Triumph of Courage: Story 4588

This is a Day 0 story. I graduated from Infantry OSUT today and decided to share this story today now that I'm far away from the reach of my Drill Sergeants. I was the first one off the bus in my company. I sprinted up hill as the chaos started. The smoked popped and the sounds of machine guns and sim grenades were prevalent. We ran to form up in roster number order.I was roster 201 so it was easy enough for me. As everyone scrambled to form up, we held our duffel bags over our head. It was hectic. Like always, we never made the deadline, weren't suppose to. We had to hit "The Tree". It was a large tree by itself in the open across from Eagle Tower. In the confusion of privates, I ran straight into a Drill Sergeants in the formation.After smacking into him, he went off. "Get the f*ck away from me private. What the f*ck are you doing you fat bodied piece of sh*t!".

I just kept running.

Half way back from the tree, out of no where, here comes the Drill Sergeant. I stood at attention as the hell started. With the dreaded knife hand in my face he said, "What the f*ck is on you shoulder private. What is that?".I had no idea what was going on. I responded "I don't know Drill Sergeant. I don't know."Looking dead ahead not moving, he said, "Look at your shoulder."As I looked down I saw his Velcro Patch stuck to my OCPs. I was terrified. To this day I don't remember if it was his Drill Sergeant patch or his unit patch. All I know if I was in the front leaving rest position knocking out push-ups in cadence for what felt like an eternity. I was the Patch Thief for 5 weeks. Then one day he checked me at the 200 meter range and ripped his patch off on purpose onto my OCP's as a joke. Thank God I wasn't a sh*t head and it blew over quick.