They try so hard to teach us.

Hello again,

   In my neverending effort to share and chronicle my experiences, I wanted to take a moment to share with you some of the personalities that entertain, teach and put up with our shit here.  They are the Drill Sergeants of Charlie Company Cobras.

     These guys are some of the most patient souls I have yet to run across in my adult life.  Their motivation and dedication never publicly waivers though I have to believe they want to throw their hands up and walk away on a regular basis.  I certainly wouldn't have the patience to put up with us.  Unfortunately, I don't think they quite understand our culture.  We don't quite believe in group think as much as they do.  It's understandable given their core mission and need for unit cohesion at even the lowest level but it takes some getting used to.

   The first day we met our cadre (the team of Drill Sergeants), they put on a little show for us.  They marched in and introduced themselves with slogans and Hoaahs and all I could think is "Oh my Lord. Where the hell am I?"  Then they proceeded to share with us the Cobra call to arms: "Cobras....sssss." I would have expected something tougher but I guess not everyone gets to bark so hissing is the next best thing.  At least we weren't the Owls or some other sisssified shit.  Could you see ninety Sailors doing a half-assed attempt at "whooo, whooo?"  Our half-assed attempt at hissing was embarrassing enough for one lifetime.

    As time moved forwad, we saw some of the members of cadre more than others.  Not all of them are mentioned below, but here are some of the guys who had the extreme pleasure of basking in our presence:

   Drill Sergeant Folder:  This guy loves the group chant.  He may have been a cheerleader in his high school days.  I can just see it now...."When I say Win, you say Team."  Every other sentence he would give ask us a question and expect a 10-minute synchrnized answer.  I'm don't know if we actually learned anything during his lectures but boy can we chant in unison.  Some of my favorites:

    Folder: Are you motivated?
    Us:   Motivated, motivated, down right motivated. You check this out, you check this out. Hoaah!

    Folder:  Ya'll tracking?
    Us:  We're tracking Drill Sergeant, tracking like a GPS!  (Now I don't know about you but my GPS likes to get me lost and usually in the ghetto.  My GPS likes to recalculate on the regular.)

  Folder always has a smile thought and that's contagious.  He seems happy to see us and that usually makes the group happy to see him.  So if I have to spend 40 minutes chanting to absorb 20 minutes of information,  I can live with that I guess.

  The Jones boys: We have two Drill Sergeant Jones in our Company.  In order to keep them straight, someone along the way classified them as Pretty Jones and Slingblade Jones.

    Pretty Jones looks like he might still be in his teens and could have walked out of an Ambercrombie and Fitch ad.  He has a bit of that Southern Belle lilt in his accent which is both soothing and disarming at the same time.  He seems pretty down to earth and is probably knows what he's talking about when he gives us a lesson.  However, I can't be positive as I have a hard time hearing him over the sounds of the young girls cooing in the audience.  I find their reactions absolutely adorable and then get caught up in watching them watch him.  It really is entertaining.

     If I had more time to get to know them, I would bet that Slingblade Jones has the most genuine heart and motivated attitude of the Cadre.  While Pretty Jones looks like he might still be in his teens, I'm pretty certain Slingblade Jones may actually be a teenager.  He still has the fresh eyes of youth and experience has yet to give him an ounce of cynicism.  He also hasn't yet refined the social skills necessary to teach an audience twice his age.  When every story relates to bootcamp, high school or your mother the audience loses patience and interest.  I also think he may have watched Major Payne about 50 times too many as a child.  He speaks in that stereotypical Drill Sergeant manner:

    "Todaaaay....Iamgoing....to teach you peeeople about....NBCwarfare.  Weee...willgothrough...the slides in order.  Nnnnext."

      This kid also has some of the most amusing and unusual sayings I have ever heard.  According to him, "there's no extra credit for Jesus carrying a sheep back to pasture."  If you're confused, join the club.  When he speaks, I usually grit my teeth and lower my face to keep the disdain from being too evident.  The older I get, the less patience I have for shit that doesn't make any sense.  The clock is ticking and I don't have time to decipher your cryptic and/or nonsensical sayings.  I bet he does well teaching the 18-year olds that come through bootcamp but speaking to senior enlisted and officers, most of whom have at least a decade on him, is not his strength.  I'd like to meet him again in about 10 years once he's grown hair on his chest. I hope he keeps his enthusiasm.

      Drill Sergeant Bruce:  He chews tobacco.  He chews tobacco a lot.  However, he's very direct, straight-forward and easy to understand.  Bruce knows his shit or at least fakes it extremely well.  If I have to watch him spit juice from the golf ball-sized wad of tobacco in his mouth, then I guess I'll learn to cope.

      Drill Sergeant Hustle:  If I were concerned enough to be intimdated by any of our Cadre, he would be the one to do it.  He seems to be the maddest or maybe it's the most annoyed on a daily basis.  I will say my favorite moment of Ft Jackson life comes from him though and kind of sums up the entire experience of having Sailors soldier. 
      Platoons 3 and 4 were in formation and the DSs wanted us to combat walk to our next training.  Hustle starts explaining a relatively simple concept to us.  I lead and the other lines follow.  We create two lines, one on each side of the road and with the people staggered to close gaps in coverage.  It should look like this:

           X    X    X    X    X

       X     X    X    X   X

Get the concept?  Well, I randomly start walking and people follow me, but it's not in any kind of order or formation.  We fell out in a gaggle folks, that's all I can call it.  I look behind me and see a blob of folks walking in various directions looking at each other trying to understand what we are doing.  I look ahead of me and there's Hustle.  He looked like someone stole his birthday as he watched this cluster unfold.  His mouth had dropped and his eyes filled with wonder and despair as he silently mouthed "Hoooooly Fuck."  It was a fabulous moment and one I will cherish for years to come.

      Drill Sergeant Mariomoto:  If the girls have Pretty Smith, the boys have Mariomoto.  She's pretty quiet but certainly made an impression with the male audience.  Enough apparently to have one of them calling her name while asleep in berthing.

      Drill Sergeant Herbie:  He seems to be the group favorite.  Drill Sergeant Herbie has a deep South twang and infectious laugh about him.  I think he tries to keep a straight face and has even mustered a stern voice once or twice during training but it takes quite a bit of effort.  I think we frustrate him more than any of the Cadre but he takes it in stride.  I know he catches more shit from the group than anyone else in the Cadre.  I secretly think a few of our Officers have a man-crush on him.  Quite a few of them have learned how to imitate him and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  Some of my favorite quips have come from Herbie.  I'll share them in a later post.