If you want to join the army, you must be prepared to face many difficult things. For instance, every day, young army recruits are faced with very strict discipline from the Drill Sergeants. The Drill Sergeant’s job is basically to discern which of the new recruits are cut out for being in the army and which ones need to be displaced. He can do this job by distributing an equal amount of fear and distress among his students. Every day, the Drill Sergeant will disrupt the young recruits’ sleep by making loud noises at 5:00 in the morning. Then the recruits must take freezing cold showers. They will try to think of pleasant things to help distract their minds from thinking about the cold water.
Sometimes, before breakfast, the men stand around chatting about how terrible the Drill Sergeant is. However, they must be discreet about doing that, because if you are caught saying bad things about a superior you may get discharged from the Army. Nobody wants to feel the disgrace of being kicked out.
When the breakfast bell rings, all of the recruits must dissipate and head to the mess hall (cafeteria). Many times, the food tastes disgusting, but it’s warm, so the recruits don’t complain about that. On many occasions, the Drill Sergeant interrupts the meals and demands that they go and run five miles. The recruits have to dispose of their food immediately without finishing it.
The recruits often feel that the Drill Sergeant treats them with total disregard for their health, safety, and well-being. They feel that his unfriendly disposition and his distinct sounding voice make him the most terrible person in the world. But this idea of the Drill Sergeant is distorted, because he doesn’t want to harm or injure the recruits. Instead, he wants to train them to be the best soldiers they can be, but he will not disclose this information to the men, because the fear motivates them to work hard.
Nevertheless, the recruits often think that the Drill Sergeant discriminates against some soldiers and doesn’t bother the distinguished ones.In one story, the recruits were to quickly distill some water from a river. For some reason, one of the recruits’ guns discharged and all of the young soldiers dispersed. When the Drill Sergeant asked what had happened everybody gave discrepant answers. He told them that if they just told the truth he would discount their punishment. Then some people told the truth, but they were all still severely punished.