Montana Recruit Training
|
|
To prepare us for mobilization, we drill sergeants in Alpha Co were given the opportunity to participate in a training exercise with the Montana National Guard Recruiter Training Battalion. They have 8 companies in the whole of Montana where recruits who have just sworn in can go, drill, get paid for it, and get a little experience before they head to Basic Training. Each RTC (recruiter training company) has their own drills once a quarter or so, but they brought all 8 to Helena this weekend, giving us just shy of 200 young troops to train. I take any opportunity I can get to train soldiers, and it seems like it is becoming tradition to find myself in Helena Montana in April. Last two years we participated in an exercise called Helena Handbasket, where we qualify, weapons familiarization, MOUT (Military Operations in Urban Terrain) and Land Navigation. Well, this year, we were doing round robin training with a bunch of recruits doing MOUT, Confidence Course, Hand Grenades, IMT (Individual Movement Tactics) and the Simulations Center. Oh, and a PT test. At least, that was the agenda. But, as it happens in the army, the weather proved uncooperative and it snowed on us. I wasn't prepared for this myself, though I knew better, and left most of my cold weather gear at home. I didn't forget my PTs and got to lead the 'Warriors' (which is what they are calling new recruits these days) and warm them up with PT. Unfortunately, the warm up is not the most effective when it is sub freezing outside, and with me wearing PTs, most privates weren't aware that I was a Drill Sergeant and of course, being a Drill Sergeant, I yelled at them as if they should know better. Hey, now they know! The trick with being a Drill Sergeant, or being a Private dealing with Drill Sergeants, is to always yell as if they should know better. This is a corrective action, and it generally sticks with the private so they don't make the mistake again. It's all a total mind game. The PT test had the recruiters grading the privates, because they thought we would grade them to hard (ie- to standard) and some of those recruiters were counting pushups that shouldn't have counted, in other words, a little to lenient. This actually sets the soldier up for failure because when they get to basic, the Drill Sergeants will grade a lot harder and they will arrive thinking they are in good shape and discover they aren't there yet. The recruiters mentality is they don't want to chase the recruits away (they haven't shipped yet!) but as a Drill Sergeant, which is the opposite mentality of a recruiter, you have to make sure these soldiers are ready and know what to expect when they get to their post. But for an April PT test, damn it was quite chilly! So we moved onto Plan B (an abbreviated version of plan A) when it started snowing, marching the troops out to the range where I called cadence, including the Baby Seals (asking the privates before hand if anybody was offended if we killed some baby seals) and the 'Hole at the Bottom of the Sea' Cadence, which usually leaves me out of breath. Good times. Good fun. Snow started coming down harder, flurries really going, icing over the obstacles, and it was decided that we would move onto the tentative plan C, which was make due with what we could. We got some rubber ducks (fake M16s) and did some MOUT in the barracks with some of the soldiers, when the recruiters pulled out a blow up obstacle course that looked like it belonged at a four year old's birthday party in Chucky Cheese. That's not to diss the obstacle course, you run soldiers through that a few dozen times and its a lot of fun, plus gives soldiers a bit of a work out. Recruiters have all the fun toys. Eventually, it got to the drill sergeants doing Hat's Off for the recruits, meaning we take off our hats, let the soldiers chill for a bit and we answer any questions they might have, as long as they aren't about our personal life. I have to watch Hat's Off, because though I don't lose my military baring (I hope), I get extra chatty and I have twenty or thirty people listening to what I have to say, it gets to my head and i might volunteer more information then I need too. Because I love to talk when everyone's attention is on me. Maybe that's why I'm a drill sergeant? I had one soldier fall asleep on me so we did a little mass punishment PT, more for motivation as I got down with them. I hate flutter kicks, but when it comes to me smoking myself with the soldiers, its my best bet. The soldiers will have me smoked if we do Pushups. Though I did do over head arm claps and so on as well. Although they aren't technically part of FM 21-20 (Field Manual for PT), we can do certain things to troops if we are doing it with them. I ended up doing flutter kicks and exercises with the arms a couple of times with two different groups of soldiers. And of course, I pimped me some RvB. A lot of the soldiers saw my nice side, especially those who were with me during hats off. I think they got a feel for my normal, somewhat hyperactive personality. This was important, because these soldiers have not gone through BCT yet. We can't go all Red Phase Drill Sergeant on these privates because it might scare them away. Some of them are there anticipating us going psychotic on them and anticipating getting smoked all the time, but we had to tone it down because, well, some of these privates might never show up again if that were to happen. And the recruiters will get mad at us. So the hats off was a good chance for them to see a more human side of the Drill Sergeants and learn we aren't complete assholes. All of the time at least. Well, the rumors were apparently flying that Drill Sergeants were going to wake up the troops at six the next morning. Some of them were expected to be woken up at any time. I, being the lone female drill sergeant, was in charge of waking up the females. They were talking about me waking them up, so we woke them up at 0530. And I was yelling at them full fledge. I have to watch myself when I go on a tirade, I'm really good at not cursing normally, but putting on that hat and sometimes obscenities pop out. So I was yelling at these privates to get up, put their crap away, get their personal hygiene done (a couple jumped in the shower, and so I made all of them hop in the shower, er, more on that later) and get dressed, and of course, they can't do it fast enough. They can never do it fast enough. When they don't do it fast enough, I drop them. When a drill sergeant is on a tirade, they don't drop with the troops, and of course they are recovering from a PT test so I know their joints are killing them and they feel sluggish and yes, I was a private at one time too so I know how they feel. I think I had a couple doubting their decision to join the army, but as I got them motivated to clean the barracks (of course, there wasn't any paper towels, which they nor I could help, dad gum it) I started to cool off a little, wasn't yelling so much but making them think about what they were doing and getting themselves into. Of course, some of them got it, some of them probably didn't like me (because I was being a heinous bitch), and some of them just went with the flow. I think I had a few privates close to tears on one occasion, but none of them cried on me (at least not that I saw) so good for them. Actually I perceived from the Montana group that overall they appeared to be good kids with good heads on their shoulders, they come from conservative backgrounds and strong homes with a respect for authority. I've noticed that by and large from mid western and western states. All and all, I had a good training weekend, screwed up a couple of times (I generally own up to it if I make a mistake, and for some reason, I couldn't tell my right from left in a couple of instances) I leave for Knox in a few weeks, have a month train up before we pick up. No females, all male. In all, I don't like females, but I'll get a couple privates here and there that I wouldn't mind training. I wish they were all like that.
Posted by Erickson on 5:14 PM : (((
|
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home