Post date: Nov 20, 2011 9:32:59 AM
(Original Date: Sunday, June 27, 2010)
These entries have been sent via email from Brandon. (Yay!)
Slept in today until 7:00AM when all the new people were woke up to go to a financial brief we were just informed about. We heard it takes the better part of the day. So I got up and got ready. Formation for this was at 7:45 and everyone except most of the girls were there...nobody woke them up.
I found out a guy from Ft. Benning who sleeps above PFC Metal fell off his bed in the middle of the night last night. It's a pretty long fall and it's a very hard floor. PFC Metal said it woke him up and he even had headphones in playing music. Luckily he wasn't seriously hurt, just a little sore.
We were marched to the classroom and waited...and waited. I guess nobody told the briefers that they were supposed to to be there briefing. So we were eventually all marched back to the company area where we joined the main formation. I've said this before, but let me say it again the formations here suck. The soldiers wander into the formations well past the time they are supposed to. I can see why though, the sergeants are never there on time. The sergeants always end up in front of the formation anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes after the formation is supposed to be ready to go.
Each squad in the morning formation was given a task to clean up around the company area. My squad had to walk around and pick up any trash we saw. We did this for an hour or so and by then everyone was done with all the tasks. We were released until 18:00. So me and PFC Metal ate lunch and then headed to the PX to get some supplies. After that it was just a lazy day. I got up to date with facebook LOL and also watched a documentary through my Netflix account. I love Netflix!! It really works out great now that I'm away because I can now watch movies on my laptop for a little entertainment.
After dinner we made it to the 16:00 formation. Same as before people were all over the board. There are wrestling matches while we are in formation. People in the barracks hanging out their windows talking with people in formation. One guy was even playing street fighter with a wireless controller looking through the window to the day room TV. We waited only until 16:10 this time until the sergeant came out and did roll call. People are talking during roll call, people are answering in funny voices making it hard for the sergeant to know if they even answered or not. It's frustrating for me and I'm not even the one doing the roll call. We were then released for the night.
There is a phase system here kind of like basic. Here it is an individual process. You start out as a phase IV. You can move up to phase V if you pass your PT test, memorize The Soldier's Creed, The Army Song, The Signal Song, have a locker and a class A inspection. When you are phase V you can wear civilian clothes after hours and on weekends. You also don't have to come to a lot of the formations on the weekends which would be nice. Phase V soldiers can also go off base. Phase V+ soldiers get even more benefits and can even live off base. It really isn't a huge priority to phase up for me. I don't have anyone to visit outside of the base. The nice thing would be wearing shorts and a t-shirt on the weekends in this heat.
Overheard Quote: "Why are you in that damn fucking shit?" (The sergeant taking roll during the last formation saw a guy in his PT uniform instead of ACUs like everyone else. The funny thing is that he didn't get into any trouble. No push-ups....nothing, just the comment)