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April 28, 2008
Military Training at 61
By Jack Lee
Ah yes, as an older guy (61) I can remember my good ol military days well, seems like they were only yesterday. Wait...uh, as a matter of fact they were only yesterday!
Last weekend I had some mandatory refresher training classes to help me with my regular reserve duties in Sacramento. It was odd in the sense that I'm now one of the oldest soldiers around, however my age (61) is less important than my mission, so I still participate even though I'm about 20 years senior to the average soldier.
In my regular duty I'm assigned to the Adjutant General's staff as the senior NCO in charge of personnel. This is a desk job, but all military reserve forces, regardless of age or occupation, must attend these regular training sessions and that requires us to visit a variety of training bases too. This time I drew Camp Parks. This is the old base for General Patton in WWII. Its scaled back a lot from those war years, but the base still plays an important role in training military reserve forces such as the Army Reserve and National Guard. Even the Navy Seabees have component here. I was told the Marines are also represented, but I never saw them.
Classroom instruction at PRFTA Camp Parks, home of the Army's 91st Division.
This is a picture of some of the soldiers attending specialized training. Class study was on a wide variety of required military subjects, some you might not expect were things like ethics and equal opportunity (work place discrimination). This is the new Army and the goal is to build a cohesive and effective military force and ethics, respect and loyalty is a big part of everything the Army does. Some of these things are from hard lessons learned in Iraq.
As I said earlier, I was one of the oldest soldiers in our company, but that's ok, I still held up my end. Yep, it was a little challenging and to be real honest I'm feeling my age more now than at any time in my life! Compounding my age related deficencies was the mere fact there was a long period of time I was not in the military and it's been too long since I've been in an intensive training session with a large company. We march to class, to the chow hall, back to class and finally at the end of the long day...we march back to the barracks.
We arrived Friday night at 2000 hrs. (8 pm), checked in through the main gate where we were directed to the reception center. There, I was assigned barracks 201 and given a map to find it. I needed a map too, my last time at Parks was in 1986 and there are a lot of barracks on this base! They all look alike and they are built just like they have been for probably the last 100 years... plain two story boxes. However, the barracks now mostly have rooms (cubicals really) and they are divided into two bunks per room, er cubical. I say cubicals because the walls are just thin partitions.
The inside is as Spartan as they ever were, almost like when General Patton was the base commander, except each cubical has one small writing desk, 2 steel bunks with civilian style mattresses and two beat-up steel lockers. That's it..this is not the Marriott, but it's not terrible. We have individual showers and everything in the barracks is clean.
We're up at 0430 hrs. (4:30 a.m.) and we fall in for our first assembly. We are then told some of what to expect today by our drill instructor who is now also acting as our first sergeant for the next two days. (1st Sgt.s run the show) I later learn this DI was selected as Number 1 in the Army, I think it was in 2006.
We march to breakfast.
At exactly 0600 hrs. the cafeteria doors open and at 0615 hrs. we arrive. Including our company, there's now about 250 soldiers there to eat breakfast and oddly there is only one "coed" restroom and it's designed for just one at a time! (I wait in line with some of the older soldiers) The bright spot is the food is excellent. There's suprisingly good variety and there's lots of it. If you were in the Army back in the 60's or 70's you probably got SOS, scrambled eggs and coffee. Well, not anymore, there is cold cereal, hot cereal, biscuits and gravy, corned beef hash, toast, 4 kinds of juices, milk, coffee, hot chocolate, even mocha chocolate! I am pleased to report the Army does feed very, very well.
Commands are given and I am back doing marching drills after years of absense not doing ANY marching. (I'm wishing I was in better shape, but too late now..it's do or die..speaking of dying they lost a man last year doing this class). This is no non-sense DI, and the drilling this morning is a little tough, however there's a good reason, because we have to learn to function as a team in a hurry. We only have 2 days and since we represent a number of diverse units that have never interacted before we start out pretty bad and we get yelled at. I'm squad leader for 4th squad and I'm positioned at the right front of the column and help set the pace as CSM Depp calls out, "Companeee, for-ward, MARCH! Left, left, left right left...and so it goes. Someone wants to do "yellow bird" for cadence. The response is a sharp no! I knew that one was banned, it's honestly not politically correct and so are a few of the Jodie candences. For those of you with prior military experience, you known what I am talking about. The guys that think these things up try to get away with as much vulgarity as possible, it's a soldiers strange sense of humor.
As the marching goes on and on, I'm hoping I don't bip it and fall flat on my face. So, I am focusing on where I am going, really focusing, so much so that I hear 2nd LT Rush yell, "Sgt. Lee get in step!" I do a quick half step...other soliders are similarly singled out as the march continues.
The training was rigorus, fast paced and each module required us to get a passing grade of at least a 70%. I take copious notes because I really don't need to spend any extra time on makeup exams or on the parade ground.
During the first day there was a time in the late afternoon, when the sun was bearing down, when we're marching 4 abreast, when I'm feeling my age, my thoughts drift to..."What #$@ am I doing here?" That passes and I was again remembering that soldier who died last year. I'm determined to hang in there, but feeling pretty worked over, when this soldier on my left whispers, "Hey Sarge are we at Bataan yet?" (ho ho, ho, very funny) Of course I don't respond, but the exaggeration for the sake of humor was not lost on the moment...my tee shirt is wringing wet, my beret is wet with sweat, my legs are aching and I'm really wishing I had some cushion inserts for my combat boots!
We ended our first day at 2200 hrs. (10 pm) and we were back up again at 0430 hrs. to do it all over again.
It's been a long time since I have been put through this kind of stuff, but when it was all over I was proud that I made it and mad at myself for not being in better shape. I should have prepared and I didn't. I figured it was going to be just another class room and I was wrong! Of course this is relatively minor stuff compared to what most soldiers are tasked to do. I can't even begin to imagine the kind of physical and mental stamina that it would take to complete not just the regular training modules like boot camp and AIT, but on to Airborne, ABN-Rangers and then the ultimate level, Special Forces... but that is exactly what one of our more frequent writer's here has done. I can't mention his name because he is active duty SF. As for me, I just have a few more weeks of classroom and AT (training) left this year. My goal now is to meet the future training challenges by being in better shape, because I am determined to make it, age be #@$%!
PS I get asked a lot why am I doing this when most people my age are usually close to retirement. The answer is simple, it's fun and it's worthwhile. I especially enjoy doing things worthwhile that have a challenge. So, thanks to Iraq there was a shortage for 42 Alpha's and somehow I managed to get some waivers and sneak in to help. Oh, and I get booted out at 63, so it's not that far off and the time is going by pretty fast. However, I think today's 63 is more like yesterday's 53 anyway...right? Sure... LOL
Posted by Post Scripts at April 28, 2008 07:41 AM