Kill More Baby Seals
|
|
So I've graduated Drill Sergeant School. And I've already been on the trail, which a lot of my battle buddies from DSS can't say, unless they are at Fort Leonard Wood in which case their units were expecting them back with open arms and about 60 privates to baby sit. Drill Sergeant School doesn't prepare you for being a drill sergeant like I expected it would, and so I was a bit apprehensive going on the trail. But it was interesting how quickly I got into the routine. I didn't tell my privates how long I had been a drill sergeant nor did I answer any questions about my personal life, including how old I was. They asked if I was about 20 to 21 years old most of the time. Flattering really, but youth is not what you want as a Drill Sergeant, you are supposed to portray an authoritive figure and it's somewhat hard to do when you are a short blonde female Staff Sergeant that is mistaken for a private whenever you take off your drill sergeant hat. Thus, it is my curse. But it is something that can come in handy when you wish to spy on privates. As long as their are female privates in your company at least. It does get old, however, when the acting first sergeant gets on you several times for not being in formation or wondering where your battle buddy is only to realize immediately after chewing you out exactly who you are. I was a pretty good sport about it. So, I'm a young drill sergeant that just recently got a hat, trying to learn how to be a drill sergeant while I'm on the job. Amazingly enough, you fall right into it and it comes easier then you expect it too. Especially with Blue Phase Privates. Blue phase in this day and age is nothing like how I remember it. You can't treat Blue Phase Privates the way you treat Red Phase Privates. Meaning you can't yell at them all of the time (though it is important to raise your voice here and there so they know that you have a little bite to you). i learned this in Drill Sergeant School that if you keep up the red phase yell all throughout the nine weeks, the privates begin to phase you out thinking 'oh, there goes Drill Sergeant again. What are they yelling about now?' It was actually a big learning phase for me to fall in on Blue Phase Privates. Blue Phase Privates are given a little more freedom and a little less supervision, and they have their own student chain of command that they fall under. When I was in basic, we had a Platoon guide and Squad leaders and that was about it. I don't remember my squad leaders doing much of anything except report in the morning. The PG however, was busy then and he continues to be busy in the current basic training set up. Some things never change. However, I wasn't expecting the privates to be given so much responsibility that it kind of threw me when I got there. I'm used to total lock down for nine weeks, and that was what I was expecting. So it was a challenge for me to learn what the privates knew and coordinate it to what I knew, so I spent the first two days not smoking anybody and just watching to see how things ran. I kind of kept my distance for a bit, except for when it came to handing out mail. Mail consisted of me butchering everybody's name and after seeing the same name come up twice, this was followed by the command of 'Push'. They fought me for a moment, seeing as their other drill sergeants from the past made them push after they got three pieces of mail but I quickly put a stop to that as I made it two pieces. that was my rule. You got two pieces or more of mail, you had to push for it. Not that I really enforced it. It was a win win situation really. The privates got a little more PT in, and PT is always a good thing, and it gave me an excuse to make them excercise and fine tune my Drill Sergeantese. Mail call is always fun for that kind of stuff. Now, in Red Phase, you nail privates for anything and everything they are doing wrong, but Blue Phase you have to choose your battles. Especially if you are falling in on some rules that your battle buddies before you have set that you may or may not know. And it's not ever fun when the privates tell you about how they do things, like standing up for Revele and Retreat indoors, which I have never seen in my military career. So I chose my battles. One, that the privates learned really quick, was weapons accountability. If I got a weapon, I smoked a private. And I got weapons a lot at first. They quickly learned to keep that thing within arms reach because if I grabbed it before they did, well, they were wrong. And they had to pay with something physical, like front back go or three to five second rushes. Or eight count pushups. Whatever I thought up at the time. sometimes I let them sweat it out while I mulled it over in my head how I would make them pay. I think if I got there earlier in the cycle I would have made an issue of the parade pretty and the cutesy voice that the females gave. I got on that pretty quick, but it was more on the spot corrections then actual smoking. In fact, i was making a lot of on the spot corrections for standing at Parade Rest when talking to me. Sometimes I would just stare at their feet if they were at Parade Attention or start mimicking their movements when they were using their hands to communicate until they got the point. I dropped a few people for it, but I really didn't get on a whole lot of people for it because I'm not used to people standing at Parade Rest and I'm not getting a huge ego trip out of it because quite honestly I could care less if somebody stands at parade rest when talking to me. But I had to remind myself it wasn't that they were talking to me, but that they were talking to a Drill Sergeant and that had to be enforced. I don't think in my entire military career I have ever enforced a lower enlisted soldier talking to me at parade rest until my time at Jackson. I have to make sure I stay on that. Well, all drill sergeants have their little pet peeve that they get on (mine being weapons accountability and muzzle awareness) and they also have their little fun side. Mine being screwed up cadences. I can't sing, but I do have a sense of humor and my cadences were ones I learned over the years that had something to do with death and killing. Those are my favorite kinds. Not that I'm a sick and twisted person, because I kind of am, but because singing cadences about death and violence seems pretty Army to me. I mean, isn't this an organization that is dedicated to the destruction of the enemy? We need to desensitize ourselves to the prospect that there may be a time we might have to kill somebody. Granted, I'm just a drill sergeant that suffers from Combat Patch envy due to lack of one, but I am training privates and we have to find some way to impart into them the fact that they are joining the United States Army. I know a lot of running cadences, and as long as I have breath in my body, I can call cadence at a run, including my favorite from my basic training days. I've only heard my drill sergeant call the 3-6-9, goose drank wine cadence, and now I call it to my soldiers. Of course, theres the When I Get to Heaven/Hell Cadences that I love as well. And then there is the Baby Seal cadence. I actually recently learned this cadence but love it because it's so rediculous that it's hilarious. I mean, who would seriously want to kill a baby seal? I know there are people out there that do it, and they are sick and twisted people because look how freakin' adorable baby seals are.  Well, most of my privates understood the humor of the Killing the Baby Seals cadence that it became a regular. But a couple didn't like it. Understandable, but please, we don't kill baby seals in the army. But its gritty, which makes it fun! Because I would never want to kill a baby seal. I promise! Way Up North Where the Air is cold I got to get with one of my battles from DSS to get the rest of the verses to this cadence. Ironically enough, another popular cadence was the Ugly Cadence, which sounds like Count Cadence instead it goes by Ugly instead. Ironic because it was the bane of Cold Steel's existence for my basic training. Recon called it to us and we never let it go the rest of the time we were there. Because it was deserved. We tried to sound off with Motivated and we sounded deplorable! But I couldn't shake it so I remembered it all this time and taught it to my privates. They loved it! In fact, they were trying to learn it so that whoever was calling it *the PG* could call it when I left.
