Thought I Was Done with IET

For those who don't know, IET is an army acronym that means "Initial Entry Training," and it refers to the period of time from when an enlistee enters basic training until he graduates from AIT (advanced individual training).  IET is a time when a soldier is frequently harassed by higher-ranking non-IET soldiers (sergeants+) about anything from having missed a spot shaving to having dirt on his boots.  It's a time when a soldier is at the mercy of his instructors and superiors and must obey many, many unnecessary rules.  But two things I will always remember from my IET days are police calls and weed picking. 

Oh, how I miss squatting or kneeling for hours and hours, pulling tiny green weeds from the cracks of pavement and from gravel paths.  Filling dozens of bags with leaves, twigs, and grass, yet somehow only having finished five square feet of sidewalk.  And all for the beautification of some side alley no one will ever walk through.  And I must not neglect to mention raking dirt.  That's right... Raking Dirt.  Why?  I don't know.  I guess dirt doesn't look organized when it's just lying around without grooves.  Or maybe it's because our supervisors had to fill our time with something, and since there wasn't enough sidewalk to go around, but plenty of dirt patches where even weeds refuse to grow, someone came up with the idea of raking nothing.  (By the way, a few months ago when I was at WLC, I started calling the action of raking dirt "dress-right-dressing" the dirt.  If you don't know what it means to dress right dress, ask me sometime and I'll explain the [lack of] humor in my joke.)

So, anyway, I finished IET a year and a few months ago.  I have since been promoted to sergeant.  Most of the people in my unit are sergeants or above.  Yet today, a dozen of us were out pulling weeds from the cracks in the pavement outside a building almost no one uses.  I guess the garrison commander is going to be cruising post Friday or something, seeing how things look.  I don't know.  But I guarantee he will not visit this building.  And, if he does, he's not going to wander out back to look at the fenced-in pavement that is used for nothing.  And get this- we were sent to do this pointless task without any sort of tools or herbicide.  It was a group of NCOs kicking at the weeds to loosen them and rip them from the pavement.  We probably looked pretty stupid.  That's how I spent my day today.  Your tax dollars.  And guess what.  That's what I'll be doing tomorrow.  Probably all day.  And if we don't finish, maybe we'll finish Friday morning.  Army Strong!