Basic Training In Plato's Allegory Of The Cave

How does a 2,000-year old story relate to the life of being in the military during basic training? Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” represents what humans believe and perceive as reality. However, this reality is just an illusion of the real world. Furthermore, Plato describes this type of life in vivid detail; the way people get lost in their own world, not knowing what is on the other side. After all is said and done, my time spent in basic training parallels with the experience of Plato’s prisoner in the allegory. Like the prisoner, I learned that my preconceptions about basic training, such as, its only three months it will be over in no time, or, how hard can it be, I am already in good shape, were false. I needed to prove myself worthy in training before I could be trusted to serve my country. The “Allegory of the Cave” opens with a vision of “human beings living in an underground den” (1) who are chained in front of a fire. The cave in the allegory represents what we believe to be reality. My cave during basic training was Lackland AFB. I lived in the brackets, and was forced to spend hours a day in the hot sun, doing physical training. During my three-month experience in the cave, I encountered and interacted with many other “cave dwellers” on a daily basis,

First off, my father, like his father, had enlisted. Apart from the individuals in from my family joining, I was inspired by my recruiter. The life he lived and the stories he told were inspirational. This is similar to how the prisoners in the cave saw the shadows of the puppets, “and of the objects which [were] being carried they would only see the shadows.” (7) The prisoners believed that the shadows were real, “would they not suppose that they were naming what was actually before them?” (9) In relation to the allegory, I was inspired to join the military by people identical to the puppet