BadLuckCadetfhtml

by Suzie Ivy

  A female voice, “Sgt. Dickens, it appears we have a bird’s nest in squad five.” It was yelled into my ear.

  I couldn’t help it, I giggled. A woman pulled my hair and compared it to a bird’s nest. What could possibly be funnier?

  Sgt. Dickens was in my face before I could choke back my laughter.

  “Cadet, are you laughing? Do you find this funny? Give me twenty push-ups now. As a matter of fact, I want the entire class to give me twenty pushups. Quarter right turn, assume pushup position. Begin.”

  What the hell was a quarter right turn? Thankfully, I was getting good at mimicking the cadets around me. I can’t believe the police ad at the drugstore had not stated, “Military training a must.”

  We were so tired. Someone stopped doing push-ups at the count of fourteen and we had to start again. The inspection continued and so did the punishments. When finished we had done over one hundred pushups. I couldn’t feel my arms and they wouldn’t stop quivering.

  After inspection, we were shown the location of our dorms at the eastern end of the campus. We didn’t get a change to stop and admire our dingy living quarters; we were immediately marched to the cafeteria. Not a word was spoken. We huddled together miserably at whatever empty seat we came to. The Sergeants and advisors sat at their own table. It was 1800 hours. We had only been at it for five hours. This sucked.

  I tried to eat. I could barely lift my fork to my mouth. I ate very little. After about twenty-minutes, we resumed our formation outside. We ran like hell -- I mean double-timed it, back to the dorms. I was thankful I hadn’t eaten much. We were finally released for the day, and told to be at the gym at 0530 hours.

  Getting our room assignments, unpacking, and arranging the shower schedules were done next. There were only four female cadets. Our dorm was tiny with two sets of bunk beds. We decided to rotate every two weeks so we would each have a turn on the top bunk. There was only one small bathroom for the four of us.

  After getting situated, Stacy left the room with her cell phone in hand. She came back an hour later and said she was going back to Montana. She wasn’t crying or acting anything but determined. She left. I never heard from her again.

  Have I mentioned how much this sucks?

  Chapter 7

  Are We In Hell?

  Day two at the police academy began at 0430 hours.

  A squad leader had knocked on our door the previous evening to inform us we would need to meet before physical training the next morning and work on straightening up our marching and formations. And there were some, like myself, that needed to learn basic commands.

  We were in front of the dorms at 0445. It was already warm. As we lined up, the space beside me was noticeably empty. Another cadet asked where my partner was. I explained what happened the evening before. Everyone moved down one spot.

  Stacy was one of two cadets to drop out the first day. The other was a male cadet from squad three. It was at this point that I swore to myself I would complete the academy. I had never given up on anything and I wouldn’t begin now. I was not a quitter.

  We marched and learned: about face, quarter turn, marching while turning a corner, and standing at attention with our toes pointing out so the Sergeant could stand between our feet and inspect us up close and personal.

  It was now time to march to physical training. As much as I would come to dread our early morning workouts, the marching was great. We marched and sang to cadence. One of the cadets, fresh out of the military, knew every cadence imaginable. They were funny, entertaining and inspiring. Our voices rang across the campus.

  Sgt. Dickens was waiting when we arrived. The yelling began and we were introduced to our PT instructor Sgt. Listberg. He turned out to be a great guy but we weren’t aware of this on the first day. After warm ups we went on our first run. Sgt. Listberg told us it would be the last mile we ever ran at the academy.

  He was correct. Wednesday we ran two miles.

  It soon became apparent I was a slow runner and I was put in front to keep the pace. Another female, Cadet Higgins, was put in front beside me as well. She ended up dropping back due to her asthma and barely finished the mile run. I finished but could tell my pace did not offer a challenge to the other cadets. I had work to do.

  We were taken into the weight room next and put through Sgt. Listberg’s idea of a power workout. There were thirty-one torture stations set up. Every sixty seconds he blew his whistle and we moved to another station. Arms, legs, wrists, butts and thighs were all given a workout. The only good thing was Sgt. Listberg also turned on some great 70’s rock and roll music. Through the pain I remember George Thorogood’s Bad to the Bone and Joe Walsh’s Life’s Been Good, blaring through the speakers.

  After the workout, we were taken to the gym bleachers and made to jump with both feet together to the top, then we ran back down and began jumping our way back up again. This went on until the end of class. Do you have any idea how your teeth clack when you land on both feet? My head was killing me. We double-timed it back to our dorms, changed into our shirts and ties, and then headed to breakfast.

  Eating was again a difficult task due to my shaking arms and hands. God forbid we spilled anything on our ironed white shirts, it would mean changing before inspection. Somehow I managed to get some food in my mouth.

  We three female cadets sat together and a few male cadets joined us. Our “cliques” were already forming.

  Cadet Chavez sat next to me. He was obviously as stressed as I was. I found out he was an emergency medical technician sent to the academy in order to be part of a SWAT team. He was twenty-seven years old, fifty pounds overweight and worried about what he’d gotten himself into. He was told the academy would be a piece of cake, but he was having doubts.

