Boot Camp: Rites of Passage

The last three days of basic training were marked by night infiltration, bivouac and a fifteen kilometer march back to the barracks. These were three grueling days, even compared to the rest of boot camp. We marched out to a bivouac site carrying m-16s and sixty pound packs. The route we took to get there was ten kilometers of long steep Kentucky foothills, while harsh and trying it was a pale indicator of what was to come.
When we arrived at the site we were ordered to dig one full bunker per platoon and each person to dig a prone firing pit. The bunker is about five feet deep by three across, with the prone firing pit only about twelve inches deep, eighteen across, and six feet long. We used what is basically a sixteen inch shovel that we carried on our packs. This doesn’t sound too hard unless you’ve just marched ten kilometers at a blistering (literally) pace and are digging in the side of a mountain of about 40% rocks on no food. Once you dug in you had to lay...