Bradley Manning’s first day in the Army
Apparently, Breanna Manning (Bradley once told his commander that he wanted everyone to call him Breanna, according to his lawyer, so we’re just complying with his wishes here), the Wikileaks traitor, has been whining for a while. The above photo of him crying his little eyes out, was taken his first day in the Army and sent to us through a couple of people by someone who went to basic with him. I guess someone should have been paying attention to him from the beginning.
I’ll admit that I was a little bit scared my first day, but not to the point of tears. Anyway, I thought this was a good way to start your Friday.
Category: Shitbags
That dirtbag needs to fix her PC.
I’m sure that folks were paying attention but they probably figured that he was just like every other scared recruit. Wonder who took the photo?
I was scared too, then I really listened to what the DI’s were yelling, BAD mistake!! I became know as one of the “Giggle Twins”, the other “twin” was a black guy from GA and became one of my best friends.
I do believe as recently as 1982, Ms. Manning would have been propeled out of on of the third floor windows!
I will admit it, I was scared shitless when my 17 year old ass stepped off the bus and the shark attack commenced back in 1992. I do wish that Ms. Manning would have followed through with the basic training urban legend and wrapped a buffer power cord around her neck and threw the buffer out the window.
Ah, the first day. Fright started on the big green bus as we rolled through the S Carolina ground fog at night towards Fort Jackson. I have no idea why everyone got sooooo quiet. Bwahahahahahahah.
@4. Goat smellin’ ass. One of my favs. Little did we know back then how large goats would loom in the future military.
I can’t believe no one has posted this….
Are you crying? Are you crying? ARE YOU CRYING? There’s no crying! THERE’S NO CRYING IN BASIC!
The “guy” makes me want to puke. I was an intel analyst. Never ONCE dreamed of doing the crap he did. He is a disgrace to the country, the military, the Army, the MI branch, and the 35F (96B in my day) MOS specifically. I hope he rots in prison and in hell.
I was too damn tired to be scared when I put my feet on the yellow footprints in San Diego. But, yah…no crying. I don’t recall having seen anyone cry.
I remember my first days – scared, nervous, afraid of the unknown. But NOT to tears. I figured if several million past civilians could be made into soldiers, I could do it too. And I did. My biggest fear during basic was effin’ up so bad that I would be the recipiant of a blanket party. Thankfully, that never happened.
@9: Tired, disoriented, kept awake for over 24 hours. Fun times. I remember them well.
I don’t remember anyone crying but I do remember one kid announcing that he wanted to kill himself. The DI went down the line asking if any more of us wanted to commit suicide “Because I only want to fill out one set of paperwork!”
So by ‘first day in the army’ they must mean the first day after whatever ‘final trial’ there was at the end of basic. He seems to have all his nametapes and gear, so it’s not like he was just off the bus here. I remember the morning after ‘Battle Stations’ when I went through navy basic. Hours of effort and then just before breakfast they sprung their final and most difficult trial upon us–standing at attention for that Lee Greenwood song. I kept dry, but there was some effort involved, and about a third of my shipmates didn’t make it…
There was that odd screaming noise in the middle of the night. It woke me up. Then I realized the truth…. it was me.
Dear God. Why did we not shit can this guy right away?
@10
My biggest fear during basic was effin’ up so bad that I would be the recipiant of a blanket party.
Yah, that was my biggest concern all of boot. Both my parents were in the Corps during Vietnam, so I heard all about that kinda thing before I went in. I just knew I didn’t want to draw attention to myself.
@12. Good observation. Maybe it was her first day of crying at Basic? Naw.
Crying? That should have been a huge clue for someone.
What a candyass.
I remembered that long night bus ride from Fort Jackson Reception Station to Fort Benning to begin OSUT (Benning did not have a reception station back in 1979). I remembered I engaged in small talk with a trainee who sat next to me on the bus. He told me he was also a 11C and his name was Detmer (this is a pseudonym to protect his privacy), and that he was from the Chicago area and had a wife and small baby. We both expressed our fear and dread as to what what going to happen once we arrived at Benning and what the drills were going to inflict on us.
