by Donna Faye
By then everyone was awake and standing at the ends of their beds, awaiting their turn.
The TIs couldn’t hit or swear at trainees, but it still unsettled Stella to have such a rude and unexpected awakening.
She continued to adapt to the changes in her world. Showers mellowed considerably after the first night at Lackland. They showered every evening and after PT in groups of about ten to twelve women at a time. What started out as stilted and awkward quickly became an odd social bonding ritual among friends, and those they tolerated.
The conditions in basic training put personalities on steroids. Rather than a sorority, life in the women’s dorms resembled something more akin to a season of Survivor or a trip to Thunderdome. The intense combination of stress and estrogen swimming about the rooms was like a one-two punch that made for some interesting encounters.
There were a few members of the flight who failed to grasp certain nuances. Stella often wondered how they’d managed themselves in the regular world, and marveled that they’d progressed in training. One such case was a very sweet and stressed out girl known as Trainee Bowers. Much to everyone’s displeasure, Bowers was not discreet about personal grooming in the shower. She boldly tended to her cleanliness where no one could avoid seeing her business.
Unfortunately, this was not the only way she irked her fellow trainees, but one evening during shower time, Trainee Stevens, a feisty chick from Boston, shared a particularly spirited story and things escalated.
Time seemed to fold in on itself when, as if in slow motion, Bowers stopped her cleaning ritual as she threw her head back and laughed. She raised her hand from her vagina and clutched at Stevens’ arm, as she said, “Oh, Stevens, you’re so funny!”
On the best of days, none of the women would call Stevens a cute and cuddly person. In fact, the expression “full of piss and vinegar” fit the young woman to a T. When she registered Bowers’ soiled hand on her naked body, Stevens’ eyes nearly popped from her face. Her jaw dropped as she turned to face Bowers. Her expression full of disgust, she yanked her arm away and shouted, aghast, “Hey! Bowahs! BOWAHS! Ya don’t just go touchin’ yah coolie an’ go touchin’ othah people!”
Before anyone else could react, Elaina snickered. Then in complete deadpan, she called out in her Southern drawl, “Coolie? Hey, Stevens, how d’ya spell that?”
And in that moment the air cleared with peals of laughter as Stevens dove under the water to scrub away her anguish. From then on, people were even more careful about their shower manners, and Stella knew that for as long as she lived, she’d never hear the word coolie without thinking of Bowers and Stevens.
…
Stella reached out and grabbed yet another giant pot to scrub, flinching at the disgusting mess – kitchen duty was as expected and yet worse than anything she'd experienced before.
Though the rubber gloves she wore reached her armpits, somehow she’d managed to swamp them with the scuzzy dishwater, which caused her entire arms to prune and eventually chap. Scrubbing crusty industrial sized pots after each meal of the day was long, tedious, disgusting work – especially in the back of a hot, smelly kitchen starting well before Reveille, a time known as oh dark thirty, until well after lights out.
Even more challenging than the labor was that a certain other difficult person had also been assigned to the task. Since the day Stella had told Mouth her face would stick in her ugly expression, the girl had kept her distance. Life was considerably more pleasant the last couple weeks with her laying low, but there was no avoiding her that day.
“So…Mouth, what’s your real name?” Stella asked as she handed the girl yet another vat to rinse. If they were going to be stuck together for the next ten hours, she might as well make the most of it.
“Gianna Carissima,” she whined.
Good grief, was that her normal tone? Stella shrugged that off and continued to ask the girl questions, attempting to make the time spent confined to the tiny sink area pass more quickly, or at least with less tension between them.
Stella learned a little about Mouth and what made her tick. The girl was barely eighteen and an only child, but had a huge extended family with tons of cousins back home in Philadelphia.
Eventually the two found common ground on their mutual love of the band Maroon5, and their sarcastic humor that had them laughing together by the end of the day. They, along with the other two trainees working with them, were careful to keep the conversation light, and interspersed with songs and laughter.
During a rousing version of a beloved Maroon 5 song, they heard the unmistakable sound of clicking heels headed their way. The trainees stopped singing immediately – there was a TI in the vicinity. Dread pooled in Stella’s gut.
Staff Sgt. MacClellan, their brother flight’s TI, stomped into the room with rage etched his face. “What in the hell do y’all think yer doin’? This ain’t American friggen Idol, trainees.” He drew out the word “trainees,” saturating the word in venom. “Shut your damn pie holes, and get busy before you find yerself with extra work on yer hands.”
The ladies froze, having been thoroughly chastised. It wasn’t until his click-clacking heels vanished back down the hall that they attempted to continue their work.
Stella muttered, “Guess we should’ve stuck to The Air Force Song,” and the tension broke as they giggled and continued their endless scrubbing.
Though the day passed without any more drama, Stella wouldn’t say she and Mouth were friends afterward or that she would ever stop calling her by her new moniker. But she did enjoy an end to the animosity. She’d maintain their tenuous peace provided Mouth kept her trap shut about Running Man – not that they saw him much in recent weeks. He’d been absent at chow, and during PT the man was a blur. His speed seemed so at odds with the severity of his injury, not to mention his size.
