LTC memory: DS Baker

Drill Sergeant Baker was a cool DS; he'd get pissed off and yell the shit out of himself at times, but he was still very well respected from all of us. DS Baker was in charge of 1st squad. He took care of my squad and our lieutenant. He was also pretty young; he was the only one not married. In fact, he was only a few years older than me. It's also interesting to think about; in a different life we could have been friends or we could have been enemies. Life takes us in all sorts of possibilities.

The first day we got to learn from him was on our group ice-breaking day where we did all sorts of physical puzzles. We had to work together as a team to solve them. The details in that would be covered later, but during that day we actually smiled and laughed. DS Baker also got kind of bored by the puzzles, and he actually gave us hints on how to solve them. I was grateful for that because he was relating to how we felt. We got to ask him questions about the Army and what he thought of us as a platoon so far. One comment that particularly stood out for me, was when we asked him if he met any fuckups. He talked about one kid who didn't know where he was going and dropping things, and it turned out it was the guy from Africa who was also in our squad! So we all laughed because he didn't even realize that the guy he was insulting was sitting next to him. Of course, in reality drill sergeants don't need to learn names.

Throughout the month there, DS Baker would push us hard along with DS Rhine-Russell and DS Dimick. We did some stupid shit, and of course we had to get punished for them. I was pretty annoyed by all the dumb shit we did, but it was expected I suppose. How would we lead soldiers when we are not even disciplined ourselves? It was a good point, and another reason for NCOs to dislike officers and cadets.