Jerry Hensley is the kind of man who tears up for the National Anthem. Similar to other Washington Examiner readers, he loves America. His patriotism led him to enlist as a computer and electronic systems repairer in the Army National Guard. In October 2008, he began basic training at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri. In that respect, he was like thousands of others who sought to become soldiers that autumn. The difference was that Hensley was 40 years old.
“My plan was to enlist and blend in,” Hensley said. “If you’re 40, you can’t blend in with 18-year-olds. It’s not possible.”
Army drill sergeants are notoriously strict, angry, and loud. This is to train soldiers to react quickly while under stress and to weed out those who can’t make it. But I think another reason drill sergeants are so angry is that they’re stuck working very long hours supervising an enormous number of young people who are essentially children. Indeed, some soldiers go through basic training at 17 and legally are children. Compared with the overwhelming majority of privates and even drill sergeants, Hensley was ancient.
On the first day of basic training, Drill Sgt. Freeman screamed in Pvt. Hensley’s face: “I’m going to throw you out of this third-story window!”
“I was scared to death,” Hensley told me.
More than his drill sergeants, Hensley feared being recycled — that is, being forced to repeat a portion of basic training due to failure to meet standards or injury. There was a soldier in his unit who had been held back in this fashion.
On the very first day of basic training, he was more afraid than ever. When he was ordered to carry a fellow private during a team-building exercise, Hensley “heard the most sickening snap,” immediately followed by an agonizing pain in his back. He’d never felt pain, nor heard a crack, like that. Months later, a CT scan would confirm that Hensley had fractured his back, the kind of injury that could get a soldier fully discharged from the service. But fearing recycling and extra months at basic, Hensley didn’t report the injury. He endured the running, pushups, situps, and other physical challenges of Army basic training with a fractured spinal column.
The second day of basic training was Sunday. Before church service began, Drill Sgt. Knight asked, “How you doing, Pvt. Hensley?”
“I’m OK.”
“Don’t bulls—,” Knight stopped himself, looking around the chapel. “Don’t lie to me.”
“I think I’ll be OK,” said Hensley.
A fractured spine! My friends, I’ve been through Army basic training. I was only 21. It was often excruciating, though I was perfectly healthy. I cannot imagine Hensley’s agony.
For some reason, Knight thereafter called Hensley “Old Man Rivers.” One evening, Hensley overheard Knight shouting to the rest of the platoon, “Do not give Old Man Rivers s—, or you’ll deal with me.”
“I didn’t want to be singled out,” Hensley told me. “I just wanted to serve my country.”
Training wore on. Hensley endured. A few younger, uninjured men struggled to get medical discharges. Some tried to go AWOL.
I thought Hensley would have been filled with contempt for those who had it easier than him but tried to cheat their way out of the Army. He wasn’t. “We all do what we think we have to do. We all make choices. The only person I’m looking at in the mirror is me.”
Old Man Rivers pushed through the work and pain, graduated training, and went on to serve for six years, eventually becoming a sergeant.
“I’m glad I did it,” Hensley said of his service. “I met some great people. I did some great things.”
Some people (definitely not me) insist that soldiers aren’t tough unless they’re infantry, but Hensley, at age 40, pushed through training that broke much younger men, and he did so with a dangerous, painful injury. In my book, that’s plenty hardcore.
*Some names and call signs in this story may have been changed due to operational security or privacy concerns.
Trent Reedy served as a combat engineer in the Iowa National Guard from 1999 to 2005, including a tour of duty in Afghanistan.
