I know you guys might think basic training stories are (pun intended) basic, but this is one of my favorite stories from my time in the military, and someone from another sub said I should post it here.

I decided to join the Air Force when I was 29 years old, which was honestly an insane thing to do. I was making really good money working at a restaurant in Boston, but I was ready for a drastic change in my life so I just went for it.

About a week before I was set to ship off for basic training, my recruiter made me and another recruit named Billy go with him to see a parade at Hanscom Air Force Base. When the parade finished, he introduced us to a very intimidating officer named Captain Bell-Tron.

Captain Bell-Tron spoke with intense passion and stark tropes. (I realized later that his name was actually "Captain Beltran," but by that point his origin story had already been established in my mind: he, the consummation of a love-marriage between a kind, simple woman with the surname "Bell," and the actual renegade computer program, Tron, from the film of the same name.)

"Boot camp is gonna be hard, it's gonna be dirty, you're gonna miss your mamas, but you gotta persevere," Captain Bell-Tron bellowed while flecks of spit flew out of his mouth.

I glanced over at Billy, who was mouth-breathing and absent-mindedly pushing his heavy glasses up onto his nose. Billy was fresh out of high school, and weighed about 90 pounds.

"And most importantly," Captain Bell-Tron continued, "you two are Boston brothers, so you gotta look out for one another.

And then he fixed his stern eyes on mine. Deep within his dark pupils I saw something flicker-- a glow of meaning seeking to be conveyed...

...and that's when I realized that Captain Bell-Tron was telling me to look out for Billy, not the other way around.

I hardened my lips and gave him a measured nod...

A week later, Billy and I were riding the white bus from San Antonio Airport to Lackland Air Force Base, enjoying our last anxious moments of freedom. Billy and I had gotten separated at the airport, so he was up at the front of the bus while I sat in the back. I kept my hawk-eyes on him, my tacit promise to Captain Bell-Tron on my mind.

But immediately after I got off the bus I lost all track of Billy. There were about 1000 other recruits there, and we were getting screamed at left and right, shoved into various lines and ordered to stand, silently, along various walls.

They shuffled us all into this large conference room and made us wait in cold silence while they figured out where they were going to send us.

After about two hours, I heard my name called out on a roster of about 50 male recruits. This would be my "flight" (the group of people I would be spending the next eight weeks with.)

I joined them in the line along the wall... and then I spotted Billy joining the line too! He was in my flight!

They marched us off to our dormitory and guess what: Billy's bed was right next to mine! I was going to get to keep my promise to Captain Bell-Tron after all!

They didn't give us our Air Force uniforms until the fourth day, so for the first three days we just trudged around in whatever shitty, sweaty clothes we had shown up in. Billy wore a red shirt that had a lightning bolt and the word Bazinga.

I spent a good part of those first three days micromanaging Billy and keeping him off the radar of the vicious Drill Sergeants.

"Billy, hurry up and get in the shower," I said, waking him up out of whatever daydream he had been having with a snap.

"Billy! Hurry up and put your shoes on," I muttered, mere moments before a wolf-faced Drill Sergeant marched past our beds with a scowl.

"Billy, c'mon, make your bed," I said, before going over there and just doing it myself.

I was single-handedly keeping Billy undetected and, thus, safe.

On the third night, while we were getting ready for bed after dinner, one of our Drill Sergeants came tearing into our dormitory.

"Get on the wall! Get on the wall! It's time for your drug tests, GET LINED UP ON THE FRICKEN WAAALL!!!"

We scurried over and lined up along the wall, and a minute later we were marching, in the dark, to the drug-testing facility about a mile away.

We got there and our Drill Sergeant made us wait outside while he went inside. I looked over at Billy. He was standing there in his stupid Bazinga shirt. I looked down...

...and noticed that Billy wasn't wearing any pants! He was just standing there, outside, in his fricken underpants!

I shoved some kids out of the way and stumbled over to Billy.

"Billy, what the heck," I whispered, incredulously. "You marched all the way over here in your underpants?!?"

Billy stared up at me, his eyes magnified by his glasses.

I asked, "Billy, why would you even put your shoes on if you didn't have any pants on?" Some of the other recruits around us started giggling.

I didn't get an answer, though, because at that moment our Drill Sergeant showed up at the door and started screaming for us to get inside the building.

After peeing in our cups for the drug screening, we marched back to the dormitory, and for the next eight weeks, Billy was known to the other recruits and to the Drill Sergeants as the kid who had marched two miles in his underpants.

I had failed Billy, and I had failed to keep my promise to Captain Bell-Tron.