Did you know that if you stand up straight that you could pass out? I can't believe it. We were out practicing for final drill and two guys in the platoon just fainted. It was the god damnedest thing I've seen yet. All of a sudden they just collapsed, and when they did they took out the guy next to them. Apparently if you stand with your knees locked it cuts off the blood flow to your brain and you will pass out. The body is a truly fascinating thing... if you lock your knees it cuts off an artery that flows to your brain?!?! It makes sense I guess but it still blew my mind. Anyways, guess what happened when they two guys woke up? If you guess they got screamed at and quarter-decked, then you guessed correctly. Care to guess what happened to the two guys that got knocked down when they fainted? They got screamed at and had to push ups for not being more aware of their surroundings. The sad thing is that I am starting to understand what the DIs are talking about. While we are supposed to focus on the task at hand, we can't be so focused that we close our eyes to potential risks. Of course understanding the reason doesn't make the hassle of getting smoked by the DIs any more pleasant.
Our Senior Drill Instructor takes close order drill seriously. Actually he treats it more like a religion. And I don't think the most extreme and dedicated Islamic terrorist takes his religion as seriously as the Senior takes Drill. He was so mad at us for screwing up the drill card the day before Final Drill that he pitted us for an hour. While he was screaming at us he threw his cover on the ground and spit on it. He spit on his own hat!!! Drill Instructors are nicknamed "Hats." They go to 13 weeks of DI School to earn their Hats. This was really serious. Before he stormed off and left us with the Heavy and the Green Belts he screamed "Go ahead and look like shit tomorrow if you want!!! I'm gonna get my 100!!!" The DIs get scored for Drill separately from the platoon but the scores are combined for the final score. The rest of our day was a series of ass chewings and drill practice and quarter-deckings, and more drill practice and more ass chewings.
In a weird version of cosmic karma this collection of incompetent fools known as Platoon 2070 nailed final drill. We were locked and cocked. We nailed every movement in perfect sync. Due to a forecast that called for lightning we did rifle manual in the gym and didn't do the marching portion at all. We really thought we had won our first series trophy. When the Senior came back from the Series meeting we expected to have the trophy with him. He didn't. It turns out that HE got docked points for a misstep and that lowered our score from 1st place to third. On a normal day I think we would have gotten smoked for half the day because we lost. This wasn't a normal day. He was proud of us and mad at himself. For the rest of the day we watched movies in the squad bay. We got to see pride on all of DIs faces and that was something special. Sometimes this can be a million dollar experience... a million dollar experience that you wouldn't pay a nickel for.
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