It only feels right that my first blog post should start with my first day of real basic training also known as Day 0. I say, real basic training because this was not the first day at Fort Sill (more on Reception Week to come). It was the first week of September in Fort Sill, OK, which meant that it was nearly 100 degrees and close to 75 percent humidity. The air was thick and warm. I started the day like every other. I showered, shaved, and arrived to the first formation ready to tackle the days challenges. The only difference was that morning was I knew I’d be meeting the drill sergeants that were responsible for transforming me into a United States soldier over the course of the next nine weeks. I stood both excited and nervous to discover the unknown. We all gathered our issued gear and waited until 1630 when the drill sergeants would arrive to march us to our new barracks. 

As soon as they arrived, we were calmly instructed by our new drill sergeants to load our duffel bags into the back of a truck by platoon. The attitude and demeanor of the drill sergeants was very different that what I had imagined. I thought there would be lots yelling and push ups, this was the army after all. They handed out our cell phones and gave us just 60 seconds to call home to let our families know we were heading off to basic training. This would be the last time for weeks that we would have contact with the outside world. 

We held our laundry bag, personal bag, and 1 of the 2 issued duffel bags (the other was packed onto the truck). We started the walk over to our new homes. In the Oklahoma heat, the third of a mile walk felt like ten miles with all the weight to hold. As we marched, people fell behind, but still, no yelling from the drill sergeants. Some kind word of encouragement were given, but nothing like the videos I’d seen on YouTube. I remember walking onto the drill pad for the first time thinking, “If this is how basic training is going to be, it’ll be so easy!” The drill sergeants formed us up by platoon and delivered some speech about how weak all of us were. Within minutes, the truck with our bags arrived and it was time to go and retrieve them. 

At this moment, every drill sergeant was either blowing an air horn, yelling, or both. It rapidly became a frantic mess while 226 new privates were all searching for their green duffel bag in the back of a single truck. I ran as fast as I could hoping to beat the masses. Being one of the first to the back of the truck, I was ready to start unloading these bags. If it was up to me, I would have gotten in the back of the truck and systematically called the names on the bags to make sure they go to the correct person in a quick and orderly matter. Nope! This was not what the drill sergeants had in mind. Instead, a drill sergeant appeared next to me, grabbing and throwing these 60 pound duffel bags as far as he could, all while yelling that we were not moving fast enough. And in just my luck, I managed to receive one of those flying duffel bags straight to the face.

A duffel bag thrown into the face felt as if I had just taken a punch to the nose from a professional boxer. Now with my eyes watering and my face throbbing, I took a step back off the back of the truck trying to collect my bearing. I look at the couple bags by my feet and there’s my bag, just laying on the ground! I quickly snatch up my duffel and run to the rest of my belongings laid out on the drill pad. As soon as we had our bag, we had to hold it high above our heads until everybody else had theirs, too. With me being one of the first with a bag, I knew this was going to be a while. “KEEP IT UP! KEEP YOUR BAGS ABOVE YOUR HEAD!” That’s all I could hear for what felt like an eternity. If the bag dropped below our heads, the drill sergeants would begin yelling and have us do push ups until we could not push any more. Then lift the bag again. This cycle continued until everybody had the correct duffel.

The madness continued for close to an hour and a half. I was soaked with sweat head to toe, wet enough to physically wring the sweat out of my clothing. They had us head upstairs into the bays where we’d be sleeping. There we went through a checklist of all of our equipment and uniforms to make sure nobody was missing anything. If they were missing something, that meant push ups for everybody. My only driving factor in that moment was knowing that this pain would only last a short while before the drill sergeants would have to send us to bed for the night. Soon enough, the time came where we were all finally able to get to sleep. I remember laying in bed questioning my own physical strength, but I knew I was not about to quit. This was only the beginning to an amazing journey.