My Story of Military Abuse Part 1

Seven years ago I signed up for the Army with the intention of being the best paratrooper and best Ranger I could possibly be.  I was physically fit and ready to get past basic training with no trouble.  It was hard leaving my family and new girlfriend, but I did it and was excited for the next 14 weeks of infantry training before I could see my family again at graduation.  I knew that I was going to make the military a 20 year career and that I was going to do some good things for my country.

Me taking inventory of our weapons.

At first, basic training seemed like it was going to be impossible, but I kept pushing through it.  I was at the top of my platoon in everything I did, and everybody saw me as the leader of the group.  One day, while doing hand to hand combat training (GFT as we called it in the Army) I got twisted up and hurt my right hip.  I kept going through the training doing what I could until one of my Drill Sargents told me to go see the doctor because it was obvious that I was in pain.

I went to the doctor and they gave me some crutches and Ibuprofen and told me that I could not do all of the training until they approved.  I was devastated because I knew that being a "broke dick" meant that I would get hell from the Drill Sargents.  They saw how upset I was about it and weren't too hard on me because they knew I wasn't one of the guys who faked an injury to get out of the Army.  I thought, and so did everybody else, that a few days on the crutches would do me some good and I would get back at it at full strength.

To be continued...