Just . . . platoon

Assuming the position of Platoon Sergeant was without fanfare. I woke up one morning, on my appointed date, and thought, “Today I am the Platoon Sergeant. Huh, imagine that!”

The night before I met with the former Platoon Sergeant and he filled me in on a few things and gave me a few pointers. The next night, all the Platoon Sergeants (I think there were 4 of us) met with the Instructors and we were given our specific duties, responsibilities, etc. One thing we had to do was assign the barracks duties. Each Platoon was given an area of responsibility then the Platoon Sergeant had to delegate those to the squad leaders, who then delegated them to the soldiers. The chain of command is a beautiful thing.

So my first official day as Platoon Sergeant we all gathered for morning formation, me standing in front of my Platoon --*giggles* “my” –funny. So the First Sergeant was up on a platform and in a loud and thunderous voice he called the Company to attention –

COMPANY!

“Company” meaning, the whole unit, all four platoons, so it’s like him saying, “Hey guys! Listen up!” At this point the Platoon Sergeants give a secondary command. You know, making sure the platoon was ready to receive the next command. So the Platoon Sergeants in turn yell, “Platoon”. This is like saying, “Hey guys! Did you hear the 1SG? He’s going to give us a command. Listen up!” It’s a preparatory command in that there’s no action to take but to be ready to do the next thing.

My Platoon was about 30 guys, they were all standing behind me in 4 rows, 4 very neat rows –soldiers standing tall, dress-right-dress. I was standing in front of them, with my back to them (we are all facing the 1SG) centered on the Platoon. It’s a beautiful thing, Drill and Ceremony is. So when the Platoon Sergeant gives their command, you are at the position of Attention and you look over your right shoulder to yell the command, "Platoon!".  Its all very quick, "COMPANY!"  "PLATOON!"  "ATTENTION!"

And I was so nervous and scared. I was so short and small compared to all those guys standing behind me. As soon as I heard the 1SG’s command, I whipped my head to the right looking over my shoulder and then in a very quivery crackly voice, stated almost apologetically, I said ---

platoon

Did you catch that? I didn’t say PLATOON! I didn’t even say, PLATOON or Platoon or Platoon --because all the energy that would be in or behind my voice –it was trying to keep my legs from giving out on me. All the strength my body could muster, it wasn’t in my voice –it was in my knees and pumping blood furiously through my veins –so there was nothing left for a big loud thunderous command.

Just  . . . .

platoon