Army births toughened student
- posted: 09 Oct. 2007
- scrollopinion@byui.edu
So I was lying in a sleeping bag that I imagine was what my mother’s womb probably felt like — and let me tell you — it felt good. That’s when it all exploded.
Literally.
One moment I was in my pseudo-womb, the next a loud eruption woke me from my slumber. I opened my eyes only to realize that I was outside in the middle of the woods, it was pitch black, snowing and cold.
If that wasn’t enough, shortly after the explosion there were suddenly loud shrieks piercing the air as if rockets were being hailed on us. I was in a war zone. Instinctively, I started to yell out in Vietnamese, “Take cover! The American GIs are here!”
And then, face red, I realized that it was me. I was an American GI.
I recently joined the BYU-Idaho Army ROTC program, and it’s probably one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. It’s up there with getting married, except that instead of being huddled up with my wife at night, I was sleeping next to my “battle buddy.” Don’t ask, don’t tell.
We had a Field Training Exercise (FTX) recently, and it started with a ride in a Black Hawk helicopter. It was so intense it actually almost made me wet my pants, but in a good, warm kind of way.
The captain told us he was going to give us an authentic battle situation ride — he wasn’t going to do anything he wouldn’t do normally.
I could go into detail, but let’s just say the Army’s version of normal is not the average person’s version of normal. There was a lot of teeth clenching, and at one point, I thought I was going to throw up my heart. No, really. I held out my hands prepared to catch whatever was going to come out of my mouth.
That was just the beginning. I’ve only been doing this whole ROTC thing for a week now, and after that FTX, I could tell that I had a lot to learn. There were some people there who I could tell had been around a lot longer and were heaps more hardcore than I was.
There was this one guy named Richter. (There are no first names in the Army.) That guy was tough — or crazy. We had sat down to have some “chow” — which I thought was just another reference to “chow mein” — and I couldn’t help but watch him eat. We were having roast beef sandwiches (tastes nothing like chow mein, by the way) when I saw him accidentally drop a piece of his roast beef into a cow pie.
I felt bad for him at first until I saw him pick it right up, stuff it back into his sandwich and continue eating. Heck, I think I even saw a smile on his face. Which, by the way, is a metaphor for everything you do in the Army: Even if it’s been dropped in a cow pie, you’re still going to eat it with a smile. 
