I ship on January 9th, 2002, which is 21 days after I signed up. If you do the math, that means I signed up on December 19th.

If you read the last entry, you might be able to guess what my Christmas was like.

On the 20th, the day after I signed up and told my fiancee what I had done, she had her lawyer and some movers clear the place out. When I say clear the place out, I wasn't exagerrating. She took everything that wasn't a personal possession of mine or wasn't cemented into the place. ALL the furniture, most of the light fixtures, one of the mini-fridges, just about everything. She actually did take some personal possessions of mine; specifically, every gift she had ever given me. The bitch literally took GIFTS she had given me; dress shirts, belts, a bottle of cologne. It was crazy.

You know how a house looks when you move in the first time? Well, except for my closet, my place looked emptier than that. It looked like it had been looted.

I enlisted on a Thursday, quit my job and had my brownstone cleaned out on Friday, and immediately drank myself into a stupor that I didn't come out of until Monday morning. As in Monday, December 24th. For 72 hours I was either drunk, passed out, fucking, or some combination of the three. My friend Shawn and I must have dropped five grand between us partying, drinking, and seducing women. I wish someone had followed me around, because I think I had some nights to rival Kid Rock, but I can't really remember anything except a lot of shots, a lot of toasts, and a lot of loud music.

I woke up Monday morning, Christmas eve, on an air mattress in my empty bedroom. This confused me because I don't remember buying an air mattress. It was one of those nice ones that inflate with a small electric motor, and it was pretty comfortable, but I don't remember buying it at all.

I was totally naked and my body kinda stuck to the mattress because the heat was turned way up in my place and I had no sheets between me and the plastic air mattress.

Next to me, nearly falling off the mattress, was a naked girl with a great body. I vaguely remember her; I am pretty sure that she is Ukrainian. I know this because I have a memory of picking her up by speaking her native language to her.

I know a little Ukrainian because I'm one of those weird people that can pick up languages in no time just by listening to native speakers. When I got home from backpacking around Europe after college, I spoke one language like a native, complete with regional vernacular (Spanish--I took it in high school and college, and can even get the Castilian lisp correct), three languages nearly fluently (French, Italian and Portugese--they are all related to Spanish) and three more passably (Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarussian--they come from the same root langauage and are very similar to each other). [Side note: if you are a single guy, MAKE THAT TRIP. I spent most of my time in Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean. Eastern Europe is full of beautiful women that want nothing more than to marry an American guy who will take them to the States, and will do anything to accomplish this goal. And Mediterranean women are just plain HOT. And when you are American and speak their language--you are fucking every day. God, I miss those days.]

Of course, even though I could tell her that she's beautiful or ask her where the bar is in Ukrainian, I had no idea what her name was. Or even if the sex was any good. I decided to wake her up for a morning quickie.

Merry Christmas, Nick.

I went to a very awkward Christmas dinner with my family. My father acted almost like nothing had happened, my mother kept breaking into tears, and my sister just talked about all her whorish girlfriends and metrosexual boyfriends. I just drank the Far Niente as fast as I could and tried to get the hell out of there.

I got my parents a Chagall lithograph that a friend of mine picked up for me from an estate sale. He had it in his office, which is the only reason my ex-fiancee didn't get it. My mom opened it and broke into tears, and my dad thanked me with a handshake. They gave me, no shit, a really nice, expensive set of Tods luggage.

Nick "What is this for?"
Mom "Well, I thought you might need something to take all your stuff with you to the Army."

I guess their personal shopper had a hard time with my gift this year. At least she's trying. I guess its really hard for her especially. My mom doesn't understand this, what I'm doing or why. All she knows is that her only son is going to war, and she has no idea how to deal with it.

I gave my sister a gift certificate to Betsy Johnson. Shopping for her is pointless. She gave me, I swear to god, a box set of Saving Private Ryan DVDs and a swiss army knife. Thanks. A film where everyone dies and a knife I can't even take with me to Basic. She's 20, she doesn't know what the fuck is going on either.

I left early and bought a 27 inch TV and a lawn chair, and went back to my place and watched TV alone the rest of the night. And I drank more. Yeah, I was kinda depressed a little, but I had another reason to get hammered. It was my last night before I had to start serious training. I was shipping in less than three weeks, I might was well get fucked up alone on Christmas.

The next day, I wake up around 11. It's so nice not having an alarm clock. I am still on the air mattress. There is no reason to buy anything else with so little time before I leave, and I'm not going to be starting any relationships, so I'm not embarassed about sleeping like a vagrant. It's actually kinda fun; I feel like I'm camping out or something, like I'm living outside of my life.

Since I am now officially unemployed, I have nothing to do but workout and finish tying up loose ends. I have to sell my place, or at least rent it out, get all my finances in order, and...well I guess I don't have any stuff to sell. I'll just put my civilian clothes in storage.

The first thing I do on the 26th is call a real estate agent that I know. She comes over to see the place and tells me what I already know: The real estate market in New York is awful right now, still only three months after 9/11. I tell her I need to sell in two weeks. She laughs outloud at me in her obnoxious South Jersey cackle, and tells me that maybe if I gave it away for free I could get title transferred by then.

Remember that scene in Wall Street where Charlie Sheen has to sell his condo and the real estate lady is squawking to him about how bad the market is, and he snaps at her, "JUST FUCKING SELL IT!" That's what I feel like doing right now. I hate dealing with this shit.

