Wow what I hard week. When the volume of business doesn't seem to be there and it looks like you might miss your number for the week, you just look down deep and come up with a plan. Here is what my plan looked like. I am in a contest to win cool scooter that has a Tostitos cooler attached. Wish me luck!
When I returned to camp I reported to the hut were the drill team stayed. I found Sergeant Hernandez sitting a chair wrapped in a blanket and shivering. He looked real bad I went to him and asked him if he needed anything. He told me to get his keys from his jacket and to run to his car and get some pills he had and bring them to him. I took off as fast as I could. My legs were killing me from the workout they had all day. I made it to his car In was a cool red Carmen Gia, a VW sports car. I found the pills and doubled timed it back. When I arrived he was in the same condition. He took the pills. I stayed with him a short while and we talked a little. He told be that he had contracted Yellow Fever in Nam. He didn’t want to talk much and said that he would be fine. I returned to my bunk.
The next morning came quickly a trash can went flying and the yelling began. That little shit Tagalari was in charge today. “Fall out!”, the order came. We were given the order to piss, shower, and shave. I believe that we all made that happen in ten minutes. We jot dressed and fell back in formation. In boot camp you have to keep your blouse (shirt) buttoned to the top. It was to be done until you made it to the last week of training. Wouldn’t you know there is always one who just wouldn’t follow orders. Tagalari gave him a ration of shit and we all had to pay. “Everyone down!” Tagalari yelled. “Push ups!” My body was still hurting from the day before, I groaned, Tagalari heard me and while I was doing my push ups he put his boot on my back and gave me some encouragement.
After about thirty or forty pushups we were back in formation. We were ran to the mess hall for morning chow. Morning chow was the best, eggs, bacon and toast and milk. No coffee, no soft drinks. These were very bad for you while in training. after chow we were going drill. That’s learning to march to perfection. Would you know it the same person that caused us to do all the morning push ups was the same one who couldn’t keep in step with the rest of us. “Everyone down!” yelled Tagalari. More push ups and more push ups.
By the end of the day we pretty much understood what marching was all about. We were finished with supper chow and was marching back to the huts when the very same screw up that had caused us all of the problems all day tripped on his own boot laces and mess up the marching. “Halt!” came the order from Tagalari. “I want everyone in formation position facing the way we were marching”. “Ready for push ups!” “Everyone first get on your knuckles and remain in the up position!” Tagalari looking around at each one of us. “Eyes front!” he said. “Now forward march!” and we were down like we were getting ready to do push ups and we were on our knuckles on the asphalt marching or I would say crawling forward. Tagalari had a lot of enjoyment from this. We did this for what seemed like eternity. Then we were given the order to make a formation and we marched back to the camp.
That night about ten of us got together as secretly as we could and we took a bar of soap and wrapped it in a towel and went to the hut where the screw up was and we beat the crap out of him with the soap. This was called a blanket party. The next morning Hernandez was feeling better and when we had formation and he saw this man all black and blue, he asked him what happened. The recruit said that he fell out of his bunk.
