The beginnings of Hardass Ha...

I was racking my brain trying to figure out what to blog about when Aimee says she wanted to hear about my Army days, you know when my Mannions ask I deliver. I can always tell stories from the good old days, LOL. Unfortnately, I have pictures in Los Angeles still and I have pics at Nancy's so I don't have many pics to correspond. Turns out most of my Army pictures were taken while I was partying, I don't know how that happened, LOL.

In the Army it's all about push-ups, sit-ups and the 2 mile run. I didn't decide to join the Army til late in my senior year mainly because I wanted out of the house, didn't have any job skills and didn't want to go to college. To prepare I sort of jogged and worked on my push-ups and I'd bike to the store (to buy ice cream, LOL). I didn't even think of working on my sit-ups, I mean, I hadn't done them in ages but girls can do sit-ups no problem. BIG MISTAKE! The first PT (physical training) test I could not do sit-ups for the life of me. I was wiggling all around trying to get my body to move upwards. It wasn't happening. Even with a BIG BLACK MUSCULAR drill sergeant leaning over me YELLING, "you better get up private, you better get up!". Talk about terrifying. I had just turned 18 and here I was being yelled at by this Amazon. Once she realized all of her yelling wasn't going to change the fact I wasn't getting up she moved on. I'm proud to say I did 6 sit ups in 2 minutes, LOL. Of course by the time basic was over I did over 60 in 2 minutes.

When you run in formation they line you up shortest to tallest with the shortest person setting the pace. Guess who that would be? Not only do I hate running but I'm slow, LOL. I found a way to get out of this by being a rear road guard. The road guards would run up to intersections to stop traffice for the formation. As a rear road guard I was behind people. When I went to AIT (advanced individual training) there was even more pressure because guys were running with us so I'm setting the pace for people who are over 6 feet tall! I hated it. I found that if you dropped out of formation as long as you kept running you wouldn't get yelled at. I hated running in formation (and at permanent duty stations they no longer do that) so after a few minutes I would fall out, the problem was, the formation was so long that my friends would keep pulling me back into formation trying to help me when all I wanted to do was get to the end, LOL. It would take me 20 minutes to get to the end of that damn formation!

As for push-ups, who knew, I ended up being great at them. I usually maxed my push-ups during the test. There are minimums that you have to meet for your age and if you do a certain amount you score a hundred. These big arms came in handy for something, LOL.

In AIT we were doing a role playing game and I was playing the First Sergeant. Someone was having some trouble with something and I was having none of it. I wouldn't take any excuses or bend turns out that was not the right course of action so the real commander stepped in but the First SGT then gave me the nickname of Hardass Ha and even though my name is now Mann, I will always be Hardass Ha in my heart and he was a badass. He literally had had his throat slit. He didn't play, LOL.

The first floor of AIT was women and the 2nd and 3rd were men. Of course we were not supposed to go on the others floors. Big no no! Have I been on the 2nd floor? Yes. It was fun leaving, the boys ran down the hallway humming the Mission Impossible theme song while I followed. Was a boy ever in my room, why yes. It was fun being surrounded by so many boys, LOL. I still have a teddy bear that was given to me by a Marine who liked my legs. I don't remember his name but I love Mr Beer Belly (I was 18 when I named him, LOL). I learned a lot about boys back then. We played a lot of cards and I would listen to them talk about other girls and say things like, did you see what she wore? She wore that at the last party. WTF? Needless to say, they never said that about me. One of the biggest things I learned about men was that they gossip worse then girls. I always got my good gossip from them, LOL. Lessons that last a lifetime.

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About Leiha

I love to eat and sleep. One thing is more fun to blog about than the other. In between eating and sleeping I love to travel, spend time with my family and talk about myself. :)