CAP lies. We lie a lot. We say, for example, that we will teach you to fly, or at least help you along the way (hint: it's a bad sign when the recruiting officer can't keep a straight face when he says this). We also say that encampment is a goddamn walk in the park -- and maybe it is, if you're twelve and regularly daydream about crawling through mud and barbed wire under a hail of lethal gunfire. If you don't precisely fit the model of somebody who will enjoy the hell out of boot camp, however, you might have a few problems dragging your sorry ass through a week under the dominion of people whose sole purpose is to make you life as difficult as is permitted.
A few things I learned on my little foray:
- GROUPTHINK EXISTS, and no matter how cynical, tough, or smart you think you are, given enough time IT WILL WORK ON YOU. My first few days at encampment sucked (mostly because of my own failings), but by the end, I liked encampment. I liked my flight, embarassment to the contrary (needless to say I'm a little leery of meeting them again given my asshole behavior in the middle, but still). I was grateful to my lieutenant and thought maybe we could put the whole thing behind us and maybe gain a little mutual respect. I was proud as a fucking peacock when my flight or I got the smallest of honors -- honor flight not so much, but drill competition champs? Hell, yeah! I was ready to rush right off and enlist just to get more of this positive reinforcement shit. It's addictive once you get a taste.
It works especially well on competitive or overachieving people -- they (all right, we) can't stand to fail. Part of what broke me down is that I'm unused to failure or, more correctly, being unable to achieve-- the spirit was willing but the flesh didn't know how to do a proper hospital corner -- and it kicked the legs out from under me when it actually happened. Room inspections in particular -- there was never enough fucking time, the templates were never available, and no matter what I did something ALWAYS catastrophically wrong. It seemed entirely pointless to even try -- and down I went.
It was an excellent lesson for me, though -- I had to realize not always going to be on top, and I simply won't be able to do everything period, much less at the level of success I was used to. It teaches good mental resiliency, which is something you really can use. Bouncing back and trying the fuck again until you get it right is one of the foremost weapons of the human race in tackling almost any problem. Of course, in bouncing back from a total breakdown (break 'em down, build 'em up) you bounce right the hell into the staff's pocket because it feels so damn good to do stuff right. You just can't help but become a useful tool, ready to do what they ask with a smile on your face (when they aren't looking, of course) like a goddamn collie pup. - MENTAL SHIT MATTERS. Don't tell yourself it doesn't -- you can survive pretty much anything physically if you've got your mind fixed on the objective, but if you ignore your mental state and let yourself get into that rut your ass is dead. I came into encampment thinking the whole "positive mental attitude" lecture was so much bovine feces, but lo and behold, I talked myself into almost wimping out because I just kept on mentally repeating that this shit was pointless, why the hell am I doing this to myself, I could be home playing with my dog or sleeping right now...just an endless stream of negative karma that I would have kicked my own ass had I said it out loud because it's whining, plain and simple. You must, MUST, MUST keep a durable mental attitude -- you've handled shit like this before, so you sure as shit can handle what they're tossing at you now. Encampment will give you this prior shit-handling experience -- most of the time they call it self-confidence.
- TEAMWORK IS NOT BULLSHIT, but it's definitely not what they tell you. You are a unit, correct, but not in the same sense that a boot camp class is a unit -- this is only for a week. Instead, you are helping them limp through this week, thereby indirectly helping you get through the week. Other people's problems are an excellent distraction from all the shit raining down on your head. It's also an emergent property situation -- magically, if you all help each other out while doing the bare minimum you can for yourself, you end up with considerably more than the sum of your labors. Don't ask me how, but it's true.
- ENCAMPMENT IS NOT FUN. It's not meant to be, nor should it be. In the words of my dearly beloved first sergeant, "This ain't boy scout camp, sweethearts." This is an old-fashioned wheat-from-the-chaff shakedown experience meant to test you as well as they can in the brief time the staff can get their claws on your soft pink body. Luckily, however, they make it as hard as possible to wash out so as to avoid considerable bitterness on the part of people who almost made it but were allowed to puss out before completion. If you must, talk to your roommate or the Tac, but I really don't recommend talking to the staff. No matter how much sensitivity training they get, they'll still hold you in contempt if you start bawling -- they made it, after all, so why can't you?
This also has the effect of keeping some cadets -- who really shouldn't be at encampment -- at encampment AND dragging their unit down for far too long. From my considerable experience in watching cable television, in boot camp or any other military training program showing weakness just calls to your instructors to crunch you even heavier in hopes that those that wouldn't cut it in the field won't make it through. In CAP, not so much. Two-edged sword, I suppose. - THEY AREN'T REALLY YELLING AT YOU. Okay, literally they are, but really they're just playing a part -- or doing their job. If you can be worn down by a little too much volume or some necessarily uncomplimentary one-way conversation (as I was), you really shouldn't be there. Just keep that necessary mental focus -- you are earning your bullshit and no fucking fifteen-year-old punk tech sergeant is going to keep you from getting it, hooah?
- KEEP YOUR PERSPECTIVE. Encampment is not the entire world. A failed room inspection is also not the end of the world, no matter what hysterics your flight sergeant pulls when he/she sees it. Everything is just a little bitty part of you life that will soon pass, leaving you an embittered and scarred person -- I mean, better for the experience.
- THE NEAT SHIT IS AFTER THEY SCREAM AT YOU. Some of the coolest shit I've ever done was during encampment -- after I had gotten over that hump. If they spaced the neat shit out amongst the bullshit it would give cadets more of an incentive to gut out the first few days, but then they wouldn't get their opportunity to shake off some of the real shits who you wouldn't want to be in a flight with anyway. Stealing blatantly from Starship Troopers, you value higher what you pay for rather than what is simply given to you -- all the more so when it's not money, but merely a little grit and fortitude.
- THE POLISH FADES FAST. What's true for boots is equally true for encampment. When you first get out, you feel like the shit -- hell, you're even starting to look at those poor dumb civilians with a little contempt. You feel like you've really accomplished something that most people never even dream of. And then you go back to squadron with your shiny new encampment ribbon and your cute little completion certificate and soon realize that maybe it didn't really matter as much as you thought it would, except for the respect you may or may not get from those who have gone before. And then you might start hearing the stories -- how the officers you caught yourself being afraid of are actually a bit (or a lot) wankish in their home squadrons, how all that yelling was just for show, how nobody's really as highspeed as they seemed at the time. Some (maybe most) really are just playing at being Gunnery Sergeant Hartman for a week or so and go right back to being sleazebags. Maybe you are the genuine article -- primed and ready to terrorize poor unsuspecting Basics in your turn -- but for me the damn-I'm-good feeling faded inside of a week.
You will, however, have lots of dumb stories sufficient for years of squadron meeting lulls.
I hate going all Chicken-Soup-For-The-Soul-ish when I don't have to, so just to jar you out of thinking encampment is all love and puppies once you finish:
