Punishment

During armed forces basic training, we would get assigned push ups on pretty much an hourly basis. Someone would do something stupid, like not call an officer sir, and we would be assigned push ups. Run too slow to mess? Push ups. Bedsheets not tight enough? Push ups.

There we were outside, all in orderly rows and columns stretched out along the ground in the push up position, and someone actually asked the Sergeant, why did they always punish us with push ups. The Sergeant, he says to us, you think of this as punishment? We don't give you push ups as punishments, we give them to you because you need them, and you just got the whole lot of you twenty five more.