If I try to sell my place now I would only get about 75% of what I paid,and it could take up to two months to make the sale and do all the paperwork. I can't deal with this while I am in Basic, so I end up deciding to lease my place out. I hire a rental company to manage and rent my place, and they just deposit the rent minus eight percent in an account I set up. I can't get enough in rent to cover my mortgage, so I set up my account with enough in it to cover the difference each month for the next year, and then set up a payment system so that everything is taken care of automatically each month. Hopefully the NYC real estate market will rebound enough that I can sell that place after Basic or the Q Course and at least make most of my money back.

Even though I signed up on December 19th, I had started seriously contemplating this move in July, and had even started working out more in October. I was a college athlete, and I still work out so I am in good shape, but from what I've read, I'm not in military shape.

According to several sources that I consulted, including Tom Clancy's book, Special Forces, spec ops standard time is 40 minutes for a 5 mile run. That's an average of eight minutes a mile. I hadn't run anything more than the 91 feet of a basketball court since freshman year of college, but the first time I did a 5 mile run, my time was 30 minutes.

Unfortunately, I only made it about 2.5 miles before I quit. I had work to do.

I got ahold of the military PT test charts to see where I was. Once you enlist, you have to take a PT test, and you must pass a certain score to even stay in the Army. The minimums are a joke, and I wasn't worried about passing those, but I wanted to get a perfect score. If I was going to be in SF, I should be in great shape.

For my age group, a perfect score meant 75 push-ups, 80 sit-ups, and a 13 minute two mile run. I took a self-administered PT test in October, before I even went into the recruiting office, and the first time I did pretty poorly. 45 pushups, 55 situps, and a 15 minute two mile run time. That kinda sucks, especially for me.

The problem is that I am weight room strong. I can bench press and squat a decent amount of weight, and I am still a pretty good sprinter, but from what I have read and know about training, that type of strength is not what is emphasized in the Army. Raw strength and short bursts of speed don't help when you need to march 40 miles with a 100 pound rucksack on. And being able to bench 225 pounds 10 times doesn't really help you knock out 80 push-ups in two minutes. They are different types of strengths; one is about moving a lot weight a few times, one is about moving a little weight many times, and the muscles develop differently depending on how you work them. The military wants endurance, not just raw strength, so I had to change my workout regimen.

Sgt. Anderson had given me a basic Army PT session to use as my workout regimen; it was all body weight exercises and nothing with weights. Push-ups, sit-ups, butter-fly kicks, jumping jacks--all shit like that. After two days of that, I was a mess. My body wasn't used to that type of workout. I called Sgt Anderson, kinda worried. If I was supposed to be in shape, how the fuck could I have so much trouble with this?

Sgt. Anderson "Stop your bitching son. You'll be fine. Your scores will improve dramatically once we get you on some Army chow and your body gets used to this. You do all that gym crap, which is worhtless. I've been doing this shit for fifteen years, it's easy for me now, and you'll get there too."

Thanks, that's not helping me with sore muscles now.

I also had to learn how to ruck. Rucking is walking long distances with a heavy pack on your back, and is apparently a staple for all special forces. Sounds easy right? Try it. Do what I did: Go to an Army surplus store, buy a ruck sack (they run about 50$), load it up with clothes and maybe a weight or two so that it's at least 50 pounds, and then go for a walk. And walk. And walk. And walk. Ten miles later, your lower back feels like its been beaten with a sledge hammer, your ankles are ready to snap, your feet are aching and numb, and your shoulders are so sore they feel like they are fire. And then the next day, your ass muscles are so sore you have to sleep on your side. It's not fun, but apparently soldiers in the field, especially spec ops guys, walk almost everywhere and most of the time they need to carry everything with them, so rucking is a very important skill. And it is a skill; there is even a way to walk, keeping your leg sorta straight and mainly using your butt muscles to pull your body along. It sounded weird to me until I actually tried it.

I really kicked it into high gear starting December 26th. My Christmas day binge was the last drop of alcohol I had before I enlisted. I ran and worked out for an hour or more in the morning, then rucked in the park in the afternoon. It was kinda funny walking around Central Park with a huge ruck on my back, cops and homeless people staring at me like I was crazy. If they only knew.

By the time the New Year rolled around, I was within 5 sit-ups of a perfect PT test score, and could do a 10 mile ruck pretty easily.

I spent New Year's Eve alone. I was too amped, scared and excited to do anything. I went to the movies instead. Black Hawk Down was playing. How ironic. I actually watched the movie twice, completely through. I wasn't sure how to feel about it. It's well done and all, but it didn't scare me or excite me; it more just focused me. It made me more resolute in my determination. I don't know how else to explain it.

The next week I did nothing but eat well, workout two or three times a day, and read everything I could about the military, the special forces, and anything related to field craft I could find.

Ironically, that week I spent alone reading and working out is why I started this journal, which turned into this blog. I couldn't find anything that gave me a representative feel of what it was truly like to be in the military, and a day to day, anthropological viewpoint of military life. There may be books out there like that, but I couldn't find them. I am going to end up going in almost totally blind. I called and asked Sgt. Anderson about this also.

Sgt. Anderson "Son, you're enlisted. How many fucking times are you going to call me with this piddly shit. It's the holidays and you are about to spend four years in the Army. Go get some pussy or something."
Nick "Sgt., don't fuck with me. This is serious. I'm not an 18 year old. I want to know everything I can."
Sgt. Anderson "Look, son, you'll figure it out on your own as you go. There really isn't much to tell that isn't in those high speed books of yours. Relax. You're going to be fine."

Thanks, that was helpful.

Before I knew it, it was January 8th. I ship tomorrow.

Posted by Rudius Media at 4:26 PM

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