@AFTSOV I'm such a wild son of a bitch because I joined the military when I was 18 because my father wasn't going to support me unless I continued going to college uninterrupted. We had piles of food at home, and 2-3 cars in the driveway but I was effectively broke as fuck the moment that I walked outside. I told him that I needed to take a semester off to work because my car (which is completely necessary in Northern California) was taking up all of my money from side jobs. Also, the 5 unit math course, 3-4 unit physics course, 3 unit C++ course kind of schedule was hard. Also I was highly aware that I'd just spent the last 13 years of my life in an institution. Then what? Just 4-7 years of another institution without a fucking break?

So he said that if I didn't continue with college full time that I'd have to move out. I wasn't at all ready to go back to college so I started checking out my options. It was bleak since although I had managed to do what the adults had told me to do, I still didn't have any value. That infuriated me and felt like a betrayal. So I went into the army recruiting station, and those guys are slick. I took the military test and scored extremely high. I only didn't know jack shit about cars and so that reduced my score. Then they threw a $20k signing bonus at me and station of choice in the world. So I said fuck it, and joined.

In boot camp reception (where you get your clothes, vaccinations, etc) they seem to have hard dosed me and a Mexican guy who was next to me with a similarly starting name with a bad vaccine, or something different. We were extremely fucked up within about 20-30 minutes. They allowed us to sit down and we ended up basically leaning on each other. Everyone else was fine, but not us two sequential people from the lineup.

I was fucking pissed off about whatever they had done to me. Beyond just feeling like shit my sinuses bled for weeks. It even continued on intermittently for years slowly becoming less often as it gradually went away about five years later. So by the time that I hit basic training I already wasn't liking their funny business and was feeling a bit betrayed already.

I was very physically fit and so the pushups, running, wallowing in mud, etc wasn't difficult for me. They didn't know my last name yet, or at least it wasn't being said. At that point in the training if they aren't screaming your name non-stop then you're doing well. One day early on something just clicked in my brain about how this was all bullshit, and that these were fucked up people and that I didn't need any of it.

So then I started the long painful process of getting out of basic training. Before I was on a shit list of any sort I just decided that I was getting out. Then they used me as an example for the next 6-7 weeks for everyone who was even considering getting out. What I went through is in many ways far more difficult than what the average trainee goes through. For weeks on end they cut my sleep down to 3-4 hours. I'd get kitchen patrol which takes one hour of sleep away. Then they'd give me two non-sequential fire guard (standing guard) that broke my sleep up into small slices.

Through this they kept giving me the option of being allowed to get back into training, and then later to joint the next session. In addition there were 150 people in the company who were being screamed at all day that their suffering was because Private @destraht did this to them. The least intelligent of them (the ones who got ASFAB score waivers) were particularly nasty to me, with some of the others being nasty as well. I had a few friends who remembered me and would say "hello" on rare occasions when nobody was watching. Several of the guys were threatening to hurt me and would shove me around rudely during line formation. I had to @BiteTheFace here a bit by making them believe that I had nothing to lose and that I'd make them join me in hell. One time a big guy was bullying me badly on the lineup so I dumped my entire canteen's worth of water on his head as he did not a damn thing back.

I even had the baddest drill sergeant threatening me privately quiet a lot. One time he said "oooh I'm going to kick your ass private @destraht" and I responded back "I would love for you to kick my ass drill sergeant!!". Threats and fighting off bullies was daily life.

Then one day I realized that I was being used by the drill sergeants, and that their system was designed and even needed a few rebels to be publicly and unpleasantly suppressed. So I went to work designing a way to fuck with them in a way that made them look weak, and removed my value to them while also not making me criminally liable. The problem though is that we didn't even know where we were, and how to get to anything else around us. They made sure that we were brought in discombobulated with our heads down.

I ended up finding a map to the base from a souvenir notepad that one of the guys who was trying to get out on another floor had acquired somehow. We spoke about my plan and he gave me the cartoon map of the base. Then I stocked up on food supplies by stealing them from the kitchen, and taking a few garbage bags for warmth. I wasn't yet sure what my exact plan was. Then one day I waited until there was a changing of the staff in the middle of the work to make my escape. I ran out some hundreds of meters and then began marching with discipline on the main road towards the hospital. I then went in there, and found the most remote bathroom in the facility. I stayed in a bathroom stall for about 20 hours by putting my legs up at times, and other times with my legs down. The problem was that there was a rainstorm outside and so I had to stay in the hospital. Looking back, that crazy rainstorm must have worried the command structure something fierce because it would be very bad if some retard died outside after getting lost in the forest wet and slipping down and hurting himself.

So then by the second evening I was ready to come back in after being gone less than 24 hours. That made me TUF (technically unaccounted for) instead of AWOL (absent without authorized leave). This then began the process of me getting out since I had become a huge liability to them instead of an asset (by being able to abuse me). The spread between that positive value and negative value was vast. Then the day after I returned they brought in the sergeant major who was the highest enlisted ranking on the base. At that point I knew that things weren't going to proceed normally as they had been. Something was changing.

At that point the gears began moving for my release. However, some of the worst of the mind fucking was just getting started. In order to ensure that I wasn't walking around giddy and lowering morale (something that I'm very talented at) they blasted me by saying that I was not going to be getting out for 6-12 months as I was forced to go along with this same thing over and over again until I couldn't even remember my previous life. I didn't believe them and I had already chosen my path.

Then one day I woke up to being told that they had some really nice greyhound bus tickets for me to airport. Then they spoke to me more like a human that it was best for me if I didn't go around bragging about it or even talking about it. That is narrative control. I complied since I had already won.

Then just to fuck with me a few months later they sent me a $50 bill for a helmet or something. I then signed up for college again since I finally had the life experience that I had been looking for.

Through this I learned something about the power, authority, willpower, narrative control, domination, retarded people. Specifically what happened is that they broke down many aspects of my identity, but then were never able to rebuild me in their image as they do when you are going along with the training program. So at the age of 18 I was given the greatest gift that one can receive. I was able to start more so from scratch rebuilding myself as an adult in the image of everything that I had learned about myself. The best part was that I didn't need to waste 4+ years looking for the other side of it. The system helped create a guy who doesn't give a fuck.