Part II - Hotel Lackland

Hmmmm...I could probably write a novel on basic training. Well I left MEPS not really knowing what would happen next. We (there were a few for the Air Force, some Army, Navy) were shuttled over to the Portland Jetport and waited for our flights. I bought a bottle of water and used my first military discount, I still have the receipt haha. The flights to Texas took forever. We flew from Portland to Detroit and then from there to San Antonio. At the USO in San Antonio is where it all began, there were people there, not yelling at us yet, but the mood in that place wasn't overall really happy. We were told to tuck in our shirts and to stand in these rows quietly. Then after an hour or so we were herded onto a bus and brought to Lackland. There we started our in-processing, they did scans of our feet (for our boots), threw a satchel, study guide, parka and a prepackaged dinner at us and told us to sit in rows. We got called out of the room one by one (this took hours, there were hundreds of us in this room. By that time it was probably 1 in the morning and I had been up since 4. So it was a long day for me. I was one of the last called out of the room and was brought by a sergeant (who I was completely scared of) out to a waiting bus that was full. I tried to sit with two others but the bus driver yelled at me to sit on the floor. (Looking back, this was actually pretty funny), the bus drove over to our squadron and there was a bunch of yelling outside. We got off the bus in about 3 seconds and were told to go over and stand on these yellow dots painted on the pavement. I remember standing there for what seemed like an hour or so, about 50 us just standing dead quiet. We could hear yelling up in the dorms. Finally a Training Instructor (TI) with a campaign hat burst out of the door and the chaos began. Good times. They politely told us to go upstairs and fall out by a locker. We then played a "game" where we would put our finger on the number on our locker, then ran over to our bed and put our finger on the bed. We did that for awhile. I'm always going to remember TSgt Hope. He ordered us into the day room (basically a room where we sit on the floor, the TI sits at a desk and briefs us, there are couches and TV's in the room, we cant touch them however) and he proceeded to yell at us about anything and everything for the next 2 hours. Haha, this was the most belittled and small I've ever felt. It's something I'll never forget. Lots of swears haha. After that we took 10 second showers and went to bed, I had been up for probably 24 hours at this point so weirdly enough I fell right asleep. The next morning I woke up and the first thing I thought was "Oh crap. I really am here." We met our TI that morning, SSgt Barbuch. He came in that morning yelling at us to get up and out of bed.

The first week of basic training or "zero week" is basically just inprocessing and medical stuff. We don't have our uniforms or haircuts yet, so we're called "rainbow flights" because we all look different. On Thursday of that week we got our shots, the usual flu shot, TB shot (it makes a bubble in your arm, if it goes away within 48 hours you dont have TB), blood sample, and the infamous Penicillin shot. Most people call it the Peanut Butter shot because the serum is very thick (mine was thick and COLD, making it worse) and you definitely feel it. They give you the shot in your butt cheek and for several days after you can't walk right and it hurts when you sit down. Friday was financial and clothing issue. It was really cool to get our uniforms for the first time and to get our heads shaved. The worst part was rucking that 40 lb sack back to the dorms. For awhile after you get your uniforms issued you wear the tennis shoes you were issued for PT. You are then called a "baby flight" because you have all your uniforms, but you're all wearing white tennis shoes and still a new flight. This is just to get your feet used to all the walking. Second week you begin PT. Every day except for Sunday you do PT while in Basic. Monday, Wednesday and Friday are run days, you go out to the drill pad (think of a parking lot about the size of two football fields) at 0500 and there are lines painted around the pad, a lot bigger than a standard track. You run at a certain pace for about 15 minutes, then another 10 minutes of self-paced running, and then the last 5 minutes is 30 seconds sprint then 30 seconds walk. So all in all its about 30 minutes of constant running, I'm glad I worked on my running before Basic, people who would stop would get their 341's (a disciplinary sheet of paper) pulled and would get chewed out to get them "motivated." Tuesday, Thursday and Saturdays were circuit days. We would go out to the PT pads right next to the drill pad and do pushups, crunches, squats, etc. It wasn't hard, but the fact you had people standing over you constantly watching you made it hard haha. After PT usually you march back to the dorms (you march everywhere) run upstairs, shower really quick, make beds, do details (assigned chores, like laundry, bed-aligning, shoe-aligner, aisle sweeper) and then fall out back downstairs for chow in the dining facility.

