I heard this great quote once: “There are decades in which nothing happens and days in which decades happen.” My academy experience was a century at least. We had the typical lifestyle changes, schedule shifts, leadership moves, new people and new experiences. On top of that, we experienced the George Floyd riots, the start of COVID, the incredibly sad death of a young officer not far removed from the academy herself, and some sort of pre-COVID mystery virus.
We had New Year’s Eve and Day off, but we were thoroughly warned about calling off sick January 2 from some peculiarly timed head or stomach ache. Instructors told us a handful of encouraging stories about past recruits fired for faking sick or actually showing up hungover. My wife and I celebrated New Year’s mildly, getting together with her family in nearby suburbia. I typically down a few drinks at gatherings, but that night I only had one, barely finishing it before feeling incredibly tired and a little sore. I didn’t think much of it, as it had been a long academy week. The next day, though, I felt like absolute shit, running a fever and sleeping most of the day. Despite still having a fever and feeling weak the following morning after a night of heavy sweats, I made certain to show up to the academy. I was not about to let them think I was out boozing all night and couldn’t make it in. As it turns out, that was a mistake that catalyzed a two-month sick span that infiltrated our class, turning it from academy into infirmary. Thing is, I didn’t realize how sick I was … until this happened.
We began the day as usual. “Class, attention!” We hadn’t even gotten smoked or swarmed by instructors yet and I was already dripping sweat. Just the act of tensing up to stand at attention was enough to send my body into a tizzy. All of a sudden my vision started to fade. Darkness was closing in from my periphery. Physical movement seemed my only option for snapping out of it, so I slowly raised my arms, hoping I wouldn’t get us smoked. Though I didn’t mind the exercise, I never wanted to be the one responsible for making the whole class work. And on this morning, I simply didn’t have the energy to do even decent pushups, squats, flutter kicks or dead bugs. As my arms raised, my vision went blank.
That mistake catalyzed a two-month sick span that infiltrated our class, turning it from academy into infirmary.
Then I woke up, about a minute and a half later by instructor guesstimates, startled and staring straight into a field of cop faces. Not a very settling feeling. Completely out of the loop, my first thought was “What the hell did I do?” I didn’t know where I was, what I’d gotten into or how I’d gotten there. My mind started rolodexing through possibilities suggested from the past. Did I get into a fight? Had I taken some drug? Had I gotten drunk and fallen asleep somewhere? Was I headed to jail?
As I combed through these suggestions, my memory of time and place started to return.
“At the Academy. Roll call. Standing at attention. Vision faded. Why am I so sweaty?
I must have passed out.”
Instructors had been asking me questions I could barely understand and couldn’t answer. Finally those started to click. “What’s your name?” “Gimme your birthday.” “Who’s the president?” “How many quarters in a dollar?” “Know where you’re at right now?” “What happened?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” I mumbled in reply.
As a couple of instructors helped walk me gingerly over to a nearby metal folding chair, to my left I saw another classmate go down. To my right I saw someone run out of formation before throwing up in a nearby trashcan signed by overexerted recruits of classes past. I took a seat in the folding chair. I heard one of the instructors yell, “Don’t lock your knees.” Then all of a sudden, as if to nonverbally make the point that it wasn’t the knees, the darkness again began closing in. “It’s happening again,” I said before going down a second time.
When I woke up from this one, I was again on the ground. I pieced it all back together quicker this time. I was even sweatier, and my shirt had been ripped open. “We had to do a sternum rub on you, Seaton,” one instructor told me. “You were yellow, man, like Simpsons yellow. No joke. Then you turned blue and death gray and stopped breathing.” Medics were walking in at this point. “You scared the shit out of me, man. Thought we had a dead recruit on our hands for a minute there.”
Some of the biggest, strongest, toughest guys in the class let out the most blood-curdling screams, like banshees getting released from inner hells.
I thanked them profusely for helping me out as I walked over and sat on the gurney. “I feel fine now. I feel good, actually.”
“You have to go to the hospital,” another instructor very seriously said to me. So I did. A number of my classmates were also sent home that day due to illness. We weren’t together again as a healthy absence-free class until a full two months later. By that point, it was time to learn the taser.
Taze Day was one of the more memorable and nerve-wracking days. Others included Spray Day, the first day at the firearms range, the first day at the emergency vehicle operations course, each day of room clearing, barricaded subject and active killer training, each day of live scenarios, class lead days, test days, days after someone screwed up badly the previous day but we ran out of time to get smoked, and the first couple weeks of field training. So, most days. Taze Day started out with roll call, of course, then went straight into classroom instruction before we headed to the gym to test out some cartridges. Next it was our turn to ride the lightning. There was nervous talk of how much it would hurt and who might shit their pants. I was preoccupied thinking about how much the instructors must relish the opportunity and how determined I was to spoil that for whoever tazed me.
One by one, we took our turns. Some of the biggest, strongest, toughest guys in the class let out the most blood-curdling screams, like banshees getting released from inner hells. Some of the more petite women in the class handled it best — reason being, the more muscle, the more conductive tissue for the electric pulses to travel through. And I think the more kids you’ve had, the more you consider everything else essentially negligible on the pain scale. One guy, a former Big Ten football player, let out maybe the most memorable noise, something between an old Black woman feeling the full embrace of Jesus in a Southern Baptist church choir and a puppy yelping from an ass-whoopin’. The instructor, who was about half this recruit’s height, failed to account for the height difference and accidentally tazed my classmate in the ass. One prong into his leg, the other directly into his O-ring. It was something to behold.
I ended up going last and challenged myself not to make a single noise. I was close. As the instructor took aim, I tried not to worry, tried not to tense up. I tried thinking of anything else, hoping to distract myself and catch it by surprise. Instead, the instructor counted down. “All right, Seaton, Mr. Attorney. Three … two … one…” Zap! Zap! Zap! Zap! Zap! They call it a five-second ride, but it felt like 50. That had to be the longest five seconds on record. I remember feeling every muscle in my body tense up, feeling unable to breathe. I began counting down from five as slowly as I could, but still got to zero in half the time. Just as I’d become certain I’d run out of breath and lie unconscious on that gym floor for a third time, the five seconds was up. A sea change. I felt euphoric. It was like I’d taken muscle relaxers. My mind shifted from horror and life preservation to joy and satisfaction. “That wasn’t so bad,” my rose-colored gray matter lied to itself. As good as the aftereffect felt, given the choice, I wouldn’t recommend getting tazed. Still, I’d get surprise-tazed every day for a week before volunteering to get sprayed again. That’s a story too long for this article … but not for a book.
As an academy instructor myself now, it’s funny seeing all this from an alternate perspective. Witnessing swarms of instructors get in recruits’ faces during roll call has turned from fear-inducing to laugh-invoking. Like teenage years or college parties, my time as a recruit is something my mind will always appreciate and my body will never want to relive.
