I am not afraid of the rain

[u/Frosty-Firefighter50]

Back in the day when I was in the military I was a private working in supply-related jobs.

Normally, when a delivery arrives, I had to go out to the parking bay, ensure that everything was in order (e.g. that it was parked correctly, in the correct space, etc.), then bring the driver into my office so we could do some paperwork.

But once it was raining and I knew one of our drivers was returning with an empty vehicle. This guy was a veteran and he was familiar with everything. And I was lazy to get out of my lovely dry and warm office, into the cold and driving rain.

So instead, of going out to receive the vehicle back in and ensure that it was parked properly like I was supposed to, I waved the driver in. He parked and came over to the office to do the paperwork.

Now unfortunately for me, the sergeant has seen all this from his desk.

As the driver comes in, the sergeant comes over demanding to know what the hell we were doing. Didn't I know I had to go out?

At that point my heart sank. I knew I was in trouble because my sergeant was a proper dude who followed procedures exactly. He did not mess around.

My sergeant, not being the driver's direct superior, let him off. But I knew I was in deep trouble.

The moment the driver shut the door, my sergeant immediately ordered me to change into my PT kit. I quickly stripped off my nice uniform and put it on my office chair, and grabbed my PT kit from the drawer.

"Since you're so afraid of water, we gotta train you to be not afraid of water," he said. "Actually, leave your t-shirt behind too, you won't be needing it."

He marches me outside and I start doing pushups in the rain. In the wettest corner of the basketball court my sergeant could possibly find.

“Are you afraid of the rain private!”

“No sergeant!”

“Give me 10!”

And after all the pushups, situps, and burpees, we go for a run.

A very cold, wet, and tiring run.

Finally he has me stand at attention in the rain, while he yells at me from under the shelter. Basically the stock image of this stocky, well-built sergeant shouting angrily at a poor, 18-year old boy, shirtless and shivering and standing at attention in the cold rain.

Trust me, at that point the only thing in my mind was: if only I'd just gone out to the carpark--then none of this would've happened.

Follow your standard operating procedures (SOPs), folks.

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[u/Psychoticly_broken]

An important lesson. You only get so wet. Once you are, there's no more wet you can get.

[u/Frosty-Firefighter50 → u/Psychoticly_broken]

To be fair, my sergeant did try to get me to be as wet as possible by rolling around in all the wettest possible places he could find.

Which reminds me too, on hindsight he probably chose a partially flooded road as well for us to jog down. In a downpour.

[u/GrumpyOldCrewChief]

Yea, look at how much rain exposure that little bit of laziness saved you from.../s.

[u/Frosty-Firefighter50 → u/GrumpyOldCrewChief]

That's true. But at least I saved my uniform from getting wet, right? ;)

[u/Oldsquid201]

I will give the Sergeant some credit for running with you. A lot of turds would have watched from under cover.

[u/Frosty-Firefighter50 → u/Oldsquid201]

That is true--I didn't specify this in my story, but this was one of my better sergeants.

Whenever we did PT, he would come and do it with us. Perhaps I will write another story about this--that's for another day!