Chapter 11

Cruel and Unusual Punishment

After everyone had eaten and had the chance to brush their teeth and straighten their uniforms up, we all reported downstairs to the muster area. We stood in formation at attention waiting on the arrival of our drill instructors.

The instructors arrived downstairs, and we could tell by their demeanor that we were fixing to pay for that little screwup in the chow hall.

“So you kids can’t even shut up in the chow line. That is one of the simplest rules we have here. You will notice that when one person screws up, everyone pays. You may wonder why this is. Well, wonder no more. I will tell you why. You are a team, like it or not, so when one of you screws the pooch you all will be punished,” Lt. Hudson stated.

“Fall out and report to the gym. Form up in the gym. Remove your shoes and prepare for severe punishment.” This was ordered by Sgt. Martinez.

I just thought, Son of a bitch. I just cleaned up and got all nice and pretty.

We did as we were told and reported to the gym. The floor in the gym doubled as a basketball court, with a highly polished wooden floor, and stripes painted along the proper areas for a basketball court.

The gym had both retractable seating, in the form of bleachers, and retractable basketball hoops. The gym was a full size court with blue mats stacked and lined up along each wall.

We removed our black highly shined shoes and placed them along the wall nearest the double doors of the gym. We all moved to center court and stood at attention in formation as we were ordered.

Both of our instructors entered the gym and the punishment began. There were no breaks in between exercises. There was no time to get water or contemplate having a heart attack.

Although most of us began begging for relief after about twenty minutes. Of course, while we silently begged for relief, we were also amused and befuddled by the amount of physical abuse that the human body can push through.

We did not realize it at the time, but we were working our muscles, changing our bodies. We were growing stronger and gaining more stamina with each repetition. We did not and could not understand the amount of good we were doing for our bodies, but as we grew stronger and faster, we would understand. We would start to understand the reason for our punishment eventually, but it damn sure wasn’t today. No, today was all about punishment to us; and to put it plainly, it sucked.

We stood after an hour of punishment, the floor beneath our feet was soaked with sweat. Our socks were soaked, our underwear, pants, and T-shirts were all soaked in our own sweat. Our eyes burned from the liquid salt that streamed down our face and dripped off our brows like early morning dew.

We wanted to wipe our faces with our shirts, or at least I did, but I did not or could not find a dry spot on my uniform. Instead, we just stood there at attention, soaked in perspiration, and squinting from the itchy pain in our eyes.

“So, ladies and gentlemen, do you think that you can follow simple instructions now, or do you think we will need to do this again today? I can assure you that if we continue doing this, you will run out of clean uniforms, and you are not allowed to wear dirty, smelly, nasty uniforms,” Lt. Hudson conveyed, rather loudly I might add.

“I can tell you this,” Sgt. Martinez added, “if you run out of uniforms, you will be washing them in the sinks.”

“Now go upstairs and change into a new uniform. I had better be pressed and in good working order too. I don’t want to see any strings hanging off,” Lt. Hudson stated.

One hour after our punishment started, we came staggering out of the gym, pouring sweat. Our uniforms were in tatters with streaks of sweat and dirt acting like crudely placed pin stripes upon our shirts and pants. Our shoes seemed to be the only things that were still clean. Our faces gleamed with sweat and our chest heaved with every deep breath we inhaled.

I don’t know about the rest of my class, but as for myself, I didn’t feel the need to workout anymore today. I was hopeful that everyone felt the same, and I was at least halfway sure that everyone would listen and abide by the rules from now on.

I guess I hoped for too much because this became a daily routine for the six months. Sure, things did get better, and we would go from five times a day to one or two times a day, but that’s not the point. The point is that by month number six, we should have been squared away.

We scrambled to get to the stairs and then clawed our way up the stairs. We spilled into the third floor hallway and limped to our rooms.

I retrieved another nicely pressed uniform from my wall locker. If there is one thing that I took from the military, it was how to respect my uniform and take care of my personal hygiene.

I washed my face in the sink in the bathroom and then I stripped off the wet uniform, layer by layer. I replaced the wet uniform with my nicely pressed uniform. I tucked in my shirt and buckled my belt. I tied my shoelaces and then made my way back down to the muster area.

Some of the recruits took much longer than others, but eventually, we all made it back down stairs.

“Now we are going to file in to the classroom where we will begin our legal studies,” Sgt. Martinez said.