Zero Week - Day One

Ok, to start off, I'm going to write about week zero of BMT. This means I'm going to skip everything up to the point where I got off the plane in San Antonio, TX. Hua?

I got off the plane at San Antonio, TX. I started to realize how much more humid and hot Texas was to California. I was thinking to myself, "Oh crap, I'm going to have to run in this weather???" Fun stuff coming ahead for me. I walked into a hall that said something like "Military pickup this way -->". I followed that direction with my friends whom I flew on the plane with. We came to a hallway with a man in camo at the end of the hall. He quickly, and politely, told us to tuck in our shirts before we headed any further. Little did I know that was the last time I was going to be able to let a shirt hang loose from my body ever again. So I tucked my shirt in, and he told me to head down the hall where I met some more sergeants.

These sergeants didn't have any sense of humor whatsoever. They looked at me as if I had something majorly wrong with my face. I gave them my entry paperwork and took a seat on the floor with everyone else. We were handed a voice recorder, and all we did was took the voice recorder and stated our name. That was it. We sat there for a while longer in fear, then we were lead to get on a bus.

The bus dropped us off at the BMT Reception Center. At this point, it was about 10:00PM, so it was dark outside. We went into the reception center, filled out a time sheet of us entering the base, had to stand on a device that measured how much arch support our feet needed, got a box lunch thrown at me, picked up my satchel (a man-purse), got my parka (raincoat), and sat down with everybody else in chairs. We were then given a little briefing on what to do next, and a couple hours later, we stepped on the bus again. This is where the fun begins...

The bus started to go forward. We went into the deep depths of Lackland Air Force Base. We were stopped once to have the bus checked for terrorists and whatnot by Security Forces. Then the bus started to move again. It was about 2:30AM by the time we got this far.

5 minutes later, we came to a set of strange buildings that had staircases wrapped all around them. This is where the training happens. We came to this building, and the bus stopped. Oh crap. I saw 4 standing figures spread across the floor where we were to go. They were all wearing those famous Smokey Bear hats, just staring at the bus. One of the men came to the bus, got in, and calmly said, "Ok, I want you to grab all your luggage and follow me with a sense of urgency."

I was the first one off that bus. I picked up my luggage and followed the Training Instructor. I started to run towards the pad where I was to go.

"STOP RUNNING!!!" Was the first shout I got. "CLOSE YOUR MOUTH!!!" I was breathing from my mouth cuz I was running, so I changed both things. I started to walk quickly and closed my mouth. I then reached my spot to where I was supposed to stand.

"MOVE MOVE MOVE!!! STAND AT ATTENTION! STAND STILL! HOLY CRAP STOP MOVING! DON'T YOU EVER EYEBALL MY AGAIN OR I'LL SEND YOU BACK TO WHERE YOU CAME FROM!!!!" These were the various shouts and commands that were being given to my entire group, or "flight". I stood so incredibly still. I'm an Eagle Scout, so I know what it means to stand at attention. The others, however... not so much. They almost became deaf in the first five minutes of BMT.

The instructors became quiet. We then learned our "reporting statements" (which I still use to this day). Our reporting statement is "Sir/Ma'am, trainee (last name) reports as ordered." We were then told to shout it out 5 or so times. Every time we wish to speak to a TI, or when a TI asks you a question that requires more than a "Yes, sir", you must give your reporting statement before speaking. The first time I shouted it, I ended the reporting statement with a "sir". Not good. I was then shouted at (again) "THERE IS NO 'SIR' AT THE END OF MY REPORTING STATEMENT!!" Scared scared scared scared...

After we got our reporting statements figured out, we then had to memorize our squadron and flight number and Dorm room number. So much information to process at once! Maybe this is why I'm having such a hard time remembering my zero-week experience... it was an extreme shock to my mentalness. Holy crap.

We then took a quick tour around the squadron (which I very quickly forgot because all I was focused on is surviving the next 5 minutes). We were to stay off the cement, always stand on the black-top, rules rules rules, etc etc etc... We then headed towards our dorm and went up the stairs with a sense of urgency, of course. I was sweating my head off by the time this came around.

We got up to the dorm and I was the first one inside. We then had to pick our beds from closest to furthest. I was the closest bed to the door and the office where the MTI stayed. Great. Just what I needed when my primary mission was to stay under the rader at BMT.

The beds had a number written on them, as well as the wall lockers behind our beds. We had to point at the number on the bed, then run to the wall locker and point on the same corresponding number and point at it. We did this 5 times to ensure we knew what a number looked like.

We were then ordered to take off all our clothes and get in the shower. This must have been the most stressful shower I have ever taken in my entire life. And to top it off, we had to shave our faces. Shower and shave completely in a matter of 5 minutes. It felt like 2. There is no such thing as a private shower in BMT.

Showering with 7 other stressed males makes you wish you were somewhere else, right now. I have to say that I got an extreme amount of cuts and razor burns on my face that night. I was bleedin'. My DNA is probably still in that dorm somewhere.

After we showered and got in our night clothes, we went to bed. It was 3:00AM. I cried myself to sleep (along with everybody else in that dorm). And my prayers consisted of "Oh God oh God oh God... help me help me help me..." yeah that about sums it up. And the occasional "Let my TI have mercy on me..."

Zero week is the week in which the Air Force strips you of your "civilian" mindset and engraves in you a mindset for instantaneous response and discipline. Therefore, zero week is the most difficult and tough week out of any week.

This concludes day one.

Zero Week

Ok, now that I have my laptop, I can start these blogs to full scale now!! Yay.

As you have already heard in my previous blog post, the first day of week zero was definitely fun. So much fun that I cried about it. For many nights. Yes. It was that exciting. But it starts to get even better.

I can't remember which days exactly this all happened (it was zero week, the week that 99% of all Airmen block out of their memories), so I'm going to blog about how I wrote it down.

First of all, we got our haircuts. This was exciting. We had to march all the way to a facility that cut our hair and also gave us our initial clothing (ABU's, boots, underpants, socks, and sand t-shirts). Haircuts wasn't so bad for me... I was actually looking forward to it. My hair was short to start out with. Less to deal with during BMT, correct? Well, most of the trainees had hair down to their shoulders and it was a real pain for them to get their hair cut. All of us came out of that building with red heads and awkward shapes and scars on our heads. I swear the barbers were trying to open our heads with their buzzers because they pushed down so hard to get the most hair off of our heads.

We then got our initial clothing issue. This was exciting because we all got clothes that sort of fit, but not quite. My top cut into my armpits a little too much, so I complained and I got a bigger top. Woot. We all were given our combat boots, and we looked at them as if we had no clue what a combat boot looked like. They had to be laced a certain way, and we had no clue. None whatsoever.

Once again, there was a lot of yelling. We had to march everywhere from appointment to appointment. This was a the first time we have ever had to march for a lot of us. We looked like a bag of smashed assholes. It was bad. Our arm-swing was non-existent. We were all out of step. We had no idea what foot to land on when we heard "Left... left... left, right, left." No idea. I was road-guard at the time (I was about 6 paces in front of the flight and I basically led the flight off cliffs if need be) so I was always being yelled at for everything. Being out of step. Not being far ahead enough of the flight. Etc.

Back in the dorms, we kinda put everything in our lockers as we saw fit... until we were told how to put everything in lockers. Oh my goodness, talk about OCD. Everything had to be freakin' perfect. No strings on any piece of clothing, no wrinkles, everything flush with each other, grounded, put in the right position, bathing items perfectly clean, neatness, "attention to detail", everything.