  I had doubts too. We made a pact to complete the academy and help each other out. We weren’t such an unlikely friendship, we were both in over our heads and both needed to lose weight. It felt great to have a friend and he was also in squad five along with me. We would suffer together.

  Our first inspection was horrible.

  Sgt. Dickens as well as all six squad advisers were in attendance to find something wrong. And they found plenty. Our ties were the improper length. Our shoes were not shined to a high gloss. We had lint on our black pants. Several of the guys did not have a close enough shave, due to shaving the night before to save time this morning.

  In all we were given eighty pushups and six hill runs. The pushups were done on the spot and the hill runs would be executed after class. I also found out why we practiced a duck stance early that morning. Sgt. Dickens placed one foot between my boots, put his face an inch from mine and began the inspection from the top of my head down to my toes. I know my last OBGYN appointment was not this thorough.

  It was a relief to enter our classroom and begin learning.

  The first two hours every Monday would be with Lieutenant Griffin for report writing. He talked and told stories more than he taught us report writing but we enjoyed him tremendously.

  Our binders were explained to us. A schedule was located in the front of the first binder and encompassed the entire eighteen weeks of the academy. All our lesson plans were outlined, which explained the four-inch thickness of the binders. We were told we would get a break every hour but most importantly we were not to fall asleep in class. We could stand up in the back of the room but there would be hell to pay if one of us was caught sleeping.

  Our first lesson from our binders was on the history of policing. Robert Peel created the first organized police unit in England called “Bobbies” in 1829. He was our founding father and his ideas lived on in modern policing.

  After a lunch break, it was back to the classroom. Sgt. Dickens stuck his head in and did some yelling on a regular basis but learning was the focus. We had different instructors for different lecture modules. My brain wanted to explode by the end of that first day in class. I actually wish it had, because waiting for us were our six hill runs we’d earned th
at morning during inspection.

  The hill consisted of a quarter mile of switchbacks up a steep, rocky dirt path to a water tower. It looked like a nightmare. And it was. Add in the 109 degrees outside and it was hell. I decided I needed to straighten up my ways. I didn’t want to go to hell if it is anything like these hill runs.

  We had water bottles at the bottom and took drinks between runs. I was the second to last person to the top on the first run. We were all going at our own pace. One of my roommates slipped and fell. She twisted her knee and sat out the last few trips to the top.

  We were all focused on the hill and didn't notice when Sgt. Dickens showed up. I was taking my last trip upward.

  “What the hell are you doing?” He yelled at the cadets waiting at the bottom for the stragglers to finish.

  “Are you individuals or a team?" He demanded, "I want your punishment done as a unit. Start over and get it right this time.”

  Higgins, Chavez and I turned around and went back for our classmates. We formed two lines and ran six more hill runs together. We were then released for the day. I was too tired to eat and went back to my room. I ironed my shirt for the following day, tried to shine my shoes but fell asleep.

  I slept until 0430 hours the next day, woke up, and did it all again. We were given 110 pushups at morning inspection and ten hill runs. I could barely move my arms during class and taking notes was excruciating. I thought Friday would never come. I was gigged (gig is like a demerit) for my boots every day. Our class could do nothing right.

  My thinking began to change that week. I had always respected police officers but my admiration for them was growing as well.

  We were constantly under stress. It was explained as being similar to what it would be like as an officer on a patrol shift. Being a police officer was stressful as well as deadly and if we couldn’t handle it we needed to leave. It was not shameful to decide this was not right for you. It was smart, or so they told us.

  I struggled with my decision to become a police officer on a whim. Did I have what it would take? Could I handle the stress?

  Friday finally came and we were released at 1600 hours. I was too tired to make the drive home. I called my husband and begged his forgiveness. I spent the weekend working on my shoes, typing my notes and organizing my binders.

  Sunday evening at 2000 hours we had a study group in our classroom. All but two cadets showed up. The two missing didn’t show up for physical training on Monday morning as well. They had decided being a police officer was not right for them. My roommate with the hurt knee was one of the two not returning. I was down to one bunkmate. The bathroom schedule became much easier.

  Cadet Donna Higgins, Rocco Chavez and I were becoming a team. We were the slowest, most un-police like cadets at the academy and we bonded. We weren’t treated badly by the other cadets, but we knew they didn’t think we would make it.

  Our first classroom test was the next day. If we didn’t pass, the decision to stay would be taken out of our hands.

  Chapter 8

  The Worst Possible Enemy

  The day of our first classroom test had arrived. After more torture at morning physical training, then breakfast, then inspection where we earned eight hill runs, we sat down for our test. Bubble sheets again. It was multiple choice, but for every question there were at least two possible answers.

  We were able to leave the room when we finished. I was third out the door and felt I had done well. Cadet Clark, our classroom leader, who we had elected the previous week, was the first to finish. There was a machine for grading in the secretary’s office outside the classroom. When approximately ten bubble sheets were turned in, they were gathered and run through the machine.

  My test was handed back and I only missed three out of eighty-six. We all managed to pass but there were quite a few scores in the seventies. We were told this was the easiest test we would be given and we needed to study harder. It felt good to be out of the bottom of the pack for a change.

