This is a direct response to Alex Reynard's journal about a soldier's experience. It's spot on. After some encouragement, I decided to journal my own. I'm not sure if the military likes to keep negative stories under wraps, but there's not TOO much they can do to me now. Besides, it's not like bad stories aren't in more public places like the news media.

Alex's Journal:

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/703888/

Some people have strong spirits like Alex Reynard's friend. I am not one of them.

Yeah, I signed up. It was 2004. I had been fired from my job because I couldn't work a 65+ hour work week doing tech support with back-to-back calls. It was shooting up my nerves pretty badly and I had to take three 15 minute breaks instead of two 10 minute breaks like everyone else.

Of course my dad thought that I lacked "discipline" and did everything he could to convince me to enlist. My dad was a civilian defense contractor. He did weapons research, considered it wonderfully patriotic, and is utterly amazed that the government is using those weapons he made for anything other than wholesome reasons. Oh yeah, he says he went to a "boot camp" college because he had to do a tough 5 hour gym class. I'll cut it short and say he's a poser.

So, I go to the army recruitment website and read all their wonderful things. I look at the pretty movies. I get pumped up. I go to the recruiters and score a 99 on the practice ASVAB. The recruiters all start kissing my ass faster than you could believe. When they find out I'm out of a job, my recruiter drives me down to the MEPS (Military Entrance Processing System) personally. I ace the real thing with the same score and by the end of the day I'm feeling like a million bucks.

Yeah, my recruiters were seriously misleading me and doing everything they could to downplay boot camp. "Now, one thing to keep in mind is that they do yell at you some. The big thing is never to give up. Just keep going and they'll work with you."

Interestingly enough, my car's timing belt breaks just as I get into the driveway for my parent's house with the last load of my belongings. What an odd foreshadowing..

The voices in my head comment that they were keeping my car going until now, since I was broke and having my car go out would have made it hard for me to get food. Having voices in your head either makes you spiritual or insane. I like to think the former, but I really don't care either way since they always tell me to do good things!

Non-sequiters for the win!

For the record, the voices in my head were always anti-military. I couldn't exactly say that to fundamentalists like my parents. I had already been down that road and had them pray over me to cast out my demons. So I just told them I didn't want to waste four years of my life. They responded that I was wasting my life anyway since I didn't have any material possessions to my name.

Anyway, I ship out. I think the first realization that something was wrong was when I arrived off the plane and I thought the sergeant who picked us up was a serious asshole about our formation. I wondered what his problem was when he gave us sharp comments.

He would be saintly compared to others by the end of it.

I got to the base. I spent a week getting processed. This amounts to doing nothing but staring at the walls while waiting for shots or other stuff. I thought that it sucked so when time came for the physical fitness test I determined I would do what it took to pass. If I didn't pass, I would go to "FAT Camp" and have to stare at walls some more until I passed. So I ran a mile in eight minutes. I nearly vomited in the process. A desk job doesn't prepare you for running laps that well, after all.

It was only at night that I realized I'd have to repeat that every day. I wasn't too happy. And having them show us clips from "Saving Private Ryan" didn't help either. I was starting to realize this may have been a mistake.

Day one of Boot Camp. I'm loaded onto a cattle car. Yes, an actual cattle car. Half way through they stopped to pick up some drill sergeants who started right off with the screaming and yelling. I didn't see them get on, so it came straight out of the blue. I went from annoyed at the bad position to shear terror. It finally dawned on me just how badly I got smooth talked by my recruiter. I remember my own thoughts very well. "Oh my god, what have I gotten myself into?"

At this point I'll talk about comments I have received. I get some comments every so often that I was foolish and/or naive to let my recruiter do that to me. Everyone knows what recruiters are like so it's my fault and mine alone. I actually agree that I was foolish for having gotten involved. Please feel free to say it then. I do not care. I have made peace with my past mistakes.

Anyway, I was too terrified to think for most of the rest of the day. They introduced us to "punitive exercise". It's amazing how much pain you can put a person through with just exercise. They had some very creative stress positions they wanted you to stay in, and god help you if the drill sergeants see you in pain. Actually, god help you if you even grunt, you're expected to take it in silence. They also loved playing mind tricks on us like changing people's bags and then blaming them for having the wrong guy's stuff.

