i originally wrote this as a comment on a non-military-related post and was told you all might appreciate it. so please pardon all of the explanatory commas and such

i was the chowrunner for my flight in USAF basic training (boot camp).

i thought it was weird when my instructor assigned only that for my additional duty since most people had either laborious AD's or two of them. so i frequently helped out the latrine crew during tidying up so we could all get to sleep without getting yelled at when a different instructor did nightly final checks on all the dorms before Retreat played (song signalling lights out). but i was never required to and very early on when our instructor saw the dorm leader (the oldest airman in the flight assigned to be one of the top three under-managers or sorts) ordering me to help a particular crew (i think it was the bed aligners?), he made it very clear that i would only pick up other people's chores if it i wanted to because i had my chore and that was my only responsibility.

anyway my responsibility was simply to enter the chowhall ahead of my flight to get permission for all of us to eat. this included getting ready in the mornings faster than the rest of my flight so i could leave the dorms early to secure my flight's position in the queue for the chowhall since all flights had to stand in formation outside the chowhall and wait their turn. iirc there were 10 flights of airmen in the squadron (maybe 12?) and the chowhall could only serve two at a time and each pair of flights took about 15 minutes to eat. if we ate first, we got to go back inside early and enjoy the dorm's heating until our first daily assignment. by the end of the first week of training our sister-flight's chowrunner and i were at the point that we'd be ready to leave the dorms as soon as the first note of Reveille played (the song that wakes up all the other airmen in the squadron). we got stopped and scolded once for marching during the music but learned that if we waited at the bottom of the staircase until the song was over then it broke no rules. our flights were always the first two flights to eat in the morning.

this was also in San Antonio, TX in January and February and we woke up at around 4am so the outside temperatures were typically in the high 30s or low 40s Fahrenheit (4-6 centigrade), and our uniforms were not well designed to handle the cold, even with the optional long underwear some of us bought. so it was really nice when the flight didn't need to stand outside for more than two minutes before eating in the warm chowhall and then immediately heading back to our warm dorms before starting the day for real.

our security monitor (another airmen in boot camp) was in charge of scheduling people to guard the dorm's door and whoever was assigned had to abide by the security monitor's schedule regardless of their own chores, but he had to cover their chores if the schedule interfered. due to my chore requiring customs/ceremonies/phrases that weren't taught to other airmen i was sort of exempt from being scheduled during the 4am-6am block.

anyway he eventually started scheduling me at night time, often for the middle 2 hours which was the worst shift. meaning i'd get 4 hours of sleep instead of the scheduled 6 we normally got each night. even though i always got 20-30 minutes less already due to getting up early for chowrunning, i didn't complain until he scheduled me for two shifts in the same night. at that point i raised hell with him and told him in front of all the rest of the flight that i'd do the first shift but would just sleep through the second shift since it was against the rules. and just let the instructor find no one guarding the door when the he arrives at 3:45 in the morning. i also called him out for scheduling me multiple nights in a row; there were 12 shifts across the whole day, but only 3 per night and nearly 60 of us to choose from so back to back night shifts should never happen. the security monitor said "it's your funeral," and let me go through with my plan.

i did my first shift then turned off my alarm so i'd wake up when everyone else did. two hours later i was woken by the previous shift and i just told them i'm going back to sleep and they should too; the security monitor or i are the ones that will get in trouble and i'll vouch that i was woken at the appropriate time. i then went back to sleep. i knew that in a real situation it'd be better to do the shift and lodge a complaint after, but this was basic training and there was no actual security risk or danger in regards to our safety; just a risk of being woken up very unpleasantly if the instructor so chose. but when the instructor arrived and found no one guarding the door he just quietly waited for Reveille to wake everyone. during the song he immediately called the security monitor to his office to review the schedule (it was written and logged) and discuss why there was no one guarding when he arrived in the morning. everyone was surprised to see me brushing my teeth, showering, making my bed, and getting dressed with the rest of them and i just told them that i'd been doing security the past few nights in a row and really needed to catch up on sleep. i marched out with them and then went inside to get our queue position and we were second to last (apparently another flight had a very slow chowrunner). we had to wait nearly an hour in the cold before we could eat and then had to immediately march across the base to our classroom without a post-breakfast rest while everyone grumbled about the security monitor robbing me of my sleep and them of their warmth.

speaking of which, the instructor was furious when he reviewed the security schedule and saw that the monitor had been assigning the same handful of people to work night shifts and that he had ever assigned the same person two nights in a row. the instructor was also mad that the security monitor didn't adjust the schedule to have someone else cover the empty shift when it was clear that i was refusing the double shift; he could have just had the shift be covered with someone else and then complained about me to the instructor afterward, but with the knowledge that the door would be secured the whole night through. that way the instructor would have been able to weigh a judgment on whether i should be reprimanded but as it were the security monitor showed utter lack of concern for the 'safety' of the flight by leaving it in the hands of a disgruntled and non-compliant airman in addition to his rule-breaking. the instructor was also in disbelief that the i, the chowrunner, had ever been given a night shift at all since i was already choosing between getting a full night's sleep or getting my brothers fed early in the morning and it was clear that i had been taking the selfless route every single night of the month-plus we'd all been living together (minus that night). we also had an extra lecture on the nature and illegality of hazing and discriminatory actions that evening.

needless to say i was never assigned another night shift, but we were always in the first pair of flights to eat in the mornings every single morning until graduation day.