The Dinner of Death

As we Dragged back into Brodie Hall, we lined up on the 5^th deck as tight as sardines and got “chewed out” for things such as: Gazing (looking around), Not standing bolt straight as a 2X4 at attention, not having our shoes shined, not having a face that looks like you are spacing off and general other things that were all pointed out while getting yelled at by multiple people not but 2 feet away from your face. After what felt like eternity of standing at attention in the sweltering hot deck, because there is no air conditioning, we finally moved out to go to chow. For chow, we drag outside and form up outside of Brodie, and head out in formation lines to Turner Place. Once we reached our destination, we filed in one line at a time, and went through the process of thanking the “magical orb of sanitation”, asking for food, and then was told where to sit. The trick is, we couldn't sit until all our buds were at the table and the correct verbage was called out by one of our buds. An example is if I was to ask if we could sit down at the table, I would left or right face to see who the highest ranking officer is and shout at the top of my lungs “Cadet [Insert Rank] [Insert name], New Cadet Knight Deaven James, Training Company 1-2, Requests permission for my buds and I to come aboard!” The Highest ranking would then reply, “Eye, come aboard!” or “No you may not come aboard my ship, sound off!”

Once we boarded the ship (table), we were to sit 6 inches off the front of the chair and sit at attention while eating. We also couldn't look around and talk with our buds while eating, we had to have poker faces staring straight forward or else we were “gazing”, and on top of that, we only had ten minutes to eat everything we had off of our plates (that’s not a lot of time to eat). I couldn't tell you how many times I had to just shovel food in my mouth just for the sake of not starving till the next meal. Once that was over, we would stop eating, consolidate all our trays and food, no matter how much was left and dump it all in trash cans at the end of our tables. We then filed back to our seats and someone, say me, would ask “Cadet [Insert Rank] [Insert name], New Cadet Knight Deaven James, Training Company 1-2, Request permission for my buds and I to come ashore?!” The Ranking officer would reply with “Eye, get off my ship!” We would file out, form up and get ready to head back to Brodie. Stay tuned to find out what happens when we return to Brodie, the fun has only begun.