Chapter 4: Hell's Playground
War educates the senses, calls into action the will, perfects the physical constitution, brings men into such swift and close collision in critical moments that man measures man. –Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Wake up recruits! You boys and girls been oversleeping!"
I recognized the voice. It was the Major's. Immediately, I rolled out of my bed onto the floor and began to pick myself up. I stood at attention as he walked past all of us. We were two lines on his left and right. I looked at my watch secretly. We had only been asleep for a couple hours.
He walked through the human passageway. "Today, we're going to have a very special breakfast. It's spaghetti. Tomorrow, we train. Now get to your teeth, double time!"
We went to the bathroom with our toothbrushes. Over the years, health had become a big part of the military, and now required things such as brushing your teeth, daily showers, etc. After the few minute ordeal, we changed into our old uniforms, although now the patch had the word JAVELINS on it and there were two spears crossed together like an X. We then flooded into the mess hall and waited in line to get our food.
After we sat down, we
started mashing the food into our mouths. The women in our platoon
started looking at everybody and laughing together.
After a
minute into our meal, our Major came in. "Listen up, we are going
running! This is what you will know as "The Flip-Flop run." You
will know why. Follow me men!"
The Flip-Flop run turned out to be a ten-mile run. Every mile there would be logs on water, making it hard to run on. Occasionally we would have to run in place on the logs. Everybody except the Major fell in it. The way he looked, it seemed he had been doing this for years. I pulled myself over the log and tried to stand again. As soon as I tried to jog, I fell again. This time, I saw a crocodile in front of me. Even though it was half my size and I could easily overpower it, my instincts made me splash out of the water and onto the log. From then on, that was how I started getting the hang of log running.
At the end of our run, we were tired, sweaty, shocked, and wet. "That was a good first try. We'll take a break and jog to the playground. Don't worry, its much easier."
That had taken about an hour. I found out that the jog to the playground was four miles more uphill a mountain.
The playground was an obstacle course. "Alright, we're going to have one test today. The test is going to be how fast you can make it through. There will be multiple false passageways, and you must figure out your way to the end. Your food has been reheated, and everybody except the last person gets to go back and finish it up.
To be honest, we didn't want to finish it up. During the 10-mile run, we had vomited it back up.
During the obstacle course, I had been recording it in my brain, like a map. I would then sprint to another part and record it too. After a few minutes, I had found the exit to the maze. I looked behind me and thought over about what I had done. I had to climb over walls, run everywhere, climb ropes, and even do the splits, which had hurt like hell. Right now, my torn muscles still hurt.
I didn't want to leave Pinky behind though; he was going to be last. So I made a vow to be last with him. Then there would be now last person. I stayed and waited for what seemed like hours when he finally came.
"You gonna go through?" he asked.
"Yeah, lets go together."
"No, no. You were first, why don't you go through."
"Let's go through together."
"Alright, thanks."
We then continued through.
As we got out two men pinned us to the ground and we fought back. I punched the guy that brought down Pinky and Pinky did the same to the person that jumped me. They fell flat on the ground, unconscious. We walked back to the mess hall together.