A day in the life of a soldier

Before I was a member of the Army National Guard my dad was a member of the Army National Guard for 20 years. And before him his father was a pilot in the U.S. Air Force. Despite this background I never realized how difficult, dirty, stressful and hungry it can get as a soldier. I would imagine most of you civilians don't either, esp. the ones who trash what our soldiers do or say they support our troops yet degrade our President and country. That's very sickening but a topic for another day. For now I wanted to give you all a brief on what a typical day in Officer Candidate School looks like; this could also be true of a day in training at Fort Benning, Ga., aka Benning Camp for boys.

Out of bed at 0500 to yelling TAC instructors (stands for Teach Assess and Counsel). 50 candidates scramble to get on their PT uniforms and make their picture perfect bunks and out into the dark for morning formation. Mind you most candidates are already up at 4:30 am whether they want to or not. It's the stress and anticipation of 0500 that gets you. If you wanted to get an extra start on the day you can't. You're not allowed to get out of bed until 0500 unless it's to use the latrine.

0500 to 0615 is PT. We run everywhere!

0615 to 0630 back to the barracks to change and personal hygiene. This is a misnomer. You have 15 mins to change and get out to the field to form up to run to chow. The smart candidates shaved in the middle of the night. Yeah you sneak out of bed to do this stuff, so when you have that personal time in the morning you simply rinse your face and hair to make it look like you showered. Eventually you do steal a shower though.

0630 to 0700 chow, everyone in and out. You don't talk, you don't look anywhere but at your food. You eat and you get out, period!

0700 to 1130: run to classes, various classes on different Army things. They give you a break eveyr 50 mins at which time your marched out and form up as a platoon (approx. 40-50 candidates) and you get instruction, drink water and get "smoked". Smoked means you get dropped by the TAC and made to do flutter kicks or low crawl or pushups until you are completely smoked! It sucks big time.

1130 to 1230: chow. Run back to chow, eat and out, back to classroom.

1230 to 1630: more classroom, more smoking and then off to chow.

1630 to 1730: formation and run to the flagpole for retreat of the flag.

Remember all this time every where you go you or those candidates leading you are getting yelled at and smoked at any chance available by the TAC. This is to put as much stress on us as possible so that we become effective combat leaders. Though many candidates become Lts and do not lead combat troops, everyone must be able to lead in combat. You never know when your combat is going to get ambushed or your base attacked. We are soldiers after all, even if you are a supply officer or other.

I'm going to switch to regular people time for clarity's sake:

7 to 8 pm: More yelling and running.

8-9 pm: More yelling and up to the barracks where we get some time to get our bunks and displays straightened.

At around 9:30 or 10 pm we go through a whole inspection and bedtime routine. Then they turn the lights out and we go to bed. That's how the book reads but there is so much stuff to do, preparing for the next training day which could include field exercises or other stuff that once we are sure the TAC are gone everyone gets up and starts doing the things you need to do to prepare for the next training day, that they didn't give us time to do. This could include: showering, shaving, getting your uniform ready for next day with clothes out, reading, preparing orders for the platoon for the next day, labeling your equipment, filling canteens. I think you probably get to lay down at about midnite. And then you're so stressed out IF you can sleep you go to bed. If not you toss and turn until about 4:30 am when you wait for the TAC to come in.

Yes it sucks and yes this can be different depending on different trainings that you are doing or what phase of training or even what base you're training at. But all in all OCS is very stressful. You know those photos you see of troops sleeping in dirt holes with mud and rain or on the top of a Humvee. The look a bit staged don't they? Civilians wouldn't believe that it's that tough in the military. Well it's true. I know from first hand experience. WHEN you get time to sleep, you sleep wherever you can whether you have a cot or sleeping bag, blanket or not dirty or hungry. Sleep is precious.

And serving in the military can be a thankless job. The pay is usually pretty bad for how many hours you work and there are always mess-ups in pay. You run the risk of being killed at any opportunity and you have to deal with ultra liberal bigots talking about how they support the troops but they hate our Commander in Chief, the Honorable President George W. Bush and now they don't believe in fighting terror because the price is too high, too many Americans dying. So next time you see a man or woman in uniform thank them for their service and please don't ever tell us you support what we do but don't support the war or the President. It makes you look stupid and bigoted. But hey, if the shoe fits....