So after we were half shocked to death about the perfectness of our lockers and what they had to be, we marched our scared little butts to the immunization room! I was so scared of needles at the time. So scared. We all got in a little line and got injected shots. I got 1 shot on both arms at the same time and another on my left arm. I found out that I'm a bleeder. The shots weren't nearly as bad as I thought. The needle ain't even that long, and the needle retracts really quickly once the shot is done being injected. Woo!!!! Then I got half my body's blood taken out of me for testing to see if I had any STD, HIV, AIDS, SUVS, the sort.

During zero week, we also had physical evals. I sandbagged everything. Which mean that I didn't try nearly as hard as I could have so I could easily improve my score later. This eventually bit me in the butt, but I'll get to that later. We had a pushup test, situp test, and a 1.5 mile run test. Nothing special to report here.

Our first breakfast we had was the worst one. We all lined up in front of the dining facility in formation, and we have this thing called the Chow Runner. What the chow runner does is report the flight into the dining facility and tells us where to sit. Thank goodness I was not the chow runner (but I got experience in the 319th... once again, I'll explain later). The chow runner couldn't figure out what to say. He screwed up a lot trying to get us in the dining facility, and the TI ended up having fun with him anyways. When the TI gets mad, he drops his notebook on the floor and shakes his arms in the air and says something to the respect of "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING, CRAZY?!?!?!" Lol.

We went into the dining facility and oh my word... we got screamed at for nearly ANYTHING that came our way. We got screamed at for looking at TI's, for holding the fork wrong, sitting wrong, or not eating fast enough. This was a big one. We ate so fast.... that when I eat in the civilian world, it looks like I'm eating slow compared to when I ate at the BMT dining facility. We had a total of 5 minutes (maybe 3) to eat a full tray of food and drink 3 glasses of liquids (2 waters and 1 gatorade of your choosing). I swear there was something in the gatorade. Like a drug that stops attraction to women or something. I swear there is something in there. After we eat, we took our trays to the washers and marched out of the facility and got back in formation for something new to learn or to get yelled at for some reason.

That's about it for zero week. Just a lot of yelling and teaching of the basics of BMT. We only got one phone call at the end of the week to call our parents and tell them what's going on. It lasted 15 minutes. That was one hard phone call to make. I was having major 2nd thoughts and everything at that time. My next blog will be about week one and its many adventures....

Week One up to Wednesday

So, we went over the wonderful experience of zero week. Lots of fun all over the place. Screaming, yelling, shoving, pushing, "tray-to-tray" in the dining facility, the works. Now we get into week one when things start to actually happen.

At this point, we have learned how to set up a locker and everything inside it. Shirts aligned perfectly, soap and shampoo put in the correct position AND clean appearing, face is always shaved, and whatnot. We got our lockers inspected by the section supervisor of our flight (he's a big dude up in the ranks) and he was impressed with our lockers. That made our day.

We then marched over to the processing center to get our pictures taken for our military ID's (also known as CAC (Common Access Cards) Cards). It's like saying ATM machine. Same thing with CAC card. This is what we have evolved into. Redundancies in acronyms. Now, the picture I took for my CAC card... wow. I look like a cancer patient who is way too happy to be taking a picture at the moment. Or slightly scared looking. Maybe a mix of both. Anyways, it's a terrible picture and I wish death upon it. The card doesn't expire for 2 or so years, so I'm stuck with it. And yes, you all will probably take a look at it when I come to visit. And you will laugh. I promise.

We were then issued our M16 Trainer Weapons (also known as "smurfs" because they're blue-coated to indicate that they're only trainer weapons), and it was really hard to look awesome with a blue M16. But yes. I got my M16 and I was happy.

In the bathrooms (also known as Latrines in BMT) we have to leave the toilet seat up. YES! Finally, a place where it's legal to leave the toilet seat up. Take that, females! And yes, females have to leave the toilet seat up in BMT, as well. Score!!! So anyways, we left the toilet seat DOWN on accident. Our TI told all of us (48 men) to get into the latrine. Once we were in there, he told us to pack ourselves all into the stalls and close the doors behind us. 6 stalls. 48 men. Holy crap. I didn't think it was possible, but it was. Once we were in the stalls, he told us to chant as we put down the seat and lifted it back up "Thanks for lifting me up sir, I'll never let you down sir." We chanted (more like screamed) that for 15 minutes before the TI came in and told us to shut the *beep* up. Don't leave the toilet seats down in BMT people.

We started PT (Physical Training) this week. Luckily PT is weak for weeks 1-2. 15 sit-ups and 15 push-ups. Seriously? This was a warm-up. The only thing that wasn't weak was the 30 minutes of running. Every other day we ran 30 minutes as a squadron. And it was painfully slow running. I could have used less energy to run a little faster than how slow the squadron was running. After 15 minutes of the squadron run, we did our self paced running. This is when the TI's start running next to you, screaming their heads off at you to run faster. "FASTER, FASTER! YOU WUSS, YOU CAN RUN FASTER! MY GRANDMA CAN RUN FASTER THAN YOU, AND SHE'S DEAD!" ... yeah I picked up the pace when I heard that insult, lol.

I started feeling weak after the first couple PT days. I started feeling dizzy and lightheaded. Not good. So I requested that I go to the doctor. I was given permission, and I went to the doctor. I got there, and asked me what my issue was. I told them I had a cold. I was shortly seen by a doctor, and I told him I felt like crap. Then I showed him the blister I had been acquiring over the course of BMT. I was not used to wearing combat boots, and neither was my feet. So I got a massive blister. Oh, background story -- my left foot is naturally swollen since I was 13 or so years old. So when the doctor saw the blister AND the swollen foot, he assumed I had cellulitis (spelling)... so he then gave me a bed rest waiver along with medication, and the waiver said something about being reassigned to the 319th Training Squadron.

I went back to my TI, gave her the waiver, and she briefly told me to pack my bags and get ready to go. I was confused. I started packing, got all my bags packed, got my M16 trainer weapon returned, crossed the street, and I was reassigned to the 319th Training Squadron. This is where a whole new story starts. It is currently Wednesday.

Week One Wed to Week Two Monday

Whew. I thought I just had thrown away my journal entries I had been taking all throughout BMT. And I found them again. Yay for not having to write this entire blog all from memory :P.

We left off where I was dropped off at the 319th Training Squadron (TRS) on Wednesday.

I got to the 319th TRS, and I was given a blue armband and a set of sheets for my bed. I was escorted by a disgruntled trainee to my new dorm that I was to stay at for however long I was supposed to be there. I had no idea how long I was to stay at the 319th for. I went to a medical briefing at the 319th, and they basically told me that they will return me to normal training when I heal. And if I don't heal, I get discharged from the Air Force.

Now, allow me to explain what the 319th is all about. The 319th TRS is a place where you go if you get hurt, sick, or a condition comes up that affects your ability to continue training at BMT. While you are at the 319th, time is frozen. What this means is you can be in your 2nd week of training at BMT. You stay at the 319th for 3 months. You return to training, resuming where you left off... at the 2nd week. It sucks. At the 319th, there are 5 categories of people that stay here -- med hold, fever flight, separation, get-fit, and holdover Airmen. For the sake of time, I'll just go over med-hold on this blog entry. I had the blue armband, which meant I was in the med-hold flight. This group of trainees were all on some sort of medical waiver that held them from training in BMT.

