Well, it's Saturday night, and I'm drinking alone again, so why not blog? And what better topic than the moment that used to cause me great shame? 😆
I'll start with a little bit of background: I used to be in the U.S. Military, I joined right out of high school (I actually signed the contract during my Junior year, but anyway...). I enlisted to join the Infantry and from there, Airborne School and Ranger Battalion. I made it through basic training and Airborne School, and found myself in what they called RIP Holdover (Ranger Indoctrination Program). Holdover basically just means you're waiting around for a new class of RIP to start, and there were a lot of us, between 200-300, at the time. Now, even though we weren't in training to become Rangers yet, it was still the Army, so every morning we had to form up at 5 A.M. to do PT (physical training). It was the beginning of winter, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, so we were supposed to wear the full PT uniform. The full uniform consisted of shorts, t-shirt, sweatpants, sweatshirt, gloves, and patrol cap (knit cap). There are variations to this uniform, sweatshirt with shorts, shorts-no sweatshirt, etc., depending on the weather and what we were doing that day (i.e. if we were going for a run, we would usually ditch the sweatpants and run in shorts and sweatshirts).
Again, being in the Army, you're supposed to wear the full uniform to formation and go from there. We had been told the night before that we were either going to do PT in the gym, or be doing upper body/abs outside, but were definitely not going for a run, and as a young 18 year old private, I fell for it. So I showed up that morning in almost full winter PTs: I had on my hat, my gloves, my t-shirt, sweatshirt, and sweatpants. But, whether out of hubris or simply not having any clean shorts, I went commando underneath my sweatpants. By now some of you can probably see where this is heading. I was standing there in formation, with 2 or 3 hundred other 18 year old dudes, when of course, the order is given to remove our sweatpants, because we were going for a run! When you're in the Army (and especially the Infantry), you don't get to pick and choose which orders to follow based on your comfort level. So I found myself standing there, in December, naked from the waist down, just waiting for the what would come next.
It didn't take long for Non-Com in charge to see what was going on, and although I don't remember exactly what was said, I know exactly how it would have been said. Shouted questions as to why the fuck I'm out of uniform, am I cold, am I stupid, you know, real heart-warming stuff 😂. What came next, I remember vividly. I was given 30 seconds to get my ass back into the barracks and into uniform. The Army has a specific way of doing just about everything, so I couldn't even take the shortest route to the barracks. To break formation, I had to take one step back, run to the end of the row I was in, then all the way around the back of the formation, to get to the steps. All in complete silence, with 200+ guys watching me. A buddy of mine later told me, it looked like two eggs in a sock, bouncing up the steps to the barracks 🤣🤣🤣. At the time, I was so embarrassed I got a sick, nauseous feeling in my stomach. Years later, it's one of my favorite stories to tell about my time in the service.
So that's the story of my most embarrassing moment. It's either that, or the time I thought someone was waving to me in a bar, so I waved back, but they were actually waving to someone behind me. It's a toss-up 🤷♂️.