I Fake Fainted While in the Army

a true story from the land of Nelly - It's Hot in Herre

I’ll preface this entire story with, Don’t Judge Me, Judge Your Mama.

You know those military recruiters that come to high school and poach kids with lies about making money, getting mad benefits, and not going to war? Well, they got me…a naive 18-year-old with not a lick of long term critical thinking. Because my unit did indeed go to war. But that’s another story for another time. The only thing I cared about at the time was getting out of poverty in any way possible.

My way was the Army.

So in June 2002, I was shipped off to basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. I was to serve 9 weeks in South Carolina in the middle of the summer.

As part of the training we did physical training (PT). It consisted of all types of activities to prepare us soldiers for the test that we needed to pass (among other things) in order to graduate and officially be called a soldier.

I honestly didn’t mind most of the physical activities. It was hard but it was what it was.

But I HATED the PT that included running. I despised it.

Besides running a slowish 100, 200, and 400 in track in middle school, I wasn’t a runner.

I’ll also mention I wasn’t a morning person and in the Army we did all the running in the morning. Like at 5 or 6. I can barely open my eyes that early let alone get dressed to huff and puff like the Big Bad Wolf blowing down a house.

As I typed that I laughed because, am I the Big Bad Wolf out of breath or one of the out of shape Piggies? I think I’m both.
Now I’m cracking up.

Ok, I’m composed now. Anywho, running that early was stupid.

And I was bad at it. So bad that I was in the slowest running group they had. We usually ran around the base but one day we ran around a track.

That took my hate for running to a whole new level. And it was hot as hell that day.

Now, previously, I’d seen soldiers faint because it was so hot. Like chil’, the soldiers were DROPPING! Like flies!

One more side note. A fly was stuck in my house the other day and that ugly thing just dropped dead on my kitchen table. Like, it fell from the air and landed upside down on my table. And now I finally understand the saying, dropping like flies.

Let’s continue. And that, ladies and gentleman, is where I got my genius idea to fake a faint-from the soldiers fainting, not the flies dropping.

So here I am running around this track, sweating, breathing hard, dragging my feet, hating life.

When I come around the corner I see all the drill sergeants. It was time to get my Oscar.

I wait until I see my drill sergeant, Drill Sergeant Byrd, look up. Then I do it.

I slow to a walk…

Then I start to sway. Real slow…

I then stop walking and…

BOOM!!!!

Down I go to the gravel track.

I was committed too. I fell all the way to the ground. I didn’t even brace for impact. Just boom.

I held in my smile though. That would’ve given away my ruse.

I wait a little bit and then get up slowly. Because of course, I’m in a daze from my fake faint.

Drill Sergeant Byrd walks over to me and says, “You fainted, Todd?”

A little breathy, I say, “Yes, Drill Sergeant.”

He looks at me and doesn’t say anything for a minute. I don’t know if he’s going to make me keep running, send me to sick call, or what. Then he says in his menacing drill sergeant voice, “People don’t faint sideways, Todd.”

I. Thought. I. Was. Done.

You probably think I was too. But I wasn’t. For whatever reason, he let me slide and that wasn’t like him because Lord knows, I had been *dropped for far less.

All he said was, “Go sit down, Todd.”

And sat I did. Sat I did.

*My definition for dropped: to do push-ups or planks by yourself or with your unit as a form of punishment.

PS: by the time I graduated basic training (yes, I graduated) I could do 42 push-ups in 2 minutes. Take that as you will.

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Cori is always down to tell a story. She is the author of Black women’s fiction under the pen name of Chichima Cherry, and the author of the Curiously Cara African Queens children’s books series, under the pen name of Karen Mae.