People were insane at the 319th. Especially the trainees. After staying at the 319th for 2 months, they were starting to lose it. It was a nuthouse, I swear.

At the 319th, it was extremely depressing. Everybody in the 319th just wanted to go home and be done with the Air Force. And I was surrounded by this depressing atmosphere for 5 days straight. It started to get to me around day 4. Some trainees have been at the 319th for 6 months. That trainee could have done BMT 3 times during his stay here. However, there were a couple of good things that came out of staying at the 319th...

I got to call my family almost every day. We did not have that luxury in BMT. I also wrote a long letter almost every day. We did have that ability in BMT, but we were always too busy to write long letters. In the 319th, all we did was eat and sleep and do a lot of nothing all day. I was on a bed-rest waiver, so I was able to sleep most of of the day away. My waiver also consisted of having to wear tennis shoes in my ABU uniform, and not wearing blousing straps. I guess they wanted circulation to reach my feet so they didn't want me wearing blousing straps. Yay. I got a lot of heat from every MTI on the squadron, so I just learned to carry my waiver around in my hand so I could prove my case. You also got to take more time to eat at the 319th. The MTI's couldn't yell at you as much at the 319th because if you were there for a heart condition and an MTI came up screaming at your face and you got a heart attack, that wouldn't be good.

Oh, speaking of eating, I was elected as the chow-runner for the med-hold dorm. Oh boy. I guess you could say that I enjoyed this responsibility. It gave me something to do while everybody else was sitting around, reading the latest Japanese comic book.

I went to church on Sunday morning with the rest of the med-hold dorm. I saw my old flight in church. They all recognized me. They all said hello to me, asked me how I was. But I didn't have much to say. It was very sad to see my old flight in training while I was sitting around doing nothing.

5 days of this. I went to the doctor on Monday morning, and I convinced him that my foot was fine. I was returned to training on July 19th. However, since I was at the 319th for more than 3 days, I was medically recycled one week into a whole new flight. I went back to the 321st at around noon. And this is where I start a whole new week one, all over again.

Week One AGAIN

So! I left off last time when I was returned to training from the 319th on that Monday, July 19th.

I was walking with all my gear across the street back to my old squadron, the 321st TRS: PREDATORS! Predators was the 321st mascot. "LEAD, FOLLOW, OR GET OUT OF THE WAY!" That was our chant. Heck yes. Anyways, walking across the street, and went to report into CQ (Center of Quarters). I was met by a really scary section supervisor. He has this voice that you could hear for miles. I had to run back and forth between CQ like an idiot, trying to keep up with his commands. "GET YOUR GEAR!" "GET PUT IT IN THAT ROOM!" "GET YOUR CELL PHONE" "GET YOUR GEAR AND GO TO THIS DORM!" "WHY AREN'T YOU THERE YET?!?!?" yes.

I *quickly* walked with a sense of major urgency to my new dorm. I went upstairs, and I could hear commotion going on upstairs. I got up the stairs with all my gear, and I was introduced to one of my new TI's. She was a short Puerto-Rican who could make herself look 10 feet taller than what she was. What was going on when I got to the top of the stairs was she was testing our Entry Controller. The Entry Controller (EC) is the person that is in control of who leaves and enters the dorm. The MTI's love testing the EC to see if they can verify identities in very harsh, and sometimes insane, fashions. Our female TI was constantly hitting the door windows with her key, making this extremely annoying *tick tick tick tick* sound. Mind you, all this was going on as I was sitting there, waiting to merge with the flight. I was like, "Oh crap. This is definitely not going to be fun."

The EC finally came to the door, tearing up. After shouting and screaming, I was finally let into the dorm. The TI let up a little bit, saying, "This is Donahue. He is now part of our flight. Treat him with respect and allow him to merge into this flight." I got a lot of hello's and hand-shakes and "sup's". :P. I was the cool guy! All the new trainees I encountered thought it was so cool that an older trainee came into the flight because I knew tricks and secrets to passing BMT a little easier. And I did. Which is why it was cool!

I quickly made friends with my bunkmate, which I found out that he was from Orange County. Ha! Go figure, small world :D. We quickly became friends and I taught him a few tips and tricks here and there as time went by.

The next day (Tuesday) was July 20th. It was my birthday. My 21st birthday. Definitely fun. I kept it to myself because I know what TI's make trainees go through when it's your birthday. They make you do push ups while the rest of the flight sings happy birthday to you.

By this time, I was already missing my old flight. My old flight already had a lot of things down. We had discipline and had a good idea of how things worked. However, this new flight had a lot more... personality. It was fun, but they had no idea how to manage their time and get things down. Oh well, we had fun. Until the TI came up the stairs and basically jumped us.

On July 22nd (Wednesday) we started classes. CLASSES!!! Basic stuff like nutrition and workout practices. Classes were a lot more fun because the instructors were a lot more laid back and had fun with the trainees. It was a good break from everything.

The flight was starting to get things together. I guess we needed several wakeup calls before they realized that BMT wasn't Boy Scout summer camp. Our male TI got in trouble for cussing. I guess one of the trainees ratted him out. Our TI's cursed like sailors. It was something that took me a little while to get used to.

PT was getting easier! I was already starting to notice that my arms were getting sexier and my waist was slowly, but surely, disappearing. Yes! And I also got to run with my old TI. He asked me how I was doing while I was running with him. I told him that I miss my old flight. He reassured me that I would receive the same training no matter who my instructors were. I was also issued my M16 Trainer Weapon.... again. It wasn't nearly as fun as the first time I got it issued.

We got to use our cell phones that Friday for, like, 30 minutes. That was a long phone call. However, this long phone call had some negative effects. All the trainees got puppy-dog faces and started to work at an extra-slow pace. So our dorm chief recommended to the TI that we have our cell phones taken away for a period of time. And guess what happened. The TI came into the day room, flipped the table over, and screamed "NO MORE CELL PHONES!" ... I was pissed. And so was the rest of the flight.

Since I have been in BMT a little longer than everyone else in my new flight, I was the first one to receive the famous BCG's (Birth Control Glasses). They are glasses they issue you in BMT because they're super strong and won't break. I tested this, and they don't break. Ever. But this also meant that I was the only trainee that looked like a MAJOR geek because of my oversized glasses. I was also given my name-plates for my ABU's. However, I was not able to sew them onto my ABU's till week 4. So they sat in my locker. Taunting me. Arg.

Since I had good practice making my bed in my old flight, I was one of the few trainees that didn't get his bed totally destroyed by the TI. We all came up into the dorm to find a couple beds completely destroyed. Frames taken apart and everything on the floor in pieces. It was nuts. We had to put it all back together.

I finally got my birthday mail from family and friends, and my family send me one of those loud, obnoxious talking/screaming birthday cards. I was honestly afraid to open it in front of everybody and get laughed at for the rest of time. So I went into the deep depths of the day room when nobody was there and listened to it then. I still got a couple looks because the dorm could hear some awkwardness coming from the day room. Lol.

Our flight still can't get it together. We went up and down like a roller coaster. Some days good, some days bad, mainly on how good we could make our beds and keep things dust-free (which is almost impossible if you think about it). So, as a consequence, the TI's took away our letter-writing privileges. But what did we do? We wrote letters in bed late at night when TI's were not in the dorm. And then we hid the letters in the bed-pole frames hehe.

