By Brian Hennon
The year was 1993 and I was in South Carolina for Basic Training. I wish I could say I joined the military out of sense of duty or courage, but that would be a lie. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was lost and needed to find out who I was, but that’s another story...
We were in week three and this was the day we marched to the Confidence Course. For those who may not know what that is, it’s basically an obstacle course where we were yelled at, insulted, and harassed the entire time. It could be aptly called “anti-confidence course”.
One of the obstacles we had to overcome was the rope climb.
Now, in week three of basic training, there were still a few…how do I say this nicely…slightly portly fellows whose bodies had yet to be transformed by the 0430 workouts and forced marches. That’s 4:30 a.m. for those who may be wondering.
I was one of them.
Just call me Private Chunk.
When I was younger, I was never good at climbing ropes and for those who grew up in the 70s and 80s, it was part of the physical education curriculum for some reason. Much of my rope-ascending struggles came from a paralyzing fear of heights, but now I was 21 and had let myself go slightly...as the nickname suggests.
Drill Sergeants Johnson and Sides stood at the obstacle which had two ropes – one with knots to help you climb and one without. I knew exactly which rope I was going to choose and I was relieved.
That is, until Johnson said, “you have two options here…one without knots and one without knots.”
I watched as man after man shimmied up that rope with ease, and with each one, I got a little more nervous. I knew this was going to be a struggle.
My turn came and I hesitated for a second. Again, for those not in the know, hesitation with two Drill Sergeants staring at you doesn’t produce favorable results.
After being loudly “encouraged”, I approached the rope, grabbed hold and started to climb. After a few feet, my arms tired, my shoulders started burning, and I couldn’t go any farther. The encouragement grew louder.
Drill Sergeant Sides got louder and Drill Sergeant Johnson’s insults became more creative and both were laced with all sorts of colorful word choices.
As a side-note, some military recruiters will tell you Drill Sergeants and Drill Instructors aren’t allowed to swear at new recruits. Don’t ever believe that. The truth is, these men and women have a full, rich, illustrative catalog of swear words. The way they could weave the foulest language into any instruction or conversation was almost an artform. That is also a story for another time.
That day, there were several of us who didn’t make it up the rope. Misery does indeed love company and I was happy not to be enduring the insults alone.
A few weeks later, we were on one of our “fun” runs and I was struggling. At the beginning of Basic, we were separated into running group. There was the slow group, the medium group, and the fast group.
For some reason I was placed in the fast group. To this day, I have no idea how that happened.
That’s right. Private Chunk and his 28-inch legs had to run with people who...well...actually could run and actually enjoyed running.
Drill Sergeant Johnson was our lead runner. We went where he went, as fast as he wanted to go. Oh, did I mention he was about 6’ 2” and like Forrest Gump, could “run like the wind blew?”
On this particular morning, Johnson was angrier than normal and decided we were going to run faster and farther than we had previously. No idea why, but Drill Sergeants didn’t really need a reason to be angry. They would always find a reason.
For some reason, at about mile five or six of what felt like an all-out sprint, I started thinking of the 1980 movie, Private Benjamin, specifically the quote,” I don’t want to see you stop running until you collapse, faint, or puke!”
As we ran our way through the dark (remember, this was 0430 or “Oh-dark-30”), we took a sharp turn on the sandy, tree-lined path. This was my chance to catch a break, so I pretended to slip and fall.
I foolishly thought Johnson would let the group stop until I got back up, but instead, he had them run in circles around me until I did. Suffice it to say, they weren’t very happy and made that abundantly clear. After a few brief moments and a lot of yelling from my peers, I got back up and we continued.
We finished the run, got back to the barracks, changed into our camouflage BDUs (Battle Dress Uniform), had breakfast, then drew our weapons from the armory, and marched to the firing range.
We had just begun Basic Rifle Marksmanship. and at the beginning of Basic, each recruit had to take an eye-dominance test to see which eye was...well...dominant.
Even though I was right-handed, it turns out I was left-eye-dominant. I can’t write with my left hand, throw a ball with my left hand, use a cooking knife with my hand, swing a bat with my left hand...but now I had to learn how to fire an M-16 with my left hand.
The first go-around was terrible and I think I missed every pop-up target. That’s when Drill Sergeant Devoe came into the picture. Devoe was larger than all the other Drill Sergeants and looked a whole lot angrier, but looks were deceiving.
As he knelt down next to my foxhole I held my breath, fully expecting to be insulted and cussed out. That didn’t happen.
Instead, he calmly, rationally, and dare-I-say, nicely walked me through the mechanics of firing. He even encouraged me with his own tales of learning to fire a weapon in Basic Training. This was a pleasant and much-needed surprise.
Throughout Basic Training, we lost a few people.
One was unable to manage the stress of the almost-constant yelling and ended up in the psychiatric hospital after sneaking into the Drill Sergeant’s office and urinating in his boots.
One hurt his knee so badly that he was medically discharged.
One could never seem to do anything right and was “recycled” which meant he had to repeat all of Basic Training again. To my knowledge, he was eventually discharged.
In the midst of the yelling, insulting, cursing, running, pushups, marching, etc, there were also lighthearted moments when the Drill Sergeants would seem human. Those moments mostly came at the end of Basic, but they were there.
At graduation, my family flew to South Carolina to attend. As I was giving them a tour around the barracks, we ran into Drill Sergeant Johnson. I thought he was going to start screaming at me in front of my parents, but instead, he shook my hand and told me I had done a great job as a squad leader.
Then my mom thanked him for “making a man” out of me and Johnson simply said something to the effect of, “you already did that ma’am. We just made him better.”
When I began writing this, I wanted to pull out a list of leadership wisdom, but instead, let me leave you with this:
In Basic Training (and the military in general), you do what you’re told. Period.
In fact, at the beginning of Basic on that hot, June morning in South Carolina, we were given a motivational speech by First Sergeant Cruz.
I can still hear his thick, Puerto Rican accent almost 35 years later.
“There are three things you must to in order to graduate from Basic Training.
The first one is Do What You’re Told.
The second one is Do What You’re Told.
The third is, Do What You’re Told.”
It really was that simple. Those who could block out all the noise, all the yelling, all the pain, all the insults, and just do what they were told were fine. Maybe a little more high-strung and suffering from nicotine withdrawal, but overall they were better than when they started. They were leaner, stronger, faster, and they could even climb ropes!
I recognize leadership in non-military settings is vastly different. We can’t insult and harass those we lead into compliance no matter how much we want to do so, but as leaders and non-leaders, we all have a job to do. We also have all sorts of opportunities for distraction from those jobs.
There are competitors.
There are service issues.
There are difficult co-workers.
There are unreasonable customers.
There are breakdowns in communication.
There are problems with processes and procedures.
Let’s face it, in any job, there’s a lot of noise and it’s easy to get derailed by that noise, but at the end of the day, there’s a job to do and we have to decide whether we can do that job or we can’t.
If we let the challenges become excuses, we have made our decision.
If we allow the issues to become the focus, we have made our decision.
If the problems become louder than the possibilities, we have made our decision.
It’s easy to look at that rope and list all the reasons you can’t climb, but take a lesson from Private Chunk and make a decision.
Either start climbing or move on to something else.
In the military you don’t have that choice...at least not without the specter of a Dishonorable Discharge hanging over your head..
You do.