GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!

At Fort Knox, during the recovery phase of training (turning in equipment to CIF - Central Issuing Facility, cleaning your equipment, packing up, etc), we were tasked with basically taking it easy and just scrubbing our equipment. We knew it was busy work, but it had to be done. We were running up and down from our barracks getting our equipment and cleaning what was necessary little by little. Some people were doing laundry, but none of us were sure if we were allowed to do so (if a Drill Sergeant doesn't tell you you CAN, then you should probably assume you CAN'T).

So, like I stated in an earlier post, most of my fellow cadets down there were slack jawed idiots with no discipline. When doing your laundry and then later drying it, if you didn't sit on the dryer, someone would take your clothes out and replace it with their own.

On one day during recovery a cadet took out someone's laundry from the dryer and put in his own. What we didn't know at the time was that the laundry belonged to our Senior Drill Sergeant for our platoon (3rd). We only found out about the greivous offense at a certain exact moment.

The doors to our bay swing open violently:

"GET OUT OF MY HOUSE! YOU'RE NO LONGER WELCOME IN MY HOUSE! GRAB YOUR SHIT AND GET OUTSIDE RIGHT NOW! MOVE IT! WITH A QUICKNESS! GET OUT NOW!"

I grabbed whatever stuff I hadn't grabbed so far, stuffed it all in my laundry bag and wet weather bag so I can continue doing my duties for recovery. I'm fourth or fifth to last to leave, and due to my late position I see the Drill Sergeant come out of his office with a chain and a lock. That's right. He freaking chained us out of our own barracks. How bad ass is that?

At the time I was scared shitless, as I'm pretty sure anyone who was in the bay at the time was, but thinking back on it, that's some kind of shit you only see in a movie, and I lived it.

Later on, as we're cleaning our stuff outside, a Lieutenant came up to us and asked us why we were all just standing around with nothing to do.

"Sir, Drill Sergeant just kicked us out of the bay."
"What do you mean?"
"He chained up the doors, sir."

At that, he starts laughing and walks away shaking his head.

I don't remember how the bays got unlocked, but it wasn't until sometime later.

Our Drill Sergeant was a bad ass, no joke.

Air Assault School: My favorite animal.

On the second day of training on the rappel tower at Air Assault school, we were instructed to hook ourselves into the tower once the Air Assault Sergeants OK'd us to get into position. Now, it's somewhat difficult to hook yourself in properly if you've never done it before and have only watched Sergeants do it for you. It's impossible to do it while you're belay man (the guy watching your descent, ready to pull your line taut if you begin to fall - a safety mechanism at Air Assault school) is hanging onto the rope and pulling on it.

I get into the kneeling position and try to hook myself into the rope. The rope won't budge. "Slack!" I yell to my belay man. He relents, for about 2 seconds, and I've only pulled about an inch of rope free. I repeat this about 14 times until I finally get hooked in, only each time I yelled slack and my belay man relented, I had eventually pulled about 2 more feet of rope than I had needed. Then the order came to get into the "L-shaped" (rappelling start point) position. I look at my rope and realize if I attempt the L-shape, I'm falling backwards immediately as there is too much slack.

"Air Assault Sergeant, I think I have too much slack."
"Well, would you look at that. HEY SGT. ADAMS...WE'VE GOT A POSSUM!"

SGT Adams runs over.

"I think we do."
"Go on, get into the L-Shape Air Assault. Here, I'll assist you."

The Air Assault Sergeant then pulled my rope tight and held it there with his own body weight. I begin to put myself in the L-shape, locking out my knees and leaning my ass over the edge of the tower.

My initial instructor just looks at SGT Adams and says "Why the fuck are you helping him?"
"You're right, why am I?

And at that cue, he let's go. I tumble backwards, like a diver entering the water from a boat (if you've ever seen a Discovery Channel special on underwater exploration, you'll know what I mean). I don't let go of my brake hand, in fact I hold onto it for dear life, and I end up 5 feet down the rope, hanging completely upside down.

Air Assault Sergeant: "WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE ANIMAL?"
Me: "The Possum, Air Assault Sergeant, the Possum!"
Him: "Would you like to right yourself?"
Me: "YES!"
Him: "Straighten out your knees and you should be fine."

I listen to him and I right myself, I then begin my descent as normal.

Possuming happens a few times every class, I've been told, so I don't really mind. In fact, I'm so fucked up I thought it was pretty damn fun. I would actually Possum again on purpose in the future just because it's one of the weirdest and adrenaline pumping feelings.