Sunday! The best day of the week that EVERY trainee looks forward to. Yes, I cried again. After a good service of church, we came back to find that it was time for locker inspections! Most of us failed miserably, including me. And one of my pay-cards was out in the open during inspections, and that's a security violation. I could have gotten recycled for that. But the TI decided to let it slide. Whew.

That's all for week one (again)!

Week Two (Yay, we're moving on)

So we ended off last week with church, and a security violation... on the same day. Now, lets move onto week two!

We started off with some integrated defense. Integrated defense is when we started taking advantage of our M16 trainer weapons and learned how to use them in combat! We went outside with our M16's and learned how to roll around in the sand, run and fall with our M16's, crawl through dirt, it was fun! We got extremely dirty and looked pretty rugged at the end of the training. I went through 2 canteens in 15 minutes, but it's all good. It was the most fun I had at BMT thus far.

After we did our I.D. training, we went inside and learned how to take apart and put back together our M16's. The official rule is that you have to take apart and put back together the m16 in no more than 4 minutes (2 to take apart, 2 to put back together) with 3 instructor assists. Lets just say... I could take apart and put back together my M16 in 1:26. Yup. That's taking apart AND putting back together all at once. Sweetness.

Around week 2 is when the trainees start to barely impress their TI's. We're starting to figure out what our roles are and how to get things down right the 1st time. In my paper journal I kept during BMT, it says, "Finally impressed TI", but I have no idea what we did to impress them. I guess it was significant, but not enough for me to remember what it was XD.

We started our career guidance. What this means is we go the processing building, and we are given a "dream sheet". We put out top 10 bases we wish to be stationed at on this piece of paper, allowing for the fact that you have 10 bases to choose from. A lot of the jobs had a lot of different bases you could choose from. But me... I had ONE BASE, and that's Creech AFB (right outside Las Vegas). So I didn't really have much choice in the matter. So I checked Creech AFB haha.

At this point in our training we started to notice that the TI spends more personal time with the flight. During Airmen's time, we all gather in a room and the TI sits in a chair and starts talking about morals and ethics of being an Airman. At the end of the ethics talk, we still have an hour to waste. So the TI kicks up his feet and says, "So... what do you want to bullsh** about?" And we just start talking about random stuff.

People kept sending letters to my old flight address, so one day during this week, I was called down to CQ. I was freaking out because you get called down to CQ when you get in trouble. I went down to CQ as quickly as my marching legs would carry me, went into CQ, and saw my old instructor. They asked me, "What do you want?!" I told them, "(reporting statement), Sir, I was called down to CQ and now I'm here... sir." They handed me some letters that had arrived to the old address and told me to go away. I was so relieved that I wasn't in trouble. I came back up to the room and my friends asked me, "What happened?!?! You in trouble??!!?!" When I told them that it was only for letters, they gave me a disappointed look and walked away. They wanted an epic story. Oh well.

We had PT evals during that week. I did much better than my first eval, considering we work our butts off every single day. Yay!

We did Integrated Defense Level 2. This was fun. We learned how to defend the base from freakin' intruders! We sit on our knees at an entry point and scream "HALT!!!!" while pointing an M16 at the intruder. We do a lot more dialog. "WHO GOES THERE?!" We usually get a smart@$$ response. "Your mom." We tell them to advance, put their weapon on the floor, lay down on the floor, etc. It's fun to finally be able to tell somebody what to do while aiming a weapon of mass destruction at them.

We started classes on AF History, Ethics, Human Relations, and other stuff. Class days were always fun because we spent a lot less time around our TI's. While in class, you are usually being taught by some really awesome TI who likes to have fun with you. I'll share with you an experience I had with a classroom TI in my 7th week when I get around to writing that blog. Hehe.

We had our second wall locker inspections. When we get inspected, we have to stand in front of our lockers in the position of attention while we witness the other trainees get their hinds handed to them for having crappy lockers. It was definitely not fun, because when it's finally your time to get inspected, you know death is coming. I passed my bed and personal area inspection, my security drawer and clothes drawer, but failed my locker (where my ABU's and PT clothes are). I didn't clip all my strings off my uniform. Ack.

One day, while in the dining facility, I was eating my food. Duh. Some of the flight was still getting their food and sitting down. One of the section supervisors pulled aside one of the trainees who had just gotten their food and sat down. The Section Sup said, "Hey, point out your instructor and call his name." Our instructor was all the way on the other side of the dining facility. The trainee pointed his finger at the instructor, and yelled "Technical Sergeant Adams!" The instructor quickly got PISSED and ran over to the trainee and yelled at him, telling him that pointing is rude! Soon after this happened, the Section Sup pulled over ANOTHER trainee to do the same thing. Pointed at the instructor, "Technical Sergeant Adams!" The instructor says, "Holy piss!!!" and tells him that pointing is freaking rude! It was so hilarious to watch.

On the 30th of July, I had to wake up at freaking 2:30AM for no reason... a lot of our flight had Kitchen Patrol, and they had to wake up super early. So the rest of our flight had to wake up with them. And then we had to stay awake for 4 more hours, waiting for us to start the day. Me and 4 others had to march to the Gas Chambers to help with that. We got to help the other instructors with the gas chambers. Basically cleaning things, yelling at the trainees as they came out of the chambers, telling them where to go. It was fun. The instructor that we helped told us that we would not remember him. He lied, I remember him, and he was awesome :D.

We got to watch Parade Practice for the first time. It was an extreme amount of motivation to watch 7th and 8th weekers practice for the final parade. :)

We learned how to do the marching move called "To the Rear"... when that command is called, the entire formation spins around and starts marching the opposite direction. It was kinda cool, but hard to master.

The people who failed their inspections had to get re-inspected a few days later. But this time, we had a section supervisor in the room. During the week, our dorm chief keeps a log of the trainees who do good and do bad. The section supervisor called up the trainees who had bad reports in the logs. The section supervisor fake-recycled a trainee for peeing in the shower. The trainee left the flight for 2 days and was allowed to rejoin the flight. The ultimate scare tactic.

That night, our dorm was super loud and happy. The CQ box clicked on to listen to our room to see if we were behaving. 5 minutes later, the CQ intercom came on. "I just called your TI to tell him that your dorm is being way too loud and laughing and crap." Not good. We got quiet and behaved for the rest of the night.

This was the first Sunday that we didn't have a TI for the first part of the morning. We went to church, listened to some amazing songs that made me cry, sang to worship, had a Captain preach to us, and then we went back to the dorm.

We ran out of toilet paper so we had to use tissue paper that we bought at the mini-mall. Thought I should point that out.

The female TI came in and completely LOST it because of the incident that happened last night. She made us get on our faces, do all sorts of odd exercises while chanting, "We like being loud in the dorm at night..." and she made us repeat that a billion times while doing PT. She finally told us to stop after 10 minutes of nonstop PT, and told us to start behaving in a very harsh way. It sucked so bad.

After all that fun, we had a drill-expert TI come up to the dorm and taught us Counter March. This is not a BMT requirement marching technique, and only a few flights are taught this march. I know this because after I graduated, I asked many Airmen if they learned Counter March... and none of them knew what Counter March was.

Anyways, Counter March is like making a big U-Turn. The front of the flight kinda turns in on itself and completely turns around inside its own formation. It looks extremely cool, and it's a fast way to turn around without having to do 2 left movements and 1 right movement. Yay!

That about wraps up 2nd week. Cya next time!

