Every Day in Basic Was a Story
/danielmode on
In Air Force basic training, there are many roles and responsibilities for the trainees. The trainee-leader is the Dorm Chief and he is responsible for ensuring all the members of the dorm perform their jobs. He is the one the military training instructor (MTI) yells at when anything is wrong.
There is the Latrine Queen. This person is specifically in charge of the bathroom/showers and their cleanliness. This person has a crew and the LQ keeps the crew in line, doing their job. However, if the MTI finds something amiss in the bathroom, the Dorm Chief gets yelled at.
Each bay, and there are two, has a leader who ensures the beds are properly made, the floors buffed, and the upkeep is performed each day. However, if the MTI finds something amiss in the bays, the Dorm Chief gets yelled at.
This is the extent of the “official” leadership roles in basic training. However, there are many “unofficial” ones as well.
Boot Polisher. The Air Forces wants its members’ boots to shine. The boots are made from leather pulled from diseased cows, probably from the 1850s. But there was a kid from Alabama who could’ve started his own boot-shining business. He set the tub of polish on fire and used a spit-n-shine technique that turned the leather into mirrors. And because he was so good at it, the LQ offered to let him out of cleaning his assigned stall if he polished the LQ’s boots. Natch, he took the trade. Eventually, the Boot Polisher did no bathroom cleaning, no bed making, no dusting, nothing. He polished boots, that was it.
TeeShirt Guy. The Air Force wants its trainees to fold their teeshirts into perfect six-inch squares. Not six and an eighth, but six inches exactly. One guy was an absolute pro at using an iron and didn’t even need a ruler to make exact squares from the low-bidder-produced teeshirts. TeeShirt Guy did similar deals with the LQ and did no bathroom cleaning, no bed making, no dusting, no boot polishing, nothing. He folded and ironed teeshirts, that was it.
BedMaking Crew. The Air Force wants perfectly made beds, with hospital corners and covers so taut you can bounce a quarter off of them. We had two people who worked as a team and made every bed, every day. They could make a bed in thirty seconds, each one as perfect as the last. As you guessed, they did no bathroom cleaning, no dusting, no boot polishing, no teeshirt folding, nothing. They made beds, that was it.
House Mouse. The Air Force requires the MTI to complete lots of paperwork. The MTI has a little desk with a typewriter and assorted secretarial supplies to accomplish these duties. Some MTIs abhor the paperwork involved with the job and find a typist in the trainees to do the typing and note-taking and other administrative functions. I have previously written on this blog on how I became the House Mouse, so if you missed it, now would be a good time to catch up.
Now the House Mouse is not exempt from bathrooms and dusting and boot polishing and teeshirt folding. In order to get out of this stuff, a House Mouse must find alternative uses for his secretarial powers, some way to barter services. I found that letter-writing was a perfect solution.
Most kids don’t write letters, and basic training is the first time in their lives they cannot communicate with their family and friends at a moments notice. The Air Force puts restrictions on phone calls, but trainees may write as many letters as they like.
One day, as I was typing out the daily report form the MTIs notes, our Boot Polisher approached me.
“Hey mouse, do you write letters on that typewriter?”
“Yeah, man. I send out at least one letter a day.”
“Could you write one for me? I’d talk and you’d type? I’ll do your boots for a week if you can write a few letters for me.”
Score. I opened the typewriter and rewound the black ribbon; if the MTI attempted to see just what I’d been typing all day, he’d have a had time deciphering the ribbon since it was reused. Rewind complete, I put a fresh piece of paper in the typewriter and said Go.
He spoke to his girlfriend, in a southern drawl, about how lonely he was without her. He said that he was surprised that his boot polishing had earned so much praise and admiration from the people in his dorm. He talked of what they’d do together… in rather explicit terms… when he graduated. He told her he loved her.
His voice stopped and he ended his letter simply. I torn the page of out of the typewriter, folded it into thirds, and handed it to him. He unfurled the page, scanned the writing, muttered an expletive in appreciation. He thanked me without looking at me, turned around and grabbed my boots. I heard the tell-tale “phoomph” of the boot polish being set ablaze. Not a bad barter.
