Terms of Enlistment Read Online Free PDF Page A

of food.
    I’m sure they’ll make us sweat for every bite later on, but right now I am resolved to enjoy my meal, and stuff as many calories into myself as possible without throwing up. The food alone made the signing up worth the effort, and if all the meals in the military are like this, I’ll cheerfully jump through whatever hoops they put up.
     
    After lunch, Sergeant Gau walks us over to a warehouse full of military clothes and gear. The equipment issue works much like the chow line. We file past the issuing stations in a single column.
    At the first station, the surly-looking attendant pulls a large rucksack and an even larger duffel bag from a stack and tosses them both onto the counter in front of me. There are scuff marks on the heavy canvas, the olive drab color is faded in spots, and I can see the rectangular line of pulled-up stitching where the previous owner’s name tag was removed from the outer flap of the rucksack.
    The rest of the gear is used as well, ranging in condition from merely scuffed to nearly unserviceable. At one of the stations, they hand me a folding shovel and a utility knife. The blade of the knife shows the marks of hundreds of sharpenings. The folding shovel used to have a blade coated in olive drab paint, but most of the paint has come off, and the edges of the shovel blade are nicked. It seems like they’re issuing us mostly stuff that’s good enough for one more issue cycle before being scrapped.
    They measure us for our uniforms, and then give each of us several sets of fatigues. Those are used, as well, but I am happy to see that at least the underwear and socks seem to be brand new. I guess there are limits even to government frugality.
    “Those are yours to keep,” Sergeant Gau says when he sees me inspecting the new pairs of knee-high gray socks, checking them off on my “Received Equipment” list, and stowing them in my duffel bag.
    “When you wash out, you get to take your socks and underwear with you. Nobody would want to wear them after you, anyway. Consider those a souvenir of your short life in the military.”
    We spend the afternoon filling our rucksacks and duffel bags: uniforms, rain gear, equipment pouches, helmets, combat boots, chemical warfare protection kits, running shoes, shower sandals, sewing kits, and a bunch of other articles of unknown purpose. When we have finally cleared the last station, it’s late in the afternoon, and we are each weighed down with a rucksack and a bag that probably weigh a hundred pounds together. Some of the smaller members of our platoon are swaying under the load as we assemble again in front of the building. Marching us to our quarters with a hundred pounds of gear seems the perfect opportunity for a conditioning exercise, but Sergeant Gau has a bus waiting for us.
    We are quartered in a large, flat-roofed building that stands in a long row of identical buildings. The only way to tell them apart is to look at the signs over each entrance, where a large screen lists the numbers of the platoons housed within. We share our building with five other platoons. The central staircase splits the building in half; each floor has a large room to each side of the staircase. When Sergeant Gau leads us into our platoon bay, we see two rows of bunk beds, one on each side of the room. There are two lockers in front of each bunk bed, facing out into the center aisle.
    “There are name tags on your bunks,” Sergeant Gau says as we file into the squad bay. “You will find your bunk, and place your equipment bags on top of the mattress. Execute .”
    There’s a bit of disorder as forty recruits fan out to find their respective bunks, but we find that the order is alphabetical. There is a small stack of sheets, a blanket, and a pillow at the head of each bunk.
    My bunkmate turns out to be the dark-haired girl from our lunch table. We give each other encouraging smiles as we haul our gear onto our beds. She has the top bunk, purely by