Sgt. 1st Class Brian Perales shouted loudly at his privates in Company C of the 787th Military Police Battalion.
“Did you drink your Gatorade? Apparently not!” Perales yelled. “Take your canteen off! I don’t want no excuses when you fail.”
Typical words from a drill sergeant, perhaps.
But on Friday afternoon, those shouts came from a drill sergeant coordinator whose uniform was dripping wet from sitting in a dunk tank during Independence Day celebrations at Fort Leonard Wood.
As a training holiday, Independence Day is one of the few opportunities privates in basic training have for a day off. As privates in training to become military police, members of Perales’ company were making the most of their rare opportunity to turn the tables on their drill sergeant as Pvt. Michael Hollifield, 17, of Terre Haute, Ind.,  stepped up to the dunk tank and told Perales that he had purchased 40 balls in an attempt to drop him into the dunk tank.
“Did I yell at you that much?” asked Perales. “You can’t perform under pressure! Do I need to come down and rub your shoulder for you? Oh, it must be the equipment why you can’t perform!”
Perales’ last shout was interrupted by a loud splash as Hollifield’s ball dropped his drill sergeant into the dunk tank.
“Well, maybe not,” Perales said as he pulled his wet drill sergeant cover hat out of the tank and put it back on his head.
Hollifield, who enlisted in the Army after his junior year of high school, said he wanted to serve his country as a military policeman and expected basic training would be filled with tough warnings from his drill sergeants.
But a drill sergeant in a dunk tank?
“I never expected to be able to dunk a drill sergeant, but throwing 18 balls at him and hitting him 18 times, that’s pretty amazing,” Hollifield. “All I’m going to say is the drill sergeant doesn’t know what’s coming. I’ve got about 40 more coming, so watch out!”
Sgt. 1st Class Doug Seminatore of Company H of the 554th Engineers said he volunteered to be in the dunk tank as a way to raise money for the directorate of Morale, Welfare and Recreation.
“They do a world of good for everybody,” Seminatore said.
Seeing drill sergeants dunked in the water builds morale for the privates, Seminatore said.
“I think it’s great. What would be a better way to get these privates motivated and have some good fun?” Seminatore said. “We want to motivate them to do the job and complete it and do the best they can. That’s what it’s all about — being the best soldier they can and the best person they can be.”
Seminatore’s Army Reserve unit from Buffalo has sent him for 11 straight years to be a drill sergeant during summer surge at Fort Leonard Wood, and Seminatore said he loves the opportunity to be a drill sergeant each summer.
“I love training people, I love teaching people, and that’s why I’ve stuck with it,” Seminatore said.
But what about the target of Hollifield’s balls?
Perales said he’s been the drill sergeant coordinator for his company for most of the last year and a half, and wasn’t entirely surprised to receive “special attention” from his privates.
“When I come around, I don’t train the soldiers really; I just correct their deficiencies, so I do all the yelling,” Perales said. “I set the standard for them and have them uphold the standard, so all I do really is yell a lot.”
Despite his role as the “bad cop” enforcing discipline and regulations and standards, Perales said he volunteered for the dunk tank duty as soon as he was asked to consider it.
“My first sergeant came and said, ‘We have a time slot, you want to do it?’ I said. ‘Yeah, I’m always good for doing this stuff,’” Perales said.
“It’s fun, my kids are out here, and it’s all about the kids, the privates, and having a good time out here,” Perales said.