Turn 11 of 26

They yell hair is not ready and that they still have more physical standards to do, mainly posture, face and more pt. They all yell at you 20 to fix your posture. back straight, arms behind you back, legs not far spaced. The yell comes out and all 20 postures look like how the officers look while standing. They don’t stand another way, only that way as your bodies adjust to make this permanent

'HAIR IS NOT READY!' The Lead Instructor's voice cuts across the hall before the line can move. 'You think you are correct? You are DRESSED correct. The body still stands like it belongs to you! POSTURE STANDARDS — ATTENTION!'

The yell comes down the line and all twenty bodies answer at once. 'BACK STRAIGHT! ARMS BEHIND YOUR BACK, HANDS CUPPED! LEGS NOT FAR SPACED, HEELS TOGETHER! CHIN LEVEL! EYES FRONT!' The officers walk the row screaming each correction into faces that cannot show what they hear, and the corrections stop being corrections because there is nothing left to fix — your spine draws itself up and locks, your shoulders square back, your hands find the small of your back and cup there, and your heels come together with a click that nineteen other pairs of heels make at the same instant.

You feel the stance set. It happens under the skin the way the injections did — warmth, then a settling, then a stillness that is not effort. Holding attention has always been work; you have stood like this for a minute and your body has stopped treating it as work. The stance is not something you are doing. It is something you are. 'THAT IS YOUR STANCE NOW, RECRUIT!' the officer at your ear yells, as if answering the thought. 'You do not stand another way! You will not REMEMBER another way!'

The Lead Instructor walks the line slowly, and the twenty of you do not turn your eyes to follow her, because eyes front is part of the stance. Down the row the twenty figures stand identical — 5'5, squared, white, arms cupped behind their backs, and above each body the same angry fixed face on a different-colored head of hair. Six stands beside you and even without looking you know her posture is yours, because it is the officers' posture, and there is only one posture left in the building.

'Correct,' the Lead Instructor says, completing her circuit, and takes the front. 'The body stands. Next the body MOVES. PT STANDARDS, RECRUITS — you will drill until your march is our march, your step is our step, and your sweat falls in number order! DETAILS OF ONE — FALL OUT AND FOLLOW!' The officers begin pulling recruits from the line to the drill floor, and the hundred voices deeper in the building start a new cadence, waiting for yours to join it.