TESTIMONIALS

What recruits say

Flowers, Chocolate and Spinning Back Kicks nextdraft.com

My wife has been seeing another man three days a week and its been going on for months now. It's not romantic. It's nothing like that. Three days a week (soon to be four) my wife awakes at the wee hours (which, given the proximity of the alarm clock, have also become the "We" hours) of the morning, puts on her sweats and heads off to her own personal boot camp. The man who waits for her on the other end of her short commute wears camouflage, checks his watch repeatedly to make sure she is not even five seconds late and warms up his vocal chords for a full hour of screaming disparaging remarks and threatening comments that if uttered by me would result in an end to my breathing privileges, but when shouted by him result in a lot of sweat, sore arms, tired legs and an occasional bout with exhausted dizziness.

The man is Sergeant Ken Weichert. Sergeant Ken -bonafide army man and winner of several annual military fitness competitions - runs a fitness boot camp in San Francisco and has a tone that ricochets back and forth from Stripes to Full Metal Jacket. I know him only by voice thanks to the "encouraging" messages he occasionally leaves on our answering machine: "Private Pell, this is Sergeant Ken. I want to see you here on time tomorrow at 0600 hours. I'm going to run you and make you bear crawl on the ground until puke!" Whatever happened to step class?

The training works. My wife is in great shape (though I am at times troubled by the selection of exercises and skills she is practicing three mornings a week). Sergeant Ken also teaches anti-terrorist training, self-defense, boxing, kick boxing and an entire menu of other things that inflict maximum pain. One maneuver involves straddling a supine victim, delivering two blows to the jaw then sommersaulting to a standing position to give a swift front kick to the back of the head. Over the past six months, the two syllables I have learned to dread most are Hi-Ya! I am thinking about asking her to do PR for this newsletter. So, next time you're asked to forward the newsletter to two friends, believe me, you'll listen. It's amazing how the threat of a spinning back kick can motivate people. At home, we have reorganized the chore duties a bit. She tells, I do.

This morning, a local radio station host who made the mistake of ridiculing Sergeant Ken on the air was challenged to try to survive ten minutes of the Sergeant's boot camp obstacle course. Even on radio, you could hear the pain. The producers described the action: "His face is beet red. He's on all fours. He wants us to give him the oxygen. Sergeant Ken has wrapped a towel around his waist and is forcing him to do his pushups. He looks like he may get sick or pass out." This was all in the first thirty seconds. From the radio personality we heard only heavy breathing. After barely surviving Sergeant Ken's obstacle course for ten minutes, the radio host was then suited up for a round of boxing. Maybe they were short on time, because the round lasted about eight seconds before the host was again on all fours and his producers had thrown in the towel.

The radio personality turned quivering blob couldn't speak, so the mic was passed to Sergeant Ken who somehow saw the romance of the moment, called his girlfriend over to where he was standing and then proposed on the air. At first she was shocked but then seconds later, with a radio personality writhing at her feet, she said yes. I imagined them then, hand in hand (or maybe hand to hand) strolling through the indoor obstacle course, wide awake at 7am and soon to be Mr. and Mrs. Sergeant Ken. As a congratulatory gift, my wife and I are thinking about taking the happy couple to dinner and drinks and then making them do push-ups until they heave.