Gettin' Dirty

The morning started off ... not so well at all. It had rained the night before, the PT field was muddy. (Can you guess where this is going? :-) Somehow whatever we did, we were not fast enough, did not push hard enough, did not try hard enough. After stretching and several rounds of pushups and flutter kicks, the Drill Sergeants told us to run down a hill (to a point where we could no longer see them) and await instructions. They then called "Fall In!" (the command to get into formation). We sprinted as fast as we could, lined up into something vaguely resembling a formation (many would call it a gaggle), and then tried to straighten out into four uniform rows. After we failed miserably for a minute or so, one of the Drill Sergeants would yell out "Too slow! Back down the hill!". After about the fourth iteration, the Drill Sergeant stood so that we would have to stand in deep muddy puddles and called "Fall In!". I thought "sh*t, my socks are going to get wet." Somehow, in the back of my mind, I knew my socks were the least of my worries.

As our feet became wet, the Drill Sergeant called out "Front leaning rest position - Move!". You may recall from a previous blog that the "front leaning rest position" has nothing to do with resting. You get down on hands and feet, body straight, ready to perform the pushup. "Down!" called the Drill Sergeant. We moved down in unison. "Up!" was the next command we expected to hear, but it never came. Instead, we heard "All the way down!" There we were, face down in the puddle. "Roll to the left!", "Roll to the right!", "Roll to the left!", "More to the left!" (to make sure everyone ended up in the deep part of the puddle. "Up!"

After that, we did our final stretches, and were dismissed to go upstairs, shower, and get ready for our first day of HMMWV driving school. You might think that we would be upset, but the opposite was true. In the shower we all kept talking about how much fun it was to roll around in the mud - kind of like being a kid again.