People later tell me that was just to get you in shape.

Bullshit.

At the mess hall, I couldn't keep from shaking. The bits of rice were literally falling off my fork before it got to my face. I later found out the drill sergeants got a good laugh out of it.

I didn't sleep at all the first night. I didn't want to sleep either. I didn't want the time in bed, alone and to myself, to end. During that night I could only think about how to get out. And I realized there was only one way out... to kill myself.

The next day was somewhat easier. I was numb. But no matter how much they yelled at me, I didn't mind so much. I knew it was only temporary. It was only going to last until I found a way to kill myself. Even the voices in my head, which are normally staunchly against such things, told me they would understand.

The first few days they give you plastic knives, so I couldn't slit my wrists. I know. I tried. In hind sight it wouldn't have worked anyway, since I didn't know that it was "down the road, not across the street".

There was an access to the roof to my barracks. It was in the stair well. It would be a three story drop, so I'd have to jump head first against some concrete to make that work. Unfortunately the drill sergeants were always strategically placed to keep me away from the roof, so I would have to do it at night. I'd have to do it on a night when I was on watch, so no one would catch me on my way up. I fully planned to do this my next watch.

At worst, I knew that as soon as I got live ammunition I'd have a easy way to do myself in.

It didn't help that I was sick. I was so sick that I could barely hear the drill sergeant talking from five feet away. I couldn't eat more than a few bites or drink any amount of water without throwing it up. Of course, the drill sergeants made me drink until I threw up anyway. Since I couldn't keep down water, my new friend heat exhaustion was never far away. Eventually, after I had been standing in the sun for almost an hour, I felt a very bad headache and my body was numb. So I finally raised my hand until a sergeant came over, and explained I was suffering from heat exhaustion. I was taken in the the building for a moment.

Inside was a fun exercise. One drill sergeant asked me where I was from. The other told me I wasn't from there. They both had fun giving me conflicting orders and watching me squirm. And of course I was punished for disobedience when I was unable to obey the conflicting orders. By the time I got out of the building, I was told that my problem with water was because I was weak and didn't drink it enough before coming. Likewise, I was made to feel like crap since I didn't have a good reason to sign up and just made up a "for the college money" excuse when asked. When I got back to my fellow soldiers, they thought I was crazy for admitting I was having a problem, and they told me it would have been a better idea to wait until I had a heat stroke and had to be taken to the hospital.

I went to church on Sunday. I was not a church person before, and I'm certainly not one now. But I went. I didn't have the courage to say I wasn't a Christian. The pastor at the church was an evangelical. He said he loved boot camp because everyone was having a "Spiritual experience". Still, for all his faults I love the guy. He was one of the few kind people I met at boot camp.

You see, I was taken to him. When I was shaking so bad I couldn't eat the first day, the head sergeant pulled me aside and asked why. I told him I had suicidal thoughts. So I was taken to see the pastor and get his opinion. I was there with another person who I know only as Jehovia's Witness. He suddenly realized that he was going to be required to kill people and wanted out.

The pastor asked if I was suicidal. When I told him yes, he asked how I was going to do it. I told him. I went into detail about what would be required and how I planned to carry it out. I was able to talk about my planned leap from the barracks building for almost a minute since I had planned it out so well. He quickly realized I was serious and wasn't just saying it to get out, so he stopped me and told me he would talk to my drill sergeant immediately.

From then on I was treated a bit differently. Treating someone like shit is one thing. Driving someone to suicide looks bad though. They didn't want me to actually kill myself. They certainly didn't want me to have a good time either.

On the way back, I was taken back by another female soldier. She was nice to me. I couldn't keep myself from crying when I thanked her for treating me like a human. I don't know who you are, but thank you.

Remember the poor Jehovia's Witness? I don't know what happened to him in the end. All I know is that he sat down and refused to do anything until they took him away. They punished everyone but him. Once we had run ourselves ragged, they had us circle around him and scream insults at him in an attempt to get him to go along. The hatred was real.

