Certainty

I will get around to explaining what I mean by the title of this post (eventually), but first I want to describe what the first few weeks of basic training were like:

Have you ever had one of those days when you had a whole bunch of stuff to do? And you were constantly rushed and you ran into major hassles everywhere you went? And by the time you finally got home you were so relieved that you could finally sit down and unwind?

Now... Suppose that day had started at "Oh-Dark-Thirty" (military humor), and from the moment you woke up there were people screaming at you to hurry up (and it never stopped all day)... And you didn't have a car to drive so you had to either run or march everywhere you went (in heavy combat boots)... And along the way you had to stop and do pushups and situps (way more than you thought you could do), and by mid day every muscle in you body had turned to jello, your lungs were about to burst, and you felt like your knees were going to explode from the pounding they were taking... And you were so exhausted you didn't think you could take another step - but you did take another ... and another ... and another ... because you didn't want to find out what would happen if you stopped.
And the whole time there were countless little details you had to keep track of  because everything had to be done in a precise way and the simplest lapse in attention could have dire consequences for you (and everyone around you)... And people kept coming up to you demanding that you recite things you were supposed to have memorized, but they were screaming at you the whole time trying to get you screw it up... And by mid day you were so stressed you just want to lie down and curl up in a ball... At times you were certain you couldn't take one more second of it - but you had no choice... And more than anything in the world you just wanted to go home - but you couldn't...
Then suppose the next morning it started all over again ... and the next ... and the next...

Yeah... it was kind of like that :-)

And on to the topic at hand:
When we got back to the dorm we marked all our clothing with our identification stamps and changed into our fatigues. (I can't recall exactly when we got the name strips sewn on. I think it was a week or 2 later.) Then they took away the rest of our civilian possessions (except for our wallets) and locked them up in the storage room.

Aside: It's hard to explain just how odd it is to look in the mirror and see a stranger with a shaved head wearing a military uniform staring back at you. It's one of the most absurd and peculiar experiences I can recall ever having :-)

Now - here's where the "certainty" part comes in: Every clothing item had to be folded or hung in a precise manner and stored in a specific location and order... For example, pants were to be placed over the hanger with the "fly" on the right facing forward, zipped and fastened, with the cuffs a certain number of inches lower than waist band. Similarly, your underwear and socks had to be folded in a specific way and placed in a certain location in the drawers.
And it wasn't just the lockers... When wearing the fatigue cap the bill had to be "two fingers" above the bridge of your nose... When you used the toilet paper (which unrolled over the top) you had to leave the end folded under at a 45 degree angle... And there was none of this AM / PM nonsense. Lights out was at 22:00 hours... I could go on and on for pages, but suffice it to say that everything was pretty darn clearly specified.

Aside: That reminds me of one of my pet peeves... It is very rare to see a Hollywood actor salute properly and I cannot begin to explain just how much it grates on my nerves... I mean, they spend millions of dollars getting the uniforms and equipment exactly right and they don't bother to make sure the actors can correctly perform a simple gesture that every military member makes a number of times a day??? It completely blows the authenticity. You might as well have them dressed in clown costumes driving Yugos with guns glued to the roof and call it "close enough" :-)

But here's the point: I had spent my entire life in a state of confusion, paralyzed by indecision, because I could see multiple ways to interpret most everything...
Then I suddenly found myself in an environment where nothing was ambiguous. And (over time) I discovered that when I was not constantly engaged in "second-guessing", I was capable of doing things I never suspected I could do.

So - yeah... The first few days of basic were kind of insane. They were barking instructions at us from sunup to sundown (major information overload)... It was almost impossible to keep it all straight - especially when being pushed to our physical and mental limits... And the stress of having to focus 100% of our attention on every little thing we did was absolutely unreal...

But we survived :-)