I should tell my Battle Glor from Recon that I taught my privates her Platoon's infamous dog on mine. She would be proud :) Of course, we also had our Platoon's smoke session where I got a little Grass Drill in, which is funny because I hated Grass Drills in Basic but loved them in AIT because when we did Grass Drills in AIT, we weren't doing them to get smoked, and it was like fond memories of Basic training. And they are indeed in FM 21-20 so Grass Drills are allowed. From my understanding at least. Oh yes, the Front Back Go. The bane of Privates from my time everywhere. My privates had only done them once when I got there, and they were a little hesitant on this. A few had done them for Football in high school or something but it wasn't the same. Grass Drills are fun. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise. You just have to go with the flow of it. Three to five second rushes are fun too. Unless you are out of breath. And you are covered in mud. From head to toe. And you are the only one in your entire company covered in mud from head to toe. And you acquire the name Mudpuppy and Pigpen from your drill sergeants. No, those are fond memories. My privates had fun with me though. I think it cracked them up to see me go into drill sergeant mode because they would sick me on other privates and watch. Like the three privates from the echo company in another batallion across the way. They were doing excercises apparently and just walked in the grass in our company area. I didn't see them at first because well, my battle buddies weren't enforcing the 'don't walk on the grass' rule and it was one of those battles I wasn't fighting but my privates alerted it to me and so I walked up to these three privates with my hat on and chewed them out (didn't drop them, but I should have). I think the stark terror on their red phase faces when they realized that I was a drill sergeant was priceless, I look back now and find it funny as hell. Hehe. My privates thought so too. There was also a case during the FTX where one of my soldiers was pointing out things that the other troops in the company was doing wrong and sit back and watch as I went over there and chewed them up about it. You can't be nervous when you do this, because you just charge into a crowd of 130 privates and tell them what for. They would then bust up laughing and I would have to chew them out for that, though I think they must have known I was somewhat joking around becuase of my demeanor and how I was chewing them out. I was in drill mode, but my privates knew me well enough that they knew I was having fun with it too. Of course, my little nark, who I will effectionately call my Blue Falcon, got a hint when I called him thus that maybe he shouldn't be pointing out the deficiencies of his battle buddies. I've got to fine tune my meanness, they don't take me seriously enough. And female drills are supposed to be the scary ones. Well, I'm a reserve drill sergeant, and in my opinion my arrangement sucks because i come in sometime during the 9 weeks, take over as drill sergeant from a drill sergeant that the privates have bonded with who have had their own way of doing things for the last few weeks and by the time I get things figured out and feel like I'm getting somewhere, I have to leave so a new drill sergeant can take over. My privates asked to be smoked one last time. So I dropped fourth platoon and made them drop in cadence of Up, Down. I would have dropped with them except I wanted to get it on camera as i was so proud that when i called Down they sounded off with "kill more" and on Up they called out "Baby Seals!" My little troopies came up with that all on their own. I'm so proud. Of course, when one of them came up to me and told me they were going to miss me, I told them with a straight face "Don't you dare hug me." They're going to miss me. They didn't want me to go. I wasn't apparently doing my job right. What's more, they said they are going to look me up on MySpace. I somehow let slip that I have one. What's more, searching for Drill Sergeant Erickson on myspace brings people here. So I am traceable. Damn.
Posted by Erickson on 8:28 PM : (((
|
1 Comments:
Retrieved Comments for this post:
Let me the first to say Congrats Sarge and thanks for the extended post.
Rob | 11.10.07 - 5:57 pm | #
-------------
I'm a never-was, but it sounds like you're on the right track. You're in a tough position, with the parameters you've been given. You'll only get better with experience!
Haji | Homepage | 11.11.07 - 2:08 am | #
------------
My,you've got my attention tonight. I would have given my right... well, right something to have a drill sergeant like you all those years ago.
What did I get? Sergeant Ramirez of San Juan, Puerto Rico. I still remember his name. "Menzzzzz!" He would great us at dawn before that mile jog prior to chow. "Wilson, did your mother have any children that lived?" (in thick dialect) I NEVER missed him. I did fantasize or two about killing him.
Times change, eh?
Well, Jodie's got my Cadilac and gone, so I'll close for now
John Wilson aka MontereyJohn | Homepage | 11.12.07 - 9:14 pm | #
------------
The Killing Baby Seals cadence... ROTFL!!! My favorite was "Bodies, Bloody Bodies". It went something like this:
Put Another Magazine
In my Trusty M-16
'Cause all I wanna see today
Is bodies, bodies, bodies
(Can substitute Bodies, bloody bodies for the last line.
Our XO knew something like 16 different verses to this song that kept us laughing our asses off!
Dave Ferro | 02.18.08 - 9:09 am | #
-------------
Ah yes, love that one
risawn | 03.12.08 - 4:42 am | #
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home