Image courtesy of Costa Pritsos & Me The Title 1801 “Everybody get the fuck up right now! Get the fuck out of those racks right now! Get on line!” My voice sounded foreign to me, but somehow that didn’t matter. This role felt great. The raw recruits in the barracks scrambled to get out of their racks and get on the chalk line drawn on their side of the room. Young men wearing nothing but their underwear tripped over one another or the edges of their beds to make it happen, most recovering quickly with just a stubbed toe or a hop and a skip. One sprawled face first on the floor. “Don’t get up,” I told him. “Push.” He knew immediately what I meant. This wasn’t his first day of training, after all. He got himself into a push-up position and started dipping his chest all the way down to the floor, then shoving himself up to full extension. Repeat. And again. After the twentieth one I told him he only had twenty more. Then I moved on. “Count off!” Davidson, my fellow drill instruc...