10/18/2014- "Eagle/Victory Tower"



“I AM NOT A NUMBER, I AM NOT PART OF A STATISTIC, I WILL BREAK OUT OF ANY CAGE, AND DEFY ALL LIMITATIONS. FACE ANY FEAR AND OVERCOME ANY OBSTACLE. I AM A PUNISHER.”

My platoon’s name is the Punishers and this is our motto.

Today we did Eagle Tower. You can look up Fort Benning and Victory or Eagle Tower. A 42 foot tower with different sides. One side we climb up by pulling ourselves up a rope and walking up the side of the wall and then climb a cargo net down. The other test was climbing a massive ladder to the top then repelling down. I’m not a fan of heights, but this was a rush and fun. Our group didn’t really have anyone back out, I was hoping for some drama. That pretty much took up the whole day. The DS didn’t let us down, he was being an ass. Everyone got “smoked” in groups, individual, platoons and the whole company. Pretty sure I topped 500 push-ups, 100 squats, 100’s of crunches along with some others. I got smoked at the end of the night but pretty sure my DS was just being a problem. As soon as I walked out of the bathroom, my battle buddy handed me his rifle to help him take it apart. I walked to my bed and my DS was all over my ass. That took about 60 push-ups along with a lot of up-down / buspees (I am not sure what he means by this, trouble reading his writing) at the end saying “yes Drill Sear gent” every time I went down, got up, and for anything else he said to me. Blow hole.

We had MRE’s (meals ready to eat) for lunch. Most of the guys didn’t know how to heat them up so they ate them cold. The Sarge only gave us 10 minutes to open up all of it and eat it anyway we could. So by the time I finally heated mine up I had 5 minutes to eat it. The good thing is these come with dessert. We don’t get sweets here so it’s a big deal. My battle buddy had tootsie rolls- which I love- but ate them before I figured it out. One of the options has skittles which people actually pay money to get. I had a dry pound cake- total bummer.

This evening is cleaning evening. As soon as we got back from evening chow our bay was trashes- MAJOR TIME. Bunk beds flipped over, mattress pads tossed in the bathroom, clothes, shoes and bags tossed everywhere. And shaving cream was everywhere. The infamous “gnome” did it. It was done to piss us off but also to force us to use teamwork to clean the whole bay, mop and make the beds in 10 minutes. Crazy Stuff.

Also one of the DS got mad because we kept calling him Sarge or Sear gent or Sir. THEY HATE THIS!!! They take it as an insult, so we have to write Drill Sear gent 2000 times and turn it in Monday morning. My Sarge go upset because no one knew the Army Code of Conduct, so we have to write this too and what it means to us.

Anyway tomorrow is our day of peace. If all else works out I should get 5.5 hours of sleep tonight which would double my average so far.

A black preacher that sings and jives will be preaching at the Protestant service tomorrow, so I am looking forward to it. Hope everyone enjoys their weekend.