“Hey Mouse, I heard you’ll write letters?”
The Dorm Chief was at the door to the MTI’s office now.
“Sure thing. What do you want to say?”
He spoke a letter to his father, about how he was the Dorm Chief and how much it sucked. He got yelled at everyday for thing other people did or didn’t do, and he had no authority to force people to correct their behavior. He was getting used to it, numb to the MTIs yelling in his face and the stress of the position, but that didn’t mean he liked it. He said he couldn’t wait to graduate, and that he missed his sister and hoped she was behaving herself.
I gave him his letter, he too gave it an up-n-down perusal.
“You type really fast. Could you write more letters?”
“I can type all day long if necessary, but I can’t stop doing my other jobs.”
“Where are you assigned?”
“Shower and dusting.”
“I’ll talk to the Queen and get you out of shower-work. You’ll write a letter for him?”
“Of course!”
And that’s how I became The Typist. The Typist writes letters for his dorm so they can focus on the other parts of basic training. The guys who haven’t written anything and get sad when they look down at their handwriting visit The Typist and he transcribes their thoughts almost as fast as they say them. The final letter looks neat and orderly, even if the black is starting to slowly fade from the ribbon being reused. The Typist connects people to their loved ones when all other communication is cut off.
And The Typist doesn’t do showers or shine his own boots or fold his own teeshirts or make his own bed.
Around the end of the fifth week of basic training, our dorm had finally grown accustomed to the machinations of our MTI. We understood his mood swings and had become numb to the yelling, so life was much easier.
So imagine our surprise when he disappeared, replaced with a “finishing MTI”. It was this person’s job to take the roughly formed trainees and perform slight alterations to make them graduation-worthy. We trainees, as a group, protested loudly… behind closed doors. To the MTIs, we said nothing, of course.
Did you know there’s a Suggestion Box in the chow hall at Air Force basic training? Well I had a suggestion: give us our old MTI back. We liked him, we were happy with him, we didn’t want the “finishing MTI.” So I wrote that suggestion and placed it in that Suggest Box. Or more to the point.. I typed it.
Two days later, we were having Mail Call, the chief MTI of our squadron came to visit and spoke to our MTI, “I need to speak to your Mouse.”
Everyone stared as I stood and walked out of the room with the Master Sergeant, a man with so many stripes on his sleeve it was a wonder he could raise them to salute.
“Airman Howell, did you write a suggestion about your MTI returning?”
“Sir, yes sir, but I thought the suggestion process was supposed to be anonymous.”
“I inspect every dorm in this building on a daily basis and this is the only one where the typewriter is going all the d@mn time. So when the commander calls me into her office and asks to know why one of her MTIs is being reassigned without her authority, and I ask her how she has come to believe someone is being reassigned without her permission, and she shows me a typed letter from the Suggestion Box stating that her MTI is gone, and she does some research and finds out he’s been working a deal with an MTI over at Officer Training School to trade positions without their commanders’ authority, she has all the proof she needs and she’s pissed to hell, and I know exactly who typed the letter; the damn House Mouse of dorm A7.”
“Um…”
“So our commander has relieved your MTI of his duties pending an outcome of an investigation as to his activities regarding improper movement of personnel without permission. She is, in a word, livid as all fuck.”
“oh…”
“Airman Howell, I am not going to tell him the commander it was you who revealed your MTI’s transfer-plans because you typed a suggestion, but if I were you, I’d forget you ever wrote that thing and destroy the ribbon you used to type it.”
“Sir, yes sir…”
As I watched him saunter with extreme military precision out of the dorm, he turned over his shoulder and said one last thing,
“This dorm is using more paper than every other in the building combined. I hope those letters you’re writing are at least getting you out of latrine duty.”
/danielmode off
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58 Responses to “Every Day in Basic Was a Story”
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Hooyah 195!
HM2 USN
- First Mar Div
- Seal team 3
Great story BRK, please keep them coming because I always look forward to them.