Week Three

This is the week where things start to get more exciting. This is also when the TI's start to get tougher on a more physical aspect because we are able to take a harder beating than usual. If that made any sense.

August 2nd. Monday. We started to get interviewed, asking us questions if we ever did pot or other drugs that may have some sort of weird impact on our perceptions. That was no big deal.

I got my military ID on this day! I was so freakin' excited. There was only one problem... I looked like a cancer patient. It's the way they slightly stretch the picture on the front of the ID Card to make it fit the space. It totally turned my face into a fat, bald, confused person. I still own this card. And I will own this card till 2012... I can't wait to get a new picture taken :P.

I'm no longer the only one to have BCG's anymore! The rest of the flight got their BCG's. It was so funny. We had one Asian guy in our flight. When it was his turn to receive his BCG's, the TI laughed before he even gave him the glasses. Our TI said, "You know what this is gonna look like? Well, there was this movie that came out many years ago, and it was a scene on a ship. And this one Asian dude pops his head out of the ship's window, see's land, and yells, 'HORRYWOOD!!!' You remind me of that guy." LOL it was so funny because the glasses were bigger than his head. His nickname from that point on was "Horrywood".

We also learned to do the Flanking movement that day. It's when you're marching, and you pivot 90 degrees left or right and continue to march. We had to march around a square as a flight for 30 minutes, doing constant flanking movement as practice. Needless to say, we got really good at it after 10 minutes. Then it started to get old after 25 minutes. The last 5 minutes was just for spite cuz the TI felt like it.

Next day, August 3rd, we started this 3-day series of SABC (Self-Aid-Buddy-Care). It's basically the entire M.I.T. course squeezed into 3 days.

To start off the day, the instructor told all of us that we were going to all have to put a small hose up each other's nose to help breathing. We all started freaking out. I mean... freaking. Out. We were not ready to start putting long tubes up each other's noses, especially on the first try. The instructor grabbed a trainee, had 4 other trainees pin him to the ground, and the instructor came up and said, "Ready? :D" The trainee was shaking with fear as he was about to have something foreign stuck all the way up his nose. The instructor got within 1 inch of his nose and said, "You know what? We have dummies we can work on instead." The trainee nearly passed out.

During that SABC madness, we also learned how to bandage head wounds, tourniquets, bleeding things, and broken bones. Woot.

We also increased our PT repetitions this week by 5 because we were also starting to get used to the weak 15 reps of everything. So we went into 20 for weeks 3 and 4. I have to admit, running started getting easier. I was able to keep my pace going for a lot longer, and I still had enough energy to sprint 5 times for 30 seconds each after 25 minutes of constant running. Woot!

August 4th. This was not a happy morning for me. I was doing dorm guard from 2:30 - 4:30AM. I was dead tired. This is the week where we started getting night raids. What this means is TI's come into the dorms early in the morning while everybody is still asleep and the TI starts to inspect our night displays and lockers as he feels necessary.

While I was on dorm guard, I heard the door knock at around 4:20AM. I went up to the door. I opened the window shutter. It was a TI. Crap. What do I do? Oh yeah, here we go...

"Sir, may I help you?"

He slapped his dormitory access badge on the window. Crap, I have never verified one of these badges before. But I had instructions on the wall next to me. Here we go...

"One dormitory access badge, 737 Training Group, Access Number 17... verifying..."

I pointed to the wall to make sure this badge was good for entry....... "Verified"

I froze for a second. The badge was verified. Now what? ... oh yes, I open the door for him. This process seemed really quick though. I opened the door anyways. I let the TI in.

The TI looked at me, I stood at attention. He said, "Where's your special instructions?"

When clearing anybody for access in a dorm, you have to proceed with special instructions. This means checking for officers in the room, and check for members of the opposite gender. I forgot to do these special instructions out loud while I was clearing the TI for access.

I got in a little trouble for that. No screaming or anything, it was late. This TI had a little dignity. He did his inspection, and 10 minutes later he left the dorm. Whew.

Later that morning, I had dorm guard... again. I was on my own though, because we do dorm guard with one other person at night, and by ourselves during the day. I was covering for the current dorm guard who went down for breakfast. Another TI came up to the dorm. He was not my TI, but I went with the standard procedures. When held up his ID card, I called him a "Tech" Sergeant. He had a little freak out on the other side of the window when I said that. NEVER shorten a sergeant's name while in BMT.

He was let inside the dorm from one of my TI's, and he nearly took away my birthday. He got about half a millimeter from my face and SCREAMED his head off about shortening his name from "Technical" to "Tech". Yeah. I got spit in my face and everything. It was awesome.

Later that same day (this is a bad day) we had to get on our faces for not doing flanking movements while marching. We were practicing marching outside on the drill pad or something, and we didn't flank when we needed to and we had to do a series of random PT for 5 minutes as punishment. It was one of those days.

Later in the day, however, the TI was having a meeting with us in the Day Room and she said that she was rather impressed with us overall... except for the flanking. But that made us feel a lot better.

I also dry-cleaned my hat. I have no idea why this was important enough to put into my journal. But there you have it.

Thursday. August 5th. This was probably the worst morning EVER. I mean... the WORST morning. We had the same TI come in that morning that I called Tech Sergeant. He made us do dress drills. This is the worst kind of drills you can do in BMT. Here's what it consisted of...

The TI told us to strip all the way down to nothing. We were all in nothing but towels. We all had to gather in the latrine. The TI then said, "You have 3 minutes to get completely dressed in your ABU's, standing at attention in front of your locker when finished. Ready. Go."

We all RAN to our lockers. Threw off the towels. Underpants, shirt, pants, belt, tighten belt, throw on ABU top, button all the way down, put on boots, tighten and tie boots...

"TIMES UP!!! Take EVERYTHING OFF and come back to the latrine!!!"

Crap. Not exactly what was going through my head, but you get the point. We all had to strip EVERYTHING off that we just put on, and go back to the latrine.

"You have 3 minutes to put everything back on. Ready, go."

We did the same thing. Threw off the towels. Underpants, shirt, pants, belt, tighten belt, throw on ABU top, button all the way down, put on boots, tighten and tie boots, blousing straps...

"TIMES UP, get to your lockers!!!"

We all got to our lockers.

"If you're done getting dressed, stand in the middle isle and let me inspect you."

Those who were finished getting dressed stood in the middle isle of the dorm.

"Those of you who are finished, get on your face and start pushing while the rest of you finish getting dressed."

All of those who finished getting dressed started doing push ups, flutter kicks, and squat thrusts. I only had a tiny thing to adjust, then I was with the rest of the flight doing PT. Everybody else was still getting dressed. It took about 2 minutes or so before we had everybody finished. That is Dress Drills.

We did more SABC, learning how to do lifts and carries for our injured wingmen. That about sums up SABC.

August 6th, we all woke up at 1:45AM to do KP for a squadron that was about 20 minutes walking distance away. I did KP for most of the day, but I started feeling really lightheaded and dizzy by the end of the shift happened. I was feeling really cold and people who touched my forehead told me I was really really hot. I toughed it out, though. Sorta.

August 7th, I started passing out if I stood in one place for too long. The fever came and went, but it never went away 100%. So I went to the doctor and I was sent to the 319th a second time, for fever flight. I packed up everything and I stayed in the CQ bed till morning.

August 8th (Sunday). I was in fever flight, and all we did was sleep throughout the day, getting over whatever fever we had. That's all I did. Eat and sleep.