Once we arrived at Sand Hill around 0400, the drill sergeants immediately tore into us and kicked us off the bus and forced us to carry/drag heavy duffle bags about a 150 meters from the bus to the formation area. During the next hours and days, as we were put through the ringer by the drill sergeants and everything turned into a foggy whirl of assholes and elbows, I did not notice that Detmer was nowhere to be seen. Turns out that as soon as the bus stopped and the drill sergeants screamed and kicked us off the bus, Detmer had second thoughts about the whole thing and turned and ran in the other direction into the bushes and away from the Army!
About a month and a half later, as we were hip deep in our 11C OSUT, good ole’ Detmer suddenly showed up in our platoon formation. Turns out after his desertion, he was finally either caught by the MPs/LEOs, or got tired of running and turned himself in. He was with our platoon for about a day, and then he just as suddenly disappeared again, most likely chaptered out on a trainee discharge. Some folks are just not military material, as Detmer discovered after he signed the dotted line; too bad Breanna Manning didn’t do the same thing after h/she signed up…
Maybe s/he thought free medical care included gender re-orientation. Or s/he could actually be a ridgling.
At age 26, I wasn’t scared on my first day at the Ft. Leonard Wood Reception Station, but I was hungry and tired. I was the second oldest trainee in my basic training company. The training was physically challenging, but I recognized the “game” my Drill Sergeants were playing and I adjusted accordingly.
It was a very interesting experience.
Oh, and my biggest fear was being injured during training and getting recycled. I really only wanted to do OSUT once.
2/17 Air Cav: Manning having a nametape on day 1 is feasible, but requires some efficiency on the part of the Basic training admin/logistical support staff.
The ACU at the time used nametapes attached with velcro. He’d only need one for the first couple of weeks (it transfers from uniform to uniform; ditto for the US Army and unit patches). The one Manning’s wearing in the photo could have been made up earlier in the day after arrival and given to him with his first uniform.
@4 Twist…I’m with you on that one. At 17 I believed EVERYTHING the DS told us. Thinking back on it now I find it humorous..but it seems they constantly threatened us with Leavenworth…
“I catch you Pivots with pougie bait and I’ll have you breaking big rocks into little rocks at Leavenworth by the end of the day!”
“Pivots” = how this one particular DS pronounced Private
Anyways…I believed that 100%. LMAO.
Another recent story. I was on leave and hanging out with my Uncle who is a Vietnam Vet. One of his buddies from the Army, from the same town, was there. I had never met him.
He and my Uncle were drafted together, went through BCT and AIT together and wound up in the 9th ID and Vietnam together.
We were talking and he looks at me. He goes..”Your Uncle Billy saved my life. And I don’t mean literally but in the sense that he kept me from ruining my life”
The story goes on
Apparently when they were inducted they were on the bus together. The bus wound its way through every podunk town picking up 1 or 2 guys here and there on its way to St Louis and the induction center. At every stop this guys is like..
“Billy..I can’t do this. Next stop and I’m getting off and going home”
“You can’t do that Jim” my Uncle tells him “They will arrest your ass and throw you in jail”
So he stays on the bus. This went on between them at every stop for the next 10 hours. So my Uncle kept him from making a grave mistake that would have had dire consequences on his future..so he attributes my Uncle to “saving his life”
I found that story hilarious. Just watching their back and forth. Maybe you had to be there.
Holy Shit, that was only day one. It did not get any easier after that. She must have had to drink a gallon of water every day just to keep up with the tears.
Hondo: The photo of Breanna could be on the day he transitioned from the reception station phase to the basic training phase. I remembered that during reception station phase at Jackson (lasted about 8 days for me), we did a lot of sitting around and getting issued uniforms and gear, the TAC NCOs in charge of us did not really ride us that hard. It was not unitl we arrived at Fort Benning for the real start of OSUT that the drill sergeants there tore into us as we arrived and put us through the ringer. My bet is that this is a photo of Breanna as s/he finished reception station and just arrived at the basic training site and the drills really began to tear into all the trainees…
We had a crier in my platoon. He cried and cried. Drills got tired of it after about 3 days. Declared taht we were all being kicked out because we couldn’t keep him together.
