Fire Drill!

Cover of Space Cadet

You’ve heard of a Chinese Fire Drill? The fire drills at OTS were even more fun. The only time we were allowed out of bed between Midnight and 0500 was for a fire drill (and probably for an actual fire as well, though we never heard.) The fire drills we had occurred at about 0130 and were started by someone in the upper class yelling “FIRE DRILL, FIRE DRILL, FIRE DRILL” as loud as possible. We were then required to begin screaming, “FIRE DRILL, FIRE DRILL, FIRE DRILL” at the top of our lungs and continue doing so for as long as the drill lasted. The first thing we did upon getting out of our bunks was assemble outside our room doors – still yelling “FIRE DRILL, FIRE DRILL, FIRE DRILL” as loudly as humanly possible. Once we were accounted for, we then ran (yes, still screaming) through the front door of the building and formed up outside in the parking lot. Then for about an hour we were berated for our inability to scream loud enough to wake up everyone in the building. Usually, at least 50 trainees would have burned to death from our inability to project our voices.

Our night thus being wrecked, we were required to return to our beds for the other hour and a half of our three hours sleep for that night. Unfortunately, sometimes there was another fire drill.
As long as I’m on the “group reaction” subject we also were required to interrupt our polishing, shining, cleaning, studying and etc. to play “Ball in the Hall.” This action consisted of some upperclassman tossing a rubber ball into the hall and us rushing outside our door screaming “Ball in the Hall” for as long as they wanted us to. Usually during this “play” someone was required to recite exactly how many minutes before the upper class graduated. You always had to be on your toes and keep the number calculated so that you wouldn’t get gigs for screwing up.
Air Force OTS – what a wonderful place. I haven’t talked about pushups (at least 100 per night) nor being on “wooly watch” or any of the other wonderful tortures designed to keep you awake and away from your studies. Maybe later.