Annabeth

Chapter One - Hotel Co 3-34 3rd Plt Punishers

"Pipes, you're making my arm go numb" I said, gently pushing her off of me. The added pressure of her head, coupled with the bus driving over the uneven roads equaled a quite uncomfortable experience. Almost as uncomfortable as being watched by the drill sergeant looking over us on our bus ride to where we will begin our training. "Sorry," Piper replied, mid-yawn, "I haven't been getting much sleep recently."

"None of us have." These past couple of days have been focused on waiting in Reception to get uniforms, military IDs, items we need from the post exchange, and paperwork sorted out. Not to mention the obscene amount of shots we received.

"Get off my bus! Hurry up!" The drill sergeant shouts as the bus comes to a stop. We grab our laundry bags, full of our personal belongings, and run off the bus. Unsure of where we're running to, I just follow everyone else who's going in the same general direction, urged along by more yelling from drill sergeants.

I join the formation in the middle of a rubber pit, passing by a couple people either struggling to run with their laundry bag, being individually yelled at, or crying. Dropping my bag in front of me and standing at attention, I wait, staring straight ahead for whatever is next to come.

"Why are you moving around at the position of attention?! You should be standing still, eyes facing forward, feet at a 45 degree angle, fists along the seams of your trousers!" Ignoring the growing urge to laugh at Piper being scolded, I watch as cadre walk up to the podium near the top corner of the pit, while the last of the trainees file in. After the expected welcome and introduction, we all get herded to our designated platoon areas, denoted by the colors of the circle patches on our uniforms that were given to us at Reception. First platoon is blue, second platoon is red, third platoon is black, and fourth platoon is green. Standing in formation in the third platoon area, there are three drill sergeants. I recognize one of them as the one who was watching us during the bus ride. After running to get our duffle bags, of which mine happened to get switched with another Chase's duffle bag, doing quite a bit of push-ups, lifting our bags up and putting them back down multiple times, and making sure we have all the things we need for these next couple of months, we begin our ascent upstairs. And so starts the first day of basic training with the Hotel Company third platoon 'Punishers' with Drill Sergeant Grace, Drill Sergeant Valdez, and Senior Drill Sergeant Jackson.

We drop off our laundry and duffle bags in our respective female and male bays, but keep our personal bags with us. DS Grace leads us to our designated platoon classroom, where we find ziplock bags waiting on desks for us. We stand at attention by whichever chest we filed in next to and wait to be told to sit down.

"The Hero's Creed!"

Or not.

"I am an Olympian Hero.

I am a swordsman and a member of a team.

I serve the people of the United States, and live the Olympian Values.

I will always place the mission first.

I will never accept defeat.

I will never quit.

I will never leave a fallen hero.

I am disciplined, physically and mentally tough, trained and proficient in my swordsman tasks and drills.

I always maintain my weapons, my equipment and myself.

I am an expert and I am a professional.

I stand ready to deploy, engage, and destroy, the enemies of the United States of America in close combat.

I am a guardian of freedom and the Olympian way of life.

I am an Olympian Hero!" The whole classroom recites.

Hearing "Take seats!", we all sit down and wait for them to explain what's going on. It was quite boring to sit through, so let me give you the rundown: Papers to sign, briefed on the Olympian Combat Fitness Test, hand sanitizer, chapstick, pen, list of who is a heat or cold weather injury and who has allergies, and a more in depth introduction from the drill sergeants.

After "class", we file back downstairs to our platoon's covered training area. Seeing as the other platoons are formed up, we too, get into formation under our platoon sign. We're informed that we can make one last call for a few minutes. They give us a script of what to say, so that our family knows we are safe and that we made it here alive. I call my mother, tell her I don't have much time to talk, say the script and add in an "I love you" before hanging up. When we're done, we turn our personal bags and cell phones into the drill sergeants, where they lock them up.

Drill Sergeant Grace goes to the front of the formation and goes to the position of attention. "When I file you through, you're going to grab an MRE to eat breakfast and sit down in our platoon area, forming a circle, facing outwards."

"Right face!" We all pivot our bodies to the right. "Far from the right, column right!" As the squad leader of the fourth rank, I say "Forward!" while the other three squad leaders say "Standfast!".

"March!" I lead my rank to the open boxes of MREs that were waiting for us and we each grab one and sit down. We've only been given 15 minutes to eat, and most of that time is spent trading MRE snacks, rather than actually eating the main meal. After cleaning up our trash, we get back into formation. There's still a lot to go over today. This is going to be a long week. I just hope that it will all be worth the time and effort in the end, and maybe, I'll make some good friends along the way.