Bad Luck Cadet (4 page)

What the hell was a quarter right turn?
Thankfully, I was getting good at mimicking the cadets around me. I
can’t believe the police ad at the drugstore had not stated,
“Military training a must.”

We were so tired. Someone stopped doing
push-ups at the count of fourteen and we had to start again. The
inspection continued and so did the punishments. When finished we
had done over one hundred pushups. I couldn’t feel my arms and they
wouldn’t stop quivering.

After inspection, we were shown the location
of our dorms at the eastern end of the campus. We didn’t get a
change to stop and admire our dingy living quarters; we were
immediately marched to the cafeteria. Not a word was spoken. We
huddled together miserably at whatever empty seat we came to. The
Sergeants and advisors sat at their own table. It was 1800 hours.
We had only been at it for five hours. This sucked.

I tried to eat. I could barely lift my fork to
my mouth. I ate very little. After about twenty-minutes we resumed
our formation outside. We ran like hell -- I mean double timed it,
back to the dorms. I was thankful I hadn’t eaten much. We were
finally released for the day, and told to be at the gym at 0530
hours.

Getting our room assignments, unpacking, and
arranging the shower schedules were done next. There were only four
female cadets. Our dorm was tiny with two sets of bunk beds. We
decided to rotate every two weeks so we would each have a turn on
the top bunk. There was only one small bathroom for the four of
us.

After getting situated, Stacy left the room
with her cell phone in hand. She came back an hour later and said
she was going back to Montana. She wasn’t crying or acting anything
but determined. She left. I never heard from her again.

Have I mentioned how much this
sucks?

Chapter 7

Are We In Hell?

Day two at the police academy began at 0430
hours.

A squad leader had knocked on our door the
previous evening to inform us we would need to meet before physical
training the next morning and work on straightening up our marching
and formations. And there were some, like myself, that needed to
learn basic commands.

We were in front of the dorms at 0445. It was
already warm. As we lined up, the space beside me was noticeably
empty. Another cadet asked where my partner was. I explained what
happened the evening before. Everyone moved down one
spot.

Stacy was one of two cadets to drop out the
first day. The other was a male cadet from squad three. It was at
this point that I swore to myself I would complete the academy. I
had never given up on anything and I wouldn’t begin now. I was not
a quitter.

We marched and learned: about face, quarter
turn, marching while turning a corner, and standing at attention
with our toes pointing out so the Sergeant could stand between our
feet and inspect us up close and personal.

It was now time to march to physical training.
As much as I would come to dread our early morning workouts, the
marching was great. We marched and sang to cadence. One of the
cadets, fresh out of the military, knew every cadence imaginable.
They were funny, entertaining and inspiring. Our voices rang across
the campus.

Sgt. Dickens was waiting when we arrived. The
yelling began and we were introduced to our PT instructor Sgt.
Listberg. He turned out to be a great guy but we weren’t aware of
this on the first day. After warm ups we went on our first run.
Sgt. Listberg told us it would be the last mile we ever ran at the
academy.

He was correct. Wednesday we ran two
miles.

It soon became apparent I was a slow runner
and I was put in front to keep the pace. Another female, Cadet
Higgins, was put in front beside me as well. She ended up dropping
back due to her asthma and barely finished the mile run. I finished
but could tell my pace did not offer a challenge to the other
cadets. I had work to do.

We were taken into the weight room next and
put through Sgt. Listberg’s idea of a power workout. There were
thirty-one torture stations set up. Every sixty seconds he blew his
whistle and we moved to another station. Arms, legs, wrists, butts
and thighs were all given a work-out. The only good thing was Sgt.
Listberg also turned on some great 70’s rock and roll music.
Through the pain I remember George Thorogood’s Bad to the Bone and
Joe Walsh’s Life’s Been Good, blaring through the
speakers.

After the workout, we were taken to the gym
bleachers and made to jump with both feet together to the top, then
we ran back down and began jumping our way back up again. This went
on until the end of class. Do you have any idea how your teeth
clack when you land on both feet? My head was killing me. We double
timed it back to our dorms, changed into our shirts and ties, then
headed to breakfast.

Eating was again a difficult task due to my
shaking arms and hands. God forbid we spilled anything on our
ironed white shirts, it would mean changing before inspection.
Somehow I managed to get some food in my mouth.

We three female cadets sat together and a few
male cadets joined us. Our “clicks” were already
forming.

Cadet Chavez sat next to me. He was obviously
as stressed as I was. I found out he was an emergency medical
technician sent to the academy in order to be part of a SWAT team.
He was twenty-seven years old, fifty pounds overweight and worried
about what he’d gotten himself into. He was told the academy would
be a piece of cake, but he was having doubts.

I had doubts too. We made a pact to complete
the academy and help each other out. We weren’t such an unlikely
friendship, we were both in over our heads and both needed to lose
weight. It felt great to have a friend and he was also in squad
five along with me. We would suffer together.

Our first inspection was horrible.

Sgt. Dickens as well as all six squad advisers
were in attendance to find something wrong. And they found plenty.
Our ties were the improper length. Our shoes were not shined to a
high gloss. We had lint on our black pants. Several of the guys did
not have a close enough shave, due to shaving the night before to
save time this morning.

In all we were given eighty pushups and six
hill runs. The pushups were done on the spot and the hill runs
would be executed after class. I also found out why we practiced a
duck stance early that morning. Sgt. Dickens placed one foot
between my boots, put his face an inch from mine and began the
inspection from the top of my head down to my toes. I know my last
OBGYN appointment was not this thorough.

