FORT CARSON, Colo. – Pvt. Mason Young lost complete faith and trust in humanity after his squad leader, Sgt. Martin Bird, pretended to lose count during an in-cadence pushup session at PT this morning. 

“What just happened?” a stunned Young asked the soldier next to him. “We clearly just did 10 pushups and he started us back at one again. Ten pushups— I mean, 20 if you think about it— gone as if they never happened.”

Young stared into the stadium lights overhead while doing flutter kicks on the damp early morning ground.

“If he would lie about something as trivial as pushups, what else would he lie to us about,” Young thought aloud. “I mean, are we even the best squad in the platoon like he always tells us?”