Nice story BRK, gave me something to read while camping for the spirit beast
. Grinding the gorilla southern spawn point since lvl 77 and I’m just 3 bars away from 80 now. I think I’m gonna damage the ecosystem with how many I’m killing.
Write many more of these, no telling how long I’m gonna be camping
.
I once dated a boy that was in the air force- Poor guy was the latrine queen. Said they took turns buying a bottle of cologne everyday and sprayed the WHOLE bottle every day throughout the barracks because their MTI didn’t care how clean it was if it smelled bad. poor guy. I love your /danielmode stories.
And just for you, since it matches the story: (not sure it will work.)
[IMG]http://chuckandhisbelf.wordpress.com/files/2009/01/drillsergentkitteh.png[/IMG]
That one was broken so I made a new one- Sorry! It’s just a lolcat, but I thought it was appropriate.
http://chuckandhisbelf.wordpress.com/2009/01/15/for-a-certain-hunter-with-kitties-that-got-yelled-at/
I was also the House Mouse. Great story.
Air Force Term
PMEL
Precision Measurement Equipment Laboratory
I like your military stories as much as your gaming stories.
Dude, thank you for making my day. I’m home sick from work feeling like death on a stick… then I read this and laugh so hard chicken soup comes out my nose!
why can’t I post with firefox?
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This is certainly a very interesting look into the world of BRK.
A literate dwarf? I didn’t know your species could write yet!
Hmm. I guess you learn something new every day.
In any case, I hope your commander doesn’t get angry at everyone in general, and that you don’t get conked on the head. Or worse, have to perform Latrine duties.
Nice. Very nice.
Love the Airman stories. You could turn all the ones you have into a great movie. Anything would have to be better than some of the cr@p at the theater now.
“Airman Howell” – Based on a true story
Coming to theaters.
As s side note IF that were to happen who would you have play you?
Very cool story, could not figure out at first what the picture is at top but now I see. Has been many years since I have seen ribbon.
Airforce “Boot Camp” sounds like cake. You should see how us Marines do it.
Ooh-rah brother! Good story, let me tell you about the time some marine recruits were stealing cash from other recruits (to the sum of around $30,000) sometime.
Cultural clash? Check.
Pacifist on some level, and not a fan of military stuff? Check.
Still loudly cheering, even when alone in the flat, when a new Airman Howell post is up? Check.
Typewriter ribbons /wistful memories
Thanks for the story.
Just a little intra service rivalry…
I’ll give you Marine Boot is probably the toughest.
But, it’s still a joke.
I liked the air farce. They had nice planes and incredible berthing.
Love the Airman Howell stories!
What about us with the supreme job of Dorm Guard Monitor?
I assigned Airmen to guard the dorm’s main entrance, allowing only authorized personnel through the door.
If you were on my sh1t -list, you got the 2am shift.
If you were on my A-list, you got the shift that occurred during PT.
Sleep and No Exercise ……. I bartered these luxuries regularly.
Things I Shouldn’t Say Here: Just outside that guarded door was an internal stairwell, adjoined to an all-female wing of the dorm.
The Dorm Chief was always motivated to see things MY way.
You “Sir, yes, Sir”ed a Master Sgt. and lived to tell about it? Damn.
A “Sir sandwich” got your ass reamed as a CADET to an Air Force Captain or Colonel. A Master Sgt. would slay a fish cadet on the spot for “sirring” him.
Further proof that the cadet corps really isn’t like basic.
As the little kid from the movie “The Incredibles”:
That was awesome.
Great story. If I may ask, what was your MOS?
@Weryl
The “yes sir” at NCOs was only used as training for getting Airmen used to addressing and reporting to authority figures.
This protocol would end after Basic, reverting to the appropriate “yes sergeant” response.
I am amazed EJ hasn’t flamed you for rewinding your ribbon incorrectly!
Ft. Gordon, GA housed both Army and Air Force trainees in the AIT phase. We had a couple of Airmen run through our grass while we were outside doing mail call.
