For the past three days, I'm not sure if you guys have noticed, but I've not been on. The reason for that is because I was at mini-boot camp with some people in my JROTC unit.
I had fun, of course, but now as I said, I'm so damn sore I can't move. I think my friend and I are the two that came home the most sore. She hit her head twice on the obstacle course and I fell on the confidence course from the monkey bars and hit my back on the wood.
There's a gigantic fuckin' bruise.
That's the one on my back after that fall.
Here's a rundown of all three days,
We repelled, which was fun as hell. That was the first thing we did. The tower wasn't that bad, only 40 feet. Getting over the ledge was the worst part. My shoes were slick and my knees weren't straight enough so I slipped, went sideways and hit my arm on that ledge.
We unpacked and set up our lockers and made our beds when we got back to the barracks. We walked through the obstacle course and were shown the confidence course. After that we eat dinner. We also played kick ball for a little while. Winning team had first shower, which was awesome. We also didn't have to clean the bathroom.
The next morning, which, by the way, just so you know, it was lights out at 10, we woke up at 5:30 in the morning and had to be outside by 6:00.
Anyways, we PT'd in the rain and the ones leading it were from a school where all the cadets are athletes and all they do is PT. The instructor PT's his cadets like they're active duty soldiers. I was horrible. To make it worse, the guy leading was leading was that particular instructor's son and he kept restarting the freaking exercises. What they consider a warm up is like half of our push day during PT. For our unit it, Tuesday is push day, Friday is fun day. After that, if that wasn't bad enough, we went for a run.
I walked. Of course.
I was tired already and had nothing to eat so the only thing in me was water. That came back to bite me in the ass. I won't even bother to go into details. That instructor pissed me off though. I was walking and he was beside me and I told him I had asthma but I haven't had to have an inhaler since I was little and he was like 'well you shouldn't be here then.'
I about flipped shit. I stopped for a second thinking 'who the fuck are you to tell me I shouldn't be here? I came here voluntarily asshole. I should be here because I want to be, not because I can hold up to your ridiculous PT.'
After that, they gave us breakfast, which I could barely eat. My friend, the one that hit her head twice, actually got sick from it. I'm actually not even sure if she ate anything.
When we were done, they split us up and took. Half of us went to use M4 simulators, and the other to the land navigation class, then we switched. M4's are pretty much the same as M16's, just shorter. That sucked. My right arm locked up which made it sore as hell. I didn't even pay attention to the freaking score I got. I do know now though, I won't be joining the rifle team next year. I will stick with drill team.
When we were done with that we went to the land navigation class which was pretty cool, then we went and got all muddy in the obstacle course. I couldn't get over any of them until I got to the weave, which is the A frame type thing that you have to go under the log, then over till you got to a certain point, then climb back down, but one of the instructors from another school just let me climb over it. Even that wasn't as easy as it looked because when you got to the top the gaps between the logs were bigger.
I got over the highsteps, but of course, no one was there, so I just grabbed them and swung over. There was the swing one, then the barbed wire where you had to crawl through mud and sand while keeping your head down. That was fun, but I'd already hit my knee twice trying to get over the vaults earlier in the course, so with the sand it felt like my knee was getting cut open. After that, there was the small wall that I got over easily, and then I had to climb up the net, and that was pretty much it because they had a few things off limits.
That course was the easy one. It seems like it'd be more difficult, but the confidence one is worse. The confidence course is the one that sucked. It was simple, but it sucked.
We did that one like a relay, and when it got to me, I had the monkey bars, because I love doing monkey bars, but I was muddy so I kept slipping. The third time I jumped up there, one of the guys in my group, I got to school with him, he went to grab my feet to help keep me up and when he did, my left hand slipped, and I came down somewhat sideways and hit my back right on the wood. Had he tried to keep me up I would've probably hit my head or spine. I just barely missed my spine. It knocked the air out of me, but I let out a demonic sounding growl because it hurt like a bitch.
