Posted by
Curtal Friar on Monday, September 08, 2008 9:34:39 AM
I remember when I first arrived at my basic training company and met DS Mitchell for the first time. I can't remember what he said now, or what I said or did, but I know this: within twenty seconds of seeing what he looked like, I was in the front leaning rest position preparing to knock out forty pushups. That set the tone for our relationship for the rest of basic training.
Mitchell stood about 5'7", was naturally bald, and had the temper and spirit and all-over ferocity of a kodiak bear. He had fought in Vietnam, got out for a few years, and then came back in and within a short time, was a drill sergeant.
He was not one to trifle with. One of the privates, who had a real attitude problem, smarted off to Mitchell once in formation. That afternoon, we marched down the road to one of our classes, and the private was pulled out of class. He showed back up towards the end, and there were no more attitude problems from him for the rest of basic. We never found out what had happened, but even the dumbest of us could not help but notice that whenever DS Mitchell showed up, the private was the most squared away of any of us.
Mitchell loved it when one of the privates left a locker unlocked. He even had a cadence he had made up, that we would have to sing on our way back to the barracks whenever someone goofed in that fashion:
Shoulda locked my locker
When I left
The room and the locker
Are now a mess
Whenever we heard that cadence, we knew that one of us would find his wall locker standing open and all of the contents scattered throughout the barracks. The offender would have to run to get all his uniforms and gear gathered back up and stored properly. He would incur ten pushups for every minute it took to accomplish the task. I remember one guy garnering almost three hundred pushups that way.
I never forgot to lock my wall-locker, but I did become one of the members of the 700 Club. That was an elite organization of privates who goofed up in some way, mostly by making a safety violation. I was coming off one of the firing ranges and had failed to put my weapon (Not a GUN) back on safety and was immediately enrolled as a member in good standing of the 700 Club. This meant that I had the three weeks that were remaining of Basic to do 700 pushups in Mitchell's presence. I got it done, but just barely.
What I will remember the most about DS Mitchell the most, however, is the day I had to go through the concentration course. Those of you who have been through basic will remember the tall ladder you had to climb. In my mind, back then, the ladder was at least a hundred feet tall. I was very scared of heights, and as I looked up at the ladder, of which the rungs were logs that were spaced further and further apart the higher one climbed, I was sure that there was no way I was going up there. Mitchell was up near the top, on the left side of the ladder, and as I paused, he shouted down at me to get moving. I yelled out that I was afraid of heights and that I couldn't do it.
"Get up here," he yelled back at me.
"I can't do it, Drill Sergeant." I said.
"Damnit boy, get up here. Move!"
"Drill Sergeant, I...."
I was cut off by a roar of obscenities from the drill sergeant, and he began climbing down towards me. I suddenly realized that climbing the ladder couldn't be as bad as facing Mitchell when he was angry, and I started up. The privates behind me were chanting my name to cheer me on and up, and Mitchell alternated between encouraging me and shouting whenever I paused. Somehow I made it all the way up and then back down. When I reached the bottom, I turned and set off for the next obstacle. Before I got far, DS Mitchell shouted out my name. I turned to look back, and he gave me a thumbs up.
No awards I've won since then have meant as much as that simple affirmation.