Speaking of hatred, remember how I was sick? So sick I couldn't hear someone talking more then five feet away? Funny thing, being that sick tends to impair one's physical performance. I was often the slowest one in the group, and everyone would have to keep doing punitive exercise until I made the minimum time, which was NOT easy. In fact, it was quite painful. To say I was hated was an understatement.

Later that day we were made to run up and down a flight of stairs for thirty minutes because of the Jehovia's Witness guy. To this day I do not blame him. He had courage. It takes real courage to sit down and not go along. He has more courage than I. I do feel sorry for the guy they made carry the two forty pound weights up the stairs though.

So eventually I got put on the exit. I was pulled from the squad before we got our guns. I think that was intentional. They required at least two people be with me at all times, but they didn't take away my shoe laces. They do that to identify actively suicidal people. I had started wising up by then and realized that they wouldn't let me commit suicide if I told them to full extent to which I was trying to kill myself. So I alway held back a bit to the councilor.

You see, I had determined by that point that I was worthless as a human being. I had decided that I simply had to die. Even if I got out of boot camp I was still intending to kill myself as soon as I got home. It was what I deserved.

I lasted five days in Boot camp. People can call me weak if they want. I don't mind. I've come to terms with my past and my own personal faults. I am who I am. Besides, it's just what people who don't know what it's like do. It's what people who have killed their spirit do.

Oh yes, you kill your spirit.

Let me tell you about the single worst moment of my entire experience in the army.

Let me tell you about the single worst moment of my life.

I was out of boot camp and in some place waiting for release from the army. I forget what it is called. It was still in the boot camp area and I went to a mess hall that was in the same area. Anyway, one day I was marching to the mess hall when I saw some new recruits who were getting off the cattle cars. They were running around terrified, just like I was when I was in their position.

I laughed. I enjoyed seeing them suffer. I thought it was great. I felt personally gratified by their pain.

And then I realized what I had just did.

That feeling, that laugh was the most horrible thing I have ever done in my entire life.

Those slogans and clips they show, those values they preach, they're bullshit. Pain does not beget honor and friendships. Pain begets pain. Pain begets evil. Any surface appearance of honor or integrity is just that, surface.

I was fully intending to kill myself when I got back. I had decided to kill myself by suffocation. I intended to leave in the middle of the night, walk out into the forest, put a plastic bag over my head, and go to sleep. I even had my suicide note written up. I forget what they were, but there were a few specific words said by my dad during the ride home from the airport that kept me from doing it. If they had come out only slightly different, I wouldn't be here today.

Still, my parents were... barely sympathetic. When I got back I was a sniveling, groveling, broken person who could barely keep from crying. That doesn't go over well when someone entire life experience says that hurting people helps them and helping people hurts them. My parents insisted that I not turn on a computer for a week since computer games were just an addictive drug. I was coaxed into going back to college and later got my degree. My parents declared the army to be the best thing that ever happened to me. My ability to get a degree now shows that I had gotten the "discipline" I needed in life, so my dad didn't have to reevaluate his core principles. Cognitive dissonance has been averted! Normality has been restored.

I lied about my grades. I didn't do nearly as well as I told my parents I did. And I only got through because I was too numb to think or do anything else. It would be years before I regained any sense of self-direction.

Oh, and it took three weeks of antibiotics to clear up the sinus infection, and another two until I had full hearing back.

I still consider the most important thing that one single moment where I was laughing at other people's pain. That one moment taught me more about the true nature of evil than any amount of lecturing or observing. I'm sorry people, but evil doesn't wear a black hat. True evil is almost aways considered good by most of society.

I've sworn to myself to never repeat that mistake, and to always be good. To be kind, gentle, and polite. To realise that helping people helps them and hurting people hurts them. And to always seek to increase the amount of pleasure in the universe.

Furthermore, I determined to seek an "alternative" to "strength", since I don't want to be like those people. I seek to cultivate "agility".

I have a fantasy of a Bartleby's Descent spinoff story called "Demon Boot Camp" where they break the training of that horrible place. The reveille plays, and demons march around quietly asking why everyone is getting up. We don't obey the rules here! Go back to sleep! I tried writing about it before, but always felt a quiet revulsion at the memories. I wonder if I would have more success now?

I wish the best of luck to Alex's friend, whoever he is. He is a stronger person than I.