Research Paper on Boot Camps
The last three days of basic training were marked by night infiltration, bivouac and a fifteen kilometer march back to the barracks. These were three grueling days, even compared to the rest of boot camp. We marched out to a bivouac site carrying m-16s and sixty pound packs.
The route we took to get there was ten kilometers of long steep Kentucky foothills, while harsh and trying it was a pale indicator of what was to come.
When we arrived at the site we were ordered to dig one full bunker per platoon and each person to dig a prone firing pit. The bunker is about five feet deep by three across, with the prone firing pit only about twelve inches deep, eighteen across, and six feet long. We used what is basically a sixteen inch shovel that we carried on our packs. This doesn’t sound too hard unless you’ve just marched ten kilometers at a blistering (literally) pace and are digging in the side of a mountain of about 40% rocks on no food. Once you dug in you had to lay in your firing hole for hours in the prone position not talking and doing anything but sleeping.
__________________________________________________________The route we took to get there was ten kilometers of long steep Kentucky foothills, while harsh and trying it was a pale indicator of what was to come.
When we arrived at the site we were ordered to dig one full bunker per platoon and each person to dig a prone firing pit. The bunker is about five feet deep by three across, with the prone firing pit only about twelve inches deep, eighteen across, and six feet long. We used what is basically a sixteen inch shovel that we carried on our packs. This doesn’t sound too hard unless you’ve just marched ten kilometers at a blistering (literally) pace and are digging in the side of a mountain of about 40% rocks on no food. Once you dug in you had to lay in your firing hole for hours in the prone position not talking and doing anything but sleeping.
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Late afternoon we marched to a night infiltration training site two kilometers away. Once there we sat and listened to a couple of hours of instructions and lectures and a couple more hours of waiting and sitting. At this point keeping your eyes open is like the last mile of a marathon, but to sleep even for a moment is to suffer greatly. Finally we lined up to cross the course. The course was about sixty yards across, sand with logs and barbed wire, and flooded with water. It was November and a cold day at that. We had to low crawl across the course very slowly and methodically, keeping proper bearing the entire time. Keeping bearing was difficult because in the low crawl you have your face down in the sand and they were firing live rounds a few feet over our heads from heavy machine guns. In the center of the pit were huge steel rings lying on the ground. In those twenty foot rings mortars were constantly exploding showering you with sand, water, and fear. The noise was deafening. Once across, you charged a field and did the usual waiting for hours. Only now it was cold and dark and you were soaked and shivering and dreading the night ahead.
The night ahead was worse yet. We got back two hours later than our usual bedtime. Everyone had to take a two hour watch. You had time to change or sleep and almost everyone slept in their wet fatigues. The watch was horrific, almost beyond what I could bear. It was raining all night and you had to be vigilant as it was rumored the drill sear gents were going to try to raid your perimeter and if you didn’t see them you would be toast. I won’t even get into the ways you can be made into toast. There was no raid and we woke in the morning surprised we could still stand. I got about two hours sleep. We did field exercises all day that weren’t so bad accept for the fatigue. The rest of the bivouac is a blur to me. I was deliriously tired and hungry the entire time.
At two the last morning we woke to the usual unflattering screams and shivered around fire barrels wondering what was going on. They lined us into marching formation and told us to move out. We marched for hours up and down the steepest and longest hills I have seen away from The Rockies. We marched fifteen kilometers with our sweat freezing on us, blistering feet, rubbed raw crotch, and far beyond fatigue. I really can’t describe the pain of this march on a soft American boy like myself. It was the worst thing in a long line of worst things that I had ever experienced to that point.
At the end of the march near our barracks there was a ring of tiki torches in a small field. They turned and marched us into the ring in a single file line. My entire company stood there in circular row. You could see every one of them, faces barely lit by the dancing light of the torches in the still dark predawn. Our company commander was there with even higher officers beside him. Our first sergeant was there with even higher sergeants beside him. A colonel I didn’t recognize gave us some rousing speech in which we were honored for the first time in weeks as humans, and more as soldiers. Sergeants came around the circle and pinned little round gold US pins on us and congratulated us on becoming soldiers. These were the same sergeants that had belittled and dehumanized us for two months and now they spoke to us as humans. Even I couldn’t help but feel a little stupid pride, skeptical as I was about all this army nonsense.
I believe this rite of passage gave almost every private there a feeling of great acceptance and pride. Many of them cried with joy, or at least relief. Relationships within our platoon which had been very rocky at best, improved immediately. We didn’t get to sleep that day but the fatigue wasn’t that bad because of the feeling of accomplishment. I, being a little older than the others, could see the feeling of immense pride on the faces of all the other privates. As a rite of passage the three day torture and ceremony were extremely effective at solidifying the group and changing the personal identity of most of the company. The next day was graduation day when they would all get to see their families again and be done with boot camp once and for all. For me graduation day meant the opportunity to desert, which I did.
