A story from Basic

In my half asleep disorientation, I saw the tent I was in, and the one next to mine, both belonging to my platoon. I also saw the other Soldiers and our gear, but it was blurry like I was trying to look through a piece of plastic and make out exactly who and what I was seeing, which would tell me where I was. I knew these people, but what were they doing here militarizing my room with their drab green tents, uniforms and bags of gear? And what did they do with my nice soft feather pillow?

As I was puzzling this strange, seemingly out of body experience, I saw these Soldiers grabbing weapons, helmets, and masks on their way out of the tent. I was overcome with different signals in a pattern of sets of three: shoulders touched three times, three claps in a row, and something I couldn’t quite make out shouted three times. Then a smell hit that was faint at first, but its strength grew exponentially with each second that passed. The smell was indescribable to anyone that hadn’t smelled it before, like explaining how salt tastes: sickly sweet, yet incredibly sour, sharp, and so painfully strong even in a small amount it felt like the inside of my nose had started on fire. Once you have the privilege of smelling it, it is a smell you will always recognize, even if you can't explain how it smells to someone.

A flash of memory hit from a few weeks ago when we were all being oriented to the finer details of how our gas masks worked and, more importantly, the chamber where we got up close and personal with CS gas or, as it is more commonly known, Tear Gas. That realization along with the one that it was the word “gas” being shouted in sets of three hit me at the same time. The two combining meant only one thing: the Drill Sergeants had begun their fun on the first night of the Field Training Exercise.

Reoriented after waking up a mere five seconds ago, I grabbed for my gear. The face mask was to go on in less than seven seconds; I had it mastered in five. The helmet was next because contrary to popular belief, without one you are screwed. Finally, as I was headed out, I grabbed my weapon. By this point, it was part of my body a necessary accessory to my daily outfit: without it, especially here in the field, I was naked. Luckily, the chance of me leaving my weapon behind was as likely as me leaving an arm behind.

As I was running for our designated safe zone, engineer tape in the form of a square on the ground marking our makeshift bunker, I again misplaced my surroundings. The cloud from the CS gas had caused a hazy fog to form, whiter than regular fog. The gas that touched my skin burned like a thousand tiny paper cuts with lemon juice poured on them, all over the skin that was exposed. My pores were rejecting any amount of the gas that touched it, causing a thin layer of perspiration to form on top of the burning. Because of the claustrophobia caused by the mask and the feeling of choking the gas caused due to muscle memory from the last time I felt this burn on my skin, breathing was nearly impossible.

The mask I had on had been used and washed so many times that the plastic eye pieces were so scratched that everything appeared hazy under normal circumstances. That combined with the distracting sensation of my skin on fire and the cloud of white gas surrounding me caused me to be running in the wrong direction by about 45 degrees or so. I removed my mask, thinking I was out of the cloud enough that it wouldn’t hurt me as bad, in an attempt to reorient myself. Bad idea. Not only did my sinuses explode the second the gas hit them causing me to lose what little sight I had with the mask on, but I saw briefly that I was headed straight for the Drill Sergeants’ tent.

In this situation, the last person you want to come across while alone and disoriented was a Drill Sergeant, especially one that didn't belong to your platoon. They have the power to strike the fear of God into the majority of people, as well as having the luxury of this being their day job. So, showing the weakness of being lost and alone during a training situation while in front of one of them was not something I was willing to do at that point. I heard him say through the fog, “I see you. Don’t follow my voice or you will regret it! Better start running!” in a very uncharacteristically sing-song voice. The surety of this voice, who it belonged to, and what would happen if the owner of it caught me was enough to cause some semblance of clear, logical thought to pass through my brain. The normal punishment for being caught by a Drill Sergeant while alone would only be expounded since I didn’t have my mask on like I should, and was headed in a completely wrong direction.

My only saving grace of that moment was having the training from earlier that day come to mind where, if we got lost, we were to find the line of stars that had been pointed out to us and follow it to the bunker. As this thought passed through my head, I looked up, and started running again, this time in the right direction. Half a minute, three stumbles, and a headlong trip into a ditch later and I was to the bunker, finally finding that safe zone.