We cleaned the barracks, packed it all up, turned in linen, back in civvies with cases packed. We were pissed. We wondered if this could really happen? Were we all that F’d up? Crier baby was happy, “I’m going home. I’m going home” he crooned. The drills came out, formed us up. “Let’s go him, ladies!”
The drills marched 3 miles and we ended up back in the company area in front of our barracks….
wait for it….
With a sadistic grin they said, “Your HOME! You have 30 minutes to straigthen the place and get back here in PTs.”
MOTHER F…..
To this day it is still the biggest mind job I’ve ever had performed on me. EVER!
Cry baby quit that day. I never have seen a spirit so broken.
I wonder what happened to that guy.
Ft Dix, 1975, CIB wearing BAMF DSs. Nobody cried. BCT advice heeded: shut mouth, open ears, learn to Soldier, and do not stick out for any reason.
That appears to be a woman in the background.
He went to BT with women? Wow.
And he crying?
Try 13 week OSUT followed by BAC.
What a pussy.
Red? No, probably green. Left? No, probably right. Up?
Lots of crying in boot back when the earth was flat, the crying started with the order “remove your masks”.
Some puking too.
The “T-Bone”!.
An 8 count exercise sang to the cadence: I love the T-bone; the T-bone loves me.
Or: Get up, get down. Get up, get down. x400.
Shit got old. I don’t remember seeing any crying, though. Cuss, yes. Cry, no.
@27: He probably became a democrat staffer or writer at Salon.
He was crying at that point because the only sack he was allowed to touch was his own duffle bag.
@9 – I don’t recall seeing anyone crying at MCRD San Diego (1986) either. As far as blanket parties go, we gave our guide one after 2d phase because the DI’s would tell us “When the guide is done… YOU’RE done!” (Which meant when he finished eating, we all had to get “on the road” and continue the training day. The problem was, for some reason the guy ate light (insofar as that was possible), so when folks were just sitting down to eat, he was already finished and going outside. We hated the guy, but not just for that. Long story short, he got a blanket party one night with socks filled with soap bars, but didn’t rat us out. His attitude sure did change, though. He graduated recruit training as a LCpl (he was a contract PFC), and I saw him about 18 months after recruit training at the rifle range on Pendleton, coming up from pulling targets in the morning. Except this time, he was a PFC again.
What a tool! Holy shit!
I was terrified in Basic. I had no idea what to expect, and I went to basic BEFORE all the PC crap really hit!
As I stood there, shaking, while the Drill Sergeants walked around and tossed all our stuff to make sure we didn’t have anything objectionable before letting us go upstairs to our bay, while yelling in our faces.
I was kind of shaking when he came up to me, got literally an inch from my nose and proceeded to yell and scream about how they will give SPC-4 rank to any college puke. And then I realized he had really pretty lips and was ridiculously hot. So I just focused on that! LOL
Hey… it got me through that first day!
@35
We didn’t give anyone a blanket party (either that, or I somehow slept through it).
Ugh. Pulling butts on Edson range. Second phase. Breathtakingly hot sweatshirt. Late July. That was full of suck. Hated it. First real chance we weren’t under constant barrage of someone yelling “Hurry the hell up. You’re moving way too slow” and I found it boring.
Amazing how many memories come back with the simple phrase “pulling targets”.
back in 74 at Ft. Lost in the Woods,Mo,,we didn’t receive our name tags until our 2nd week of actual basic.
@34.
Good point.
@37: I got the “hurry the hell up”-based yelling because I was forced to pull two targets at the same time.
@40
Doh! Yah, I can see how having to pull two targets by yourself would keep you hopping.
@37 – Pulling targets – otherwise referred to as “working down in the butts”, but I hesitated to mention that here because of all the dickweed comments.
O.K. all you dickweeds. Go ahead.
I must admit I looked like that once durung basic, but it was after coming out of the teargas building. In fact I probley looked worse..noticing the absence of snot running out of Breanna’s nose.
Someone getting broken happened at least once a week in my platoon and I witnessed several others from other platoons getting broke down in public. Just Like a POW a recruit, especially a young teen can be physically worn down and mind fucked until the point of tears.
The last guy I remember breaking was just before graduation when one Of our DIs told a kid ( who was Married with 2 kids) that he had failed the Battalion Commanders Inspection and was getting sent back to training Day one.
Of course those inspections were just for rattling recruits, so no one in my platoon really failed, but we never knew that.
I recall some manginas shedding tears at Sand Hill in the early 1990s when the drill sergeants first embarked on the de-sissification process.
I may have discovered my tear ducts still worked out the CS chamber, but for Fort Benning humidity. It certainly wouldn’t have had anything to do with the reality of a new life. I felt like I was in a magical land of awesomesauce where, sure, someone might yell at you, but I was on my way to being a svelte warrior who would forever be able to break the legs of people who called me a hooknose Jooooo.
Naw, I got Dear Johned by my piece, only she did it on some kind of wax-coated girly stationery. The humidity melted it to utter illegibility, so I didn’t realize she had dumped me until I came home between Airborne School and Ft. Campbell.
But see, that’s the only legitimate reason for a Joe to cry. Loss of poon, or loss of buddy. Manning will never lament the loss of poon, obviously, as he was always more interested in f–king his buddy, both literally and figuratively.
What a cherub…
It’s been 32 years. I remember OSUT like it was this morning. I could have sudden-onset Alzheimers and still recite it. I had SO much fun… seriously.
Former school bus we were on from Ft Jackson arrives at Ft Gordon; we were the next-to-last company for basic training ever at the base. The bus pulls up in front of the company/plt area, and a large, khaki-wearing, bald-headed DI steps onto the bus holding a riding crop. You could almost HEAR the fear welling up in that bus. I would not have been surprised to hear piss rolling into the aisle. He calmly stated ‘Welcome to Ft Gordon- I hope the bus trip was ok. We are here to begin your training into US Army soldiers.
NOW GET YOUR ASS OFF THIS BUS AND GIVE ME A FORMATION OUTSIDE! NOW! **whap** went the riding crop on the back of the front seat.
Ever see a bunch of monkeys un-ass a tree in those Africa movies? yeah- that was that bus. NO ONE was going past him to the front door. They were trying to come out the windows- out the back door- anyplace but next to him. But there they were- 10 more DI’s standing there shouting at us for not using the ‘correct’ door. Then screaming at us ”where’s your bag, recruit? Where’s your stuff?”
Like we effing knew.
Never will I forget those first 8 weeks…
* coda to that story. Dear John girlfriend turned out to be me oldest daughter’s guidance counselor at grade school. She got fat and hideous. Thanks to the Army, I’m still svelte with a luxurious head of hair. Manning can only dream of knowing that kind of winning.
The universe can be kind to its man soldiers. Omega/beta male sissies like Manning end up wanking to their own tears in solitary with their underroos confiscated.
The only time I bawled in Boot Camp was after demasking in the CS chamber (3′ long s or goober hanging out of I nose, etc.). We had a crybaby wuss-pie cream puff in my platoon, he quickly became a “Sick Call Ranger” (broke-dick) and got himself thrown out after OD’ing on Tylenol. Pity they didn’t find a reason to jettison that turd! It reminds me of one of my DS’s first day comments(He was the size of an NFL Linebacker or a”Pro-Wrassler”) “I WANT THE NAME AND ADDRESS OF YOUR RECRUITER, BECAUSE I’M GONNA KICK HIS ASS FOR LETTING YOU INTO MY ARMY!!”. He NEVER smiled at or complimented us until AIT Graduation, when he smiled and shook our hands saying “Good job!”. He was an “Old Schooler” who didn’t want any wusses like traitor boy in HIS Army!
It didn’t kill me, either, it only made me stronger.
36 – please tell me you are female
Yah, in proper military fashion, I demonstrated that my tear ducts were still in operational order upon exiting the CS chamber.
Frankly, I’d be kinda scared of the mutation that doesn’t leak a little in the ocular region in those circumstances.