Day Zero

The Night That Last Forever

The first night that you get there seems like it never ends. I really didn't get much sleep that night, maybe about an hour. Now once we left that big briefing room, we went into the clothing issue room. We didn't get all of our gear just some stuff to last us until we got issued our OCPs (operational camouflage pattern). We got just a set of PT clothes, a CamelBak, some Eye Protection, a wet weather jacket, and a big laundry bag to put it all in. After this we all went to our bay or barracks rooms. They hold 60 each. The bays aren't actually that bad. The beds aren't as uncomfortable as they look. The only problem I had was with the itchy wool blankets they issue us. They told us we'd have a couple hours to sleep but nobody really gets much sleep. It was about 0300 at this point, and we all had to be back outside and back in formation at 0600. Wake up call was at 0500 sharp every morning. The first morning there was no exception, even though we'd gotten hardly no sleep. We simply had a lot of shit to do. Now it was fucking freezing at 6am in Fort Sill, it was around 45 degrees, which some might not think is very cold. If you have proper cold weather gear on it probably wouldn't be, however we always had to wear out PT shorts and Shirts which are really short and about the thickness of tissue paper. So there we were all 300+ recruits standing outside, freezing out asses off and we couldn't say shit about it. We'd stand in formation for about 40 minutes or so till the buses got to us to take us off to chow, by then we were icicles.
During those 40 minutes the Drill Sergeants would count us and inspect us all, especially the males to make sure we'd shaved that morning. I was damn hungry at that point cause my last meal was at the airport over 10 hours ago and it had been nothing but constant moving since then. I couldn't wait to get to the chow hall so I could eat. Now my first thought was that the food was gonna suck, but it actually was pretty darn good (for breakfast that is). Breakfast is the most amazing meal in BCT. They serve a lot of food: pancakes, waffles, eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, and tons more. Not only that they have a whole self serve line with yogurt, bagels, muffins, and quite a few things to drink. I was pretty kinda really excited when I saw they had chocolate milk there, I think everybody was though. After we eat, everybody goes back outside, gets into formation and we all march to the Reception complex.