I had to stop after that. One of the instructors that was from another school, we just called him Major, he looked at it and said it looked like a blood blister, and it did that first time. Now the redness has gone down and that picture is pretty much what my back looks like now.
After a few minutes, the pain wore off. Another of my friends walked over and he's like 'you're one of the toughest people I know.' He didn't see the mark though right after it first happened. He saw it the next day though.
That was pretty much it for the day after that, so we went back to the barracks to pack some of our stuff up, got showers, which mine was cut short because I had second shower and I was ready to kill the bitch that kept rushing me because she wanted some freaking food, then we went and ate dinner.
After that, we went and watched a movie, marched back and it was lights out once we got back unless you had first watch, like I did. I had it with a few other girls. When I was done with my watch, I tried to sleep and also froze my ass off that night while because Katie took her blanket back which was only fair because I'd had it the first night. I just wanna mention I did not move much that night because I was so sore I couldn't. I couldn't lay on my back either. I still can't.
Now, on the third and last day, we crawled out of bed at 5:30 like always, went out and had breakfast, then we went to find the points that we'd gotten from the land Navigation class that were around the base. Each group had someone to help them out and we had a Corporal with us. He was also the guy who helped us out with the M4 simulators. I was pace count, since I was the only one in the group who'd counted the pace count for a hundred meters.
So I walked my own pace pretty much, granted it was a little slower at first because I was pretty sore until I got to moving for a while and I just went numb. I was thankful I didn't have to run or anything, because I couldn't run if I wanted to. When we do orienteering, which is pretty similar to land navigation with Lieutenant at school, we usually have to run.
We went and found our points and ended up being the second group done. We got back to the pavillion around 7:15 or so so we hadn't been gone long. The instructor that was up on the weave and his group had already gotten back since theirs were just down the road. When we got back, he and the Corporal (he was one of the national guard guys, if I forgot to mention that. The one who'd helped me on the weave was not) talked for a couple of minutes and I sat down.
The Corporal had been talking about how he used land features to help him out, so since we got done early, he was like 'we're gonna go find some without using pace count, scouting or a compass.' Then he turned to me and since he'd seen me hit my back the day before he kept checking on me every so often and was like 'you don't have to come with us if you don't want to.' And by that point, just from sitting there for that couple of minutes, the pain was setting back in, so I got up and was like 'yeah, I'll come with you.'' and the instructor was like 'she's a trooper!' I just told him I got it from my mom, because I do. She did raise a Marine after all. After that, we walked around for a good 45 minutes to an hour and Corporal (leaving out names on purpose) was talking about basic training and we came up to this place where they do infantry simulations with paintball guns.
That was pretty cool, then we found a couple of more points and walked back. After that, we went over to the barracks, which were right by the pavillion to finish packing up our stuff while waiting for lunch. They fed us another MRE after that, which is literally a meal ready to eat, that's what MRE stands for and if you don't drink a lot of water with them, they'll bind you up really bad. They actually are not bad to eat. They're not the greatest thing in the world, but if you are hungry you'll eat it. I actually think some of them, which we had two in total, the rest of what we ate was normal food, probably taste better than school food. The first one I had did. The second was way too spicey.
When we got done with lunch, we went and cleaned the barracks and loaded our stuff onto the bus and left the base. We then headed out to Cumberland river where we were going tubing. The first stop we made was at the actual place to pay for tubing. Well, one of the guys, I'll just call him H, had eaten the refried beans and drank one of those hawaiian punch shakes and had to use the bathroom really badly. He was in there for like ten minutes, and they guys from the other schools who were in there with him, well, I'm just gonna say they came out with a mortified look on their faces. Our unit's commanding officer, who'd gone with him, because we had to have a battle buddy anywhere we went, had left like five minutes before H came out because it was that bad.
I'm just gonna say now, if an MRE comes with any kind of drink which only a few do, most people say they don't taste very good, the reason why is because it's a freaking laxative because like I said earlier, MRE's alone bind you up. The candy was laced with it too. It's got just enough, apparently, those drinks (which include coffee) were overkill on laxatives.
