us fold our cardboard hard duffle bags into 12″ wide 2′ long bundles. As she began to unfold the mess, she noticed that there was a crease that ran the lenght of the bag. WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!!!!!!!!!!!, she pointed at the crease, I am doing my best to keep my eyes locked forward and not draw the wrath of the pint sized firecracker of a TI. WHAT THE HELL IS THAT, ma’am its a slant. He called the crease a slant, and it did slant at a 45 degree angle. Thats all it took for me to loose my composure and bust out laughing. I laughed so hard I literally pissed my pants. The TI thankfully had a good sense of humor, and she too was in stitches, and called off the inspection.
Brings back memories.
LOL
omg the memories rush back so much when i read/hear stories of boot camp. i for one liked boot camp. yeah the screaming and hollering and waking up early i liked it. coming from a big family t wasn’t anything new to me. just the full on i submit to your will thing i had issues with. hence my boot lasted an extra 3 months. but what the hell…chalk it up to a life lesson.
guard duty was the best because the TI would post a new recruit from another squad to watch the dorm door at night and leave strict instructions not to open it unless the Officer at the door shows you his id badge. what made it funny was at 3am the Dorm officer would show up a full butter bar or higher and start screaming and hollering to let him into his building but wouldn’t show his id badge. finally he slid the badge under the door the recruit goes “sir this is a Blockbuster card i need to see your AF issued id card please sir” more screaming and hollering and finally the id is slid under and then we hear “sir this is Sgt. Powell’s id badge sir i need to see YOUR id badge i will not open this door until i see your id badge”
long story short
The CO finally showed his id badge and got into the building, what happened was the TI forgot to tell the CO that he left strict instructions. so hence we all got a nice show.
ahh memories……
Boot Camp - A place where mostly 18-year olds are away from the sanctuary provided by mom and dad and realize that dirty S.O.B. screaming at you at 0:DarkThirty can and will make your life miserable for the next few months. And yet, when it’s all said and done and you have a chance to look back on it, it actually was quite fun.
Though if I never see a floor waxer again, I’ll be quite happy, thank you very much.
I remember those days of other TI’s trying to gain access to our dorm, all pulling the same tricks mentioned above.
Another fond memory of BMTS was guarding an empty dorm on my 28th day of basic, in my blues, and having to yell at the top of my lungs…FEMALE ENTERING THE BAY! Why they made us do this when there was no one around still makes me shake my head, 28 yrs later
Is good thing this were Day 1. Laters on in yer career you woulda been suspect #1 fer all weird stuff, I suspects.
Anyone who has done boot camp(whichever branch) can always recount those first weeks vividly. I don’t think I slept at all the first week due to the fact that we had snorers, sleep talkers, sleep walkers(that will really freak you out if you’ve never seen one before) guys crying, guys moaning (don’t ask) and every other bed squeaking, faucet dripping noise u can imagine.
Amazingly, after a while u sleep thru it all and then after you’re done with your tour…u realize, other than a small thermo nuclear device going off in your bed, u can sleep thru just about anything!
Looking fwd to the other stories..plus I’m sure there’s a boatload of stories u prolly can put on here w/o violating some sort of obscenity law in your hometown.
As nice as random blog posts are, it sure would be nice if BRK stayed about WoW. It would be even nicer if it had more Hunter analysis and less arena scoreboards, but hey, at least they’re on-topic with the original disposition of the blog. Or, maybe I’m just too crotchety for my own good.
My brother in law had his (Army) Basic Training at Fort Dix in New Jersey. There was another guy in his unit whom nobody else could stand - he dogged everything and never pulled his weight, and consequently the DIs gave him more shit than anybody else. Well one day Einstein gets a postcard from his family addressed to Private Dumbass, Fort DICKS. The Drill Instructors went ballistic, told him to drop for 100 push-ups right there during the mail call, and warned him of the dire consequences to follow if he were to ever receive such blasphemously mislabeled mail in the future.
Fast forward a few weeks. Private Dumbass continues screwing up at an astonishing rate. My brother in law, along with everybody else training with this guy, is pushed over the edge. He nicks down to the PX and picks up a stack of at least 3 or 4 dozen postcards and distributes them among his unit. All are addressed to Private Dumbass, Fort Dicks, etc. They arrive in dribs and drabs over the next week. As the first one arrived, the Drill Instructors informed hapless Private Dumbass that each one would merit at least 50 pushups in penalties.
Eventually, Private Dumbass was conditioned to simply drop to the ground and start working simply upon SEEING a DI. This continued until he graduated Basic.
My first night at Navy OCS was memorable. Got yelled at for showing up in the evening and making people stay up late. (Yeah, right.) Got yelled at to … fill in the blank.
The battalion chief and the senior class Officer Candidates kept yelling to “hydrate!” So, I’d drain the canteen of water. I don’t remember how many times, but it was more than one.
I got my revenge, though. They put us in the dorm and told us we had to be escorted anywhere. Including the head. I think I knocked on the door of the poor, sleep-deprived senior OC at least six or seven times to be escorted to the head.
The next morning, we had a whiz quiz. One of the chiefs held up my, quite clear, sample bottle and pronounced that I had hydrated well.
Cauthon: Go with the too crotchety for your own good bit.
Love hearing the military stories BRK, love hearing hunter/raid tips, hints and highlights, I’m not interested in, but I respect, all the PvP stuff lately. Please keep having fun giving us something to read while we’re at work all day, and PLEASE keep writing what YOU enjoy writing about.