  Next, each squad was given a package of stencils and one black cloth marker. We were told we needed to stencil our last names on the back of our white physical training t-shirts. The top of the letters had to be two inches down from the collar.

  It was a disaster. The male cadets made mistakes left and right and t-shirts were thrown in the garbage. When it was my turn to stencil I had no problems. It was easy. I wasn’t a housewife and homemaker for nothing. Word got out. It was decided I would stencil while cadets shined my boots. What a great trade off.

  The next morning, for the first time, Sgt. Dickens said, “Nice boots cadet.”

  We could carry a backpack for our binders and classroom supplies. I carried everything but the kitchen sink in mine. Ibuprofen, Kleenex, band aides, sun block and chemical icepacks were only a few of the items. As word got out on this, Cadets began raiding my supplies regularly and I earned the name Momma Ivy. I think we nicknamed everyone. It was our way of making our group a family. We became proud of those names.

  Tuesday and Thursday mornings were defensive tactics. Sgt. Tillman was our instructor. He was in his late forties, in fantastic shape, and basically kicked the shit out of us. We were hit, knocked down and handcuffed until our wrists were raw. I had bruises everywhere. Ice packs became my new best friend. My roommate and I bought a small refrigerator for our room and I was able to keep the packs frozen. It was cheaper than the chemical packs, though I still carried those for emergencies.

  During the first and second weeks of defensive tactics we learned how to fall. We were tested on falling forward from a standing position, turning our heads to the side (so we didn’t break our nose), and landing just on our palms and toes. It’s hard not to use your knees to break your fall, and some of the cadets had difficulty but eventually we all succeeded.

  We also started learning pain compliance techniques; wristlocks and joint control. The painful part for us was practicing on each other.

  Proper search techniques were taught as well. I learned men like to hide things in their “junk.” This means I had to search their “packages” thoroughly. The male cadets had a harder time searching the women than we did the men. We all had to get over our mental rebellion and learn to grope and be groped. The TSA had nothing on us.

  My arms were twisted and I was thrown to the ground too many times to count. I would limp to my room after training, take some Ibuprofen, apply ice packs while changing my clothes and then head to breakfast.

  Rocco and I began skipping dinner, eating a power bar and working out. We were barely keeping up in physical training and our POPAT practice was beginning the following week. By the end of my second week I had lost ten pounds and Rocco twenty-three.

  My roommate Donna and I were becoming good friends as well. She had been in the army for four years and worked at a grocery store before coming to the police academy. She was thirty-two years old and wanted a better life for her son. She was single and her mother was keeping her son while she attended the academy. She told me she didn’t really like the military but dreamed of being a police officer. She was getting her asthma under control and had moved to the middle of the pack when running.

  Once a week, we did not run together but did a personal best run. I was proud of Donna's advancement, but this put me dead last. Rocco finished about a quarter mile in front of me and everyone else was able to cool down while waiting for me to cross the finish line. I was then given two minutes to rest before hitting the weight room. Physical training was my worst nightmare.

  I was also struggling with pushups. Sgt. Dickless, I mean Dickens, had pointed me out as a weak link for his class. He seemed to spend more time on my morning inspection than on other cadets. He loved giving us all pushups for my infractions. I didn’t get his exclusive attention but it was apparent he had it out for me.

  The entire class referred to Sgt. Dickens as Sgt. Dickless -- when we were out of his hearing. And it became second nature to call him by this nickname. I was also incorporating the
“F” word in my vocabulary. It seemed to be how every cadet talked and it was becoming just another word. I never swore a lot before the academy but the only way to describe a hill run was to call it a “fucking” hill run. No other word did it justice.

  Sgt. Dickless decided I was doing improper pushups and not going down far enough. He told the class he was adding five hill runs every day until I could do them correctly. The class was pissed and I was getting angry glances.

  Class leader Clark said he would help me out that evening. He showed me a proper pushup and I could barely complete ten. If Sgt. Dickless was going to be watching me the entire class was in trouble. I added pushups to my nightly workout routine.

  That week we did five extra fucking hill runs every day with Sgt. Dickless screaming at the bottom about whose fault it was. Mine. Because I was a forty-five year-old woman who couldn't do a proper fucking push-up.

  By Friday, I was beyond spent. We did our hill runs at the end of the day, including the extra five for my improper push-ups. Cadets began heading to the dorms to collect their things for the weekend. I was walking next to Rocco.

  “Sgt. Dickless," I said with feeling, "is a fucked-up piece of shit.”

  I was grabbed by the arm and spun around. Sgt. Dickens stood there, veins popping.

  “I will see you immediately in my office!”

  Rocco gave me a look of complete terror. I gave him a small push in the direction of the dorms and immediately turned myself in the direction of Sgt. Dickens' office and began marching. This was like being in grade school all over. I was forty-five years old and being sent to the office. I swore I would not cry.

  Sgt. Dickens was staring at his computer and waited about five minutes before speaking to me. I knew this drill. I’d used it on my own children.

  His voice was low when he finally spoke, “Why are you here Cadet Ivy?”

  Before I could answer he went on.