I'm going to go briefly into week four, but I got out of Fever Flight (my fever went away) on August 9th and ended up back in the flight I left. :).

That sums up week three!

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

Week Five

I'm currently wearing my uniform, so I'm in the spirit of things while I write this time. Haha.

August 16th, Monday. We started off the week with by going back to where we did the gas chamber, on the other side of the base (CBERNE). We went inside this huge overhang and learned how to do CPR over a DVD-video. It felt like Boy Scouts all over again. Learning CPR was not difficult for me. It was more of a time-passer than anything else. And for once, we didn't get yelled at by the TI's for simple mistakes. Seems like they're realizing we can figure out when we make our own mistakes instead of them having to remind us in a harsh fashion. "YOU HAVE A FRIGGIN' STRING HANGING FROM YOUR SHIRT!!!" Yeah thanks, I know that.

After the CPR lesson, we went outside and we were taught how to built T.E.M.P.E.R. tents! In Boy Scouts, you make tents by sticking poles in the slots and 5 minutes later wee, you got a tent. TEMPER tents are a little different. These things were meant to take a hit. With a very large rock. You could probably throw a small vehicle into these tents and it wouldn't break. These tents were made with poles as thick as your arm, pinned up, had thick canvas to cover the tent, and air holes for the air conditioner. And they took about 45 minutes to put together with a crew of 15 people. It was fun though. These tents are older than most of us are, so they are going out of commission soon, I found out. Oh well.

Back at the squadron, our TI's finally implemented the rule of being punished as individuals, not as a group. When somebody made a mistake, we all suffered for it. But starting in the 5th week, we pay for our own mistakes. This could be worse in some cases because if you got in trouble, you had to be embarrassed all by yourself as everybody else watched. For example...

Farting was a big and amazing deal when we were sitting in the Day Room. That room started smelling like madness after 15 minutes of men sitting in there. I never participated in that though. But one time, the TI caught one trainee zip a windy, and the TI said, "Did you just fart?" Trainee said, "Yes sir..." The TI said, "I want you to breathe it in. Does it smell good?" Trainee, "Yes sir." TI said, "Now, I want you to eat it. Does it taste good?" Trainee, "Yes sir." We were all sitting there, almost dying of laughter as this was happening.

We all got inspected on how well we could hang our Blues in our wall lockers this week. It was more of an appraisal because it wasn't an official inspection. I forgot my tags in my Blues so I failed the appraisal. Otherwise they were just fine.

Because we are an older flight, our Section Supervisor came in and gave us Airman's time personally. He's a really funny guy once you get to know him. It was a lot of fun -- he told us deployed stories and whatnot. It was hilarious. He was telling us how he got with this girl while he was deployed, and my section supervisor was a pimp! Haha not something you would expect from a mean guy when you're in week one of BMT.

Mail call was always an event. It was always at the end of the day before we all started to relax a little (yes, that is possible in BMT when you hit your final weeks of training). There were always those few trainees who got 27 letters from their girlfriends. No wonder the mail pile was always 3 feet thick. However, I got the reputation for having the strangest letters. And we always knew when my letter was coming next. The TI picked up the letter, and stared at the letter awkwardly for a good 5 seconds. Everybody immediately knew who it was for when the TI did that. The reason the TI looked at the envelope awkwardly was for one of two reasons: The envelope always had some sort of Spongebob sticker madness on it (my envelopes sometimes were COVERED in Spongebob goodness, you couldn't see the white of the envelope sometimes) or the return address had something really interesting on it (From: Mom, a special happy face for the TI who's reading this!). It was awesome.

And we had mandatory study time at the end of the day. Just thought I'd tell you that cuz it was in my written blog. :P

August 17th, Tuesday. I had a sensitivity appointment instead of CADM. CADM is another phrase for M-16 Field Target Practice. CADM was today for the rest of the flight, but I was scheduled to make it up later in my training. The sensitivity appointment consisted of filling out all the information I needed in order to apply for my Top Secret clearance for the job I'm currently training for.

I went to the doctor again for something (I was a sick man in BMT!!). I had pneumonia today. No wonder it was hard for me to breathe. I could barely make it up the 4 flights of stairs without getting severely winded. I know that sounds like a lot anyways, but it was usually no big deal. I also got an ear infection that morning that made my left ear completely deaf. And it stayed that way for about 2 weeks.

My flight also started to set up other dorms for new trainees that were coming in later that week. We were experienced in how to set up a dorm so they had us do a few for the new trainees.

When I was in line for breakfast one morning, I saw an ex-TI that I used to have in the first flight I was in. She loved me, and I have no idea why. She said, "Hey Donahue!! How's it going?!?!" Reporting statement, "Good morning, Ma'am!" She held up her hand, and I wasn't sure what she was doing. She then said, "Are you gonna leave it hanging??" I reached up for her hand, and gave her a hi-five! Holy crap. I got a LOT of eyes on me for a good while after that happened. It made my entire week when that happened. She was so nice, the best TI in the world.

We had to eat food at the 319th squadron for a while because our dining facility was under it's annual investigation and was closed down to trainees for a few days. At least th 319th wasn't far away, just across the street.

We had our first Deployment Briefing. This was a briefing to go over how BEAST is going to work in week 6 and what we should take with us, etc etc etc... They were treating it like an actual deployment, getting us ready for whatever is to come.

This is where I stopped taking notes in my written blog. Everything from this point is from memory alone.

After the briefing, we were given time to purchase anything we needed for the BEAST trip. Baby wipes were extremely popular because we figured were weren't going to be given enough time to shower at BEAST. We also bought an extra canteen because two canteens are required at BEAST simply because it's so hot and trainees get dehydrated there all the time.

We spent that weekend packing our stuff for BEAST. Everything we needed was put into our green military duffel bags. We also tagged our duffel bags with our names in big military letters. Everything barely fit, but it did!

We went to Church on Sunday, spent that day packing our stuff, getting our blue M-16's ready, and we were set to go to BEAST.

That's week 5. Stay tuned for week 6.

Week Six - BEAST!!!

Note: From this point on is all from memory alone, I did not write anything in my written blog past this point.

This is probably the most interesting week we had in BMT. The reason is cuz this is BEAST WEEK! WOOOO!!! .... not really, it was hot and it sucked. Haha. But it was a good experience. Now, allow me to write about it.

Monday morning, around 4:00AM. We had everything packed. Our green duffel bags were packed to the top with random toiletries and clothes we needed for the "deployment". We pretended to treat BEAST like an actual deployment to Iraq because it seemed more exciting that way.

We took all our duffel bags and M-16 training weapons outside, and we all got in formation. We had breakfast at the dining facility, and we all got on the bus. We drove off base, went to Medina Training Annex, and got dropped off some 15 minutes away from Lackland. We all got off the bus, and we had to be sure we all had our M-16's on us at all times. If we were caught without our M-16's, it was trouble for us. Lots of trouble.

We hiked to a part of BEAST that held our HAZMAT gear (the overalls, pants, boots, and gloves). We grabbed our gear and hiked to our zone. We were Predator Zone. The RPA Predator, not the animal. We were all in tents. And they had AIR CONDITIONING! Even tho AC was around 90 degrees, it was a lot cooler than outside so it was still nice. BEAST was a lot hotter than Lackland, and we have no idea why.

