I fucked up.

This time, it wasn’t a normal fuck up, you know, one where I could say it was all my fault. This was more of a “someone did something shitty, I documented it, and now my ass is in more trouble than the guy who did something shitty because he outranks me” kind of thing. I didn’t think it was big deal, I figured I would get my wiener smacked and a counseling statement, but when my CO said “Brigade is tracking this”, I got a little nervous.

Brigade? Really? Fuck.

Soon as PT was over, myself and my PL got called up to the CO’s office. I’ll be the first person to say, I didn’t care for this CO. He didn’t mesh well with the men, and had a habit of smoking his PL’s in front of their platoon. He later volunteered our company for a JRTC rotation a couple months after a heavy training cycle and a NTC rotation, even though he would be leaving us before that rotation. Typical chicken shit behavior. Honestly I figured he was going to hang me out to dry, but I wasn’t sure how. Myself and the platoon leader, a lieutenant I won’t name, were talking about the situation outside the CO’s office as he read over an email or some shit.

“Don’t worry man, we can just counsel you and this will all blow over. I don’t really think they can do anything to you anyway.”

Soon as he said that, the CO yelled out of his office for my PL to go get something off the printer downstairs. I felt a little better after talking to the PL, I respected the fuck out of him, a real soldiers’ soldier. So it came as a surprise when he reentered the office with a look on his face that I read “oh fuck, this isn’t good”. He made sure we were alone, save for the CO’s office door being open.

“Collard, before we go in there I want to tell you to keep your mouth shut. Don’t admit to anything, tell him you want to talk to TDS before you sign anything. He is going to read you your rights, exercise those rights”, he whispered, almost as if conspiring to commit mutiny.

Fuck.

Well, now I was scared shitless.

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