What's to congratulate? The ability to run a mile and a half in 14 minutes? Gaining military bearing? Not bursting into tears when I was yelled at (which was often, because I have a hard time keeping my mouth physically closed)? I mean, the worst thing that happened was one of the chiefs yelled at me a few times for having hair in my eyes, got frustrated with my inability to do so, took a pair of scissors and cut the offending lock off. Though I won't forget the expression on her face, the first time she told me to get my hair out of my face, and I tucked that stupid lock behind my ear, and it promptly fell back in front of my face.
I really wanted to get beaten every day, get stronger, that sort of thing. Instead, bootcamp was a classroom-intensive, sleep-deprived (I averaged 4 hours a night, for various reasons) struggle to get things right and pay attention to detail. The physical aspect was almost an afterthought. And for the most part, I had fun. My division did well, earned all our honors (so maybe there was a reason for the phone calls and the red bulls.) But I still wonder if I would've had the same perspective if I had been in my brother division.
Here at Nuke school, though, PT is not an afterthought. And the chaplain leads it. we usually do ten of an exercise, uhh, kinda goes like this:
Chaplain: One!
Nukes: Navy!
Chaplain:Two!
Nukes: Navy!
...
Chaplain: Ten!
Nukes: Nuke Powah!
Chaplain: Hooyah Nuke Powah!
Nukes: Hooyah Nuke Powah!
Chaplain: Hooyah Chaplain Corps!
Nukes: Hooyah Chaplain Corps!
Chaplain: It seems some of you can't count/like your R's too much/whatever he didn't like.
(yeah, he made us do the exercise again because someone said "nuke power" with a hard r.
)And the classes are pretty intense. I like it here. I'm happy. It's crazy.