We all had to wear FLAC vests and combat helmets. Well. Everyone except me. I still had to wear the helmet, but not the 40 lb flac vest. I had pneumonia. And I had orders from a superior officer to not wear that flac vest during BEAST. Sucks cuz everybody literally hated me for it. But it's not as bad as the girl who had the waiver so she couldn't carry her M-16. Even the instructors got super peeved at that.

I was SUPER dehydrated when I started the day. That on top of the pneumonia I was fighting. I nearly fainted a couple times doing simple hikes to the HAZMAT gear and back. I had to sit and drink a lot of water. Luckily by the next day I was good to go.

Still Monday. At the end of the day, after setting up all of our tents and putting everything away, we figured that BEAST was set up like this: Monday-Wednesday is field-training and perfection (medical, poisonous gas, unexploded ordinance, entry-control point, all that wonderful stuff). We started getting in groups and started to practice our stuff. Thursday was "test day". That's when we were given tasks out of the blue and we had to respond to the situation in a quick and accurate manner. Depending on how good we did on test day determines if our flight gets the "BEAST RIBBON". This was a big deal. Yes it was.

I was the master at Entry Control Point. What that entails is standing at one of the main gates and challenging anybody who tries to enter the base. I stand here with an M-16, looking as threatening as possible. And then I get to yell at them. It's so scary being yelled at by me. ... not really. But I try.

During that Monday, I get introduced to the madness that is an MRE. This has two meanings -- Meals Ready to Eat, or Meals Rejected by Ethiopians. I'm going to be honest, MRE's aren't that bad. Some of them are really good. What makes them good, however, are the kick butt desserts at the end. My favorite is the blueberry cobbler. Mmmm. I was the only trainee who could old down the infamous Veggie Omelet MRE. Probably not cuz it looked and smelled and tasted like a veggie omelet, but it felt like barf. I have the ultimate ability to ignore what a food feels like when I'm hungry. It's so ultimate that the rest of trainees found out I could hold down this veggie omelet. So every time somebody else got a veggie omelet MRE, you could guess who they came to for a meal rescue. Yeah. We had MRE's for breakfast and lunch. We had an actual dining facility dinner, however. That was an awesome meal. Period.

Monday some more. We had to go through MOPP drills. That involves putting on and taking off our HAZMAT gear (gas mask stuff) on and off. When the sun comes up, it stops being fun. HAZMAT gear holds in heat like you wouldn't believe. It's a greenhouse on your body. When that gas mask is on for more than 3 minutes, you can start to feel the sweat slide down your face, and there's nothing you can do about it. Cuz if you take off your mask to wipe your face down, YOU BE DEAD! The instructors had some sort of immunity so they didn't have to wear the gas masks with us.

Showers were not fun at BEAST. Well, they weren't really that fun period, but it was horrible at BEAST. At the dorms, the showers were right there, 15 seconds away from your bed. At BEAST, you had to walk about 3 minutes to a separate building where you had to take your shower. And you had to carry everything with you. It was not fun.

Tuesday. Guess what was for breakfast? Veggie omelet.

We spent most of the day going over our practices and whatnot while I chilled at the entry control point, looking vicious. Then we got a hurricane warning near the end of the day. We all took refuge in a protected area and watched the tents get destroyed by the winds and saw trees breaking in half and cows flying past us. Not really, but pretty close. After the hurricane passed, we packed all our stuff and went back to Lackland mid week! WOOO!..... until we got back.

We got back to Lackland on Tuesday night, and we were met with a very pissed off MTI. *PISSED*!!!! We had to do random PT for about 10 minutes. For what, you ask? Well, seems like we forgot to sweep all those rabid dust bunnies before we left for BEAST, and our MTI had to sweep our entire dorm by himself so the dorm could pass inspection. Our MTI was NOT happy. He could destroy planets with his rage.

We spent the next day (Wednesday) doing tons and tons of drill practice before we went back to BEAST that Wednesday night. We got back to BEAST and only had a few hours to get our stuff perfected for test day. Crunch time!... however, since we got back to BEAST late, we completely skipped the BEAST obstacle course. That kinda sucked cuz we were all looking forward to it. But oh well. I also had a couple veggie omelets. The next time somebody asks me to trade a veggie omelet, I'm going to slap them.

Thursday. Test day. Our tests involved being bombed by terrorists, leaving unexploded ordinances behind, entry control point (which is what I did), putting HAZMAT on and off all the way and staying like that for 15 minutes (I had to put on my HAZMAT gear outside cuz I was protecting the base from intruders), medical stuff, and yeah. We did so well, except for the fact that somebody kept dropping their M-16 on a body that they were trying to work on. So we lost the BEAST Streamer due to that. However, a lot of 4-Stars and High-Ranking peeps came to BEAST to see us all do our stuff. We had to do the test all over again to show the people in charge what we were made of. We did so well the 2nd time. We would have gotten the BEAST Streamer if that one counted, but it didn't. It was all for show.

Not much happened after that. We put all of our stuff back, got rid of our gas masks, and went back to the dorm on Friday afternoon. Yay! Oh, our MTI came up to BEAST and heard we did good in front of all those high-ranking individuals, so "daddy" told us good job.

Because we majorly screwed up on Tuesday when we got back, our MTI told us to get into sneakers without him having to tell us or else we would be in biiig trouble. So we got into sneakers. Our MTI saw us with sneakers, asked what the piss, told him we were told to put on sneakers, he told us to put our combat boots back on. Haha.

Sunday was great. We had church and it was 7th week! We were done with BEAST, and (we thought) it was all downhill from this point on :D.

Week Seven

I know, I KNOW!!! I've been absent for some time. But as you all have probably noticed, I've been quite busy :P. I'm now stationed in Vegas!!! ... so all this hard work paid off. Now, to the actual blog you care about lol.

Week 7 was a bit of an awkward week. Lets just say three words to describe week 7: blues and tests. Week 7 covers everything from learning how to wear blues correctly, get the dorm inspected like crazy, do an End of Course Test, and a final Fitness Test. However, my week 7 was kinda screwed up because I missed the M-16 stuff in week 5 so I had to make up for it this week.

I went to the M-16 range somewhere off base and shot the M-16 at various targets in various positions. Nothing too extreme here. You're given 10 shots, 5 shots for without the gas mask and 5 with the gas mask. You are given a total of 50 bullets, but for each 10 you fire you're in a different firing position. I shot a total of 43/50, which got me "Marksmanship". That green ribbon you see? Yeah, thats Marksmanship :D. We also learned how to take apart the real M-16 and clean it and all that fun greasy stuff.

Now, the part I didn't tell you was I did my M-16 madness on the first day everybody else wore blues. So I was clueless on the Blues experience when I came back. I asked various trainees what it felt like to wear blues, and a few of them said it made them feel "important", and other said it sucked sitting down in them because of the leg straps you're forced to wear. I have to agree with them.

The next day we were supposed to get a grand dorm inspection from STAN-TEAM. This team is the ultimate inspectors of BMT, and nothing can get past them. They see things wrong with your dorm and lockers that even your MTI misses. So needless to say.... we didn't do too well when we got inspected. The dorm looked good, but a couple people's lockers were trashed and everything they owned was thrown on their beds in disgust. Mine was alright. In case you were wondering.

I learned this sock-folding technique from an 8th-weeker that revolutionized the idea of folding a hard sock. Unfortunately, STAN-TEAM didn't like my new sock folding technique. The sock was extremely hard and perfect looking, and it looked great on the outside. But STAN-TEAM unfolds the socks and they found it different on the inside. The MTI's didn't notice this till later, and I got called in and I got my screaming session for the week about how I shouldn't teach the flight folding tricks. The flight loved it cuz the sock folding technique worked, but I guess it was against regulations. I was instantly put on the sh** list of my MTI.

