PLDC - Platoon Sergeant

One day while we were in class our instructor told us 1/2 way through the course we'd be changing leadership positions (the ones that were randomly chosen by student number) and they were posted on the wall in the classroom so on our next break we should check it out.

I didn't care.  I mean --what were the chances I'd land a leadership position?

Pretty good.

Platoon Sergeant.

Nothing short of complete and total unadulterated panic ensued.  I mean, the guys didn't panic as much as they just stood there in disbelief wondering how I'd ever pull off such a thing ---but me?  Panic.  Total panic.  Complete panic.  Nothing ---no words to explain the panic in me.  Come on --this is like sending a 1st grader into a high school to teach them how to read.

1.  They already know how to read.
2.  Not only can they read, they are experienced readers and have been doing it for years.
3.  No high schooler is going to take a 1st grader seriously.
4.  A 1st grader can't even stand tall enough or talk loud enough to bee seen/heard.

And that is exactly what me being assigned as Platoon Sergeant over all these CAV soldiers would be like.  They knew it.  I knew it.

And not to even mention the fact that the last half of PLDC was the most difficult --as that's when we did all of our "hands on" stuff --and we'd have a field exercise and ---our big 5 mile run.

What did you say?  A FIVE MILE RUN?  Yeah, as if I wasn't dreading that enough, now I'd be the one to run it, lead it and sing cadence.  I was going to be the Platoon Sergeant.

Oh dear.  Oh Dear.  OH DEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

PLDC-- The Females Get In Trouble

During PLDC we were not allowed to leave the building with out a pass or permission but apparently, some had been doing so.

Downstairs at the end of a hallway was a small female bathroom and next to it a door that went out to the parking lot.  A few of the females discovered this small bathroom, which was nice because you know, we didn't have our own to use and though it was just a toilet and sink, it was still just ours.  But in the discovery of this little gem, some females also discovered they could exit the building through that outside door and not get seen/caught.  And so --that's what some females were doing --sneaking out but in order to get back in they were propping the door open with a small rock.  The door and bathroom were down a long hallway that was mostly unused so unless you were going to use the bathroom, there was no reason to venture down to the end of the hall and you couldn't tell the door was propped open until you got right up to it.  All of the females knew what was going on because we were using the bathroom so we could see the door.  I wasn't sneaking out and really --most of us weren't.  But then one day the propped door was discovered by one of our Instructors and so all of us females got called in and talked to.

We were asked who was sneaking out but of course no one admitted they were and no one narked either --that's not the Army way.  I don't remember if I knew who was sneaking out or not but I know I didn't speak up.  We got chewed out and then we were warned if the door was found propped open again the person(s) responsible would get thrown out of the school and we were not to hold the door open for anyone, let anyone in that door, leave through that door, etc. etc.


Things with my roommates were not going well.  One night after taking a shower I put my PT clothes on because, that's all I really had to wear.  I walk back into my room and my roommate, the girl with the long brown hair, was sitting on the floor (the only furniture we had in our rooms was our bunks and we weren't allowed on them until lights-out), polishing her boots and spitting her chew into her cup.  She looks at me and says, "You're out of uniform!!!"  I wasn't even in uniform so I asked what she meant and she said, "Your hair --it's not put up above your collar."  So I told her I was in my PT clothes, NOT a military uniform and so it didn't matter.  She got soooo very angry with me and told me PT clothes WERE a military uniform ---then she went on and on about my lack of military knowledge, I'd never be a good NCO because I don't even know military standards, girls like me give a bad name to the Army, I was more concerned about being cute with my hair down (really?  It was dripping wet and just hanging down) than about my military presence . . . then she went on to say, "You'll never even pass this course, you are just wasting the Army's time and money.  You don't have what it takes to be a real soldier.  I'm not going back to my unit with my head hung in shame --too bad you can't say the same."

