Just a Basic Day - Instruction

Like I stated earlier, there is the right way, the wrong way, and the army way.  That goes for military instructions methods also.  I do have to say however that the army and the military in general has a way of instruction that is superior.  They start out with the premise that the student doesn't know anything so they tell them what they are going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what they told them.  Oddly enough it works. 

The first class I remember having, and I guess it was on that first day, was how to salute, when to salute, and who to salute.  Not as easy as it sounds.  We all knew you were supposed to salute officers, we were not sure about sergeants however.  That answer is no if you didn't know already.  They showed us a film about saluting etiquette.  Like if you are passing by a restaurant and see an officer through the window you are not expected to salute.  However they stressed that saluting is just a greeting of sorts and the one saluted had just as much an obligation of saluting you back as you had in saluting. 

During our first break we all had to practice saluting each other.  Our hands had to be at a certain tilt and angle and are arms the same.  A sloppy salute was disrespectful and no salute at all.

A lot of time was given to marching and what they called close order drill.  We saw a film and a demonstration then all piled out side again to practice.  Attention, at ease, right face, left face, about face, present arms, (with out a weapon means to salute) order arms, (stop saluting), forward march, column left, column right, to the rear march, right flank, left flank, open ranks, etc, the list goes on and on and seems like we never did it right enough for the DI.

The first few days we just marched to class and back twice a day and really thought we were doing something.  Eventually we were told to fall out in our fatigues (before this we had been told to dress in our class B [ khakis] with canteen and helmet liners.  We were going to receive the rest of our field gear, along with real army helmets and real honest to goodness rifles.  That morning we went to the firing range.