intense on Saturdays. But it’s shorter. In basic training, we worked out every other day for two hours. We’d do an endurance run for a mile and a half, and then it would all culminate in an obstacle course, which actually was kind of fun. But Air Force basic training was probably easier than basic in the Marines or Army.”

In the military, the “career” airman said, “you train as a team and you’re expected to bring along the one who has fallen behind.”

He said that in case the air base must be evacuated quickly, the Air Force expects plane-repair technicians like him to be able to carry around all the tools they need in a “Kennedy box” that can weigh more than 100 pounds. He said some female airmen had toolboxes that weighed more than their bodies.

Page said the Air Force in the 1970s had some female drill instructors and “they were as tough as the male ones. Some of the things you heard coming from their mouths were amazing.”

Tony Wiszowaty

U.S. Marine Corps Reserve

Approaching 70 years of age, Wiszowaty muses that “there are times in life when you wish you could do something over again. With my health deteriorating and my weight going up, I was beginning to think that it would be good to be able to do Marine boot camp again.

“But every day of boot camp was torture.”

In the Marines they say that pain is weakness leaving the body,” he said. “But as tough as drill instructors are, they really love their recruits. They know that if you get into a fighting situation, they have formed you into a condition where you have the best chance of not coming home on your shield.”

Wiszowaty, 68, said Marine boot camp was like the Saturday boot camp in Schaumburg, but went on for 24 hours a day. “We were trained to be ready for anything at any time,” sometimes being awakened by surprise in the middle of the night and sometimes being forced to grab a meal while just walking through the mess hall without sitting down.

Wiszowaty is working with trainer Michelle Jeeninga. Push Fitness’s only female trainer, she married Steve Amsden while he was serving in the Army, then joined him in working for Push. They divorced in 2012, but still work there together. “We get along great,” Jeeninga said. “Steve is my new husband’s best friend.”

“In the Marines one D.I. said that ‘if you work until you drop and after you drop, you set your toes in and give an extra inch, I’ll never send you back’ to repeat the course,” Wiszowaty said. “I think about that sergeant every time Michelle asks me to do one more rep. If she says we’ll do something for 30 seconds, I’ll do 31 seconds.”