Week Four

So... week four, Monday.

When I got back from Fever Flight that Monday afternoon, all my friends from my old flight were freaking out. They were like, "I thought we'd never see you again!!" This is due to the fact that most people who go to the 319th for any reason almost never return to their original flight, as previously mentioned in earlier posts :P.

We still have not grasped the whole bed-making technique. Every day, without fail, we got chewed out for not being able to properly make our beds. They were PICKY about how ridiculously perfect our beds had to be. No wrinkles, perfectly straight, hospital corners at a 45 degree angle (yes, they do check), etc. So we practiced taking apart and putting back together our beds 5 times that night. I made a mean bed. hehe.

Every morning, we all do details. Details is another word for chores. My detail was cleaning the Day Room. It was the easiest detail to get right, but we could never quite get it perfect. No dust anywhere in the room, floors perfect, etc. We finally got 100% perfection on that Day Room detail! We never again got 100%, but it was a happy feeling hearing a TI say, "Good job." You almost never hear the TI say that.

Oh, did I mention that because I was in Fever Flight till week 4 Monday I missed the most-anticipated event in BMT -- the Obstacle Course. Yes. I missed the obstacle course. I was so upset. But I felt better because the next day everyone but me had a terrible sunburn and were extremely sore and could barely walk :P. I was the only operational trainee in my flight lol.

That Tuesday we went to clothing issue. We got our Blues! It took ALL DAY to get our Blues fitted, tailored, cut, oops wrong size, fit again, etc... each tailor there were all extremely short old Asian women who had an interesting time speaking English. They could tailor a mean set of Blues, tho. On that same day, we got our Name Plates sewed onto our ABU's. I was so happy to finally see my name on my ABU's. I felt like an individual again.

August 11th (Wednesday) was a really bad day (for the most part). We were practicing Open Ranks and we had to get on our faces and do random PT because we kept screwing up the Open Ranks process. Open Ranks is essentially a formation we get into in order for our supervisor to inspect each of us on our knowledge of our memory work and see if our uniforms are in proper condition. This was the first time we were called from our TI, "You all look like a bag of smashed assholes!" It was extremely hard to not laugh at that while doing PT when he said that.

We got our 2nd hair cut! Wooooo! I was so happy to get my 2nd hair cut because I had a week's more worth of hair than anybody else in my flight (the whole 319th issue set me a week back). My hair was getting slightly out of control (omg 3/4 an inch. The world's gonna end). Trust me, that was LONG when you were in BMT. The less hair you have, the less you have to deal with it in the shower.

Still on the same day, it was after duty hours and I was folding my undies. I was chatting away with another trainee about whatever. We were having a great conversation, and all of a sudden he just walks away and says, "Just ... fold your clothes." He walks away, and I'm all confused. Then I look to my left, and there's a TI standing there, staring me in the face. He asks me, "What exactly is whatever you were talking about?" I ask him, "..... er.... I'm sorry, sir?" He comes around the bed to me, and he says, "How about you POP YOUR ASS TO ATTENTION!!!" I never went to the position of attention so quickly. He knew who I was because he was the same sergeant who I called "Tech" instead of "Technical" during my EC shift. Yeah.

It was time for lights out. When the lights go off, we're all supposed to disappear into our beds and fall asleep as quickly as possible. That almost never happened. Tonight was one of those nights when we took a long time to get to bed. We were all getting ready for bed after lights out, and it's usually fine. However, tonight, we were all hustling around, and we hear a deep voice out of nowhere, "And why are we still up?" It was the section supervisor blue rope. Blue ropes are the top 10% of TI's at Lackland AFB. What made it worse is that he's a black dude, so you couldn't see him! I did some ninja move and got into my bed in about .3 seconds when I heard his voice. He left the dorm about 5 minutes after he got done chewing out our dorm chief and element leaders.

To top off that day, I had EC from 0030 (also known as balls thirty) to 0230.

August 12th was a fun day. We got to go to CBerne (see-bernie). That's the place where you learn how to use HAZMAT (hazardous materials) chemical gear, gas masks, that sort of thing. After we did numerous drills on how to use our gas masks, how to put on all the MOPP gear, all of that sweaty stuff, it was time to go into the tear gas chamber. This was the most looked-forward to thing in BMT (besides the obstacle course).

The tear gas chamber started off like this... we all got in line (fully suited up) and one by one, we entered the tear gas chamber. Inside the chamber was a medium square room. In the middle of this room was a 2-foot chimney type thing. We all gathered on the outer perimeter of the room. The instructor was on the inside next to the opening of where the tear gas came out. He opened a valve and this mist started to come out of this opening. We were then told to do 10 jumping jacks. We did so. It's not so easy when you're fully suited up and wearing a gas mask.

We were all instructed to take off the hoods of our suits, revealing the top of our heads to the atmosphere. Shortly after doing so, the top of my head started to get hot and sting like a bunch of little needles were pricking at it. It wasn't intolerable, but it was sure annoying. Then the person in front of the line was told to take off his/her gas mask, put arms in front of his/her chest, take a deep breath, and give your reporting statement (Sir, trainee ____ reports as ordered). After doing that, you have to walk SLOWLY to the exit of the chamber. If you panicked and ran to the exit, they closed the door and you had to start all over.

The first person did this. She could barely give her reporting statement, started to choke a little, and slowly walked to the exit. Oh crap. After about 15 trainees, it was finally my turn. I took off the mask, took a deep breath, and said my reporting statement. When I first took in that breath, it didn't feel painful. However, half way through my reporting statement, my lungs started to burn. At the end of my reporting statement, my lungs were on fire. I could barely breath. My eyes took about a quarter of a second to start tearing up like crazy. My vision became almost instantly blurred. The whole world started to spin and I could barely see what was going on. After I made my painful reporting statement, I walked slowly to the exit of the chamber as instructed. When I hit 100% oxygen, that's when all hell broke loose. I took a deep breath of fresh air in, and I coughed like no smoker has ever coughed before. I couldn't breath. My eyes burned. Tears running down my face. My nose got completely drained. Snot running down like a waterfall. All I could do was listen for the voice, telling me where to go next. I was in this traumatic condition for about 2 minutes before the effects started to wear off. That was a LONG 2 minutes, let me tell you. We walked it all off, going in circles, holding our arms out away from our bodies like a T. After the effects wore off, we were like LETS DO IT AGAIN! haha.

Friday the freakin' 13th. At BMT. I wanted nothing more than to be at BMT on Friday the 13th. It wasn't all that bad actually. We had classes all day, learning about Security programs, Dress and Appearance II, Survival classes and Law of Armed Conflict.

August 14th, Saturday. We had an official open ranks inspection. We nailed that open ranks. The inspector was impressed with how well we knew our memory work and how good our uniforms looked. We also had parade practice, and the TI's loved how good we looked. It was a complete success. Because our flight did so good, we got a full one hour phone call and letter writing privileges back.

Sunday... CHURCH! Church was really nice after that hectic week (when is a week at BMT not hectic). I started to feel bad again (aches and pains) so I popped a couple really powerful Motrin and I felt all better. I helped escort a fellow trainee to the hospital for something, and I got a couple things for myself at the hospital as well. We spent a good 3 hours at the hospital, waiting to be seen. We got back to the squadron just in time for lights out.

End of week 4