Almost Paradise Pt 46 Physical Training

(20 Nov. 87) Today was PT day on Kwaj. PT is a military term that means physical training. But we’re not in the military now and some of these men haven’t done physical training for over forty years.

The Army has been fortunate enough to have some surplus funds the last few months and our company thought it would be nice if we have training once or twice a month for two hour sessions but for the last week we’ve had three sessions.

First, there was the weight room and no one got hurt. Then we felt the burn through calisthenics. Then at noon today our little group met at the adult pool for more cals. I was chosen to lead our troops since I’m the only one who works out regularly. There were six people in the class. Four are heavy smokers and three of those are alcoholics. One nonsmoker is an alcoholic and the other nonsmoker is sixty-four. I didn’t push them hard and everyone got a little something out of the session. We were taking a break when the sergeant arrived.

“Gentlemen. Now that you’re all warmed up, it’s time for a little run around the airfield.”

From the pool, around the airfield and back is over three miles plus it was the middle of the day. I heard a lot of griping from our crew. One officer said he couldn’t run that far. The sergeant said that he had confidence that he could, in so many words.

This reminds me of what a drill instructor would say to a recruit in that situation:

“You can run. You can walk, stagger or crawl. You can even Mambo around the field but around it you must go.”

But it turned out that the group did what they could. I ran it because I can but the best the others could do was stroll for a while. I never saw anyone else finish, though. I suppose they called a taxi from the country club. That was a wise decision.

There are about twenty officers on the force who are in top shape. We have two with multiple degrees in Karate and one, Kennedy, who was the 7th ranked middleweight boxer in the world. One evening a drunk construction worker decided that he would challenge him to a fight. It lasted about 5 seconds. The worker went to the hospital (broken ribs) and Kennedy went home on Air Micronesia.

We arrested three of our officers while I was there. One, who looked like a 6 foot 2 inch dead ringer for Ron Howard, went to the apartment of another officer, who was competing for the affections of a very young resident. When he opened the door, “Ron”, a fifth degree black belt, delivered a severe thrashing to the officer. He wound up in the hospital and the officer was arrested and charged. Then the manager fired him and sent him home.

Another officer, who was given some cocaine for an undercover operation on Ebeye, used the drug for his entertainment. I had to pull suicide watch while the doctor examined and questioned him. He went home, too.

There are maybe ten officers here who I would want on my side when crunch time came. One is my roommate, a six foot 4 inch ex- SP, who weighed 205 pounds when he arrived, the same as me. He decided to bulk up, bought lots of supplements and ate everything he could. A typical breakfast was grits, a pound of bacon, biscuits, a dozen eggs, lots of milk. And he spent a lot of time in the weight room. Six months later he weighed in at 250 pounds, all muscle. We call him Arnold.