Discipline builds Character

Today was a rough day. Actually it's been a rough 48 hours. I didn't mention on my last blog that Monday morning the class was brought to the attention that something of a confidential nature had occurred last weekend. A few individuals were called out of class to discuss the manner. This morning the class was informed that two of the cadets were sent home. An explanation was never given, all we found out was that the dismissal had something to do with alcohol. Because of the actions of the individuals the class had painful consequences. We spent 30 minutes out on the grinder doing push-ups, burpies, sit-ups, jumping jack, leg lifts and flutter kicks in the air. When we did push-up's we had to say "Alcohol is not my friend" and were lectured and verbally abused the whole time. The unfortunate part of all this is the two people dismissed were lifeguards, so guess who was getting picked on, yup, lifeguards. We were all interrogated about our consumption of alcohol. It was not fun and I was in so much physical pain at the end that my whole body was shaking. After the torture the instructors searched all the cadets rooms and after lunch we were tortured again for another 30 minutes. The instructor took out a bag of items that were found in the searched rooms. We had to physically work off the items. One item was hot sauce (don't know who's) and the Special Guest Training Officer says, 

"BRAY, DO YOU LIKE HOT SAUCE?"

Me, "Sir, yes, sir."

"BRAY, HOW MANY PUSH UPS WOULD YOU GIVE FOR THIS HOT SAUCE."

At this point I didn't really know what to say, I thought for a moment...

"BRAY, WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT? IT'S NOT A TRICK QUESTION. YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO STUDY FOR THIS ANSWER."

The reason I was thinking about it was because the hot sauce wasn't that good of a hot sauce so I was trying to place a push-up value to the cruddy hot sauce he had, I didn't want to do any, but thought if I said zero I'd get in trouble, so, I answer, "Sir, 20 sir."

"20? BRAY, IS THAT ALL YOU CAN DO?"

me, "Sir, yes, sir"

"ANYONE ELSE? CAN ANYONE GIVE ME MORE THAN 20?"

He bugged me a couple more time for some other reasons I don't recall. One thing I do remember is he said I had "pretty blue eyes." He said it in a negative, jerky way, but I took it as a complement anyways. 

At our first break after the afternoon torture we had to go back out to the grinder. Once again we were tortured. This time we got in trouble because a few cadets were overheard talking negatively about a conference group that is on the Asilimar grounds. The group is called "Silence." They are here for meditation purposes. The torture lasted only about 15 minutes this time. 

It's kinda a bummer that the two guys that got sent home were lifeguards. It doesn't look good and I can tell that the lifeguard reputation just went down the tube. Lifeguards now have to try to redeem ourselves. 

At the end of class this evening we were assigned three papers as more punishment. A four-page paper on the last paragraph of the code of ethics, three-pages on why I am here and two-pages on why alcohol is not my friend. 

I do have good news though, the special guest went home! 

Bad news, he will come back, probably sooner than later.

More bad news, my body hurts.