“Reception Battalion Sucks”
Surviving Week Zero at Army Basic Combat Training
We were shouted into a room to begin processing. After some pretty bad sack lunches we were given “line numbers” to identify us. I was not “Rich,” as I had been for 30 years. Nor was I “Stowell,” as my recruiter called me. I wasn’t even “last four 0551,” as the processing command had identified me. Here, on my first day of BCT I was christened “117,“ “one-one-seven,” which, in the military, is very different from “one seventeen.” The latter would make you sound like a fool.
I and the other 150 or so young men who had made the bus ride that day made up Second Platoon in the 95th Adjutant General Battalion — “Reception Battalion,” for short. A few dozen more would join us over the next few hours and to be the most recent 200 soldiers to begin training in This Man’s Army. That day some clothing was issued to us and we were moved into our barracks, where I was introduced to my new “Battle Buddy.” His name, as fate would have it, was 118. Before he arrived at Sill he was Matthew Beal, a simple guy from North Carolina who knew three things: that his mama loved him, that Jesus died for him, and wrestling.
It seemed like everyone was from North Carolina. Or Mississippi. Or any state that at any point in history had raised arms against the union. I could count on two hands…
