I don't remember who the guy was, but I do remember that he managed to screw up at the point where it seemed like it wasn't even possible anymore.
It was the day before our graduation from Infantry School at Fort Benning. Everyone in Alpha 2/58 had been given a six hour pass to spend a little time with their families before the festivities and hullabaloo of the graduation ceremony. And it was great, for all of us. Just some time off with the people you cared about, and who you hadn't seen in fourteen weeks. My parents were there, along with my brother and his girlfriend and a friend of mine who'd flown out from California. We went to the Waffle House and everyone commented on how much weight I'd lost.
At 1800 hours, the men of Alpha 2/58 returned to our barracks, standing in formation for one of the last times, listening to roll call. Then, one of the Drills from third platoon yelled, "What the hell are you wearing?"
Yeah, we were in formation, at attention, but we turned around anyway. Not that the Drills really cared. All of us had come through our FTX and the twenty-five mile march, we'd had our Crossed Rifle ceremony, and but for one more day, we were Infantry. Besides, the Drills wanted to know what was happening, too.
So we craned our necks and looked at the guy who was getting yelled at, in third platoon's front rank. And as we looked at him, it became apparent that something wasn't quite right with his camoflage BDU's.
The Drill who was yelling grabbed the young citizen-soldier and checked a tag on the inside back of the private's top. Then the Drill pointed at the ground, and the kid started knocking out pushups, which he was still doing when the rest of us were dismissed.
Turned out that to celebrate, the youngster had gone to an Army Supply store off post, to get himself four brand-spanking-new sets of BDU's. Unfortunately for him, he failed to notice that the BDU's in question weren't from the Armerican Army, but for use in New Zealand.
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