The training is devastating in a nutshell.
Cadets at the hunter school do not have name, title, or position but a randomly handed numerical codename. Zhao Guohua's number was 71.
Most of the days were spent in marching and the routes were never the same; on nights the cadets received various punishments and had only three to four hours' sleep. At the rare intervals, they could quickly fall asleep whether in howling wind, rain or scorching heat, said Zhao.
The cadets only had one burrito and some boiled beans for each meal, so Zhao always felt hungry. "Even the trainer's dog eats better than us," he recalled. All the soldiers would rush to wash the food containers, so as to grab what was left at the bottom.
"The trainers ordered the cadets to carry logs, run on mountains, march with load, climb obstacles and push vehicles to exhaust them, and then tried to destroy their willpower with fatigue, cold, hunger, tear gas, scolding, physical punishment and captive abuse," Zhao wrote in his report after returning to China, "the training was devastating in every way."
Several days later, the bell was tolled successively. "Phasing participants out was the trainers' goal." Most participants were kicked out during the "aguafrio" (pouring cold water), an exercise that was a horrible memory for all.
Whenever a cadet broke a rule, the trainer would pour freezing spring water on them with a barrel or pipe, both during the day and at night, until someone quitted. Zhao was once punished with only the sports shorts and a vest on. And for another time, his training outfit and backpack were wet through, but he was not allowed to change and had to leave the clothes on him dried naturally. "They didn't stop until my lips turned blue with coldness."
What was most excruciating was to be exposed to wind after being poured water. "Participants can feel the heat flowing away from themselves little by little", so much that they felt warm when water was poured on them again. Zhao Guohua and his fellow Chinese soldiers wrapped themselves up in plastic wraps to keep off the cold and retain as much heat as possible. How could he ever imagine that what impressed him most by tropical Venezuela was the bitter cold?
There were unlimited ways to punish the cadets at hunter school, of which the most terrifying one for Zhao was "head plank" and "fist plank". "Head plank" means the soldier has to prop his body above the ground with his head and feet, which creates an immediate feeling of "encephalemia", while the more ruthless "fist plank" means the soldier should prop his body up with knuckles of the two interlocked hands and the feet, arms straight, which would make his knuckles bleeding after merely a few minutes.
A relatively easy affliction was jogging, sometimes at the square and sometimes at the airport. Zhao Guohua measured with his steps that the airport runway was 1.4km long. But the good days didn't last long. Starting from the third week, trainers began to hurl tear bombs from the square uptake, forcing the cadets downwind to spread apart. The trainers would come back after the smoke was gone and pour water on them.
Later the cadets knew better. They sneaked away along with the trainers, only to find that trainers began to hurl tear bombs after a forced march when everyone was too exhausted to run away. Zhao Guohua could still remember how helpless he felt then, and the only thing he could manage to do was lifting his clothes and covering his mouth and nose after a fashion.
"At that moment, I knew what despair felt like," said Zhao with a bitter smile.
