First published in February, 2008, this was my introduction to Air Force basic training. This story relates something of which I’m not particularly proud, but in my defense… ah heck. Just read and hopefully enjoy.
3708th Basic Military Training Squadron, Flight 262, Dorm A7, Lackland AFB, San Antonio, Texas. March 30, 1991.
Four o’clock in the morning. Maybe. Didn’t have a watch. It was f-ing early, that much I know.
They woke us all up at 3am yesterday in NYC, hustled us to the airport, flew us to San Antonio, ran us all over the place until we finally were allowed to go to bed at 4am. Forty-nine guys asleep and me lying there awake. On the first night of basic training, the guy next to me wouldn’t stop snoring.
Not just your ordinary snoring, of course, but the deep, wet, sloppy, “you think he’s done but then he’s not” elephant-snoring, the kind that ruins marriages. The kind that reduces concrete dormitories to rubble. The kind that keep me awake.
The beds were aligned side-by-side, but alternating head/feet directions so nobody breathed on each other at night or could look each other in the eye. So when I reached over to wake him up, I tapped his calf with the tip of my index finger.
He didn’t stop snoring. Heck, he didn’t even move. If anything the snoring grew worse. I pushed his leg. No effect. I shoved. Nada. I ever so slightly closed my fist and tapped him with that.
Zero.
I sat up and hit his leg. With authority. How could he sleep through that? He must be dead, but he’s still snoring, so he’s obviously not. And I punched his calf again. And again.
He. Is. Still. Asleep.
Now I was really torqued. From my fist, I extended the knuckle from my middle finger while keeping the fingers coiled, reared back like Tom Seaver, and blasted him in the calf with that. Twice. Three times! Stop snoring, you tree-climbing bed-wetter!
He was still asleep.
Whatever sense of rational thought I had left got up and hotfooted it back to the airport. Grabbing his ankle with my left hand, I drove my knuckle-fist deep and hard into his flesh, hoping to reach his bone and leave an imprint upon it. Although I didn’t make a sound, in my head I was screaming like a blood-thirsty warrior demanding my enemy submit to my will!
And he didn’t even flinch. But he did let out one h#ll of a good “snark-snore”.
OK, I surrender. He’s going to snore all night, I’ll just have to live with it. I laid back down and stared into nothingness as the snores shook the ceiling tiles. Eventually, thankfully, and fitfully, sleep finally took me.
GET UP!! Five in the morning and the guy bashing a trash can woke us up to blazing lights and screaming instructors wearing big black hats. Their invasion reminded us all that the previous day was no dream, we really were in basic training. We all jumped out of bed and stood quivering with our backs to the wall lockers and let them scream at us, as it seemed that’s the only thing that really made them happy.
Except our bed-side neighbor wasn’t with us against the lockers. He was on the floor, actually, screaming and clutching his leg. Nobody had heard him over the trash-can percussion and insult-chorus. What the heck was wrong with him? The instructors ran over to him and spat-screamed at him, demanding to know why he wasn’t making them happy and standing against the lockers.
They lifted him up and his calf was purple. He had tried to jump out of bed, but his leg gave out from under him due to the blindingly intense pain that was shooting up it. Wow, look at that mess. What the heck happened to his leg? Bedbugs? Scorpions?
…
Um. Oh. Yeah.
They made him shake it off and stand on one foot against the locker, then spat-screamed at him once more because they had stopped and needed to get their vocal-engines primed. And they all took off down the line, skipping me entirely. My face was quite dry.
On the one hand, I felt really bad. I’d never injured a defenseless person before. Honestly, in my sleepless delirium, I had no clue I was injuring him at all. Resorting to fisticuffs is just not how I roll.
But if I have to be completely honest, I must admit that I had to work really, really hard not to grin. I knew the instructors would’ve used it as an excuse to spittle-scream in my face. Which they never did the entire time I was there.
Don’t worry Daniel, we all would have done the same. I can confess to resorting to violence whenever my brother has kept me awake with his snoring.
The airman next to my bunk was a sleep talker & walker.
During the talking parts, our end of the dorm was constantly entertained by his jabber. And this would sometimes include content that seemed like it would have been in a letter to his girlfriend. Gee….audio porn, just what I needed.
His sleep walking kept me hopping, as trying to chase him down before he killed himself was a regular thing for me. But one night I did not catch him during his walk; I awoke to the sight of his empty bunk during the middle of night. I grabbed the dorm guard on duty and we went looking for our elusive sleepwalker. We could not find him anywhere. Both thinking the same thing, the dorm guard and I both cast a worried glance at the one-way emergency exit door……did I mention our dorm was on the second floor? Thinking the worst, we quietly open the door, expecting to see his broken body somewhere on the exterior emergency exit steps. He was huddled there, just outside the door, shivering in a January rain…..now wide awake, and wondering if we had all played a college style prank on him. He lived through that one!
