Motherload Collection

During
the march back to camp, I felt so bad I fell down.

I
figured my sergeant would tell some of the other guys to hold me up and
help me make it back.

However,
he didn’t “exactly” do that. Instead, he yelled to the other guys...

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“Don’t
stop for him! Walk right over him! Kick him as you go by! KICK HIM!”

I
got up and made it all by myself.

He
hardly ever let me get any sleep either. Maybe an average of three
hours per night. He made me the “goat” of the platoon.

I
got all the shitty assignments. No matter how bad I felt, how little
sleep I got, he just kept pushing... pushing... pushing.

I
can still remember him yelling at me right after I’d field-stripped my
M1 rifle (that
dates me, doesn’t it?) and was having trouble putting it back together.

This
guy just didn’t care. Like I said, it didn’t matter if I was sick,
exhausted from lack of sleep, nauseous from tear gas or what. He just
kept pushing, yelling and forcing
me
to perform.

I
hated
him. I mean, I really
hated him.

Or,
so I thought. Until basic training was over (finally, thank God)...
and... he had a private conversation with me.

He
told me not
to have a bad opinion of myself. That he didn’t. That, during every
basic training bootcamp, there is always one guy who gets picked to be
the “goat”... and... how that
guy, always
gets pushed harder than the others. How the “goat” sort of sets the
standard (in basic training) for what a soldier can endure.