AFG 4b: CRC Paperwork

Bob and I got on base early in the morning where we went to chapel with a bunch of airborne recruits. Some things that stand out about the recruits were these: how young they were, how short their hair was, and how fired up they were. The chapel also featured contemporary Christian music or CCM, which caught me, a traditional church music guy, by surprise. The lyrics were projected on a screen in the front of the church even though all the recruits seemed to know all the words, which was weird for me.

Soon it was time to leave and get back to CRC, the CONUS Replacement Center. Today we formed up and marched past the open-air concrete pad onto a road. The military guys in uniform went first marching in formation and shouting cadences that they all knew. The contractors, like me, brought up the rear in a rag-tag, undisciplined fashion. I’ve never been so proud.

We marched along this road for perhaps a mile, maybe less, up a hill to the biggest tent I’ve ever seen. In it contained a large, open-air room with row after row of tables and row after row of chairs. Behind the tables and chairs were a few classrooms that we would not see for a couple of days. We were instructed to take a seat. And there we were given forms to fill out. Forms would be passed out, we would fill them out, and then they would be collected. In one section were the military personnel in uniform, and in another section were the contractors. We were not allowed to mix. This went on for form after form, hour after hour. We went home on Sunday, came back on Monday, and filled out more forms. But there was a method to the madness. The instructors knew what they were doing – they had done this before – and it was clear that many people had been in this large CRC tent and had filled out many, many forms.

The day was punctuated by our lining up and marching back down the hill, with the military in the front and the contractors bringing up the rear, to the dining facility or the DFAC. The food was good and plentiful – you could eat as much as you wanted. It was also free; all you had to do was show your LOA. Then we’d march back up the hill to fill out more forms. After a while we also started to receive training, such as not to sexually assault our female colleagues because it could hurt team cohesion and jeopardize the mission. We were also instructed on what to do if we got captured, which was hold out for as long as possible and maintain our honor and morale but realize that everyone breaks eventually. One of the forms we had to fill out was for dog tags, and I remember thinking, “Cool, I get dog tags!”

But something else was happening, something that I did not expect but was fundamental to the CRC process: I was slowly but surely inculcating and embodying military ways. Through the process of being given instructions, implementing those instructions, marching up and down the hill, and eating at the DFAC, a civilian like me was slowly becoming adapted to the ways of the US military machine. The civilian world of hotels and restaurants was slowly fading into my mental background.