County Boy and I had signed up for the same vacation package. Our travel agents were different, but they worked for the same company. That company was a scam, almost as big of a scam as the tattoo artist that gave County Boy the name that would follow him from Alabama all the way to Fort Lost in the Woods, Missouri. He kept telling us it was supposed to say Country Boy.
But County wasn’t the only guy fooled in September 2013. We were all on that bus, and we were all shark attacked off that bus. Welcome to the United States Army.
The buses were a daily thing on this vacation. Each morning we would wake up at 0430, which is military time, but so early in the day you can actually tell what it is. 4:30 am, the hour that tastes like rushed toothpaste and ground tire rubber in the pit where you do pushups and listen to County Boy regret all the donuts and beer after the recruiter scam. 0430 is also cold, and feels like deep thirst when you’re waiting for the sun to come out enough to thaw the water that froze in your camel back on the march that started at 0300. It also smells like a bus full of weathered rucksacks.
We’d wear our rucks front loaded, which made packing us into the buses that much easier. When there wasn’t a bus, we’d get cattle trucks, and the drill sergeants could fit sixty guys into just one of those things. You get used to the familiarity of it, and the jokes. “I want you so close you make your battle buddy smile.” That’s the edited version. I have to edit it, because no one would understand the real thing, even if they didn’t mind embroidered vulgarity.
One day the battle buddies didn’t smile. Two guys started to argue all the way back from the cattle truck to the formation, still front-loaded with around 45 pounds and an M4 Carbine rifle in both hands on the top of their rucks. The argument got heated enough that they started to swing their rifles at each other. That’s starting to sound scary, isn’t it? It’s not. It’s about Three Stooges level hilarious. Two guys in body armor swinging at each other with backpack bellies is like watching the Michelin Man fight the Pillsbury Doughboy. Then you had five of us trying to get the arm reach to pull them apart from each other.
What a great vacation. County Boy was almost living up to his name.
The buses weren’t just a chance to get cozy with our friends. On a packed bus, drill sergeants couldn’t get close enough to stop us from sleeping. You don’t think you can sleep standing up until everyone around you is holding you up, or you’re so tired you can achieve micro sleeps complete with dreams. I think I experienced whole lifetimes in those dreams, each with my head resting in grateful repose on my rucksack. I slept better there than in bed sometimes. In bed, sometimes crazy things happened like that one time someone went around and poisoned a few camelbacks with laundry detergent. It’s easier to watch your back when there’s five other dudes pressed against you.
And if you were lucky enough to get a chair on a bus…you’d won the Fort Leonard Wood jackpot.
But then one day the whole 16 week ordeal of One Station Unit Training for Combat Engineers was almost over. It had been the longest, coldest, hungriest, most hilarious vacation I’d ever been on. We’d turned in our ruck sacks, and they were taking us to a rehearsal for our graduation. On this, one of the last buses, I’d managed to worm my way into one of the delectable seats. My whole body was so excited to be sitting, resting, light. I hadn’t even thought about sleep. Just sitting, just looking out the window, just…
Pong!
My ears buzzed with the sound of bone on metal and my face felt like Michelob just bonked me with his rifle. Huh? I picked myself up off the metal bar of the seat in front of me, where a small kid from Chicago that spoke a hood dialect I hadn’t figured out yet muttered his version of, “You okay?”
Yeah, I was okay, but a victim of one of the longest victories of a Pavlov dog setup. I’d built such a strong associated response to buses, ruck sacks, and sleep that I’d dozed off expecting a backpack to catch my face. Instead, gravity took me to the heavy metal bar, and not the kind with music.
Every time I ride a bus on vacation, I feel that bar on my face, and I move my backpack to my lap so I can sleep.
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