"What the hell is this, soldier?"

"SIR, I don't know, SIR!"

I was braced up at full attention beside my bunk during our weekly unannounced inspection. We were in our third week of basic training in the U.S. Army. They were trying to teach us green civilians how to be soldiers. It had been a rough three weeks.

The rest of my squad was also standing at attention beside their own bunks, staring straight ahead, almost afraid to breathe. There were 14 of us now - Jimmy Baxter couldn't handle it and had left last week. To fail an inspection meant a lot of hard running and calisthenics both for...