The Army(part 2)

 When I was brand new at my first duty station I really didn't know anything. I ended up with a couple people that I went to AIT with but that is all I knew. There is a variety of people that stay in the barracks, the only thing that they have in common is that none of them are married. You have drinkers, smokers, chewers, partyers, men, women, churchgoers, and every other kind of person that you can think of. You would think that it would be a hotbed for altercations and arguments but for the most part, we all got along. 

Our barracks had 3 floors, the bottom floor was the admin types, the second floor was the aviation troops and the top floor was the non-commissioned officers. The NCOs were kind of in charge of the barracks and they kept order for the most part. When I first got there I heard of a guy who was borderline crazy, he would do crazy things to prove that he was better than anyone else. One story that I remember was, that he went into the bathroom after a GI party(where the whole floor deep cleans the barracks from top to bottom) he went into the bathroom and ran his finger under the lip on the inside of the toilet to see if it was clean. Rumor has it that he then looked at it and put it in his mouth saying "That looks pretty clean". Sounds crazy to me!

I remember the time that I met the unit's first sergeant for the first time. His name was 1sgt Snyder, he was in the company admin area and I really didn't even know who he was when I saw him. He saw me and knew that I was new, he asked me my name and I told him and I added that I was an E-nothing. To me, this was a private E-1, which is the lowest rank that the Army has. The 1sgt didn't take too kindly to that, he said "Private there is no such thing as an E nothing, you are a private or E-1...is that clear?" Well, that was a lesson learned and I never did that again. Needless to say, that was not a great impression. Unfortunately, my second meeting with him went almost as bad. I was told by someone that while I was on my way to my first duty station I had met the qualifications to be promoted to E-2 and to put the rank on my uniform. I didn't know better, so I bought the rank and put it on my uniform. I was back in the admin area again and who do I run into? The 1sgt. He immediately saw the rank that I was so proudly displaying on my collar. He lit into me and asked me why I had that on and where were the orders(military paperwork stating I was promoted) saying that I was now an E-2. I stuttered and stammered while reaching up to take the rank off. I was scared to death of this man, he semi smiled and told me to leave it on as he had received the orders that morning. Lesson learned, don't listen to others and wait for the paperwork. 

When you are living in the barracks and you don't have a car your options are limited in what you can do with your time off. You can either do things on post, you can catch a ride with someone that has a car or you can get a taxi to do things off post. There is a lot of drinking no matter where you go. There was a cool little bistro called The Box right outside the front gate that was a popular spot. You could either stay at The Box or you could get started there and then head to the clubs in town. I will be honest that I did both. When you are new to the unit they take you to the box and they introduce you to a drink called the "Flaming Bitch". This drink is basically schnapps that they give you in a shot glass and light it on fire. The seasoned people make the new people drink first, they do this so that the alcohol in the seasoned person's drink has more time to burn off. The new person gets drunk pretty quick because they do shot after shot. There have been newbies and seasoned people burned by this drink. Some newbies tried to take the shot while it was still lit(several terrible outcomes with this). the seasoned people got burned as they tried to drink the shot before the glass got a chance to cool down. 

I made my way to the clubs on numerous occasions, I wasn't a clubber or a dancer but I did like to watch everyone else. I would drink too much but I was too cheap to get a taxi by myself, I also had a good sense of direction, so I would walk back to the barracks. It was a 3-4 mile walk and it was a good time to clear my head before I got into bed for the night. Luckily I didn't keep up the drinking habit for to awful long, I found better things to do with my time. Unfortunately, there are so many others who don't figure out that this is a bad road to continue down.