dontravis.com blog post #481
What is it about the first paragraph lately. Again, the program failed to respond to my commands
WHIZ QUIZ WASHOUT
I damned near violated the basic tenet of the TI code and laughed at his look of contrition, but I kept my face straight, staring into those deep, iridescent opal eyes. He stood a good inch under my five-eleven, but we were about a par in the weight department. One seventy.
“Then we’ll have
our answer soon. Urinalysis tests are an important part of your life now,
Trainee, so you’d better learn to piss on command. You’re gonna have a
Pecker-Checker staring at your dong every time the Piss Bottle Man gets
thirsty. Understand!”
“Sir! Yes, sir!”
“And you’d
better start controlling that dick.”
Confusion
twisted his handsome features. “Sir?”
“You keep
getting an erection in front of your Pecker-Checker, you’re liable to get a
fist upside your head!
The kid’s tan
slowly flushed a bright crimson. “Sir! That didn’t happen, sir!”
“You calling
your TI a liar, Recruit?”
Corso finally became
flustered. “Fucking A!” He got control of himself before I could pounce. “Sir!
No, sir. I wouldn’t do that, sir. But he wasn’t there. I did not get an
erection, sir!”
As we left to
catch up with Sgt. Biers and the rest of the flight, I looked over his gear.
Expensive stone washed jeans. Good-quality linen shirt and standard New Balance
white running shoes. This California sun worshiper did not come from a
destitute background.
***
Biers leaned on
Corso mercilessly. I didn’t interfere, because I was curious about how much he
could take. Every trainee in the flight, all sixty of them were run ragged to
the point they virtually had no time to perform all their duties, at least to
the impossible standards we set. Corso came as close as any, even with the
distraction of extra harassment. In my opinion, he should have been Dorm Chief,
the trainee Flight Leader, but Biers wanted a man named Windle, claiming the
kid’s two years of AFROTC had at least taught him his left foot from his right.
There wasn’t much doubt about Windle’s reason for enlisting. He was aiming
straight for OTS, Officer’s Training School at Maxwell AFB in Alabama.
Biers found
fault with Corso everywhere we went: finance, personnel, career orientation.
Wayne didn’t even like his haircut—and he was shaved damned near bald like
every other trainee in the squadron.
Corso was a
standout at PC, physical conditioning. His athletic form and crisply executed
sit-ups and pushups drew the eye amid a mass of sweating, straining, sloppy
young bodies. He’d built those muscles in a gym and kept them toned in the surf
near his home in Monterrey. Unlike the punks from the Mean Streets of a dozen
cities, his muscles were not for show, they had strength behind the definition.
Windle, by contrast, would be doing good to pass his PC assessment during the
third week of training.
Our Rainbows
received their uniform issue and graduated to Baby Flight status, recognizable
by the white running shoes they wore with their BDUs, battle dress
uniforms—what used to be called fatigues. They’d live in the sports shoes a
week before donning boots to accustom their tender toes to walking and marching
and running instead of being carted everywhere by jalopies and convertibles and
subways and escalators.
Corso was
handling Wayne’s double load of shit more or less equitably when I conducted a
graded inspection upon return from the drill pad during WOT 2, the second week
of training. Biers took one side of the bay while I inspected the other. My
attention was drawn across the room as Biers unleashed on Corso. He held the
trainee’s clothing drawer in his hand, and I had just enough time to see
everything looked to be folded and in its proper place before he upended it
onto the floor. Then Biers tossed all the uniforms in the wall locker on top of
the mess.
“Who taught you
to stow your gear, Trainee?” Wayne roared in Corso’s ear. “If you ain’t learned
the Air Force way by now, you ain’t gonna never learn it! Might as well pack up
and ship out! Drop down and give me twenty!”
Corso’s jaw
muscles worked overtime as he assumed the position, but he snapped off the
push-ups quickly and cleanly before coming to attention again.
“You straighten
up that mess right now! You hear me, Trainee Corso?”
“Sir, yes sir!”
“Well get to it!
And I’m gonna inspect it again after chow. Understand?”
“Sir, yes sir!”
I let it go, but
hung around for Wayne’s second inspection even though I was on short duty that
day. There wasn’t a thing wrong with the clothing drawer, but Wayne dumped it
on the floor again, anyway.
Now it’s a
normal part of BMT to demand perfection when none can be achieved, but my
junior TI was carrying it a little far. He had a hard-on for Corso, and nothing
the kid could do was going to satisfy him.
During a break
while the flight was scouring its bay, Wayne wandered into the orderly room.
“How come you
still here?” he asked, removing his campaign hat and wiping his brow with a
stubby hand. “Ain’t you got nothing better to do than hang around and mother
your kiddies?”
“Nothing planned
tonight,” I said. We both knew every TI put in long hours, especially during
the early part of the six-week BMT course, and was jealous of every spare
moment of free time.
****
Now Bley's altering his pattern of behavior. What gives. Maybe we'll learn next week.
Now my mantra: Keep on reading and keep on writing. You have something to say… so say it!
My personal links:
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/donald.travis.982
Twitter:
@dontravis3
Don
No comments:
Post a Comment