Terms of Enlistment Read Online Free PDF Page B

the three recruits who are now standing doubled over by the curb, straddling puddles of puke. The smell of fresh vomit triggers a new wave of nausea in my head, and I fall out to barf the contents of my stomach into the gutter.
    As I finish retching, I notice that I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t take the smell. Half the platoon is busy adding to the stinking soup that’s now filling the gutter by the side of the road.
    “Lesson learned, I trust,” Sergeant Gau says without any mirth.
     
    Back in the platoon bay, Sergeant Gau has us stand at attention in front of our lockers once more. It’s hard to look dignified with vomit on your clothing.
    “Good enough for today,” he says. “If you’re wondering why none of you have washed out yet, the answer is simple. You have not begun your training yet, so we have not given you much of a chance to screw up. That will change tomorrow morning, precisely at 0430 hours. Right now, you have ten minutes for personal maintenance in the head at the end of the platoon bay. At precisely 2100 hours, you will line up before your lockers again, and you will be wearing your issued sleepwear. Execute.”
    The bathroom is one large room, with toilets on one wall, shower bays on the other, and a circular arrangement of stainless steel sinks in the middle of the room. There isn’t much space for privacy. Neither toilets nor showers have doors or partitions.
    We wash up and change into our issue pajamas as ordered. The male and female versions look exactly alike, shapeless blue things that don’t look martial at all. When everyone is assembled in the center aisle as directed by Sergeant Gau, we look like a bunch of overgrown orphans lining up for a bowl of soup.
    “Rack time,” Sergeant Gau announces after giving the platoon a cursory inspection.
    “You will climb into your bunks. There will be no conversation once the lights are out. If there is an emergency, one of you will knock on the door of the Senior Drill Instructor, where I will be sleeping tonight. Don’t bother me unless one of you is bleeding from the eyes.”
    When we’re in our bunks, the scratchy military-issue blankets wrapped around us, the LEDs on the ceiling dim slowly until they are extinguished. The room is dark, and all I can hear is the breathing of my fellow recruits and the humming of the environmental system that keeps the room at sixty-eight degrees and filters out all the junk in the atmosphere. We’re a long way from any of the Metroplexes, but with Chicagoland, Los Angeles-San Diego-Tijuana and Greater New York all topping fifty million these days, there are few parts of the country where you don’t need environmental conditioning.
    My bunkmate leans over the edge of her bed, and I can just barely see the outline of her head in the near-total darkness.
    “This is not so bad,” she whispers.
    “Except for the puking part,” I whisper back, and she chuckles softly.
     

Chapter 4
     
     
     
    At precisely 0430 hours, the ceiling LEDs turn on abruptly, and Sergeant Gau strides into the platoon bay.
    “Out of bed, now ,” he shouts without preamble. “Do your business, wash up, and get dressed in your greens-and-blues. That’s the kind of clothing with the spots on it. If you need help, check your PDP for ‘UNIFORM, COMBAT, INDIVIDUAL.’ Morning inspection is at 0455, so get a move on.”
    Twenty minutes later, we’re all dressed and lined up in front of our lockers. If Sergeant Gau is pleased at all with the fact that we’re ready five minutes ahead of time, he doesn’t show it. There’s a window set into the wall of the senior drill instructor’s office, and I can see that he’s fully aware of the platoon all lined up and waiting for inspection, but he doesn’t come out of the office again until the clock at the head of the room says 04:55.
    We march off to breakfast. It’s only our third meal in the military, but the tables that were thrown together by coincidence on the first day