Whenever I was in basic training, each recruit, each private was assigned their own roster number. That roster number was our identifier. We had to put it on all our gear. I had to have it strapped across a tape on my Kevlar, which is our helmet. It dictated as far as when we would eat chow and what order we would fall in. It also would designate when we would draw our weapon from the arms room when we had to go to the different ranges. Our roster number was our second name. First name was Private, and the second name was our roster number. Every time you heard your roster number yelled by a drill sergeant or a captain, you always knew either you were called to do something, or you got caught doing something you shouldn’t have been doing.
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