Posted on 11/14/2017 8:09:48 PM PST by PROCON
It's true, I can't believe I've held this incredible pain inside me for so long but I have to tell somebody how cruelly and unfairly I was treated, Oh so long ago.
I was new to the Army, heading to Basic Training in 1969, wanting to make a difference and serve my country and America but what I encountered shook me to my very core.
Me, a wide-eyed recruit, got off the bus at Fort Lewis Washington and was immediately yelled at and verbally abused by this looming, big, (and mean), Staff Sergeant named SSG Gritman.
He singled me out immediately because he hated me and made me fall into a position I would come to know and hate, the FRONT LEANING REST Position, (*SOB*), to do push-ups I didn't deserve to do because I was nice person!!
This monster of a man continued to demean and harass me throughout the entire 8 weeks of training, always singling me out as if I were his pet DOG, never relenting, never cutting me slack, never saying he was sorry!
Well, here it is, the reason I confessed my pain and suffering from so long ago; I want to find former Drill Sergeant Gritman, and have Congress indict him on charges of having been mean to me those many years ago.
LOL! Good one!
I’m sick and tired of this crap, too, as so many are. Makes me want to drive down to Gadsden and b****slap those wenches.
Then go to DC to take a 2 X 4 to the heads of the a**holes in Congress. (can I say that? LOL)
This has gotten out of hand and if they get away with it, it sets a very dangerous precedent.
I went to Air Force basic in 1966. AF basic is pretty tame compa+red to the Marines and it was compressed then from 6 weeks to 4 to get the guys out and over to Nam. The yelling and bullying was all rather perfunctory and I had already resolved to treat it all as a movie, just do my best and let whatever crap there was just float on by. Well it was pretty tame and I was amazed at the several recruits who just couldn’t take the impolite treatment and had breakdowns. I wondered how these guys survived 18 or 19 years to Enlist in the Air Force.
That is terrible....you should sue someone. :-)
I an soooo humiliated. I think I will have to find my safe zone.
# me also
I had bad experiences with other people. That’s all I feel able to share at this early stage of my recovery.
Wuss!! : )
Feb 68. 2nd Floor..first bunk bed on left..a guy from California committed suicide. He was on the bed above me. He sure could keep his footlocker immaculate. The CO asked me in front of the two drill sergeants if I knew why he killed himself....I replied ‘No Sir’.
I was at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot at San Diego in the 80s, and the one thing we told the new drill instructors was to NEVER say bad things about a recruit's family. A drill instructor say almost anything to a recruit and his fellow DIs and officers would hear nothing, except for family. Almost every DI and officer did something "wrong," but that was one of the few lines that we tried never to cross.
I saw and heard a lot, but that topic was never approached in a manner to degrade the family. Now you could say something like, "Your mother would probably be so disappointed in you that you can never go home (using more colorful language of course)." The idea, is that the family is a foundational part of the country, so to tear that down is the same as disgracing the flag. If any recruit showed any emotional weakness, it was exploited in an attempt to break him- except for the family. I had a recruit that had to go on emergency leave because the recruit's father was in the hospital in very poor shape. Transportation fell apart and one of his DIs drove the recruit to the airport in the DI's personal car (against all rules). No one said a thing.
My company CO at Great Lakes NTC blew a gasket and screamed at me when the hotel corners on my rack were substandard. In front of my entire company, he lifted my mattress and shoved it out the third story window of the barracks.
To this day, every time I make my bed, my brain freezes and I wonder how the hell he crammed that mattress through that tiny 12 X 24” window opening. It simply defied physics.
Been there and done that. Fall of 68. I was about the fourth to step off the bus. One of the guys in front of me threw his cigarette butt on the ground and stepped on it. I knew that would be the start of our "basic training". We got to duck-walk through the parking lot picking up whatever we could find. Oh well... If it hadn't been that it would have been something else.
Did you get that wonderful first army meal? Standing in the rain and eating from a metal plate with chunks of undercooked potato with the peels still on sitting in watery "gravy"? Somebody had to work awfully hard to make such an unappetizing meal.
All this suffering. It is no wonder that we are screwed up. We should have a national day of crying. These college kids, their lives destroyed by student loans, have it far worse than the guys who landed at Normandy. Lets have some sympathy.
Hear hear
I’m sick of all this victim victim victim in the age of feminism and slutism
Dames used to know how to handle men
My bunkmate in basic went AWOL. He told me he was going to head home, get his passport, and go to Canada. I told my platoon sergeant I didn't know anything about it. Seemed like the safest course for me. I wonder what became of the guy.
Ditto! LOL!
Years later I was assigned to USLO, US Embassy in Djibouti. I met 2 AWOL US soldiers in the 13th Demi Brigade, French Foreign Legion.
They asked me help getting out of the Legion. The US Ambassador told me they must finish their contract with the Legion.
Good answer!
It’s still there so I guess it’s ok to say it. :-)
They wanted to be invited to the Embassy 4th of July party at the Sheraton hotel...the Commander of the Legion and officers were invited. They insisted because they were US citizens.
SFC William Avery
Senior Drill Sergeant
B Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd BCT Brigade
Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.
And I am forever indebted to him
for every bit of abuse he heaped
on my sorry, out of shape,
undisciplined ass for those 8 weeks.
I would not have survived the
following three years without him.
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