My thoughts about basic training

I dont really know how to start this.. so I will start with what I am thinking. I am trying to journal because i think there is some value in being able to have perspective on events that happen to you. Every single day since having been sent home, I get these moments of stress when I remember things that happened to me during the training and I keep thinking.. I could have done this better by doing this or this. The trouble is when reality is happening to you, it is hard to know what to do in the space of a moment.

I was told by the recruiter that basic training was supposed to break you down and build you back up into something the military can use. I feel like I have only been broken down... although I don't think that it was necessarily a bad thing. The truth is I had the wrong idea about life coming in. I built my identity on assumptions that really haven't been put to the test. I thought i was more competent.. more useful. The army has a term for people who are constantly fucking up. a "shit pump". I had the will to win but.. still somehow I found myself constantly messing up and proving to everyone in my platoon that i was more and more incompetent. Whats worse is that the more I fucked up.. the more the negativity around me started to effect me. eventually I myself became a source of negativity. At the beginning, they called me an "above average" candidate... somehow I was actually considered to be someone of worth. Still I did not believe it because my staff and others around me always seemed to doubt me. slowly as the training progressed .. I became average.. my belief in myself.. was hit again and again.

I am not trying to write a sob story here.. I really am interested in succeeding. The truth is... this type of environment... while being extremely harsh and unforgiving.. has taught me a lot of skills that i didn't have before. I learned how to make a bed.. how to walk with purpose.. how to survive on my own and with difficult people. They are not trying to fail you.. its not a competition.. but they want you to reach to a standard..and quickly. Even though some of them were able to teach better then others. I think that perhaps the negativity they kept dishing out serves a larger purpose. I haven't figured it out fully but i keep thinking.. If I somehow manage to thrive in this condition... I think it could open a lot of doors. My return to BMQ has many uncertainties but I think that if show more consistency.. the same one I am doing now.. I will be in a much better position to succeed in there. If that makes sense. Anyways .. This is all I will write today. I am getting tired.