Blues happened again the next day, and we had numerous classes that weren't exactly mandatory for graduation. So I was scheduled for my Top-Secret interview. I had to skip lunch in order to get interviewed. I was interviewed one on one with a special agent from the FBI about how often I drink (or lack thereof), if I do drugs (oh yeah, like I have a problem with drugs), and other crazy things. That interview went short and smooth, and by the time I was done being interviewed, it was my time to go back to class. The class was already half way through the lesson, and it felt awkward barging into a class that was already in progress. I couldn't just sit outside and do nothing. So I opened the door, and this is what happened next...

I walked inside slowly, and it was a blue-rope MTI teaching the class. I had this same instructor a few classes ago, and he's freakin' hilarious. Pee your pants hilarious. It's great. He was teaching a class a week ago about sexual assault and whatnot. I remembered the plots of the movies he showed in the class quite well. However, he showed a slightly different face when I walked inside the class.

"WHO ARE YOU?!"

I stopped dead in my tracks, and the class got really quiet. I gave a reporting statement.

"Sir, trainee Donahue reports as ordered. Sir, I am part of this flight and I would like to join the class."

He stared at me for a second. Then he said, "Ummm... well then, why do you want to join this class? Do you remember the sexual assault class I taught you?"

I said, "Yes sir, the video had Jack and he was bad and did awful things to the girls."

The class laughed. He replied, "Well then! Looks like you have proof! Come here to the front."

I started to march to the front of the class, and then he freaked out. "How about a PROCEEDING SIR??!?!!?!?! Go away!"

I did an about-face, "Proceeding sir"

"COME HERE!"

"Proceeding sir." Another about-face going towards him.

"Go away!!"

"Proceeding sir." Yet another about-face going away from him.

"Come here!"

"Proceeding sir." I about-faced in his direction and walked directly to him and stopped.

He got in my face and stared me in the eye... I was thinking to myself, He's just testing me... I can beat this...

He said, "Who sent you?"

I replied, ".... Sir, Trainee Donahue reports as order, nobody did, sir."

He said, "Oh... well.... did my ex-wife send you? She likes to really piss me off sometimes."

The class was peeing their pants trying to hold in laughter at this point.

I replied, ".... Sir, trainee Donahue reports as ordered, ---" the class lost it and the blue-rope freaked out and said, "Another reporting statement, eh?"

"... Sir, trainee Donahue reports as ordered, sir ---"

"HOW MANY REPORTING STATEMENTS ARE YOU GOING TO GIVE ME?!?!"

(Giving more than one reporting statement per conversation is a bad thing)

"Just one, sir."

He said, "Who sent you??"

"Nobody sir. Nobody sent me."

"My wife didn't send you? Cuz she really likes to piss me off by doing these silly things."

"No sir, she doesn't." oops.

He gave me that weird look like 'wtf did you just say?'

He responded, "Well... did my grandma send you?!"

I stared at him for 5 seconds, not sure how to respond to this.

He said, "Are we having a staring contest?"

I kept staring at him, my face completely emotionless.

He said, "Ok, lets play a game. I want you to close your eyes. Now count to 5. Now open them."

I opened my eyes. He said, "I'm still here!!!!"

I told him, "I haven't eaten lunch yet, sir."

He sent me to lunch.

I ate.

I went back to the classroom, wondering if he was going to torment me again.

I entered the classroom, and stood in the back, waiting for him to acknowledge me. He surely did.

"It's you again! What do you want?"

I said, "I want to join the class and learn."

He said, "Learn, eh? Ok! Well you have to call me. Get out your cell phone and call me."

What? Cell phone? God forbid you have your cell phone on you or else you're seriously busted. I was terribly confused.

"Grab. Your cell PHONE!"

I finally got it. I shaped my hand into a phone shape and held it in front of me.

"Call me!"

I pushed pretend buttons on my hands and made the beeping sounds as I pressed the pretend buttons. Then I held the phone up to my ears.

He said, "Is it ringing?"

"Yes sir."

He said, "Is there a dial tone?"

I made the most awkward dial tone noise in the world. It sounded more like a dying chicken than a dial tone.

"Shut up." He said. "Hello?"

He picked up the phone on his end. I said, "Sir, trainee Donahue reports as ordered."

He said, "What's the password?"

I immediately responded, "Platypus." (That was the distress word in BMT if terrorists were holding you hostage).

He looked at his "phone" and said "What the...... fine.... go sit down."

I went for my chair, holding the phone to my head as I went for the chair.

"Can you still here me?" He said as I went for the chair.

"Yes sir." He asked this 5 more times as I went for the chair.

When I got to my chair, I put the phone down to set down my things. He went, "Hello? HELLO??!?!!"

I quickly brought my hand to my head again, "Yes sir, I'm still here."

"ok... good... I thought I lost you.... bye."

"Good bye, sir."

"GOOD BYE!"

-click-

Class went on like normal after that.

I passed my end of course test with a 90%.

And I passed my PT eval (barely). hehe.

That's 7th week.

Week 8

Ok. Finally. The last week. It's been 6 months since I've started basic, and I'm finally getting around to the last post. Well, here we go.

We were getting major senioritis by the time week 8 came around. We were still on our A-Game, but things just didn't seem to move as quickly anymore. We were all done with the testing, all done with the final work, everything was done except graduation on Thursday.

The first part of Week 8 moved by so extremely slowly. Like. Sunday to Wednesday felt like week 1 to week 3. It was bad. We were all eagerly waiting for our family and friends to come on Thursday morning when we had the Airman's run. But before all that happened, we had drill like no other.

Starting Sunday, we were lazy and motivated. At the same time. Yes, it is possible. We were doing drill for 4 hours. And we were getting tired, so we naturally started to screw up on random things. We were all told to get on our faces and repeat the following phrase: "Hello week 8! We finally made it. We graduate this week. Yet we still act like dumbasses." It was great. I said that phrase with a freakin' smile. Heck yeah it was weak 8.

Thursday morning comes along. We all get up and have our smiles. Our families were gonna be here today! I never had so much energy. We ran across the bridge, and over the bridge was a sea of people and families cheering us on. I ran like no other. And I saw my family for the first time in 9.5 weeks. It was an amazing feeling that cannot be replaced by anything.

To make the rest of this blog short, we had our coin ceremony later that day in Blues, we became Airmen (yay), spent the rest of the day with family, had an amazing parade the next day, spent time off base with family, spent a majority of Saturday with family, and the last bits of Sunday with family and the church I went to this whole time. I miss that church. Just thought I'd throw that in there.

Everybody else had their orders to go to tech school. Except for me. My flight physical never happened, so I was held back in the 319th as a Holdover Airman for 3 weeks. Luckily it wasn't nearly as bad as being in the 319th as a trainee, but it still sucked. After 3 weeks of getting my eyes poked and prodded, I finally went to tech school.

I spent a month at Lackland Air Force Base doing Aircrew Fundamentals. I then transferred to Randolph AFB to do a month's worth of Basic Sensor Operator Course, got my 3-level (I got my wings), did a month's worth of RPA Fundamentals Course, transferred to Nellis/Creech AFB, and now I'm here in the present.

Yay.