Shoup Airlines

Brrr…

The weather here in Bama is quite contrasting. First, our uniforms don’t breathe that well, so as soon as you walk outside you’re raining sweat inside it. Then we march the 1/2 mile to the classroom, running when crossing streets. So in the 95 degree weather and nearly matched humidity, you’re good and soaked just in time to walk into the classroom where they keep it at a constant 60 degrees. I cannot describe the physical shock my body goes through every time I enter and exit a building. The best comparison would be jumping from the hot tub into the pool!

One classroom we spend way too much time in is kept at an even colder temperature. You actually start shivering about 30 minutes into the class and don’t get out for another 3 hours. The sick thing is while on break we’ll all crowd the entrance doors and crack them attempting to warm up from the bit of heat that seeps in.

Hazing? There’s no hazing here!

Smoking vs. Smoldering

There are certain things around here that are very different from what I expected. In Basic if we were screwing around or not acting like a team we would get smoked. HARD! Once your arms gave out from all the push-ups, you would go to sit-ups until your abs went out. By the end you would ache for days but you would definitely remember not to do whatever you did again.

Here, it is quite different. We get nailed on almost a daily basis for being late to the morning formation. You just can’t do it all in 7 minutes and still make it. So we get marched over to the grass and put in the front leaning rest position but that’s it. Sometimes we’ll do 20 push-ups, but most times we just have to hold it for maybe 2 minutes, max! You end up recovering without really feeling punished and therefore everyone ends up dong the same thing the next day. Seems like every time we get dropped now I just kind of chuckle.

Zzzz…oops!

So sleep around here is a rare commodity. Six hours a night with the amount of physical and mental activity we do creates a lot of fatigue. Then you throw in our mandatory study hour which is from 2045 to 2145 and you can imagine the head snaps we’re doing while pouring over such interesting subjects like the Organization of the Army or Supply Details.

Last night I was memorizing some lists which includes closing my eyes. This is not a good thing to do with surmounting fatigue. Within 3 seconds I was asleep and within 5 seconds a TAC walked in and busted me. My punishment? A 300 word essay on developing self discipline. While trying to keep a straight face, I consented and wrote the essay. I think the rough draft took 10 minutes to write. The rub was setting it up in the correct format and actually hand writing it… in a legible style. When was the last time you actually hand wrote an essay? That’s what I thought!