Sergeant, There Is No Such Thing As ARMY Bootcamp, Sergeant

I must have heard the poor soldier say that a hundred times while I was in U.S. Army Basic Training at Ft. Polk Louisiana, in the early spring of 1966. His older brother was a Marine, his sister in the Navy. He kept on calling the misery we endured "Boot Camp," as his brother and sister had called their training. It wasn't.

So every time my buddy, whose name I've long forgotten, called it that, he had to get down and do twenty. Or thirty. Or, for Sgt. "Killer" Smith - fifty pushups, while yelling, "Sergeant, there is no such thing as Army boot camp, sergeant."

Sarge would say in the voice he reserved for people he wanted to know he was about to squish, "I can't hear you, pussy. Yell it out!"

I hope the Governor doesn't call what her son has just gone through "boot camp" in front of his buddies while she's down in Georgia later this week. I have no idea whether the term "boot camp," used in the print, radio and TV news about Track Palin's upcoming graduation, originated from the Governor's office or from the press, but use of that term for the young man's training is both inaccurate and demeaning to U.S. Army soldiers. Ask KUDO's Aaron Selbig, for instance. He served in the U.S. Army Infantry for over three years. I was in Aviation and the Transportation Corps. We would die before we called basic training boot camp, or our "weapon" a "gun."

United States Army Basic Training (also known as Initial Entry Training) is a rigorous program of physical and mental training required in order for an individual to become a soldier in the United States Army, United States Army Reserve, or United States Army National Guard. It is carried out at several different Army posts around the United States. Basic Training can last anywhere from 15 weeks to over one year, depending on the career path an individual chooses upon enlistment.