Word: platoons
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Meanwhile, I have put my rebellion - my version of going postal - on hold, as the Army has acceeded to most of my demands. Suddenly, the quartermaster's office came unclogged and we had toilet paper and paper towels in the latrine (no small thing). And on Monday, the platoon was at last outfitted in our camos - camouflage - and big black boots. Make no mistake, this finally is very cool stuff, especially the jackets and gloves. Hallelujah! Now all I need is my camouflage shirts; they're adding an inch onto the sleeves...
First, some background. We were devolving here, "Lord of the Flies"-style, a platoon of 59 punks, most just out of high school but some with wives and lives and jobs, who had come to the Army for a fatherly whipping and instead had gotten Kafka's castle - a supposedly all-knowing, all-seeing complete shambles of a bureaucracy that couldn't even be bothered to take us for an occasional...
...been four days now, and the 59 of us - that's Bravo Company, 13th Platoon - are still in the sweat suits we were issued the night we arrived.? Like the shorts and t-shirts that we both sleep in and wear underneath, the sweat suit is thin, gray and disappointingly cheap-looking.? We all feel like unemployed folks.? This impression is confirmed by the fact that despite the "PT" affixed to said threads, we have not done a lick of physical training - not a single calisthenic - since we got here...
...seems a vain hope, and it seems unlikely we will have completed Basic by Christmas. I talk to two privates at dinner chow who've been here for three weeks since processing; they're still waiting to move on.?The current?in-the-wind estimate for the 13th Platoon is two weeks from today...
...issuing of Army t-shirts and a laundry bag, the taking of blood and the X-raying of teeth.? Tomorrow, we hear, will be haircuts and dealing with pay issues, possibly even the issuing of BDUs (fatigues). Standing in line for chow takes hours. Standing with the platoon at parade rest: more hours. We stand and sit and idle for hours and hours, supposedly as part of a grand military ethos...