Excerpts from “OSUT” by John Griffin Hale

OSUT (One Station Unit Training) is the initial entry training program for US Army soldiers that combines Basic Combat Training and Advanced Individual Training. It is the first step of becoming a US Army soldier and a major transition away from civilian life. Trainees are isolated from the outside world and thrown into a harsh training environment meant to simulate the stressors of war. For most soldiers, OSUT remains a memorable experience but one that they are glad to have put past them. The following excerpts come from journal diaries from my time in OSUT as an aspiring infantryman at Fort Benning, GA.

OCPs, PTs

Green, army green,

black and gold; fold your

clothes — ranger roll;

toe the line, chow time

Personnel counts; thirty second bouts;

playing baseball in the bay

with duct tape balls,

broomstick bats

Hospital corners and Camelbacks

a whole lot of pine-sol, black mold

waiting around

Throwing rocks in formation,

half right facing,

Y-squats, flutter kicks

and a whole lot of waiting around

And a whole lot of waiting around

drill sergeant coming

down the hall; toe

the line; At Ease

Please, please take

me home

Please, please, please

take me home

In God We Trust; the things

we must — to wear army green,

the black, the gold

Pinholes

Sometimes, in the morning time,

the sky dark coal chokes

faraway light, but in

pinholes, my motivation

grows, inspired by

the beauty of light, faraway

light, breaking through in small seams,

divinity, it gleams.

The stars — at early morning PT

reminding me why I do these things.

Weapons Maintenance

Cleaning carbon from gas tube gaskets,

Bolt faces, barrels, and star chambers

Beats getting smoked

For minor transgressions

But in the boredom

Strange things happen

The mind, it’s mined

With memories

Of loved ones

Sights and smells are mines, oh how they remind, make me remember.

MREs stacked on pine pallets

That make me pine, remind me

Of Home Depot with my dad,

Sometime a long time ago,

The pallet flags we made, the smell of lumber

And Irish Spring from the PX

Is a trip wire that unwinds

Distant memories of my grandmother

At the shore, washing linens,

Harvey Cedars in the summertime.

And soon all the wire-brushing, scratching

Cleans the carbon

From bolt faces, barrels

The layers calcified in M4s, 249s, my mind