I had no idea why she hated me so much but it was quite obvious, especially after the shower incident in which she was annoyed with me and thought I had made more of a big deal about it than need be.  She rallied our other roommates to her corner as well and eventually, they all hated me as much.  There was one blonde female that seemed to remain neutral, so to speak.  She was one of those soldiers that just wanted to mind her own business and accomplish the mission.  She didn’t want friends or enemies –and only needed you to the extent the military mission required it.  So it wasn’t like to was my friend or nice to me, but she wasn’t against me either and in some small way, that made it a little easier to be in my room –but just a little.  Mostly it was cold and uncomfortable.

What I was happy for is the fact that none of my roommates were in my Platoon so during the day I didn’t have to see them at all.  There were a few other females in our course and I was friendly with them however; it was a rare occasion I even saw them.

PLDC - The Commandant's Office

It’s scary, kind of like going to the Principal's office --but worse, having to report to the Commandant.  He's the main person in charge and it just feels like he holds your fate in his hands.  If he says you stay --you stay.  If he says you go --you go.  And I feared higher ranking soldiers as it was --plus I was all the more embarrassed for the why of going to see him.

He was actually quite nice and understanding.  He explained the male soldiers that were involved were as embarrassed about the whole thing as I was and it was not intentional.  He said the soldiers said to him, “. . . we didn't even see anything!"  This was supposed to make me feel better but --it did not.  The Commandant also sheepishly explained that though they had assigned the shared bathroom to the females during a certain hour --they um just simply forgot to tell the male soldiers that little piece of information.  Oops.

So you know, it was all one big misunderstanding.

None of this made me feel any better but at least now we had assigned bathroom time AND the male soldiers would be informed of the times so ---I guess I could just put this all behind me.  I was grateful for the fact that I was so shocked when it all happened I did not see the faces of the male soldiers so in the event I ever saw them again during the course, I'd not know it was them.

I still wanted to leave but I knew going back to my unit having not graduated would be a worse fate than staying –so I decided to buckle down, gain my military bearings and get through it.

PLDC Continues

The building PLDC was located in was an old WWII barracks.  I wish at the time I was mature enough to appreciate all of the historical significance that surrounded me but such as it were, to me at the time it was just an old Army building.

As stated in an earlier post, since there were so few females in our class we had to share a bathroom with the males on our floor.  We were given a certain time frame --like say, between 7pm & 8pm the female soldiers use the bathroom.  We got a shorter time slot since there were fewer of us than the males.

The bathroom was huge.  When you first walked in there was a long row of sinks and across from the sinks, a long row of stalls. To the right was a doorway leading to the the locker area and from there, another doorway and when you walked into that there was a huge cement room with shower heads lined up on two walls facing each other.  The floor was slightly slanted towards the middle were there was a drain.  There were no curtains or partitions of any sorts.  The room was quite large; I'd say maybe 35 feet x 30 feet, roughly.  There were no hooks on the walls or shelves or anything so you couldn't even bring a towel in with you because the only place to put it would be on the floor and it would get soaking wet.  I did have two towels but my hair was so long I needed one to wrap my hair in and one to dry off with so risking getting one soaking wet wasn't an option for me.  The ceiling was quite high, making the room very echo-y and loud and once you started the water, you couldn't hear much else, just water splashing and old rickety pipes.  It smelled like mildew, old paint, cleaning solution, rubber, metal and locker room nastiness.  There's nothing about the bathroom that made you want to be there or linger in there --get a quick shower and get out.  That's it.  Standing in that huge echo-y room made you feel so exposed, literally and figuratively.

The females had all discussed using our bathroom time wisely.  Trying to give each other some measure of privacy, we tried to take turns in the bathroom but since we had such a narrow time slot for the bathroom, sometimes complete privacy just wasn't possible.  We did try to respect each other as much as possible.

One particular night during the first week of class I decided to take my shower early as I discovered you'd have a better chance of being alone going early than late because as it got close to the end of our bathroom time, everyone tried to hurry and rush in.  This night I was in the middle of my shower and I could faintly hear some voices and shuffling around but nothing that was too clear.  I just figured some other females had come in to get an early start too.  I then looked up and standing in the doorway were two males.  They both had a towel wrapped around their waist but other than that, they were both completely naked and I uh well, so was I --but without the benefit of a towel!

