Remembering Tank Hill On This Memorial Day Weekend

I joined the Army Reserves when I was 17. I waited a year, learning about Army regulations, speaking with my recruitment sergeant and meeting other Reservists. And then, in June of 1984, I began basic training.

I remember meeting a girl at during the medical exams who had spent the previous evening smoking pot. She had ingested a ton of penicillin in the hopes of absorbing the marijuana in her body and passing the physical. We never saw her again, so that may not have worked. The travel day, we were loaded onto a bus and taken to the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport, where we boarded a plane to Georgia. We deplaned, wandered over to our connecting flight to South Carolina, and waited. And waited. Six hours. We slept; something told us this would be the last time we’d be able to do that for awhile.

Upon arrival in South Carolina, we were loaded onto another bus and taken to the reception station. Understand, none of us had any idea what we were doing, we just went where the drill sergeants told us to go. We were exhausted, dirty, hungry, and we were not allowed to fall asleep. Granted, the fact that in between uniform “fittings,” we were seated on concrete benches made it impossible to sleep, but some managed to pass out.

We received out BDU’s also known as the camouflage we would wear every day, our PT clothes, our dress uniforms, socks, boots, our steel pot (helmet), dress shoes, sneakers and the boys had their heads shorn. Some of the girls did, too-it was hot as hell, and long hair seemed to be an added inconvenience. Then back on the bus, and we were off to the barracks of Fort Jackson.

As we drove along company streets, we noticed that on one side, buildings that looked a lot like apartment buildings were visible, while on the other side, buildings that looked a lot like giant stick houses appeared. Our drill sergeant, Sergeant Lee, informed us that the large, brick buildings was Hollywood. Those barracks had air conditioning. The giant stick houses were Tank Hill. No air conditioning. Guess where Echo Company wound up? Tank Hill.

Day one was movie and M-16 day. They showed movies on purpose to see who could stay awake after being threatened with grave punishment for falling asleep. None of us had slept in over 24 hours, and the sandman was beating us over our collective heads. Hygiene was the topic of the morning, then more Army regulations, we learned our schedule, were introduced to our rifles and then we ate. It was after the first evening meal that we learned how insane this was going to be.

Army food, at least back then, was laden with starch, heavy and greasy. We had 15 minutes to eat, and as we scraped our trays into the garbage, we heard something that made our stomachs drop into our boots. “Double time back to barracks!” Oh my God. We had just consumed our weight in food, and now a 6’ something giant drill sergeant was screaming we had to RUN back to the barracks. We did it, and every few feet, you would see some poor private, puking in the bushes.

We got into a rhythm. PT at 4am, breakfast at 6, maneuvers at 6:30, films, meetings, school, marching class. We had Sundays off, and we all went to Chapel. Not to pray, but to talk to boys. Then there were the punishments. I was dropped by Alpha Company’s drill sergeant for smoking on a company street, in front of Alpha Company (boys) as they were getting ammo from the weapons depot. I began my push-ups, and made it to 30-something before the drill came back out of the depot. “What are you doing?” she asked. “Push-ups, Drill Sergeant!” “How many have you done, Private?” “30-something, Drill Sergeant!” The blacktop was burning my hands, I had sweat in my eyes, but I knew if I didn’t follow orders, it would be much worse. “Private, when you are dropped, you only have to do 25 push-ups.” Oops.

We had a West Point cadet following us around, and we devised a neat contest to impress him. First platoon to reach 1,000 push-ups got an extra day off. Echo Company won, thank you very much, in THREE days. The catch was we had to find him, and he had to watch our push-ups, then record them. Echo Company also nailed the gas house. As we were puking and gasping for air after not one of us tried to leave that nightmare early, we looked up, and a couple of the boys from Alpha Company were trying to crawl out through a window. Score another one for the girls.

I contracted pneumonia 5 weeks into basic, and was hospitalized for 4 days. I missed bivouac, I missed a parade I had choreographed and in the end, I was given a medical discharge and sent home. I weighed 88 pounds, which wasn’t good. But I could do 100 push-ups without much trouble and I don’t think I had any body fat anywhere. I made some good friends in basic, including two people who were killed in Iraq.

So, this Memorial Day, I remember those two friends, I remember my dad’s friend who died in Vietnam, and I remember that we can support the troops without supporting the wars. And I remember Drill Sergeant Lee laughing his ass off when I told him I was in the middle of 30+ push-ups when the Alpha Company drill told me to stop. Drill Sergeant Lee called me “tough as fucking nails.” I’m still tough as fucking nails, Drill Sergeant, thanks in no small part to you.

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