I became good friends with him and always stayed in touch. I became a KC-135 Crew Chief and he became some kind of super secret information dude. His sleep talking got him kicked out when it was discovered that he would carry on cogent talks in his sleep that detailed the super secret info.
I had a sleep walker in my dorm. He woke me up one night as he fumbled his way around and ignoring the words of wisdom never to wake a sleep walker I called out to him to get back into bed.
The next thing I knew he was leaning over my bunk and I looked up in disbelief as he drew back his right arm. He wasn’t? Surely not? Fortunately I’m not one of those unfortunate souls who take forever to wake up and I whipped my head to one side as this guy’s fist slammed into my pillow, right next to my head. I’m glad he was sleep boxing and I was able to dodge his blow, because this guy was also our dorm’s boxing champ.
“Paul, you’re sleep walking!” I practically yelled up at him. “Go back to bed!”
“I’m just looking for the toilet,” he said, clearly still half asleep, but at least he wandered off in the right direction.
Looking back it’s a lot funnier, and I’m actually glad he mistook my bunk for a punching bag, and not the latrine.
I don’t remember much about Navy basic training back in ’98 (except how to properly fold my underwear after I stencilled my name on them) but I do remember the Gopher Watch. This was a watch stood but those that had royally screwed up the day prior. They were forced out of their racks every hour of the night to walk up and down the compartment, unzipping the uniform bags hanging from the end of our bunks, placing their heads inside the bags and shouting, “gopher, gopher, gopher” until they had finished with all 30 or so bunks. God bless the Navy.
Unfortunately, I was the snorer in my platoon for Navy basic training in `96
I was the dorm chief in basic. In about the 3rd week one of my females came to me and asked me to do something about the girl beside her because she could not stand the smell anymore.
“Whaaaat? ” I asked.
Seems the bunk buddy next to her had been wetting the bed and had not showered since we were there. (At least she wasnt in the bunk above!)
So I made the stinky suspect pop open her security drawer and she had no soap, no toothpaste, no toothbrush, nada… she said she didnt want to get yelled at for having messy bottles…. I wished for snorer… Oh Lackland how I miss thee.
he keeps u up at night
you kept him down at day xD
I wonder, Dan, if he had awoken to find you driving your fist between his anklebones… What would’ve happened then?
Frankly, I completely understand you. Being kept awake at night due to some other person’s impediment is god awful and does bring out the worst in people, the sleep deprivation with quite clear target of your discomfort ridding anyone of any rational thoughts.
I would have done the same, probably.
I just stuck one of his boot socks over his mouth…usually out of his barracks bag. He started sleeping on his side, and the snoring was at least pointed the other direction, and much milder. Side note: Should’ve pushed his ass on the floor…or just helped him roll off the bunk…
OMG. I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time. Thanks.
On another note, I have a question. Will there be any new Airman Howell stories?
P.S. – Him in the Gravatar there, that’s my long-awaited-but-finally-found Spirit Beast. /woot.
During the first half of my basic training I had to endure a guy who snored much the same way. After not to long we gave him 2 options, either purposely fall asleep after us or suffer whatever punishment we dish out to wake you up. Luckily for him and us halfway through basic he was moved to a different room when the instructors decided to introduce us all to new people. The guy that replaced him rather than snore, sort of purred like a kitten and soothed us all to sleep.
WAYYYY OT
Who needs Shaq when you have Terror Glue ,,,,
; – )
I really enjoy the blog posts you’ve made but lets get some new stuff in here.
I only sleepwalk when I am super drunk. Unfortunatley, when I was on a Navy ship over seas, I woke up one morning to “What the F are you doing” I guess when I woke up I was taking a leak on my buddy’s rack curtains. Yea, definatley not one of my best moments in life. Alcohol is the devil.
Yeah assholes who snore are like animals you can just beat them up lol!!!
Relax, Chad, blogging is something you do for fun, not to please your readers.
I see you’re playing again.
Keep it on the DL and you won’t get the banhammer from Red again.
So he’s been catching up! No wonder we haven’t seen him in over a week.
Hmm, are you playin again? i noticed you have uldaur achives.
>_> im telling the hunter community if you are.
Perhaps it’s not so much that’s he catching up, but perhaps he’s on an ultimatum… “Ok, Dan, you can play, but no blogging.”
Yeah.. BRK is totally playing again.. like 6 25 Man Ulduar Drops.
I don’t think he mentioned quitting the game. He just cut back on playing and stopped the WoW-related posting because of balance issues.
Patch Notes
BRK was reduced to 20%, down from 70%.
Real Life has been adjusted and now overwrites BRK.
This rebalancing brought things back into a more natural RL > Gaming state. Gaming state has been adjusted to reflect a restoration of actual RL functionality after the patch.
Yeah, I’m yanking the numbers outta my backside. Now leave the man alone so he make new, non-WoW related original content.
Great post! Just wanted to let you know you have a new subscriber- me!