The dining facility deserves a paragraph all of its own. We would fall out in elements in front of the dining facility, and then our chow caller (unlucky person) would go inside, stand in front of the snake pit and basically ask permission for our flight to come inside and eat. The snake pit is a row of tables in front where all the TI's sit and eat. Probably the most nerve wracking time of day is walking with your tray in front of the snake pit to go sit down. The chow runner would do his thing then come back outside and start calling our flight in by elements. You go in, sign the sheet (that was supposedly a $300 sheet?) and then wait silently to go through the chow line. You could pretty much get anything you wanted. The chow overall wasn't so bad, I just wish we could of had time to eat. You tell the line servers what you wanted and they would put it on a plate and you side step down the line. You always have to get at least three drinks. One of which must be water. They are really big on hydration in basic, the fact is the government is spending a lot of money on you to train you and any time wasted getting sick (AKA me) and dehydrated wastes that money. So you grab your food, your drinks then you turn to walk (very straight and confidently) past the snake pit to go sit. When you get to your table you need to stand and wait at attention until there are 4 people at your table, to which the last person to get there says "Trainees be seated" and you sit down and start eating as much as you can as fast as you can. A trick I learned was to get foods you could mix together, stuff like noodles, chicken, gravy, rice and mashed potatoes could all be thrown together and eaten in a minute. You kinda learn neat tricks like this as you go to save time. We all learned quickly that PB&J sandwiches were gold. Some guys in my flight would have 2 or 3 each meal. Any meal that they ran out of PB was not a good meal. Overall, we got about 7-8 minutes top to eat each meal. You learn to stuff a lot of food down the hatch in those few short minutes. The first meal I got to eat out of basic training with my family and zell, I definitely took my sweet time. 

In basic we learned a lot of different things. However, what the TI's really wanted us to learn was to do things quickly, efficiently and without error. Making us roll our tshirts and socks into perfection might seem very menial, but that's what it was teaching us. Attention to detail is huge. If you cant pay attention enough to lace your boots the correct way, then how are you supposed to be trusted to take care of a multi-million dollar aircraft? Where one loose screw can take lives or cause destruction of very expensive equipment. Everything we did taught us something, from marching to doing details. It all has some worth. 

Getting letters from home was amazing. Zell would send me a letter every day and I'm sure I made more than a few guys jealous with the amount of mail I would get every mail call. Usually at night after lights out is when we would all write home. We all would have our flashlights out writing about what had been going on and how much we missed home. I still have all the letters Zell wrote me and I will always keep those. Every once in awhile we were allowed to have patio breaks. There is an enclosed area in the squadron that has a dozen or so payphones and a bunch of vending machines and if the TI is feeling good usually on the weekend they'll let you go down and call home and buy some candy for 1 or 2 hours. These little breaks from basic were like heaven. I remember the first time I got to call home for a half hour and I was smiling so much it hurt, I was on the phone with my girlfriend and eating a snickers at the same time and I felt human again. You really learn to appreciate the little things when everything gets taken away from you. An extra 5 minutes for chow, a candy bar, a 5 minute call home all were things that you might take for granted, but during basic, it was amazing. There was one time when we had inspections in the dorms, where our TI would go around and visually inspect our locker and clothing drawers looking for demerits and he put some music on. It was Johnny Cash. I don't really listen to Cash or country for that matter, but it was awesome to hear something for the first time in a few weeks.

Throughout basic we would have different classes during the day. These classes were things such as money management, health, Air Force history, Self Aid Buddy Care, Air Force customs & courtesies, etc. We would go into the classroom and sit at attention (very still, right hand on the desk, back off the chair) until the instructor would come into the room. The instructors were pretty cool, they were former TI's so they would still be kinda mean towards you but they would have fun too. The classes weren't hard and I learned a lot from them, probably the hardest thing was trying to stay awake during the warm days. We learned a lot also from BEAST week. Throughout basic we're taught stuff like the classes, SABC, Marksmanship (shooting the M16 and M9) and CBRNE training (Chemical warfare), all of that culminates at BEAST week were we are "deployed" to a hostile remote location and we must defend our base from the enemy (TI's) taking it over. We use what we've learned such as hand to hand combat and fighting from a defensive fighting position. Also our base gets attacked from time to time and we would have to run out of the tents we slept in wearing our heavy flak jacket, helmet and carrying our backpack full of chem gear to the shelter where we would get into our gear as fast as possible while the "attack" was happening. This was just to teach us how to properly wear our chem gear and work in it. After the attack ended we would send out a few people to assess the damage and see if there was any unexploded ordinance in the area or casualties. If there was the UXO (unexploded ordinance team) and SABC teams would be sent out to do their jobs. All of this was a big learning experience, I made plenty of mistakes while I was here (like venturing to close to an IED, I died) but I learned plenty from all of it. We were also taken on an IED trail to teach us how to watch for those if we are ever deployed to a hostile location. It was a big learning experience, it sucked having to wear all of that heavy armor and sweating 24/7 but I'm glad I did it. For chem warfare we were also brought to a gas chamber, we learned how to properly wear a gas mask and then were brought into a chamber where instructors popped a tear gas grenade. We then had to take our masks off, one at a time and say our reporting statement (Sir, Trainee Isherwood reports as ordered) and then walk out of the chamber. I think I said "Sir" before I started coughing my lungs up and my brains starting flowing out of my nose. I will never forget the smell of tear gas. On a different week we went to the gun range, we had classes all morning about safety and how the M16 worked, then we were brought out to the range for some live fire. The M16 was awesome. To qualify in it you had to hit the target at least 25 times and to get marksman it was like...you had to hit certain areas of the target a certain number of times, I don't remember the number exactly, anyways, I qualified and missed marksman by 3 shots. It was fun to actually get out there and shoot an M16, not very many people can say they have done that in their lives. One of the coolest things we did in basic was go through the obstacle course, the obstacle course is to test you physically and mentally and also to give you confidence. I can't remember all the things that were on it, but it was about a mile long and had 20 or so obstacles you had to complete, including a rope swing that went over a pool. A lot of people fell on that one into the water.

