It was about two weeks after taking the oath that I had my first drill, and honestly, I had no idea what to expect — as my recruiter hadn’t been to open about what took place. I was confused as to why it was, where it was, and why it was with, who it was with — but I soon had my questions answered.

Little did I know that in the Army National Guard before you go to BCT (Basic Combat Training) and before you drill with your parent unit (which isn’t until after you go to AIT (Advanced Individual Training — where you learn to do your job) you spend your drill at what the Guard calls ‘RSP’ (Recruit Sustainment Program). This is what they have to prepare you for BCT, which for a 23 year old who hasn’t had any real physical exercise since high school — is nice. Now, I’m not a hefty guy, as you could see from the last entry — and I don’t look my age, this I’ve been told — many times. But I am not in the physical shape (ie. I’ve been lazy since I graduated, and my muscles and body isn’t as flexible and strong) that I once was. So to have something physically and mentally prepare me for BCT, was nice.

I woke up a little late on the day of my first drill, I was scheduled to meet up with my recruiter at the armory at 0715 to ride to our drill site on a bus. I arrived at the armory at 0715, and was sweating bullets — not the best impression to make on your first day, especially as a soldier. Luckily, the bus was way behind schedule, and we didn’t leave the armory until 0800, and we ended up riding with the recruiter instead.

We arrived at our drill location and were told to take our belongings to the barracks, about 1/4th of a mile away from the HQ. The four of us (there were three other recruits that rode up with us) headed to the barracks. The other three were all 18-year-olds, and had all just returned from BCT, about the time I swore in.

We found some bunks, and then they decided to just hang out — which I felt very uneasy about, but wasn’t going to walk back without a battle buddy. Finally the bus arrived and we realized that they were all going to another room in the barracks, that had open bottom bunks, so we sprinted in and grabbed our things and moved them to the other bay before they got inside. We all then loaded up on the bus after being persuaded by the sergeant that had taken me to MEPS. After a short drive back to the HQ we all unloaded the dread words of, “Get the fuck off the bus, god dammit!” by about four sergeants. We all shuffled into a line to sign in, so we get paid, and then fell into formation.

Luckily for me, I had been doing research via YouTube and Reddit on what to expect at BCT, so I was well versed in standing at attention and not looking at the sergeants as they berated you.

I wasn’t told what phase I was supposed to be in, but luckily had read a little on RSP before I left — so I knew I must be in ‘Red Phase’ — like BCT, there are different phases; however, RSP has many colors, while BCT only has red, white, and blue.

Once everyone was in formation we headed outside and sat in the grass, in formation. A sergeant began “talking” to us and then said a lot of funny things, luckily none towards me. RSP is more laid back, so we didn’t get in trouble when we laughed at something he said. This was the beginning of our PT-test, which I dreaded. In the Army you must be able to pass the APFT (Army Physical Fitness Test), every year. Being as how I hadn’t done many exercises other than pushups to prepare for this day, I wasn’t optimistic about passing anything other than my pushup test, which I did. Unfortunately I was about seven short for my situps and 00:10 seconds for my two-mile run. I also threw up after crossing the “finish line”, so that was nice.

We then all ran inside the armory and grabbed three MREs (Meals Ready to Eat), these would be our lunch, dinner, and breakfast — apparently there was a budget issue. After chowing down on a cold MRE, for the record I chose not to use the heat pack to warm it up — we went back to the armory and got into formation.

Once red phase was in formation we were off to a classroom with a sergeant who was a former drill sergeant (and drill sergeant instructor — as in, he taught drill sergeants to do their jobs). In the classroom it was very laid back, though we still addressed him by “sergeant”. We went through a few power points, and had a few open discussions before class was over.

We then marched to the barracks to retrieve an MRE from our bunks and marched back to the armory. This was also a good time for the sergeant to teach us how to march and sing cadence. We got the armory and the other phases were already lined up along the walls, sitting and eating. We joined them and before I knew it, we were done for the day.

We headed to the barracks and spent some time socializing and texting our wives (just me, actually — the rest are still teenagers, and single). Then it was lights out and it took forever for me to get to sleep, it was quite strange sleeping in a twin sized bunk without someone next to me; that was the hardest part — I started thinking about how I didn’t want to do it anymore, and how I just wanted to spend time with my family.

Before long it was 0530 and I woke to the lights on and others scrounging around to get dressed. I hopped out of my bunk and threw on my PT uniform and luckily (we thought) it was storming out. Everybody was talking about how we couldn’t run PT outside since it was lightening out so we would be inside doing PT. This didn’t sound bad to me, I was in no mood to run — I soon found out that I would have rather risked it all running in the rain and lightening.

We were bussed over to the armory where we began our morning PT. We started off with 2-minutes of jumping jacks, which I didn’t realize how long that was until about 30 seconds in; basically you can figure that one jumping jack takes maybe two seconds — that’s a lot of jumping. Afterwards we did a lot of stretches and basic exercises like pushups and mountain climbers, all in 2-minute sequences. It didn’t take long for the majority of us to start hurting, and feeling weak. After the sergeant was done watching us give less than 100%, we went outside in the rain, about 50 yards from the armory, in the parking lot — and had to inch worm back inside. An inch worm, I found out, is where you are in a pushup position, and you walk your feet to your hands, when your feet meet your hands you then extend your hands (by walking them) back to pushup position. We then finished off our PT back inside with some planks, sprints, and more crappy stuff.

Finally it was over, we got into formation and were at last allowed a drink from our water source (bottle, canteen, etc). We then went back to the barracks and ate our breakfast, my last MRE was beef stew, so I just ate my crackers and Skittles. Then after attempting to clean our barracks and latrines, we again had to clean it, until our sergeant made a visual inspection of the latrine and ensured it was clean of “pubic hairs” and water drops. We fell out of formation and loaded up, after a 30 minute drive we were back to our parent unit’s armory where we debriefed with our recruiter and headed home.

I took a nice nap when I got home. The next three days, I was absolutely sore. But I endured the suck.