The guy who'd tried to help me on the confidence course had put like five packets of the orange drink in his canteen and was sharing it with like four other guys. We drove for about 45 minutes up the road, which was curvey as hell, just like the one that leads to the lake, to our starting point on the river. Well, when we stopped, we had about 2 hours to kill while another school went down the river. When we stopped, he and those other guys, H included, ran like hell for the bathroom as soon as Lt. said they could. You know where that's going, but it was funny as hell. I laughed until I was nearly crying, but that was more due to the fact that it hurts like a bitch to laugh.
We ate lunch, which was a damn good turkey sandwich, chips and some water, took a group photo and talked on one of the staircases until it was time for us to go. When we finally did, all was well and good for awhile until I tried to roll over and then I couldn't get back on the damn tube because the water was too deep and even if I could've stood up I wouldn't have because I would've gotten my foot stuck or something, so to get back up on the tube, my friend and I stopped on a sandbank just before the rapids at the end.
During the rapids, I about got stuck on a tree branch, then that was pretty much it.
On the way back we stopped and Lt. got us all ice cream at Dairy Queen, which was amazing, but Lt. had me wishing I'd gotten the mint oreo blizzard instead the regular.
I finally got home, unpacked and all that, took a shower, went to sleep and now, well, I'm sore.
Excessively sore.
I thought I couldn't move before we went tubing, hah, it was worse after.
That was pretty much the run down of those three days.
Longest. Three. Days. EVER.
I gotta say, the most fun thing for me was the orienteering and the repelling.
That's pretty much what it looks like from the eyes of the person who's getting you over the ledge of the tower that you repel down. The National Guard tower, I think was maybe a few feet higher. It was 40 feet up.
The ledge is the worst part. After that, it's awesome. Especially if you jump.
I also now feel the need to mention that the Corporal who was with us for orienteering was fucking hot.
Okay. I'm done now. That was the last three days for me. According to the Corporal, what we were doing was pretty much what basic training for the national guard is like, only it's for six to nine weeks, not three days.
Now, on the question of whether or not I'll be going back, it depends, but at least now, I have a new goal. I'm going to build up my lungs by swimming over the summer, push myself more on the mile runs for PT and try harder on those courses if I go back, and to be honest, I probably will, because despite the pain, it was fun. It was all worth it. I'm also gonna see if I can't get back into martial arts and get a gym membership here in town. That'll help me too,
But if I can get my lungs more built up, and I'm going to one way or another, I'm going to go back and show that one instructor I can PT just as well as his cadets.
Even further so, I'm going to complete that damn obstacle course completely.
Right now, the main thing is that I'm trying to figure out whether its asthma that makes it hard for me to run or if it's just that I have shitty cardio. The 'asthma' only effects me when I'm running so I think it's just shitty cardio. I'm hoping it's just shitty cardio.
I guess the long term goal of it is for the next 3 years of high school, I'm gonna work my ass off to do all of that incase I decide to go into the military. If I do, it'll be the guard. I've always just kind of been like 'well, I've got asthma, I can't go into the military if I ever wanted.' Up until this year I hadn't considered it, and now that I've got a taste of it, more so than most people ever do, I have considered it and I'm going to do my damn best to make sure it's an option for me when the time comes.
Alright, I'm done now.
~Brea--
No. I'm not done yet. What do you guys think of the new blog layout? I came across the banner while searching for a picture of an anchor and I fell in love with it. I'm definitely getting it tattooed some day. The digital camo, of course, is because I freaking fell in love with it. I saw so much of it over while on the national guard base, it was kind of hard not to.
Okay.
NOW I am done.
~Breanna
Edit: I just found out, my friend that hit her head, she has 2 broken ribs and 3 fractures on 2 ribs. That makes me wanna go get my back looked at because I did hit my ribs. The first thing that went through my mind was that I'd probably broken a rib. If she has broken ribs just from falling on the during the obstacle course, I at least bruised mine, because I hit mine on solid wood.
She still says she's going back next year. Hell yeah for her. If she's going back, I'm going back.