The person who shapes your first experience in the Army is a Drill Sergeant. And years later, you’ll always feel just a bit on edge if you meet them again. Is my uniform right? Did I miss a spot shaving?
Staff-Sergeant (“SSG”) June Ransom is that person for Joe Rock. Typically, soldiers coming into Basic Training (or “Boot Camp” for the Marines and Navy) will be divided into groups called “platoons” of about 30 to 40 soldiers each. That platoon will be trained by two Drill Sergeants. Usually, one will be the “mean one” and the other will be the “slightly sympathetic one”. They’ll probably switch back and forth with each new group of student-soldiers that arrive. June Ransom was the “mean one” during his time in Basic.
Rock’s friend is Jorge “Junior Ric” Ricardo. His father is also named Jorge, so as far as the Drill Sergeants were concerned, he was “Junior Ricardo” or “Junior Ric.” It’s a bit of an inside joke– in Basic Training, at least when I went through, any recruit could be called “Joe Rock” at any given time as a sort of shorthand: “You, there, Joe Rock! Get over here!” And “Joe Rock’s friend” (anyone standing next to you) became “Junior Rick”. I used these generic names for recruits for the two primary characters in BOHICA Blues.
What's it like to be in the Army for real, and get deployed to a place like the Iraq War? In BOHICA Blues, I turn my actual experiences into a slice of absurdist humor and walk you through this period of history from one person's perspective.
Using the classic TV show "M*A*S*H" as a guide, I created BOHICA Blues in 2013 to tell the story of what a deployment was like, with the absurdities of military life and war for all to see. It starts with the initial mobilization news, and goes on from there. BOHICA Blues isn't as "salty" as a lot of veteran humor; it doesn't have F-bombs, gore, or nudity: it could hypothetically appear on regular broadcast television.
Hopefully you can enjoy this and invite others to see what the Iraq War was like from someone who went there and is willing to share the experience with a laugh.
Comments (0)
See all