They “sirred” our SFC Drill Sergeant. THAT was an entertaining show
During army basic in 1992 I got out of KP and a range because I was artsy. The drill sergeants had me drawing designs and painting pictures.
Gah, this fake WP-SpamFree plugin is awful. It keeps claiming my comments are spam …..
If this makes it through ..
I cant believe your having so much fun in RTC. I remember my days in RTC (bootcamp) for the Navy in `96. It was never fun …
Feeling a bit nostalgic BRK?
I tried to join the Airforce, but I hit my head really bad when I was 15 and died a few times. They said since I died I couldn’t fly A-10’s. So I said no thank you…
Keep ‘em coming BRK.
You, sir, can write!
Love the ‘balance’ of this blog! Airman Howell and Brain mixed in with regular Hunter frivolity and plenty of lesser class bashing equals awesome! Reading today’s installment even had me laughing at remembering the backhoe incident. Love it!
Oh yeah, one more thing I forgot… just a little PSA for those that haven’t figured it out or are too new:
If you’re going to comment regularly, learn to love cmd/crtl-c (you know, the ‘copy’ keyboard shortcut for your particular platform). Don’t ask, don’t QQ, just do it. You’ll be better off in the long run!
I wish we’d been smart enough to divide up and do what we were good at. When I went to basic everyone seemed bound and determined to do everything the hard way.
In Army basic, we rolled our shirts into tubes, exactly 6 inches long and TIGHT.
If one unrolled when the Drill Sergeant threw it against a wall, they’d dumb out your drawer, and make us re do it all.
USMC 86-92
Didnt matter how clean, how tight or how neat, you were always wrong and everyone paid,except the house mouse, he watched and had to count. Apperantly the only one smart enough to count above 10 with a 4 count.
So, if your in the military, I guess the saying is true, “if your going to be dumb, might as well be strong!”
Also the mouse in Flight 351, USAF, back in ‘94. However, I wasn’t really tasked with anything other then “office maintenance”, which essentially consisted of organizing our Ti’s punk rock CD collection, remaking a bed that was never touched, dusting a desk that was never used and straighting out “decor” that wasn’t looked at. Seriously, I maintained and watched over a room that maybe saw 15 minutes of use in a given day.
But because I had to be in there with them at their beck and call, no one wanted the position.
It was a hell of a lot better then LQ. Hahaha.
BRK did you give your report before you called her sir. I made the same mistake and called my female TI sir. She pointed to her chest and asked me if she’s a man what the bleep are these. Any way I love your stories brings back memorys of being a fire fighter in the Air Force.
great story Brk.
There is a job you forgot, “The Stacker” . You know, the person who could actually manage to fit your whole life into the tiny little cube they called a locker and make it look just like the picture of how its supposed to be.
Got me out of tons of stuff in boot.
Keep ‘em coming, I love these stories.
I’ve written to you before although you probably don’t remember….nor do I blame you.
When I was in that outfit, we only had 4 weeks of basic. Thank gawd for that. But I then went on to 10 months of tech school which was gawdawful and had some of the same horrors as basic. To top it off, it was at Sheppard AFB in Wichita (bygawd) Falls, Texas. I told you a story about my time there.
Dorms indeed. Haw!
<— Chow runner here…you don’t piss off the chow runner if you want to eat!
I was the Dorm Guard monitor. Lots of love for us since everyone wanted to be sitting in the barracks at 3pm instead of out in the Texas heat doing drill.
I salute you and admire your dedication.
I was wondering when I would see more basic training stories
I was one of the bed bitches. Odd since I never made my bed before the AF or after I was out 
Brilliant, nice long read which totally distracted me from my work.
Thank you very very much!
Awesome story. I remember those days. I was the Sock Folder and the Boot Polisher.
I’m not surprised to see that the MSgt didn’t ream you for the sir sandwich. Those guys are all on powertrips.
