Contact Info

If you have a question please feel free to leave a comment or email me at thegoodthebadandthearmy@yahoo.com

The original inspiration for this blog was Brandon Mcguire's excellent account of his BCT and AIT experiences at mcguires5.com, which I highly suggest you check out.

Friday, December 28, 2012

The Countdown Begins....

So today makes ten days till I ship. It's crazy thinking that in less than two weeks I'll be having the honor and privilege of having a drill sergeant decorating my face with the bits of food he had for lunch while telling me I'm an absolute failure and the saddest waste of testosterone he's ever witnessed. It's okay though. I'll kind of  deserve it. I'm so out of shape, it's comical. I went for a run about an hour ago and lemme tell you, it was sad. I've seen manlier performances on The View. Although to be fair, they haven't had an all-female lineup since before Whoopi joined. Yeesh. Anyways, back to my girly running. MY running makes Black Swan look like a war epic. MY running makes Dirty Dancing look like NFL training camp. MY running makes Baby Jesus cry like someone stole his frankincense and his myrrh. But not His gold. NOBODY steals Baby Jesus' gold. But it's gonna improve and I still have over a week to get my endurance up just a bit. Miracles are real and they happen every day. Look at Heidi Klum and Seal. They're still going stro.....Oh nevermind. Okay, well how bout Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman??? They're solid like a ......Damn it! You get what I'm trying to say. I can do it. Just gotta pick up my bloomers and keep puttin' one foot in front of the other. This metaphorical girl's becoming a running man. C'mon muscles. Let's Do THIS!

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Cold, Hard Reality

Today I had the day off from work and was scheduled to go do my PT test for entrance to the Army. I showed up at the recruiting station about an hour early for our 10:00 appointed testing time and stuck around joking with the other future soldiers till it was time for us to go. We went to a local Air Force base and used their gym to conduct the sit-ups and push-ups portion. They said I ran the mile within the time allowed. But it felt like a failure to me. I'm so out of shape that by the time I was done with the push-ups my arms should have had Smuckers written across the biceps. I got to a point with the sit-ups where my abs just quit like a teenager from their first fast-food job and, at the the end of the run, I was wheezing and coughing like a truck-stop diner waitress with a two-pack a day habit. The cold weather just seemed to suck the breath out of me. I watched the other future soldiers running with seemingly so much more ease than I and even got lapped by the faster guys. It was embarrassing, humiliating and demoralizing. I felt truly old for the first time. And I hated that feeling. Not the getting older part of it, but the fact that I could have done something about it earlier. I could have been more prepared. Didn't even need the wife to tell me that. I knew it when I struggled across the finish line and saw the look on my recruiter's face. I felt like a loser and I'm determined to stop feeling that way in the future. It's one of the reasons I'm joining the Army in the first place. I'm joining to get things done, to follow through on my goals, to become reliable and to change my life. I'm tired of feeling like I'm capable of more yet not achieving that. So while it was a day of crushing disappointment, it was even more motivation to try harder going forward. Yes, I know they'll probably throw me in the fat camp for all the chubby guys when I get to reception, but I'm prepared for that. I just can't gain any weight till I leave and I'll be fine. Looks like tuna fish everyday for me till I ship. Yummmm! (/end sarcasm). As long as I get into the Army and my family's quality of life improves, that's all that matters to me. So perseverance is the word of the day. Just wish I weren't so sore from having learned this lesson. Lol.

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Square One

My name is James. I am 29 years old as of this entry and have a wonderful family consisting of my amazing wife and two energetic children, whom I call Buddy and Kiddo. They are both 12 years old and the highlight of my days are hearing the things that come out of their mouths. They crack me up continuously. There is also my lovely lady, the Cookies to my Cream, the Honey Bunches to my Oats and the Captain to my Tennille. Well, actually switch that around. She's Tennille.....I'm the Captain. You get what I mean. I'm the dude. Anyways, they are my primary motivation for joining the military. To provide them a stable future is one of the chief reasons I'm enlisting but  the other big goal is to be the best possible version of myself that I can.


This is the first entry of a journal I'd like to keep of my life going forward. Not the life I've lived for the past 29 years, but the new one I'm starting by joining the U.S. Army. It is with great hope and a great degree of humility that I take these first steps into what I feel is truly the realization of my full potential. I have spent a large portion of my life being scared of failure and that kept me from being anything more than mediocre in achievement and personal merit. Time for a change. My father was in the Army and served in Vietnam. He saw close friends die in front of him and received a Purple Heart for being wounded in combat. He pulled the trigger and killed men he had no personal quarrel with in a war he didn't believe was worth fighting, but he still went and did his duty. Due to the PTSD that resulted from combat as well as a lack of respect from the general public towards veterans, Dad always told me that the military was not for me. He didn't want me to have the same experience he had. I attribute this as his attempt at trying to protect me from harm or trauma, and while it may not have been the correct decision, I truly respect the efforts made by my father to try and avert what he saw as a negative from affecting me. I must say though, that he did ALWAYS stress to me how important it was to honor, respect and support our troops and must also add that he was always proud of the fact that he didn't dodge the draft. He was a patriotic citizen who always made sure to instill patriotism in his children. Most importantly, he was a good man and a great father. I was very close to him and when he died of lymphoma cancer on August 28th, 2010, it changed my life in ways I am still experiencing more than two years later. Sadly, it was his service in Vietnam and the exposure to Agent Orange that caused his illness, yet through all the radiation, chemo and experimental treatments he endured, including losing a third of his body weight, he never once complained. He taught me more about life in dying then I had ever learned on my own by living. It is my belief that while he did not endorse it in his life, that Dad would have understood my joining the military and the opportunities it affords me and my family.

This blog is the first effort I have really made in trying to document my life. There will be no guarantees. Updates may be daily, weekly or even more sporadic, but my desire is to document Basic Combat Training and AIT as much as possible. I hope that this information may be useful to someone else that is looking to join the Army. If you have any questions or comments about my experience feel free to leave a comment!