A BCT Birthday

Most people don't look forward to celebrating their birthday in Basic Combat Training. I'm no different. To make things worse, the day did not start out well. Standing in the Company morning formation, the First Sergeant, the NCO in charge of running the Company, came out and yelled loud enough for all 170 people in the Company to hear, "Soldiers Johannsen and Brown report to the Commanding Officer immediately after formation!" Reporting to the C.O. is almost never a good thing. When I got there, I discovered that Brown was there for Article 15 punishment for starting a fight. Again I wondered, "What is going on?" The First Sergeant came out and asked my first name. Five minutes passed, and then another sergeant asked the same question. Curious, I thought. Then clarity - it turns out they were really interested in Private Jonas, who appears next to me on the Company roster, and is a short female. Relived, I returned to my Platoon. The rest of the day turned out to be a great birthday, except that my friends and loved ones weren't with me (except in spirit). We went to a confidence course, much of which requires teamwork. The first one we did had us climbing up a tower, walking across a balancing beam (with a net below in case we fall) and making our way to a platform where a DS strapped us into a parachute harness and pushed us off the tower - but the harness was attached to a cable, that we slid down to the ground - a drop at 40', while traveling about 200' away from the tower. The trip ends suddenly when the top of the harness strikes a cross beam, slinging the rider from vertical to horizontal almost instantly. Your team then helps you down. Another obstacle had a five man team climbing 5 successively higher log walls - the highest of which was about 12'. Tall, strong people go up first, being heaved up by their team mates. They secure themselves atop the wall, then reach down to hoist the others up. When the walls get to be too high, a belt can be made into an improved sling. There was one female in our group who has no upper body strength and no coordination. Let's call her Private Graceful. When we had to get her up onto the first high wall, another male and I reached grabbed one of her wrists and yanked, while two from the bottom pushed her up. In a flash, she was laying atop the wall on her belly. To be put down on the other side, she would have to turn around (unless she were to go face-first ;-) Unfortunately, she did not have the slightest clue how to do that. She started to flail around wildly. I was doing my best to stabilize her, when my friend Private Green suddenly turned bright red. He let out a yell that caught everyone's attention. Graceful had firmly planted her elbow on his, hum, sensitive area. And left it there. The poor guy experienced drawn-out pain while he tried to get out from under Graceful without throwing her off the wall. In spite of the painful interlude, we had a great deal of fun negotiating the walls - something I was uncertain of being able to do when we arrived that morning. By far, the most interesting and unnerving obstacle is the Skyscraper. Imagine five 10 feet by 10 foot wooden platforms, all stacked atop each other 5'-7' apart - forming the floors of a mini skyscraper. The task is to climb up - on the outside. On the way up, the hardest job is going first. There is no one above you to help pull you up... or to grab you if you slip. I was both the tallest and the strongest, so that job fell to me. The first floor was not so bad. The spacing between floors is moderate, and the fall isn't that far. Once I was up, we decided to pull up Private Graceful. She was panicked. On the one hand, she knew this course is a requirement to graduate. On the other hand, she had no concept of how to accomplish it, and quite a fear of heights. Once she got half way up, she panicked. There was no safe way to put her back down, so we did what we had to do... hoisted her up. I grabbed her hands and arms hard, pulling her up like a sack of potatoes, while the others found a grip on her flailing legs and pushed her hard. She was terrified, but we were not about to let her fall. One last pull, and her upper body rested on my platform. I scooted back, grabbed both wrists, and gave a hard tug, bringing the rest of her to relative safety. We did it, as a team, but it was all too much for the Drill Sergeant. Too much risk. A fall from this first level could result in a twisted ankle for someone who keeps their wits about them, but it could prove far worse for a panicked person. A fall from a higher level could have a far worse outcome. The DS removed Private Graceful from the course, leaving the four of us to press on.

We all made it up onto that first platform without too much difficulty, working together as a team. The next one was not that bad either. Then came the third of four. It was spaced the furthest apart, requiring quite a stretch - hanging over quite a long drop - for me to get my fingers in place to grab on. Then I had to jump, trusting in the strength of my fingertips and my buddies not to let me fall. By this point, we were certainly in broken bone territory, if not worse. The final platform was relatively short, and we easily made it to the top. There, we celebrated briefly, rocking the sturdy but flexible tower back and forth and chanting the name of our platoon: "Under-takers, Under-takers, Under-takers".

The way down was at least as challenging as the way up, in a different way. Fortunately, the first level down was not that far. Still, it's quite a feeling to hang your body over a ledge, with no one below you to help out (again, the tall and strong one went first...), trusting in your fingertips to hold you, and your balance to get your body securely on the next platform. After I was down, Private Forreal went next. She has two anatomatical features that made it difficult for her on the way down: She's quite short, and she has size E breasts. The first seems obvious enough, but none of us anticipated the second offering a challenge... until the difficulty struck. She was hanging over the top ledge from the waste down. I placed a hand behind her leg to begin to guide her down, and then she let her weight slowly slide over the edge. Then, she stopped... stuck in place, the victim of her anatomy. She didn't communicate her predicament, but rather tried to work herself loose - which she did with rather sudden success. She fell earthward as her chest cleared the edge, accelerating rapidly toward the ground. Reflexively, without time to think, I grabbed the roof with my left hand and her waist with my right, and yanked her in with all my strength. She was secure. No bones would break today.

The next level down was physically the most challenging for me, having the largest gap. Having the benefit of experience from the previous level, I just grabbed a gap in the floor boards with my fingers, lowered my body all the way down, and pulled my legs up and in to contact the floor below.

The rest of the descent was uneventful, but reaching ground floor was a great feeling. The Skyscraper certainly lived up to its reputation... challenging people and building confidence.

Once the course was done, there was one final birthday treat. All of the Drill Sergeants went home early, and the First Sergeant opened up the floor... to student impersonations of their Drill Sergeants! Some of us should have been appearing in the comedy club rather than training to be a soldier, so good were some of the acts that were put out. It was a riot. We had such a good time joking and laughing.

BCT is not the place to celebrate a birthday, but I had about the best birthday anyone has had in basic training.