My Airborne Training Journal

Day 1, 05MAY2023

I'm writing this late into the day so it won't be as long as I'd like, but fuck it. Welcome to the military, nothing goes as planned. It's annoying, but you just have to grin and bear it.

Let me start off with some context. Literally yesterday, I was told by my AIT Drill Sergeant that I would be leaving for Airborne School... Today. I was lucky enough to have the foresight to pack and send everything I thought I wouldn't need for school with a few exceptions.

Those exceptions were my laptop, my brand-new Pokemon Diamond and Pearl Switch Lite, and my phone simply because I can have it. I packed them all the day before except for my Switch and phones since I would be using them for the nearly 4 hour ride from Fort Gordon to Fort Benning.

When I woke up, I remembered that I did laundry the previous day to make sure that I had no dirty clothes. This is when the issues began. Despite sending all the clothes I wouldn't need back home, I still had too much. It wouldn't fit in my duffle bag and worst of all I still had to pack my sheets. We were issued some at the beginning of AIT, but I didn't want to have to make my bed a certain way everyday. So I bought my own. Context aside, I had to carry another bag; my laundry bag.

Honestly, not that big of a deal. Down a few stairs and I could set them down... Here's the fun part. I was 40 minutes early to the hit time, so I sat at CQ for the time. More context... I woke up at 0230 when the hit time was 0350. I could've taken a nap. I didn't because of insomnia.

Moving on. As the hit time approached, more and more Airborne and RASP(a prerequisite for Ranger from what I heard) volunteers came down. Once the Drill Sergeant verified that everyone was there, we were told to stand by our doors so the DS(how I'll be saying Drill Sergeant from now on) could clear us for leaving.

One last hurrah, I woke up my roommate one last time since he slept through his alarm for the third day in a row. I might as well do him this solid since he'd be going on HRAP(Hometown Recruiting) the next day. We'd be stationed at the same base, but he'd get there before me. HRAP is 2 weeks long and Airborne School is 3.

We got help from our classmates when moving our bags to the other building our company had. It only made sense since we had over 400 people in our company; nearly 3-4 times what the other companies in our and other brigades had. From there we loaded our bags into the Duty Van before we did our final ruck to Gym 5.

We unloaded our bags on the wrong side, thanks to the DS, and moved them to the correct side. We gave one final goodbye to the DS before he drove off... Only to return because a buddy of mine left a PS5 controller by accident. Don't ask me how, I don't know.

Of course, we waited for the Airborne Cadre to get to the gym. Once he did, he told us to separate our bags into three piles; duffle bags, rucksacks, and personal bags. I had a rucksack, a duffle bag, my bookbag(it held my laptop), my laundry bag, and my uniform bag(because you never go anywhere in the military without your dress uniform).

We were then separated into Airborne and RASP. We each got our respective briefs about how things would go at training and a pre-breif brief about our unceremonious guest speaker; the Regimental Command Sergeant Major. We got a photo inside the gym, one of the last photos I would take at Fort Gordon.

I was nervous. I physically couldn't stand still, both from the cold and the anxiety that grew within me. Doubts and concerns filled my thoughts. I cursed my lack of upper body strength, my lack of PT in the last week, and the last time I'd see some of my classmates and friends for who knows how long.

Five months. Five months of training, hardship, and overall bullshit. It felt like home at that point. I was about to leave it behind. The little shoppet next to it where we often walk past during our ruck marches. It was just there... Sitting closed until a long while later. Several times I walked there with a Battle Buddy or two just to get a haircut or buy lunch.