Go New Places, Meet New People...

I was beat up fairly often when I was a kid. No, no, I'm not asking for sympathy here. It was a long time ago and in any event, Mrs. Buce says that with my smart mouth, she's surprised I didn't get beat up more. Anyway, one happy consequence of this early experience was that I thought Army basic training was, at least by comparison, a reasonably pleasant experience. A fair amount of stylized bullying, of course, but it didn't really hurt, and it happened to everybody--and since it had all happened to me before, it wasn't even particularly humiliating.

And I must say it wasn't anything like this.