I do still feel some pride from going through boot camp, especially the final days and ceremony at the end. I have noticed also that I am different from people who have not gone through boot camp. I can recognize a soldier by their carriage now. While the main feeling I got for my group and culture through this was alienation, I believe that most everyone else got a deep sense of belonging from the ordeal. It was extremely interesting as study in the ways that one can be formed to fit into an entirely different sub culture and changed by application of another’s will and finally being accepted by that same oppressor.
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Warning!!! All free sample term papers and college term paper examples on Boot Camp topics are plagiarized and cannot be fully used in your high school, college or university education.
If you need a custom written term paper, research paper, essay, dissertation, thesis paper or any other homework on your topic, EffectivePapers.com will write your academic term papers from scratch. Starting at $12/page you can get 100% custom written papers online. We work with experienced PhD. and Master's freelance writers to help you with writing any papers in any discipline! High quality and 100% non-plagiarized term papers guaranteed!
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Late afternoon we marched to a night infiltration training site two kilometers away. Once there we sat and listened to a couple of hours of instructions and lectures and a couple more hours of waiting and sitting. At this point keeping your eyes open is like the last mile of a marathon, but to sleep even for a moment is to suffer greatly. Finally we lined up to cross the course. The course was about sixty yards across, sand with logs and barbed wire, and flooded with water. It was November and a cold day at that. We had to low crawl across the course very slowly and methodically, keeping proper bearing the entire time. Keeping bearing was difficult because in the low crawl you have your face down in the sand and they were firing live rounds a few feet over our heads from heavy machine guns. In the center of the pit were huge steel rings lying on the ground. In those twenty foot rings mortars were constantly exploding showering you with sand, water, and fear. The noise was deafening. Once across, you charged a field and did the usual waiting for hours. Only now it was cold and dark and you were soaked and shivering and dreading the night ahead.
The night ahead was worse yet. We got back two hours later than our usual bedtime. Everyone had to take a two hour watch. You had time to change or sleep and almost everyone slept in their wet fatigues. The watch was horrific, almost beyond what I could bear. It was raining all night and you had to be vigilant as it was rumored the drill sear gents were going to try to raid your perimeter and if you didn’t see them you would be toast. I won’t even get into the ways you can be made into toast. There was no raid and we woke in the morning surprised we could still stand. I got about two hours sleep. We did field exercises all day that weren’t so bad accept for the fatigue. The rest of the bivouac is a blur to me. I was deliriously tired and hungry the entire time.
At two the last morning we woke to the usual unflattering screams and shivered around fire barrels wondering what was going on. They lined us into marching formation and told us to move out. We marched for hours up and down the steepest and longest hills I have seen away from The Rockies. We marched fifteen kilometers with our sweat freezing on us, blistering feet, rubbed raw crotch, and far beyond fatigue. I really can’t describe the pain of this march on a soft American boy like myself. It was the worst thing in a long line of worst things that I had ever experienced to that point.
At the end of the march near our barracks there was a ring of tiki torches in a small field. They turned and marched us into the ring in a single file line. My entire company stood there in circular row. You could see every one of them, faces barely lit by the dancing light of the torches in the still dark predawn. Our company commander was there with even higher officers beside him. Our first sergeant was there with even higher sergeants beside him. A colonel I didn’t recognize gave us some rousing speech in which we were honored for the first time in weeks as humans, and more as soldiers. Sergeants came around the circle and pinned little round gold US pins on us and congratulated us on becoming soldiers. These were the same sergeants that had belittled and dehumanized us for two months and now they spoke to us as humans. Even I couldn’t help but feel a little stupid pride, skeptical as I was about all this army nonsense.
I believe this rite of passage gave almost every private there a feeling of great acceptance and pride. Many of them cried with joy, or at least relief. Relationships within our platoon which had been very rocky at best, improved immediately. We didn’t get to sleep that day but the fatigue wasn’t that bad because of the feeling of accomplishment. I, being a little older than the others, could see the feeling of immense pride on the faces of all the other privates. As a rite of passage the three day torture and ceremony were extremely effective at solidifying the group and changing the personal identity of most of the company. The next day was graduation day when they would all get to see their families again and be done with boot camp once and for all. For me graduation day meant the opportunity to desert, which I did.
I do still feel some pride from going through boot camp, especially the final days and ceremony at the end. I have noticed also that I am different from people who have not gone through boot camp. I can recognize a soldier by their carriage now. While the main feeling I got for my group and culture through this was alienation, I believe that most everyone else got a deep sense of belonging from the ordeal. It was extremely interesting as study in the ways that one can be formed to fit into an entirely different sub culture and changed by application of another’s will and finally being accepted by that same oppressor.
___________________________________________________________
Warning!!! All free sample term papers and college term paper examples on Boot Camp topics are plagiarized and cannot be fully used in your high school, college or university education.
If you need a custom written term paper, research paper, essay, dissertation, thesis paper or any other homework on your topic, EffectivePapers.com will write your academic term papers from scratch. Starting at $12/page you can get 100% custom written papers online. We work with experienced PhD. and Master's freelance writers to help you with writing any papers in any discipline! High quality and 100% non-plagiarized term papers guaranteed!
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