Holla Back Girl

We rarely had an opportunity to make phone calls.  When we did, we would only have three minutes to spit out as much as we could and then abruptly hang up.  One day we were walking in formation en route to the short row of three phone booths behind the barracks.  There were two unfamiliar privates already there.  This displeased the drill, but drills wouldn’t mess with privates they didn’t know, unless those privates happened to be tankers.  Tankers were in training to stay on a big ass Abrams A-1 tank.  They had their own area they had to stay in, but their drills were a lot more lenient than ours.  On top of that, the first time we were allowed to go to the post store for toiletries we ran into some tankers.  They were bragging about some type of simulator where they drive behind scouts on the ground.

“Yeah man, I only killed 19 scouts today!” one fat tanker said to another.

“Did he just say what I think he said?” I asked.

“That’s bull shit, man,” said JT

I guess tankers "accidentally" ran over or shot scouts while driving behind us in the simulator.  Not comforting words of confidence and it didn’t help that they were laughing about it.  This left a bad taste in all of our mouths regarding tankers.  However, DS Anderson made all of our worries go away that day at the phone booths.

“Are you two turds scouts?” asked Anderson.

“No,” said one tanker.

“No? No WHAT motherfucker!”

“No, drill sergeant,” they quivered and stood proper.

“Start pushing!  

 Down they went.

"Well, what the fuck are you doing here?”

“Using the phone, drill sergeant.”

“No the fuck you’re not.  You’re in scout territory and these are phones for scouts only.  You know, real fuckin’ men!”

Our first compliment!  It felt riveting!  Must. Stay. Composed.

Anderson smoked the tankers for a couple of minutes and then sent them running.  It was great to see a drill stick up for his platoon.  It’s a nice relief to see them stick up for you after months of riding your ass.  Anderson then smoked everyone that was done with the phone to put pressure on everyone else to hurry up.  It didn’t take long to go back to normal. 

Anderson always took time to laugh at the simple things, even if it started out with him being extremely pissed off.  Our platoon was at the range one day and learned the importance of the proper form of range walking.  We were apparently moving too slow throughout a range so upon our return to the barracks, Anderson explained that when a drill screamed “range walk!” you were to walk as fast as humanly possible without actually picking up a jog.  This ensures that time at the range will be at a minimum, which is always nice when working with a platoon full of people that have no idea what they’re doing.  I’ve always had respect for positions like drills or teachers.  They get a group of retards, teach them how not to be retards and then get a whole new batch of retards.  I would go nuts in their shoes, I mean boots.

We all went behind the barracks fearful that Anderson was going to take us to the Pit, but he told us to line up in two rows behind him with a smile on his face instead.

“All right, privates!  Since you mouth breathers don’t know how to move with a purpose we’re going to range walk until I believe you understand.  Think of it as a race too.  First two, go!” he barked.

Off we went, two at a time to the end of the sidewalk, which was 200 feet away.  The losing platoon would be rewarded with push-ups of course.  As we were racing we had to wear our pistol belts.  The funny thing about pistol belts is that our belts didn’t have any pistols.  Instead they only carried two canteens, one on each hip.  Walking as fast as you can with two canteens provided a lot of entertainment we didn’t see coming.

It came time for the smallest guy in our platoon to race.  Coincidently he had to race one of the taller guys.  Wilson was white, had light brown hair, stood 5’6” and weighed maybe 130 lbs soaking wet.  He spoke quietly with a thick Tennessee accent, wore thick, brown-framed military glasses half the size of his face and listened to heavy metal music.  Not the most threatening looking or sounding individuals, but if you crossed him he would come at you with everything he had.  Wilson would always admit when he was scared, but never once acted like it.  It’s a mentality we both shared and brought us close as friends.

Wilson took off with the mission of winning.  We all new this wasn’t going to happen, but for some reason we all went ape shit cheering for him.  The race was out of reach for him to win, but that didn’t stop him from trying his best.  Wilson was in full angry granny walking mode with his hips swinging violently side-to-side, like a runway model in heels.  This action combined with everyone going nuts even brought Drill Sergeants Anderson and Rouse to near tears laughing and applauding Wilson’s effort.

“Atta girl, Wilson! You sexy lady you!” yelled Anderson.

“Fuck yew geyes!” Wilson yelled back while smiling at all of us.

Random moments like that taught me to enjoy the little things.  We were all stressed out and needed a laugh.  Something that mundane made us smile all the way thru lights out that night and into morning formation the next day.