Weekend Pass

I waited all day to get called out by my instructors about the bathroom incident but they did not.  That sort of made things worse as I just wanted to get it all over with but instead it just loomed over my head.

That night in our room it was worse than ever.  Before the bathroom incident, I had one roommate that wasn't for me but she also wasn't against me.  She tried to remain neutral, all the while the others clearly hated me.  I lost my last ally in my room and I knew that was going to make getting through the course ever harder, if in fact I wasn't soon to be kicked out for my infraction of the rules pertaining the door by the bathroom.

I guess I wasn't cut out to be a soldier and in fact, those words ran across my mind like a digital bank billboard complete with time and weather, "1700 hours, 45 degrees, you were not cut out to be a soldier. . . . 1701 hours, 45 degrees, you were not cut out to be a soldier . . .".  And it wasn't the first time either, during any military training operation I second guessed my soldiering skills on a daily --no actually, minute-by-minute basis.

And other things were going on too.  In the back of my mind just nagging at me was my upcoming Platoon Sergeant duties.  That pretty much ate away at me every second of the day.

We had been so isloated at school, not able to leave or call that the upcoming weekend pass was going to be a much welcomed break.  Before school started, Newsome and I agreed he'd pick me up the first Saturday we were able to get a pass.  I don't remember the details as to what we arranged but I do remember it was set in my mind, that we had firmly made plans for him to pick me up.

Well, come Saturday morning we of course first had to "GI" (clean) the barracks before we were released.  More time consuming than that, the instructors had to come around and inspect your areas before you could leave -- so once we got finished we had to wait to get inspected.  When I was finally released, it was later than I had anticipated but I assumed Newsome would have waited for me.  I got my personal things together and headed out.  I didn't see him anywhere at first but I figured he probably got tired of waiting and he'd be back.

So I just stood outside the school, watching all of my fellow PLDC soldiers leaving and some even offered me a ride, "No," I'd say to them, "I'm just waiting on my ride."

And waiting I did.  In fact, over an hour of it.  I finally determined Newsome wasn't coming and I don't remember how I got back to my barracks but I have some slight recolleciton of taking a bus.  I wasn't agnry as much as disappointed.  I needed to see him.  He was my Army "go to" man that helped me make sense off all that Army stuff.  When I couldn't handle the heat, he seemed to make things all better for me.  I needed that pep talk and advice and besides, I just really wanted to see him.

But I didn't get to.  Instead I spent the rest of the weekend in my barracks with roommates that LIKED me and I regaled them with my PLDC tales and told them I'd be Platoon Sergeant and, "WHAT?? YOU???  Platoon Sergeant?", was their reaction.  And I also gave them a message to relay to SSG Newsome, should they happen to see him, that I had waited over an hour for him and he never showed and I joked, "And he better be in the hospital again because that's the only excuse I'm going to accept."