I immediately screamed, very loudly, but it wasn't like I had a towel to grab or door to hide behind or anything.  What I'm sure was only a few seconds, seemed like an eternity as the guys stood there frozen.  I think all three of us were in shock.  I kept screaming over and over, "GET OUT!  GET OUT!  GET OUT!"  They hustled out of there and I remember thinking how trapped I was.  I couldn't run to my towel as they were there.   I couldn't hide.  I couldn't do anything but stand there naked and wait (and hope they would) for them to leave.  Well, thankfully they did high-tail it outta there pretty quickly.

When I was certain they were gone, I went back to the locker area and got dressed, I didn't even take time to dry off --I just threw my clothes on.  I was so over taken with complete embarrassment, shock and humiliation.  I walked out into the hallway with no particular plan of what to do next.  As soon as I exited the bathroom there were quite a few people that had gathered to see what all the commotion was about.  They all just stood there staring at me and I was angry because I felt like I was some side-freak show.  I yelled very loudly --and if you know me you know that I have a very loud voice and I can speak very loud but when I say I was yelling loud --I mean it was loud!  I screamed, "I WANT THE TWO SOLDIERS THAT WERE JUST IN THE BATHROOM TO REPORT TO THE COMMANDANT'S OFFICE RIGHT NOW!"  I just remember standing there yelling, as if I had any sort of authority, and really, I was only making matters worse as now an even larger crowd had gathered.  There I stood, wet clothes all clinging to me, long wet hair dripping all over the place and me yelling and demanding things.  I don't think I would have done that had there not been a crowd gathered but when everyone was staring at me I felt like I had to do something.

By now some of the instructors had arrived on the scene and in all the commotion they were trying to figure out what had happened.  They finally called for the two soldiers to come forward, who by now were completely dressed.  They both sheepishly emerged into the crowd with their heads hung down.  I actually felt sorry for them.  The instructors told me to go back to my room and then they escorted the two soldiers away.

When I got back to my room of course my roommates wanted to know what happened, so I told them the story.  They were all in disbelief, as I was, and seemed in support of me --except for the girl with the long brown hair, who sat on the floor shining her boots listening to my every word but not making eye contact with me or any comments.

I could tell she was annoyed with me --and I had no understanding as to why.  This happened to me and I did nothing to make that happen.  So after all the talk had settled down and the room got quiet she said to me, but again not looking at me, "So two guys walked in on you taking a shower --big deal!  You're acting like you got raped or something."

I'll never forget that feeling I had then --it was as if what she said and how she treated me was worse than the incident itself.  I felt like a victim being victimized yet again.  Worse yet, not one other female in that room spoke up.  Everyone just got quiet and pretended they were busy with their things.

After that night I hardly spent any time in my room other than to sleep.  This is when I began going down to the basement hall each night until just before lights-out.

About 20 minutes or so after the incident, a CQ  Runner came and knocked on our door and said I was to report to the Commandant's office.  I had to be in full uniform to do so and I was so mad!  I just wanted the whole thing to be over and forgotten and getting into full uniform was such a pain, especially this late at night; lace my boots up, put my hair up . . . . everything seemed to get worse and worse . . . . .

As I walked down to the Commandant's office, which required me to go through much of the barracks, I could feel the stares and looks I was getting from other soldiers as if to say, "Oh SHE'S the one, she's the one some guys just walked in on . . "  Some guys would look right at me and smirk and others would quickly look away as if to pretend they didn't even see me.  Once again, I was thankful for the no talking in the halls rule because had they been allowed to speak to me, I can't imagine what might have been said.

Either way, it bothered me.  Once again, all the humiliation of what happened was fresh upon me and I had no idea what the Commandant was going to say to me or do.  I just knew I wanted to leave PLDC and never ever return.

PLDC, VII

There's a few things you need to know about PLDC that are pertinent to the story and things to come.

Students are assigned a number, even before they get to school.  Randomly, numbers are assigned certain duties that the students will perform during the course.

