“Relentless Valor.” Authors Kenneth D. Hughes and Richard J. Hast, available on Amazon. Comments are welcome.
Most everyone who has served in the military has had a unique experience in basic training or boot camp. Drill Sergeants or Drill Instructors leave lasting impressions upon these naïve recruits. Often the training doctrine was repetition. The prevalent teaching methodologies in the 1960s included profanity, verbal degradation, and physical abuse. This one is one of mine, Ft. Benning’s Sand Hill Basic Training, November 1967, Ken Hughes
Chapter One: You’re in the Army Now
Drill sergeants approached their job with a specific brand of sadistic wit. Their main agenda: subordinate the recruit via name calling, physical abuse, personal challenges, and the occasional head slap or boot to the ass.
“Shit bird, maggot face, dipshit, queer, and other names served as standard vernacular of the men wearing Smokey the Bear hats. Profanity peppered every part of speech. They applied four-letter words as adverbs, verbs, nouns, adjectives, and even extra syllables, screamed a tirade to hammer training into their recruits. “Ab-so- f**king-loot-ly” lent itself to many situations.
The hackneyed homily of colloquialisms was a specialty of drill sergeants who never wanted for an opportunity to correct the errant missive of a recruit. In one memorable event, at the Sand Hill basic training grounds of Ft. Benning, an errant soldier, wanting to be home for Thanksgiving, went AWOL. At 0600 hours the company was called to formation for roll call. The first sergeant, an extraordinarily fit soldier, began calling out the roll in his deep baritone southern accent. Everyone is responding, “Here, Drill Sergeant,” until he gets to “Private Hudgez.” Silence. “Private HUD-GEZ!” Still silence. “Private Kenneth D. Hudgez.”
The author yells out, “HERE, DRILL SERGEANT!”
He says, “Step out to the front.” I do this at attention. He yells, “Don’t you know your own name?”
I respond, “It’s HUGHES, Drill Sergeant!”
He yelled “Drop and give me twenty. You can’t even pronounce it!”
Excerpt from “Relentless Valor.” Authors Kenneth D. Hughes and Richard J. Hast, available on Amazon.