But where was he most days, and why didn’t she see him around the squadron as often? In fact, she saw him so seldom and from so far away she hadn’t even caught his name. It seemed she would only ever know him as Running Man.
…
Their flight learned Self Aid Buddy Care, where instructors taught the basics of emergency medical treatment. From CPR to a fireman’s carry, how to administer the antidote to a toxins exposure, and when to use a tourniquet…this class covered it all. And Stella prayed she’d never need to use any of it.
That afternoon, Stella gulped back her lunch as it threatened to reappear during their next lesson. This class was hands down the most disgusting thing she’d ever witnessed, and the TIs warned that anyone caught looking away from the display of diseased genitalia would pay dearly. She supposed a class featuring photographic examples of sexually transmitted diseases was prudent, however she wished they hadn’t come straight from chow to the classroom.
Looking at photos of sick coolies had her giving thanks that her own tests had come back negative. That was at least one good thing in her sham of a relationship…Fabian hadn’t infected her with any diseases. How sad that her marriage boiled down to that. If she ever married again, she’d be setting the bar considerably higher.
But Stella found the cherry on top of that difficult day as they returned to the dorm before dinner.
“Oh my…” Stella muttered, as Elaina grunted a few choice words beside her.
It was beyond comprehension. As if a tornado had struck their dorm, the entire room was utterly devastated and upended. There were mattresses, blankets and sheets, as well as the bedframes, thrown about everywhere! And there were wall lockers upended and tipped across some of the bed pileups.
The emergency exit door was open at the other end of the bay. Stella gingerly made her way through the debris and glanced out the door only to find the devastation hadn’t been contained. Mattresses and pillows had been thrown out the open door, and nearby there were would-be piles of their running shoes strewn about as if the TIs had been playing games using shoes rather than ski-balls.
The girls stood with shocked expre
ssions, spinning in circles as if daring their brains to believe their eyes, unsure they’d entered the right dorm, much less why this had happened or how they’d ever set it right. A few began to sob violently.
Stella looked to Elaina and they rolled their eyes.
“Whelp,” Elaina clapped her hands once, loudly, to gather the flight’s attention. “I dunno about you guys, but I’m starving. The sooner we fix this, the sooner we eat.”
There was a rumble of argument from some of the younger girls, so Stella spoke up, pointing at the few who seemed most hysterical, “You five, grab a few laundry bags somewhere in here, and go gather up the shoes on the lawn out there.”
They nodded and began digging through the rubble to locate a few bags, any bags. At this point there was no reason to attempt to claim any of this stuff as personal affects. They’d have to just group like things together and sort them later. Good thing the TIs insisted they label everything with their initial and last four of their social security number.
“Alright, we need teams of two to get the mattresses from out there, too.” Six trainees turned to go out, and Stella was happy to see it was an even number.
“See, there are more of us than them, we can fix this in no time at all,” Elaina added. Her enthusiasm was not contagious but Stella appreciated her effort. “I guess we should start with one bay, then work over to the other so we can get it all together.”
They worked their way through both bays together, making piles of random things in the hallway and day room so they could sort them once the furniture was set right.
It took about two hours and a lot of cussing, but they managed to set the rooms right, including sorting all their shoes and clothing and returned them to the right owners.
By the time they were released for chow, the hall was nearly empty. Stella was disappointed to have missed Running Man, again, but then she spied him less and less these days. Just as well, she really didn’t need any complications in her life…but he was so nice to look at.
Chapter 9: “Asses and Elbows”
– A state in which everyone is busy, such as while cleaning.
Stella and Elaina nervously checked and rechecked their MOPP gear. As wingmen, they looked out for each other, making sure everything was in place. Mission Oriented Protective Posture, aka her chemical warfare suit. It was some seriously intimidating stuff, particularly the gas mask, which she was about to put to good use.
The suit itself was heavy rubberized fabric that felt more like a walking sauna, especially in the Texas heat. Adding insult to injury, the bulky rubber gloves made the task of donning her mask nothing short of awkward, but she needed to master this now so her body could do it later, without thought in an emergency situation.
Her nerves buzzed with anxiety and anticipation of the impending task. It didn’t help that they could hear the current group’s gasps, coughs, and occasional yells as they stood there waiting to voluntarily gas themselves.
With a nod from the instructor, it was her group’s turn to step into the gas chamber. She said a silent prayer and crossed herself before she stepped into the smoke shack.
They’d spent plenty of time preparing, but the twelve by twelve foot room was anything but welcoming with its fireplace-looking thing in the middle where they administered the CS riot gas.
The last thing she heard before smoke filled the room was the emphatic order, “Do not touch your face!”
After the smoke started, the instructors instructed them to do jumping jacks, then remove their masks and give their reporting statements, and then replace their masks and clear them. Nobody would leave until everyone was able to do so calmly and in an orderly fashion.
Showtime. In a fog that had everything to do with the roomful of smoke, Stella hustled through her jumping jacks, and braced herself for the command and the following burn she knew would come.