The entire class body is the Company.  The Company is then broken down into 4 units, Platoons.  Each Platoon has 4-5 Squads.  Now, not that this is anything unique to the school, these are military units but for training purposes, the school mimics those units and for the duration of the course, you act as if you are in a real military until.  The Company's "boss" is the First Sergeant.  Each Platoon is assigned a Platoon Sergeant.  Each Squad has a Squad Leader.  Those positions of leadership are the duties that are randomly assigned to the student numbers and then half way through the course they change to new randomly selected student numbers. 

My particular class had very few females.  The entire class size was about 180 and we had 10 females.  That had its own challenges.  Normally, in a barracks males and females are separated by floors, all females on one floor, all males on another.  Because our class didn't have enough females to take over one complete floor, it was decided we'd get two rooms at the end of one male floor and it was explained to us under no circumstance were we allowed in each others rooms.  It was also explained to us that we'd be sharing the bathroom that was about midway down the hall.  Remember that.  Its important.  Aside from going to the bathroom, we females were not allowed any further down the hall than where our room was.  That also included for cleaning purposes (GI parties) and whereas that might sound like good news to us females, I was slightly disappointed I'd not be buffering those long halls.

Soldiers are assigned by their student number and it just happened that I was the only female that was in my platoon. 

Having so few females made it all the more difficult to train and we had a large number of males soldiers from a CAV (Calvary) and Infantry units --hardcore front line soldiers.  Part of what we were going to learn these guys did every day as their job.  It was like teaching ABC's to a student that already knew how to read.

I think it also, perhaps even subconsciously, made the females all the more competitive, having something to prove the to guys.  The Army often preached and pushed Equal Opportunity but the bottom line was, male attitudes to the contrary were the norm.  Remember that.  Its important.

Each Platoon was divided into two classrooms, for instructional purposes.  Each class room had two instructors.  In the first half of the course, we spent a majority of our time in the classroom, later we'd get to more hands-on training.  The classroom was set up with individual desks in a U shape with a desk in the front center for the instructor.  Each of the two instructors would take turns teaching a block of instruction.  I was assigned, per my student number, to the first seat in the classroom.  So I was the top left of the U, so to speak.  We'd have an hour of lecture/discussion and then a 5 minute break.  We were able to leave the classroom, go to the bathroom, smoke break, etc.

Once we finished one unit of instruction we had to take a written test.  You had to pass the test before you could go on to the next unit.  You got three chances to take the test and pass, if you failed all three times you were sent back to your company --a failure.

Our days were long and busy.  Each day began with PT -- yes, I had to run in formation with my platoon of big strong Infantry soldiers.  No, it never worked out very well for me.  After PT we had to prepare our rooms and the barracks for daily inspection, get dressed and report for formation again, this time to be marched down the street to the Mess Hall er --I mean, Dining Facility for breakfast.  The rest of the day was spent in the classroom, breaking only for lunch.  After dinner time we'd be "free" but we had GI parties every night and a good deal of studying had to be done.  In  addition to that, you'd have to shine boots, straighten your wall locker, prepare uniforms, etc.  So our "free" time wasn't like were were sitting around shooting the breeze.  There were not any common areas --it was the classroom, hallways, offices and barracks rooms.  That's it.  So it wasn't like we could all go down to a TV room and hang out or anything.  There was one place we could go to hang out -- the basement hallway.  It really wasn't intended to be a hang out place but it was where we were allowed to gather for the purposes of studying together and helping each other get through the course.   At first I didn't go down there but as the situation with my roommates began to quickly deteriorate, I found myself going down to the basement more and more to get away from them.  Granted it was mostly male soldiers that were down there but HELLO --females compromised less than 10% of the entire student body AND there were other females (none of my roommates though) that frequently went downstairs too.  Remember that.  Its important.

"Free time" was also used if you needed to retake a test, meet with the instructors and discipline problems were usually handled during this time --getting called to the Commandant's office, etc.

We were not allowed to have any civilian clothes with us.  We had our uniforms and our PT (physical training).  You may be familar with the grey PT uniform that is quite popular now with the branch of service written across the shirt in large black block letters, ARMY.  But back then, we didn't have a specified PT uniform --we just wore whatever work out clothes we had.

We were not allowed to leave the school unless we had a weekend pass, and those had to be earned by doing extra jobs, which was tough considering the work load we already had.  The first two weeks no passes were allowed and thereafter, passes could be earned.

Sorry to bore you with all these details but as the PLDC story unfolds, you'll see how all of these details play and important part of the story.

PLDC, VI

After our initial formation and meeting the the school Commandant, I made my shameful way back to my room, acutely aware that my pantyhose situation was quite obvious AND I was getting many strange looks.  But such as it was, we were not allowed to talk while walking in the halls and thus I was at the least, spared from any verbal comments.

Until I got back to my room, that is.  I already lost a lot of ground with my roommates when they determined I was either color blind or stupid.  It was like we were in a race and they felt like they had jumped the start gun and got ahead of me.  Also, because there were so few females in the school the competition for us to succeed was immense.  Unfortunately, as is often the sad case with women, instead of rallying together to shore one another up for success, we tore each other apart scratching our individual way to the top.  "We" being, mostly them and not because I'm any sort of higher standard human or woman of great moral character but simply becuase to me, it didn't matter.  As with everything I ever did in the Army, my greatest competitor was myself.  I was my worst critic.  I never wanted to beat "her", as in some other female soldier but I always wanted to beat me. 

As soon as we got back into our room I could sense all of that; it lingered in the air thick as the smoke of a freshly lit cigar.  Even though I wasn't up to prove myself to them, it made me uncomfortable.  No one was particularly friendly or nice, possibly cordial, at best.  Once again the Army had put me in a new place with people I did not know and with no one on my side.  Its more than just lonely feeling --its a complete feeling of desertion and I'd venture a guess that male soldiers, for the most part, don't experience that.

The rest of the night was spent preparing our rooms, putting our things away in our wall lockers and as simple as that sounds, it more precise and military than you think.  Each article of clothing had to be folded a certain way and put into an exact location in your locker.  Beds had to be made a very certain way.  Floors needed cleaning, etc.  For some reason, very odd to me, I always ended up with the top bunk --was true both in Basic Training and AIT and not that I minded climbing to the top bunk but being of the short stature that I am, making my bed with exact military precision as was expected was quite a challenge.  But unlike BT and AIT, none of my roommates were offering any help and in fact, the female on the lower bunk got upset with me because she complained I was messing her bed up while trying to make mine.

I don't recall any of the faces or names of my roommates but I do remember the things that transpired between us.  One female had long brown hair and a thick country accent.  She was obsessed with shining her boots and she "chewed".  She'd sit on that floor with her back up against her bed fervently shining her boots with a big wad of tobacco in her cheek and every so often spitting into a cup.  It was so disgusting to me, so unfeminine.  I remember one night asking her about it and she said, "Don't knock it until you try it."  Then held out her can of chew. I took it and sniffed it and it smelled oh so good --like minty fresh.  I thought, "How bad could that be?"  So I grabbed a pinch of it, put it in my lip and instantly got sick.  I ran to the bathroom and spit it all out, rinsed out my mouth and gagging and heaving.  It was awful --I was sick the rest of the night.

But my first night after getting my things folded the Army way and put in their exact assigned space, I went to bed and as so many other nights in the Army, cried myself to sleep.  I didn't want to be here in school and my roommates had made it abundantly clear they weren't going to make it any less painful for me.

Where I have been . . . . .

User error?  Why is the common denominator always ME?  I can't seem to get my scanner at work or home to cooperate with me!!  I have a stack of pictures I wanted to post of me in Germany and my travels to Austria with Val and John --but alas, I cannot get them scanned in!

That's excuse number one.

I have also been very sad of late for a number of reasons/things changing in my life and family and when I'm sad, I absolutely cannot write.  Being sad zaps the creativity right out of me.  I tried to write a few posts but gave up when it seemed more like a chore than a story telling.

That's excuse number two.

PLDC takes some interesting twists so I've been wrestling with how much I can/will share and how to do so.  Do I just skip the "ugly" parts and pretend they didn't happen?  Well then the story isn't exactly accurate, is it?  Do I tell all and --take the risk?

Not sure how risky I'm feeling.  But the sadness will soon fade and I'll get one of these scanners to cooperate with me and we'll soon be back in business.

Until then . . . . .