Private Taylor The Beginning

Private Taylor departed for Basic Training the morning after his high school graduation. He didn’t have the opportunity to enjoy even one full day of freedom in life prior to entering into the adulthood of his nation.

He resented that the most. Due to lots of snow days and school cancellations, the school year went on way into early summer in 1986. When he enlisted a year earlier, he was supposed to have a two week break, but graduation got pushed back those two weeks due to the snow and there was no time left to kick back and be a young man.

He was coned into enlisting by a fast talking salesman like recruiter a year prior to his reporting date. Taylor was mowing the lawn at his family’s home in Three Springs, PA and the mower ran out of gas. During the moment of silence when the buzz of the small lawn trimming machine had stopped, Taylor heard the phone. If he hadn’t answered it his life would have turned out totally different. However, he ran across the freshly mowed lawn and grabbed the phone in his family’s garage.

It was an Army recruiter, Sgt. Day on the line who convinced the young boy to travel to Harrisburg and spend a day learning about careers in the military. Taylor accepted the invitation and enlisted in the United States Army under the Delayed Entry Program which granted the legal right for a seventeen year old child to enlist in the military one year early.
Summer at Basic Training passed slowly and Private Taylor spent the hot, dry months exercising and training in the sandy soils of the Deep South at Fort Jackson, S.C. and Fort Gordon, G.A.

The physical training wasn’t as difficult as Taylor thought it may be although the heat of the Carolina sun nearly killed the poor lad. His body ached from head to toe from physical exhaustion and he suffered from sleep depravation while in Basic Training. The tops of his ears which peeked out from under a camouflaged cotton cap were sun burned and levels upon levels of dried skin pealed easily from the rims of Private Taylor’s big ears.

He spent his childhood chopping firewood and working vegetable gardens like a sharecropper while growing up in rural Appalachia under the iron fist of a strict step-father. Basic training was a breeze.

It felt good to have nothing to do all day but run in formation and do push ups. It felt like gym class in high school to Private Taylor and he enjoyed the escape of learning to defend the U.S.A. and an opportunity to chisel his physically gifted body.

Despite being tricked into joining the Army he was thankful Sgt. Day had called.

Drill instructors were kind gentile souls in comparison to Private Taylor’s step-father. Although they yelled at the troops a lot, they didn’t hit like fathers in Appalachia sometimes do.

Basic Training was a vacation to the young man. He was starting to taste the thrill of all life has to offer to those who grow up on the wrong side of the tracks.

Like P.T., the shooting range on Ft. Jackson was a walk in the park to a soldier who grew up hunting deer. Two weeks of the eight week Basic Training Course was dedicated to teaching soldiers how to use the M - 16 rifle. Taylor was a natural with the machine gun, but the Army taught him marksmanship techniques that no expert hunter in Pennsylvania had never mentioned on hunting expeditions.

Soldiers in Taylor’s platoon were taught a breathing technique similar to methods used by those who practice Yoga. "Breath-Relax-Aims-Squeeze" or "BRAS" was the memorizing tool shown to G.I.’s as they learned to peek through a cross hair for the first time and manage to keep their arms from trembling.

When Taylor hunted deer back home he nor anyone he knew took the time to breathe carefully prior to shooting. But it made perfect sense. The gun was going to go BANG and a shooter without a steady hand will likely miss their target. Taylor had missed killing many deer in Pennsylvania because of his shaky arms.

The thought of the bang caused nervousness, the controlled breathing stopped the thought of the bang and the trembling arms associated with firing rifles subsided.

BRAS taught Private Taylor to remain perfectly still and hit the bull’s-eye nearly every time.
Rank insignia and marksmanship badges are symbols of Gods in the Mt. Olympus of the military. The military is a civilization living in its own dimension and has its own religious icons. Taylor shined on the rifle ranges and was the envy of many peers who spent their childhoods in video arcades. Due to his harsh upbringing, he ascended to the rank of a god in Basic Training.

He qualified as the only Hawk Eye in his platoon on rifle qualification day. He knocked down forty out of forty pop up targets in the Carolina sand, some of which were 200 yards away.

Weeks are spent during the eight week Basic Training course learning privates about how to identify and respect the symbols of rank. It was made very clear in the little Basic Training study book handed to cadets that having no rank on one’s collar represented the very end of the totem pole. Page one in the little manual was dedicated to making that fact clear. Private E-1 represents a soldier who is scum in the pond of Army life.

Taylor was a Private E-1, although there were Private E-3's in his platoon. One such E-3 was Private First Class Ulmer. He fell next to Taylor on an alphabetized list of names and the two were bunk buddies.

Taylor didn’t have a college degree but Private First Class Ulmer did.

Private Ulmer was the son of a Four Star General— the highest rank in the military and its insignia is described in detail on the last page of the little Basic Training Book.

Ulmer confided in Taylor. "Look, I don’t want to gain any special privileges here, but can I tell you a secret, Taylor?" asked the first class private while shining his boots next to the Opie looking Taylor soldier from Pennsylvania.

"Sure, What?" Taylor asked.

"My dad’s a four star general," bragged Ulmer.

"No shit," responded Taylor. "Why else do you think you were chosen as Delta Four One’s platoon leader? I’m the only one wearing a Hawkeye badge. What fucking planet have you been living on?" responded Taylor while holding up his combat boot which sparkled twice as nice as Private Ulmer’s.