Joining the Armed Forces late in life as a 26 year old (compared to my 18-20 year old counterparts) was definitely a challenge as well as a drastic life change from what I had become accustomed to. This goes way back to the beginning of boot camp. Waking up at 4am 7 days a week for 16 weeks was, in my eyes, deserving of some sort of award in itself. The screaming and yelling from ourselves, the recruits, and our drill instructors went on during all hours of the day. If we did not address them loud enough, it was as if we did not exist in their world. With all this screaming came the bleeding throats, lost voices and throat lozenges every once in a while. I thank God for sending me to boarding school because nothing would have prepared me for the group shower. Like a farmer directing his cows to swim through the flea treatment, is exactly the way we looked when we took a shower. About sixty females lined up, wearing our shower shoes (slippers) and going through in a wagon wheel formation. We had about one minute to soap, scrub and get out or else everyone would get in trouble.
We were kept extremely busy throughout the entire time. The only day that was different was Sunday. This is because we got to attend church services, and for that hour or two, we could be ourselves and enjoy singing praise and worship songs, cry, laugh and release the stress from the high paced training schedule. Church services were always packed. This is the only place we were allowed to exercise some sort of freedom. Simple things that I took for granted as a young woman living in Orlando before boot camp were definitely a luxury once I went to boot camp. By simple, I’m talking about ice in my drink, or washing my hair whenever I wanted to, or getting in my car and going somewhere or to make it even simpler, using the bathroom (with a door) whenever I wanted to. I say this because, we had no sense of privacy at all. After a while, it became so normal that we found ourselves having full blown conversations with people while pooping because there were no doors anywhere. We had to ask for permission to do everything!!

Miss Ness.