Reflective Essay "Broken Down in the Army"

It took place two weeks into basic combat training for the United States Army. The place was at Fort Leonard Wood Missouri inside the Drill sergeant’s office. There were four other privates and myself which is what we were referred to while in Basic Combat Training. The reason for the visit was for us to be completely broken down physically, and mentally. For one to understand why only five out of about seventy other privates were chosen for this visit, one must first understand the first two weeks before this meeting.

The first two weeks of Basic Combat Training are designed to break every single individual down physically and mentally in order to bring everyone to the same level, and then build them up together as a team. The reason for this is to build a strong union and friendship among the privates so they could perform flawless under combat. The Drill Sergeants are the ones responsible for making this happen. Mentally they break privates down in a variety of ways. One example is by constantly yelling as loud as possible only inches from a private’s face. The Drill Sergeants yell negative remarks such as, how weak and useless privates are.


Physically, privates are also broken down in more than one way. One way is by intense workouts that are not designed to keep you fit, but designed to push and break down your muscles to there fullest capability and more. For example, pushups and sit-ups were some exercises that Drill Sergeants had us do. These workouts are good for you, but the problem was that privates would do these workouts and a variety of others, none stop. It started in the morning, and would continue until the evening. The only rest time, was during meals where privates only had about two minutes to eat their food, and then had to continue working out.


Once evening came the Drill Sergeants would continue to break privates down mentally by dismissing the privates to their barracks with a list, of things to do, which were impossible to complete before bedtime. Privates would be dismissed at 2100 hours with lights out being at 2200 hours. This gave privates only one hour to finish there list, such as, shower, clean bathroom, clean hallways, clean classroom, mope and wax every floor, clean their boots, organize their uniform, etc… The list just went on and on. What would happen was that almost every private would stay up after lights out to work on the list, which would lead to a serious lack of sleep. A mixture of privates constantly being yelled at, with non stop exercising, with a lack of sleep, all lead to extreme fatigue, which resulted in being broken down physically and mentally.

The first two weeks of Basic Combat Training were the most difficult for most privates, but for me and four other privates it was hard, but not unbearable. The Drill Sergeants noticed this and knew that we would have to get a little more extra attention from them. This is when we got a personal invitation to the Drill Sergeants office. At the time of the invitation there was only one Drill Sergeant in the office. He was sitting behind a desk working on some sort of paper work. I will never forget this Drill Sergeant, his name was Drill Sergeant Robinson. He had the reputation of being the meanest and toughest Drill Sergeant in the whole company. All five of us were standing in front of his desk in the parade rest position waiting for further orders from him. While he was still working on the paper work, not even looking up to us he commanded us to get in the front leaning rest position and start pushing. In other words, he told us to start doing push-ups until he said stop. We started with push ups, then sit ups, flutter kicks, squads, jumping jacks, and finally the invisible chair or what some people call the Roman Chair. We did way too many push-ups to count but I remember my chest and arms burning intensely. As I kept doing them I kept on telling myself “one more, just one more, it’s all a mental game” every time I thought it was over, it was only beginning. After doing non stop push-ups for an excessive amount of time we were all told to start doing sit ups and flutter kicks. We continued to do flutter kicks and sit-ups way after our abdominal muscle gave up.

At this time the Drill Sergeant quit focusing on his paperwork and him and another Drill Sergeant started to focus more on us. They were there ready to scream their loudest at us if we quit doing flutter kicks or could no longer do any more sit-ups. They would tell us things like, “quit now, you know you can’t handle it, just QUIT”. I remember feeling such intense pain, but once again kept telling my self that it was all a mental game, that I was destined to overcome. I could not let the Drill Sergeants get the best of me. After the push-ups, flutter kicks, sit-ups, we moved on to other workouts that were just as bad. The final workout was the invisible chair. After more than an hour of intense pain the Drill Sergeants was finally fed up with us not quitting and made us all sit back against the office wall at a 90 degree angle with our hand against the wall. This was the invisible chair. The Drill Sergeants stood there inspecting us to make sure we were doing the exercise properly. At this time my whole body was bruised and exhausted, but I had to keep going. I felt like I had something to prove. Five minutes into the invisible chair my legs began burning. After ten minutes my legs were burning intensely. Twenty to twenty five minutes had past, my legs were bruised purple and shaking from the pain, but I was determined not to quit. I knew that I could only hold on a little while longer, but told my self once again “It’s all mental”. Finally, the moment came where I could not go on, tears filled my eyes from the pain and disgrace I felt that I was about to throw in the towel. I fell from the invisible chair and laid on the ground, like a baby in the fetal position. I had been broken.