It was a relief to enter our classroom and
begin learning.

The first two hours every Monday would be with
Lieutenant Griffin for report writing. He talked and told stories
more than he taught us report writing but we enjoyed him
tremendously.

Our binders were explained to us. A schedule
was located in the front of the first binder and encompassed the
entire eighteen weeks of the academy. All our lesson plans were
outlined, which explained the four inch thickness of the binders.
We were told we would get a break every hour but most importantly
we were not to fall asleep in class. We could stand up in the back
of the room but there would be hell to pay if one of us was caught
sleeping.

Our first lesson from our binders was on the
history of policing. Robert Peel created the first organized police
unit in England called “Bobbies” in 1929. He was our founding
father and his ideas lived on in modern policing.

After a lunch break, it was back to the
classroom. Sgt. Dickens stuck his head in and did some yelling on a
regular basis but learning was the focus. We had different
instructors for different lecture modules. My brain wanted to
explode by the end of that first day in class. I actually wish it
had, because waiting for us were our six hill runs we’d earned that
morning during inspection.

The hill consisted of a quarter mile of
switchbacks up a steep, rocky dirt path to a water tower. It looked
like a nightmare. And it was. Add in the 109 degrees outside and it
was hell. I decided I needed to straighten up my ways. I didn’t
want to go to hell if it is anything like these hill
runs.

We had water bottles at the bottom and took
drinks between runs. I was the second to last person to the top on
the first run. We were all going at our own pace. One of my
roommates slipped and fell. She twisted her knee and sat out the
last few trips to the top.

We were all focused on the hill and didn't
notice when Sgt. Dickens showed up. I was taking my last trip
upward.

“What the hell are you doing?” He yelled at
the cadets waiting at the bottom for the stragglers to
finish.

“Are you individuals or a team?" He demanded,
"I want your punishment done as a unit. Start over and get it right
this time.”

Higgins, Chavez and I turned around and went
back for our classmates. We formed two lines and ran six more hill
runs together. We were then released for the day. I was too tired
to eat and went back to my room. I ironed my shirt for the
following day, tried to shine my shoes but fell asleep.

I slept until 0430 hours the next day, woke
up, and did it all again. We were given 110 pushups at morning
inspection and ten hill runs. I could barely move my arms during
class and taking notes was excruciating. I thought Friday would
never come. I was gigged (gig is like a demerit) for my boots every
day. Our class could do nothing right.

My thinking began to change that week. I had
always respected police officers but my admiration for them was
growing as well.

We were constantly under stress. It was
explained as being similar to what it would be like as an officer
on a patrol shift. Being a police officer was stressful as well as
deadly and if we couldn’t handle it we needed to leave. It was not
shameful to decide this was not right for you. It was smart, or so
they told us.

I struggled with my decision to become a
police officer on a whim. Did I have what it would take? Could I
handle the stress?

Friday finally came and we were released at
1600 hours. I was too tired to make the drive home. I called my
husband and begged his forgiveness. I spent the weekend working on
my shoes, typing my notes and organizing my binders.

Sunday evening at 2000 hours we had a study
group in our classroom. All but two cadets showed up. The two
missing didn’t show up for physical training on Monday morning as
well. They had decided being a police officer was not right for
them. My roommate with the hurt knee was one of the two not
returning. I was down to one bunkmate. The bathroom schedule became
much easier.

Cadet Donna Higgins, Rocco Chavez and I were
becoming a team. We were the slowest, most un-police like cadets at
the academy and we bonded. We weren’t treated badly by the other
cadets, but we knew they didn’t think we would make it.

Our first classroom test was the next day. If
we didn’t pass, the decision to stay would be taken out of our
hands.

Chapter 8 The Worst Possible Enemy

The day of our first classroom test had
arrived. After more torture at morning physical training, then
breakfast, then inspection where we earned eight hill runs, we sat
down for our test. Bubble sheets again. It was multiple choice, but
for every question there were at least two possible
answers.

We were able to leave the room when we
finished. I was third out the door and felt I had done well. Cadet
Clark, our classroom leader, who we had elected the previous week,
was the first to finish. There was a machine for grading in the
secretary’s office outside the classroom. When approximately ten
bubble sheets were turned in, they were gathered and run through
the machine.

My test was handed back and I only missed
three out of eighty-six. We all managed to pass but there were
quite a few scores in the seventies. We were told this was the
easiest test we would be given and we needed to study harder. It
felt good to be out of the bottom of the pack for a
change.

Next, each squad was given a package of
stencils and one black cloth marker. We were told we needed to
stencil our last names on the back of our white physical training
t-shirts. The top of the letters had to be two inches down from the
collar.

It was a disaster. Mistakes were made left and
right by the male cadets and t-shirts were thrown in the garbage.
When it was my turn to stencil I had no problems. It was easy. I
wasn’t a housewife and homemaker for nothing. Word got out. It was
decided I would stencil while cadets shined my boots. What a great
trade off.

The next morning, for the first time, Sgt.
Dickens said, “Nice boots cadet.”

We could carry a backpack for our binders and
classroom supplies. I carried everything but the kitchen’s sink in
mine. Ibuprofen, Kleenex, band aides, sun block and chemical
icepacks were only a few of the items. As word got out on this,
Cadets began raiding my supplies regularly and I earned the name
Momma Ivy. I think we nicknamed everyone. It was our way of making
our group a family. We became proud of those names.