One Tough Soldier

It was 1983 and I was in Army Basic Training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina for the Arizona National Guard.  It was end of winter, beginning of spring.  I was nearly done with my months of training. 

When I arrived, I had no athletic history and the physical part was very challenging for me.  I just kept persisting and over time, my physical stamina continued to improve.

My abusive step-father had more than adequately prepared me for the mental aspects of the challenges I faced. 

I had faced challenges with the weapons training as I’m right-handed but fire an M-16 and other rifles left-handed.  I’m unable to hit the target when firing right-handed but still have a tight grouping.  I earned “Expert” marksman firing left-handed. 

I was excited to participate in night exercises and remember crawling under barbed wire with my cradled M-16 while seeing tracer rounds fired from tanks fly over our heads.  After the exercise was over, I was sent to pick up expended rounds from around and on top of the tanks.  There were wooden ladders leaning against the tanks for easy access to the top.  I began to quickly ascend when the third rung from the bottom gave way the moment I stepped on it and I crashed to the ground hard on my left foot.  It hurt but I’m pretty tough and just powered through. 

I had to complete my final physical fitness test in order to complete my Basic Training.  Not finishing meant having to wait and start all over again with another group and that wasn’t something I wanted to do; it somehow seemed like failure. 

I began my 3 mile run and soon the pain in my foot was causing tears to stream down my face unchecked.  Pretty soon, my first sergeant joined me on the track and asked what was wrong.  I told him I had intense pain in my foot.  He suggested I stop and I explained I wanted to finish so I could graduate.  When I was done, he came over and took a look at my foot.  He told me it appears it was broken (he was a trained EMT) and sent me to sick call. 

I went to sick call, waited my turn, and when asked for the reason for my visit I explained my pain and my first sergeant’s suspicion about it being broken.  The young man gave me over the counter pain medication and sent me back to my company.  I hobbled through the last of Basic and the graduating ceremony. 

I went on to Advanced Individual Training in Fort Gordon, Georgia and that’s where I was seen my an Army doctor who x-rayed my foot, explained it had been broken and healed but it healed improperly.  He explained the only way to fix it would be to rebreak it.  I passed on that. 

That was decades ago and the foot still hurts from time to time.  In fact, with age it seems to hurt more frequently but most often when the weather is changing (atmospheric pressures and all that). 

I’m quite proud of the fact that I ran my final 3 miles for my Army Basic Training Physical Training test on a broken foot and that was my fastest time ever!