USAF ROMAD
You forgot 2 jobs in the AF basic training, both of which I did and are very official. The fire monitor who’s job it is to take the trash to the dumpster at night and the only one allowed out of the dorm during these hours, he is also the guy who drops the mail in mailbox’s. If you want your letters back home to be sent, this is the guy who will do it, sometimes for a price.
Also the AF dorms were up off the ground, kinda on stilts almost, and we had the illustrious stairwell crew, whose job it was to polish the nice brass handrails, and general cleanliness of the stairwell. This was an interesting job, especially if there was a girl flight that lived just across from you, and you could arrange it, so that both of you did the stairwell at the same time. Since you get little to zero contact with females during basic, it was nice to chat it up with them… quietly of course. Because you DON”T talk to sisterflight, they don’t exist
Two things about basic training: They will always find out if you’re doing something you’re not supposed to. Always. And: Don’t snitch. I enlisted into the Navy after I graduated to be a nuke. It was something I wanted to do and I regretted it ever since I chose to take the easy way out. Anyways…one day one of the recruits in my division smuggled cookies out of the chow hall. Someone ratted him out to one of the redropes in charge of our division. End result: extreme PT for everyone EXCEPT the one who smuggled the cookies.
Airforce is f***** weak….. do something worthwhile
In your House Mouse post that you linked to, you say that the MTI was a woman, and the “commander” was a man, when the football game went down about 5 weeks into Basic. In this post you talk about the MTI being a guy, and refer to the commander as “she”. So which is it?
i love reading these things. your a natural story teller BRK
Thorvold-BRK most likely had more than one MTI in basic. When I was in naval basic we had three RTCs, (same thing as MTIs except navy terms) a chief, a petty officer first class and a PO 2nd class. It’s also possible the commander changed, was transerred, whatever. That happens too. The CO of Great Lakes changed on me while in the month I was in basic. (Hankering to try it again here in the future. Just gotta wait for the little one to grow up a bit)
I was in the Air Force as well, also was House Mouse for a little while. Sgt. Webb didn’t like the way I cleaned off his model airplane and I got fired
SSgt. Webb and SSgt Apodaca ./sigh whereever you are thanks for the memories
‘Gimme a 341!’
Those were the days….
I did 19-D OSUT at Fort Knox in 99 to become a Cav Scout. I ended up becoming Bookman (what the Army calls House Mouse) by sheer coincidence. Our Drill asked who could type and when the hands went up I happened to be closest. Should have listened to my recruiter when he told me don’t volunteer for anything. D’OH!
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Hi. I’m sure you put a lot into these posts. One thing however. I was in a and in the early 90’s. The lead guitar/singer kept extending his leads/vocals till he sounded like a Gin Blossom Mel Torme. Was getting creepy when I left the band.
Not that you may not have a lot to say. But these extended monologues have a lot in common with Wayne’s extended ego trips.
Just sayin….
I do like the Hunter-related stuff so please don’t stop that.
Best of luck!
hello,
I enjoyed the story , i hope more of them will find their way to the site.
i enjoy the podcast , am a hunter myself and the podcast is verry usefull at some times
keep up the good work
Is it bad that I squealed with delight and a little clap of Joy, when I saw the words “/daniel mode on?”
Great story as always
Do they still have “Road Toads” ? The shortest guys in the back who always had to run to the front and post the signs in the intersections when marching. it’ been over 20+ years but I still hated that job
I love that story. Reminds me of the days of BMT. One of the jobs I didn’t see listed was boot/shoe aligner. We had those.
SSgt. USAF
Weapons “Load Toads” Rule!
I’ve spent 23 years (so far) in this country’s Air Force & Guard. Brings back lots of memories. I too had a /barter job, but it has probably been a long time since it was done.
Having spent time selling men’s suits before Basic, I had developed a skill with hemming pants. I was able to hem slacks for the AF Blues and the old USAF fatigue, an all green, poly-cotton blend utility uniform, predating the woodland BDU. It got me out of a lot of boot polishing, but I still had to sweep the drill pad free of pigeon crap.
Keep it up. Nice to see some /realife in WoW articles. Thanks.
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