It's about training you to be really good at being trained!
I have never been in the millitary. But you can't spend all the time I have writing about 20th Century history, the recovery from two World Wars, and astronauts without developing an awful lot of respect, even if you (as I still do) regard yourself as a kind of a modern-day hippy.
If being a 20th Century historian has taught me anything, it's that the Hippys and the guys in the NATO military were fighting for the same things.
But it is a book I read as a child that tought me about military training, and it was a sudden moment of realization that taught me what basic training really is doing.
I'd like to think that I would have figured it out if I was actually in basic training.
The book was Michael Collins's Flying to the Moon and Other Strange Places.
If there are two things I am, it is a space nerd and a modern-day hippy, and this book by Michael Collins about his experiences as an astronaut was one of the experiences of my childhood.
He writes real well. Michael Collins was as much a writer as he was a pilot.
And in it I read all about astronaut training.
I did not read about basic training.
That insight came as I was telling stories to myself.
This is how I write, and this is what I do for fun.
I ramble on and on about this and that, related to my possible upcoming stories, in some cases years before I get around to writing them- I have a list of upcoming projects in my head. On this one I was on military history and the kind of formations that they used back in the ancient Greek days.
I would like to thank anyone out there who has served in the NATO military, or served for the right reasons (such as among the Allies of WWII), for your service to Humanity. You learn such things as a historian.
And I had an insight as I was storytelling, as I often do.
I realized what it was that basic training is doing!
It is not trying to break you down!
It is training you to be good at training yourself!
You reply to barked orders to train yourself to be good at taking orders.
You march in formation in order to train yourself to learn formations. Grop discipline is everything. The ancient Romans never went into battle willy-nilly like they do in the movies. No one did. They went in in formation.
And you keep your barracks clean to train yourself to do things well. If you can keep you barracks clean, you can learn to keep your rifle clean and ready, etc.
And waking up from a nap today I just realized that I can give this insight to others, because I know that there are all kinds of Hollywood misreprentations of basic training.
I like to think that if it was WWII and I was doing my part, that I would have had this realization when I entered basic training. Because you know that I would want to do my part.
Part of my part as a writer is giving people these insights where it is important, and this one is important.
God loves you!
Sincerely,
David S. Annderson