April 2008, Ft Jackson South Carolina USA I arrived at Ft Jackson with a battle buddy (yes, the Army even had a specific term for friend) in to from MEPS in Utah. Jensen had been my roommate at the hotel there and now would be in the bunk next to me through reception and now our actual platoon.

We would end up getting along well, at least once we got past an attempt of his to mess with the old guy in the platoon (me). The funny part about it is I don’t even remember what he did, only that it was on purpose and meant to piss me off. I can forgive someone accidentally doing something that pisses me off. But on purpose? I won’t get mad. But I will get even and show I don’t play like that.

This particular day we were doing a training class for battlefield first aid. To start with we were tasked with assessing the casualty for alertness. The method taught at the time (it’s almost ever changing, so I’m sure if you went to Army basic training you learned it differently) was the acronym AVPU. Alert, respond to Verbal stimulus, Pain stimulus, or unresponsive.

To make this training feel more real we were conducting it in roughly 30 pounds of body armor. Being the person next to me Jensen got to be my casualty to assess ... and like I said, he pissed me off the day prior.

As a simulated casualty he was on his back pretending to be unconscious. As I approached I knew I had my chance to even the odds. As I came up I dropped my right knee onto the meet of his thigh, letting every ounce of that extra 30 pounds on my upper body dig deep into his thigh. So of course he would react naturally.

Sitting bolt upright he yelled at the top of his lungs “Son of a bitch, that hurts!” Simultaneously he was trying to shove me away, but I had all the leverage to my advantage.

So what did I do? I turned to the Drill Sergeant who was grading my proficiency for this and said “Drill Sergeant, he’s responsive to pain and he also had a damn good airway.”

I saw the smirk on the Drill Sergeant’s face and heard her bite back the laugh that made it to her throat before she stops up, turned and walked away. In case you wonder what Jensen did, once I explained this way payback for his stunt yesterday we were golden. We each knew that stupid shit between us wouldn’t help either one. But we also knew that if things were kept level we had someone to count on to have each other’s back and even in basic training that’s an important thing to know.