One of the roughest times I had during basic was when I got sick. Pretty much everyone gets sick while in basic. The combination of fatigue, stress, being around 50 people at one time and how dusty the dorms are all makes us sick. Around the beginning of the 5th week I contracted the adenovirus, its most commonly called the boot camp flu. Basically its just a really bad cold with a sore throat and the runs. I tried to tough it out because I had heard of the stories about people being recycled (pushed back a week, its only a week but it seems like forever) but Monday morning of 5th week I had to go see the doctor. I went and after waiting for hours my temp was taken and it was a solid 100. Well above the limit to be sent back to my squadron. It sucked to be told that I was being sent to fever flight. Fever flight is at the 319th Squadron. The 319th is where trainees are sent when they are injured, are sick, have issues that prevent them from continuing training, etc. Its not a very good place to go, I hated it. Lots and lots of weird kids there, plus with being sick it was kind of like an Alice in Wonderland type of deal where I had been under a lot of stress for a few weeks and then to be put in a place where it was a bunch of weirdos, it took me for a loop haha. After a few days I was cleared to go back to training, I found out however that I was recycled a week into a different flight. My heart dropped when I found out about this. I was so close and to be put back a week was rough. Calling Zell and telling her that was the worst phone call I've made. I lucked out however, the flight I was put into took me right in and they were all awesome guys, they knew I was in a rough spot and took care of me right away, I'm really thankful for them. I really liked both flights I was in, I made a number of friends that I'll have for the rest of my life, I don't think there's a bond quite like two friends who have gone through basic together.

Towards the end of basic, I would say it got rough as well. Being so close to the finish and finally being able to see Zell and my family and have my life to return to some sort of normalcy was so close. The new TI that I had pretty much every day threatened to take away our precious time with our families. It certainly was a good tool for motivation as he did take away time from some guys in my flight. I made sure to try even harder at everything in the final few days there. I wasn't going to have time taken away. The TI was very good at messing with our heads. He was a former Army sniper and interrogator and he was really intimidating. He was tough on us, but that made us better. The last few days he was especially hard on us, the only good words he said to us were as we were marching onto the pad for our coin ceremony, he told us that we were a good flight and he was proud of us. We were all in shock and as dumb as it sounds it brought tears to my eyes. Just those few words were awesome. 

Graduation involves two things, the coin ceremony the day before, and then the actual graduation on Friday. Thursday morning we did the airmen's run, we ran in formation singing jodies in front of our family and friends along with all of the other graduating flights and then that afternoon we had the coin ceremony. At the coin ceremony you receive your Airman's Coin. It basically signifies that you have "crossed into the blue" and now are an airman in the United States Air Force, getting that coin is one of the proudest moments in my life. Its tradition in the services for soldiers to always carry their coin, if they aren't and are coin checked they have to buy a drink for the person who "checked" them. The coin carries back to WWI when soldiers would carry them to identify that they were friendly forces and to basically not get shot by their fellow soldier. That coin means a lot to me and I always have it on me. All that blood, sweat and tears for that one little coin is worth it to me. After the coin ceremony was the first time I had seen my parents and Zell in about 10 weeks, it was awesome to see them for the first time, another thing that I won't forget. The next day is graduation, it is highly coordinated and there is a lot of practice going into it. Most Saturday's were spent out on the drill pad marching and practicing for graduation. That was another moment I was really proud of, knowing that I had made it and I proved to myself that I had made it. Haha I don't really remember much of marching down the bomb run because I was so focused on marching correctly, but I do remember reciting the oath and hearing "Congratulations to the newest airmen in the United States Air Force", I'll never forget that. A lot of memories.

The next few days we were allowed to spend with our families. On Saturday we went into San Antonio and had an amazing lunch at this Mexican restaurant. I'm pretty sure I ate constantly for a good 2 hours. The rest of the weekend was just relaxing and spending time with them. I was allowed town pass again on Sunday because I got honor graduate, that was something I wasn't expecting, but really cool to find out that the TI's thought I did well enough to earn it. The weekend went by really quickly and saying goodbye that Sunday wasn't as bad as the first time, but it still hurt to be separated again. The next morning I left Lackland for good to attend tech school at Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, TX.