Hooah!

Wow, yeah, it's more than just a job, it's an adventure (as well as the occasional headache)

But overall, Army Life is good. Basic Training, both sorry and happy to say, was not as hard as I thought it would be. Yeah, I wish I could have gone to a REAL Basic like Ft. Benning or Ft. Knox, but unfortunately it seems the Army has an issue with giving 'real training' to anyone born with a vagina. Ft. Sill, I heard, recently went co-ed. But no, I was sentenced to the pansy-ass kindergarten BCT experience that was Ft. Relaxin'-Jackson. (This is all sarcasm, of course.)

Aparrently A-360, the company I trained in, had it pretty damn easy compared to most. We were allowed to have our cell-phones on Sundays, if we were really good: My friends who went to Benning and Knox say they got a 2-minute phone call home the first week they were there and that was it. No, I don't feel spoiled. If anything I got off lucky.

Doing push-ups isn't so bad once you learn how to do them correctly, and yes, believe me there are a thousand or so wrong ways to do them. In truth, I still struggle with them from time to time. Flutter-Kicks were invented by the Devil, I am convinced. My Dad, an old-school Marine, didn't ever have to do ONE and he was in Parris Island back in the Full-Metal-Jacket days! THAT should tell you something about how much things have changed, anyone who says the military has gone soft these days is straight-up lying or delusional.

Oh yeah, one thing about Flutter-Kicks relating to Ft. Jackson in particular, they are particularly painful not only in the heat of the Southern Sun, but especially when you realize you're on top of a colony of Ft. Jackson's famous Fire Ants. JOY!

As for AIT in Ft. Gordon, GA...

Beware something known as the Phase System. Another tool of the Devil (there are still A LOT of very religious folk with high rank int he Army, something that is fortunately beginning to change with time) the Phase System is a means of keeping AIT students in check working alongside TRADOC Regs, which your friendly neighborhood Platoon Sargeant will enforce at his convenience/pleasure./if it suits his or her mood.

The Phase System is loosely similar to Castes; Phase 4 is the first and lowest Caste, for newbies who've just arrived, soldiers who for whatever reason haven't passed a PT Test, or the elite few who can't grasp the basics of Army life. Next up is Phase 5, pass your PT Test and stay out of trouble (and depending on what company you're in, you may have other requirements to meet) and they give you a little more breathing-room. You get to wear civillian clothes on your time off, you even get to smoke. JOY! The final Phase, 5+ (the reason why they don't go right to 6 is unkown to me at this time) Is your golden ticket.

Really, the only time being of a higher Caste/Phase than your peers is on weekends and holidays. Phase 4's aren't allowed to do jack and or shit, they stay in the barracks all weekend and are usually put on some kind of bitch-work detail. They're not even allowed to go to eat without an NCO's say-so (and people wonder why so many of them get depressed or go AWOL.) 5's and 5+'s are allowed off-post privileges on weekends, 5+'s get to stay off post the entire weekend whereas 5's have to return every night, kinda like a curfew.

Being Phase 4 really sucks, you have no rights and you're not even a human being. Any time someone of a higher Caste than you doesn't show up for a detail or duty, a P4 winds up getting 'voluntold' to do it, it's your punishment for being there. They say they want you to be good and excel in PT so you CAN phase up, but this system leaves big gaping wide opportunities for exploitation at the hands of fellow soldiers in training and even NCO's.

Ft. Gordon, or Ft. Ghetto as it is sometimes called by those trapped in TRADOC's icy soulless claws, isn't so bad at first but after you've been in the Phase System for so long it starts messing with your head. You find yourself doing things you wouldn't usually do, after a while you just don't give a shit about anything. Nothing you say or do ultimately matters, you can be a perfect model soldier and TRADOC will still ram it's thorn-laden dick up your ass because you sneezed in the presence of a Senior NCO. And before you know it all you want to do is leave, that's your only goal: Getting the fuck out.

The ONLY good thing I had at Ft. Gordon I had to leave behind: My friends.

Love you guys, take care of eachother and hang in there :-)