Dead Cow Souls

I’m not sure if they still do this today. It has been at least 20 years since Basic Training.

Basic, as we called it, didn’t start so dramatically like you would see in movies and TV shows. We spend the first few days, or weeks depending how unlucky you were, at In-processing (I will spare you those details for now).

Anyway, the real shit wouldn’t start until we got picked up from In-processing by these large silver cattle cars (trailers) which were towed by a semi truck. I remember staring at this gigantic silver twinkie, wondering how many poor cows were hauled away to their deaths before this thing was repurposed for Uncle Sam.

Date of entry

I did not come from a long line of military men. Nor was I the typical high school football jock, looking to escape the inevitability of a dead end 9 to 5 job.

No, what did it for me was watching GI Joe on TV and movies like Rambo and Full Metal Jacket. I was a kid who grew up in a time when war with Russia was a possibility. My head was filled with patriotism and America before it became ‘Merica.

Introduction

This blog has been a long time coming. I finally decided to write about my experiences in the military after exhausting my friends and families with my tales from being in the US Army Reserves. Yes, Reserves. You are not going to read about me digging deep into my soul at Ranger school or how close I came to slaying a whole squad of bloodthirsty ‘Merica hating insurgents. There’s enough books out there in that market.

This blog will hopefully make you laugh at the shenanigans I experienced in the Army. I understand I might offend some veterans out there, but this is my experience, not yours. Of course names will be changed to protect the innocent, and dates will not be accurate because frankly it’s been a long time.