On their mark, she filled her lungs with the filtered air from her mask, and then, on their orders, pulled the mask from her face. The effect was instantaneous. Her eyes watered, her nose oozed, even her ears stung. She stood there a moment, stupefied by the gas that assaulted her senses.
The sound of the people surrounding her as they recited the first few words of their reporting statements prodded her into action. Without thinking, she rubbed her snotty nose with her sleeve and the burn intensified from the residue on the suit. Gasping had also been a terrible mistake as she gulped the gas, causing a horrible burn to descend her esophagus into her lungs.
A wracking cough shook her body as she struggled with the assault on her lungs. She managed, just barely, not to vomit as she forced her muscles to work to reattach the mask to her face and force her breath through the filtering mask.
There was residual gas inside the mask that caused her to hack again. Needing a clear lungful, she pressed it further to her face and took a deep breath, wincing at the sensation, like breathing glass shards through water, her lungs worked to process the toxins. She hadn’t recited her reporting statement, but she’d stayed calm and that had to count for something.
As it turned out, others, too, had failed to speak – one had required assistance from an instructor to complete the task. When the smoke cleared, each of them could check CBRNE, or Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear Environment training, off their bucket lists.
This next phase of training included a whole mess of new and interesting experiences. Until MOPP training, Stella hadn’t thought it could get worse than low crawling through the sand course – where she’d actually crawled through fire ants and scraped the length of her back on the metal frame above her as she’d momentarily freaked about the bugs. Someday she’d look back on it and laugh, but it wasn’t that day.
The training on rifle fighting had been a great way to let off steam. Wailing on the dummy was fun, especially when she’d imagined it to be Fabian. And counter terrorism brought home, yet again, the reality of her decision to serve this great nation.
Her instructors repeatedly reminded her of Professor Moody from Harry Potter, with their talk of constant vigilance. Simply wearing the uniform of an American Airman painted a large bulls-eye on their backs. They needed to be alert for anything.
...
Stella subtly stretched her muscles as she marched in formation back to the tent city during the last day of their Basic Expeditionary Airman Skills Training, or BEAST Week as it was coined. This had been the most uncomfortable, filthy, and yet satisfying week of her life, as the instructors tested all their abilities in a combat simulation during a week-long mock deployment.
The armor chafed against her body, it constricted a hundred times worse than a bra, and weighted her torso as if it was cast from iron. Additionally, her back nearly collapsed under the weight of her rucksack loaded down with all her essentials as they hoofed it back to the tent city in the remote area where they’d “deployed” for the last five days. Sweat dripped between her shoulder blades, surely forming a muddy path along her flesh.
Stinky, dusty, and drained physically as well as emotionally, Stella eagerly anticipated the promised shower when they finally got to the dorms. They’d only had three, total, that week, not that they were in a hurry to use the primitive facilities – cockroaches swimming in the backed up drain water didn’t exactly encourage eagerness. Not that it mattered, the week had been exhilarating. The smell of body funk lingered in the air and had them all ready to return to their pristine dorm showers.
The name BEAST surely fit that experience. Despite having barely slept and running like crazy all the way through their wargames, the entire week had left her invigorated and eager to face the new life that awaited her in the Air Force.
Though the four weeks preceding had been challenging, they’d only been a warm-up act for the BEAST. In essence, the fifth week of boot was the culmination of all the basic skills and knowledge an airman needed. These were tested through war games in the base’s Medina Annex.
During the mock deployment, they did
everything from combat training to shooting an M-16A2 rifle, more intense instruction in buddy care to identifying IED, or improvised explosive devices on patrol, and everything in between – all while sporting body armor and helmets.
It was surprising to see how far she’d come in just a month, and all of it shone during BEAST. Despite having never held a weapon, much less fired one, she excelled on the shooting range. Already familiar with the construction thanks to prior classes during training, she re-familiarized herself with the firearm.
“Keep your booger hookers off the bang-bang,” had been the instructors’ mantra through the classes. Or, in plain English, “Keep your damned fingers away from the trigger until instructed to fire.”
When it was her turn to use the weapon, Stella nabbed the Small Arms Expert Ribbon, with twenty-three of her twenty-four total rounds hitting the mark.
Ribbons served as a sort of wearable resume. By simply glimpsing a person’s rows of ribbons – commonly called racks – one could read an abbreviated story of someone’s career once they learned the ribbons’ significance.
Buddy care at BEAST was even more in-depth than prior training, and had proven a thrilling challenge, even if it was only a simulation. It was reassuring to know she’d be able to handle certain situations if needed, but fervently prayed it’d never become a necessity.
Their training with rifle fighting and pugil stick battles had left her battered and bruised. Despite the extra muscle she’d built up over the last five weeks, Stella was still somewhat uncoordinated in combat maneuvers, and had struggled initially with striking out against her fellow trainees – though it’d been a pleasure to knock Mouth down a few times. Sure, they’d forged a truce, but her personality was still intact. Plus it’d been especially fun to see really what she could do.
While glad her career field likely wouldn’t bring her into a battle scenario, Stella couldn’t count on that. Plenty of people ended up in unexpectedly hostile situations. Instructors repeatedly drove in the notion that simply wearing the uniform made them a target.