4 Sep 86, 0100ish, 3701 BMTS, flight 446…
I’m standing with my nose to my locker (memorizing my locker number) after spending the entire day in numerous airports across the country with the TI yelling at everyone and anyone that will listen. He informs us that we are to empty our pockets into our “Security drawer”…so here goes $6 in assorted change into my security drawer. Hmmm…sure is quite in here…click, click, click…getting closer…closer…Ooo @#$% The TI procedes to “explain” that the security drawer is the one with the lock on it (i.e. the bottom drawer). I had indeed put my contents into the top drawer since mine had the lock on it.
Have you ever tried to pick up a penny when you have had little sleep and you TI is screaming at you? Well, let me tell ya, it doesn’t work very well. So, what should we do? Pick up the change and place it in the correct drawer? Never in a million years would we get it done! We remove the two drawers from the locker and swap them! The TI went silent, stared at what he had saw and walked on.
The next day I was appointed Chow Runner thanks to my quick thinking (at least that’s what he said) LOL!
:Standing in front of the Snake Pit:
Sir, Airman Hudson reports as ordered! Flight 446 is prepared to enter the dining hall on the east side, Sir!
Cauthon… yeah you are. as a non hunter I’m here for the fun, and i love the BRK stories, hell even the area postings are funny, and can be informative as to what to watch for from that makeup team
2300 hours April 29th 2002 Trainee Ortiz is standing at attention as CMSgt Blackburn walks around and yells random rules at us. He continues walking around when he notices the guy in front of me is shaking from head to toe. CMSgt rushes over to this poor fellow and begins yelling obscenities about him being scared and then asks why he is shaking. Turns out his arms were very tired from having to hold his luggage for 45 minutes straight so CMSgt Blackburn being a nice guy tells him to drop it for a few minutes, well this guy drops his back right onto CMSgt Blackburns highly polished COmbat boots and puts a huge scuff on them. I think this guy got yelled at for atleast another hour while everyone else was told where to go and sleep. ou gotta love Basic Training.
I think I read BRK more for the offbeat stories than I do the ingame stuff. After 3 years, the game isn’t throwing much new stuff my way…
“You can dance if you wanna…”
Seriously, dance story!
I DO read BRK more for the offbeat stories. I mean, the rest of the stuff he posts is *gold* but still, these stories are what keeps bringing me back
@Lance…..LMAO, I went through right after you did. July 22nd 2002 and I definatly remember CMSgt Blackburn. Oh those fond memories of Lackland (I haven’t been back to Texas since =D). One of my most hated moments was chem suit training. My partner couldn’t tie off all of his bungie strings so we kept getting put at the back of the line. Finally we get to the inspectors again and they go to check his gas mask (they place there hand over your canister and you breath in to make the face shield collapse) and it pretty much just falls off his head. Needless to say we had to go to the back of the line again. Lucky for me it started raining hard so they cancled it.
@ Cauthon - /sigh I’d rather read Airman stories than raid-progression stories.
I actually LOLed at this one. Now, the question is, what do you do when the snorer is your WIFE?…
One more and I will quit. I was stationed at Taegu AB Korea with the 15th Tactical Reconnaissence Squadron, and we had an up coming deployment to Clark AB for Cope Thunder. The reconnaissance group commander, an O-6, was on this deployment and wasnt well like by a majority of the pilot’s and wso’s. A few days into the deployment and all the aircrew show up with name tags of the commander on their flight suits.
16 pilots and wso’s walking around the compound for the day with the name of the group commander, and some E-3 comes up to me and says, sarge, your unit has a lot of people with the same name, how do you do it? I dont remember my response, but he couldnt beleive we would have some many people with the same name.
LOL
i remember being in Mathematics and Statistics class on Shepard AFB right. so staying up all night for multiple nights studying would kill anyone…except boots. what happed to me was classic. mon tues and wed i would stay up till about 3 to study and then go to sleep wake at 5 for morning run and off to class with the flight by 620am. well in class on thur at 740 the teacher wanted us around the computer to demo a new program for Statistical Gathering and such. well i did the worst thing i could…i leaned against the pillar and fell asleep standing up. now the only thing that woke me was the complete silence. its weird after your in boot and fall asleep to all the ruckus that complete silence wakes you. but it did and i had extra duty for a week. but hey you learn to sleep standing up.
I also bet there was a DI watching there in the middle of the night, that saw the whole thing, and never said a word.. at least to any of you…
BRK See what you did?
Air Force Blocks Blogs from BoingBoing
Poor guy… at least he wasn’t one of the criers or masturbators. Damned barracks life…
What do you do when your husband/wife is a snorer?
Years ago a friend, who was a big-time snorer, would wake up in the middle of the night with chest pains. It would quickly go away, but left him scared and awake - his dad had died at in his mid 30s due to a heart attack.
This occurred on and off for a few weeks, until one night, he awoke, sat up, clutching his chest in pain… and his wife was quietly laughing.
Turns out when he snored, she’d backhand smack him in the chest.
They divorced shortly thereafter.
I got woke up once by a guy trying to impress the DI’s by getting up early to buff the already shinny floors. As he came by my top bunk and shook me, I rolled over and slugged him. Later I felt bad and apologized. I told him “Huey (he looked like Baby Huey) I am sorry I hit you in the chest this morning. I was a bit sleepy still; if I had been more awake I would have caught you square in the face.
[...] http://www.bigredkitty.net/2008/02/26/we-were-never-even-questioned/#comment-17801…; your life miserable for the next few months. And yet, when it’s all said and done and you have a chance to look back on it, it actually was quite fun. Though if I never see a floor Aussie MasterCard waxer again, I’ll be quite happy, thank you very much. [...]
The dancing story is here: http://www.bigredkitty.net/2008/03/18/like-macarthur-just-not-in-the-philippines/