Drill SGT’s I have a question. Have any of you had a cycle where there wasn’t “that guy” in the formation you had to actually make stuff up?

I was not a drill Sergeant, but I went to Basic Training at Fort Benning in the early 80s. There was "That Guy" the was constipated and argued with the Battalion CSM about his profile saying he should eat extra salad as reading that he could take all the salad. The CSM indulged him and by golly that night he was no longer constipated and the sounds coming out of the latrine should have been recorded, as I had never heard a human make anything similar before or since in my life...He exclaimed "The Salad Worked, The Salad Worked"

Not a drill obviously, but when we went through basic there was a stretch of time where my platoon wasn't getting into any trouble. On day on the range the drills sent two of our platoon to go clean up the porter john area (two trainees that in the past had been known for messing up). However, unexpectedly, they did a good job. Still the drills had a bet with the platoon and said that for every piece of trash they found around the johns or in the johns, they would add 10 seconds of cherry pickers.

The soldiers came back, confident in their job. So the drills started marching the platoon over to the porter johns to inspect. We noticed another drill sergeant, running away from the porter johns into the trees as we arrived....and behold. The whole area had been trashed. Worse than it had started.

So the drills then had us do our cherry pickers while those two trainees counted and re-picked up the area they had just cleaned.

We were irritated, but it was also funny at the time to think that the drills had to sabotage us to get the chance to use "corrective training"

I find the basis of the question improbable. There will always be the bottom 10% in any body of people. There will always be a reason for a teaching moment