Personal Narrative: My Army Journey

“Get off my bus Privates, GET OFF!”. The Drill Sergeant yelling jolted me out of sleep

It was Friday, December 19th, 2003, in Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina. Just six short days before my 19th birthday. A recruit screams, "Lights! Lights! Lights!". The overhang lights flashes to life, I look outside and see that was still dark outside. All 80 of my fellow recruits jumped up and began the preparation for our big moment. Racks were stripped of sheets and blankets, folded, and then set on top of the footlockers. As we did the last bits of field day, I imagined that we were somewhere between well oiled machines and ants. Time seemed to slow down to a crawl. As we got dressed in our pickle suits I was shaking. To this day I don 't if I was from the sheer excitement or from nervous. The process of getting dressed was beyond tedious and deliberate. Socks, corframs, white shirt, long sleeve khaki shirt, shirt-stays attached from the bottom of the shirt to the top of the socks, tie, standing on top of a foot locker to step into our trousers, getting the help of your rackmate to help put on your blouse, and lastly putting on your cover.

I felt the right side of my face burning and found blisters. The right sleeve of my shirt was torn. I began to smell an odor that I had smelled as a young man in Florida many times during lightning storms. I knew what had happened. We had been struck by lightning. I remember just looking up at the sky and saying, “God, not you too!” As we got our senses together and checked each other out, we began to realize we had got off easy. We had burns, blisters, torn clothes, and we were numb in certain parts of our bodies. The radio would not work. It took us about two and a half hours to get back to our command post.

It was the 7th of April 2005. I was a part of 1st Platoon, G Troop 82nd Cavalry, Task Force 1-163 IN, and FOB Gaines Mills is where we called home. I was a Specialist in a Light Cavalry unit assigned to Alpha Section of 1st Platoon. My duty position strongly depended on the mission and how our Platoon Leadership wanted to task organize. Since we had quite a bit of diverse talents from the E-4 and below, and we were all capable of Driving, Gunning, or being a Dismount, I had to always be ready to move into one of those positions at any time.

They push you and push you, and make you do all kinds of exercises and drills. It’s hard when you are not in shape. The first day was called “Hell Day”. It is meant to be the day

Even though the drill sergeant told us to keep our heads down, I couldn’t help but peek my head up just to see what is out the window. All I saw was the beautiful blue sky with no clouds in site, and the sun just smiling down on us. The bus stopped at the destination, and I felt my heart stopped as if it was the last time I ever get to see the world. Out of nowhere the same drill sergeant with the mega phone was outside of my bus and started yelling at us with all his might. We could sense fear and terror in the atmosphere as the drill sergeant started pull us out of the bus one by one. The closer I got to the drill sergeant the clearer I got to see every vein and artery throbbing out of his neck and for every word he said you can see them pumping a heartbeat. Once I was able to get my focus from all the scatterings another drill sergeant was yelling at me to run up this hill that look as if it was Mount Rushmore but covered in grass and surrounded by privates but in a far distance look like ants. So I ran to the top acting like it was the end of my life and that I running away from the bulls like how the Spaniards do when they have their annual running with the bulls. Running to the top of the hill was harder than excepted. After finally reaching the top I stopped to catch my breath for my lungs felt as if they’re balloons and someone squeezed all the air out of

“Everybody get off my bus!” the drill sergeant screamed. I woke up terrified for my life. I picked up me stuff and ran towards the front of the bus. I broke left following the rest of the crowd. When I make it to the end my hearts racing, I could feel my heart beat in places I never felt before. There were packs of uniform blobs confused not knowing where to go. I decided to get into a formation not

The Recruit Division Commanders (RDC) that were waiting for the bus storm through the open doors, and start screaming orders at the new recruits. Your grab what little stuff you were told bring, and hurry off the bus before the bulldogs eat you alive. Your are shuffled in to an atrium with about 80 other recruits all scared as you are, and still getting orders yelled at you, half of which you cannot understand so you get yelled at more. As you all fall in, the RDCs start telling you the rules and regulations as fast as they can, and expect you to remember all of them or again get yelled at. You then get shuffled in to gear issue where they separate you by gender. Once in the large room they make everyone one strip down to nothing so they can strip you of all your civilian clothes, and in essence of your civilian life. Once you have all of your issued gear they walk you into another room where you get your first chance to sit down, and semi relax. But there is no relaxing on the first

“Good luck guys!” We were unlucky enough to be drafted to be paratroopers and even more unlucky into the same squad as my best friend. The squad captain commanded,

He stared at me like he could see through my soul. I looked away quickly, seeing as you shouldn’t look at your Drill Instructor/Sergeant straight in the eyes. His radio beeped 3 times, which somehow means it’s lunch time. When we got outside the tent, there were 4 tables all squished together. I sat down on the hardwood bench in the rising heat.

This is one story I’ve never told before. Not to anyone… It all started a few days, we made contact with the enemy. It was quite scary when this all began, it was a beautiful, warm, sunny day. The birds were chirping, the wind was whistling to the sound of Yankee Doodle, and we were marching to the tune. It was all great until we had to keep quiet. The commander yelled at us and told us to get down and shut up. It took us a few minutes before we realized we were being ambushed. George, the guy laying next to me, Stood up and started to shoot and holler. He was making so much noise it was drawing attention to him and myself. I saw some troops on the other side start running towards me with their guns out. So I did what any other person would

Second platoon, third squad was on a night time; unpartnered; dismounted patrol when I found myself suddenly rising higher. I slam head first into a mud wall that Zeus himself could not break. Unconscious for a few seconds I come to, and see the man in front of me laying on the edge of a crater staring blankly at where his legs used to be. I pause for a second. He looks at me; suddenly I realized where I was and what I needed to do. I run over to him and drag him back down into the crater the IED made. I put a tourniquet on his right leg and by that Doc the squad Navy Corpsman arrived to my position and relieved me. I took post to west weary of a surprise complex ambush. The rest of the unit came over to assist the casualty when another explosion goes off. Too close to this one as well I slam again to the wall, this time letting my face take brunt of it to keep my body from getting hurt. But it was this explosion which took two more legs and one

A million thoughts were running through my head as we drove from Savannah, Georgia International Airport in the dead of night. I along with 50 other new recruits were herded on to a bus and told to put our heads down as they drove around for what seemed like hours. The recruiters used this as a disorienting and scare tactic, so we would have no idea where we were. As we arrived at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, I thought to myself, “holy shit, am I really doing this?” As the bus pulled to a stop a drill instructor stepped on to the bus. He began shouting unintelligible words at us in a raspy, gruff voice. The only words I was able to understand were “off” and “bus”. I didn’t give it a second thought, I was off the bus as fast

That was four years ago. That is 48 months, 208 weeks, and 1,460 days. I have learned how to be the unique and lively young woman I had hoped myself to be. I have become a well-rounded student and athlete. I have accomplished things I never thought possible and made friends along the way I never could have imagined. I have experienced so much growth. I have been able to go through life-changing experiences that have molded me into who I am today.

Shortly after our break, we all separated into our platoons. A platoon is basically four squads, most small platoons have around 40 soldiers. We went down and got our bags, and had to take them to the third floor. They put us in a single file line, and told us we had seconds to empty our bags. There was no way anyone could physically achieve that task. The Drill Instructors made us do push-ups until sweat was pouring off our bodies and hitting the floor. My mind was telling my body to quit, I was slipping in my own sweat. They told us to get up and they was going to give us another chance to get it right, with the same outcome, but this time we had to do sit-ups. This treatment went on for about an hour, I was exhausted. I did not quite, would not quite. We got about three hours of sleep that night, they came in bright and early with the same