Post date: Nov 18, 2011 1:45:42 PM
(Original Date: Sunday, May 23, 2010)
These entries are from the letters that Brandon has mailed to me. His writing at times can be a bit difficult to determine his words... bare with me, I do my best, especially with army terms.
This morning we found out something funny happened last night during fireguard. You see there is always a DS on duty all throughout the night. They will at some point check each platoon by doing a walk through counting the people and the weapons. They also check on the Fireguard to make sure they are awake and posted. Sometime in the middle of the night our APG (Assistant Platoon Guide) must’ve heard the DS come in, although only in his subconscious or dream state. The APG jumped out of bed and ran in front of the DS. The DS said “Private…what are you doing out of bed? Where are your shoes?” Our APG said, “Drill Sergeant I’m giving a LACE report” (A LACE report was part of a battle drill that we had to do over and over again. The team leader checks his team and their equipment and reports to the squad leader.) I guess the DS was a little dumb founded he just stared at the APG. It was then the APG realized he was out of be and a DS was in front him. The APG said, “Sometimes I do stupid things in the middle of the night.” Then he went to bed. The DS came back in the morning and told our DS what happened and they both had a laugh.
We had a good PT workout this morning, then breakfast. After breakfast we had a little company ceremony to make out transition to “Blue Phase”!!! So we are officially now in the blue phase. Not sure what that all this entails, but it will be better than white phase…which has been better than red phase. There are rumors that we will get our cell phones longer. It that’s true, I’ll be super excited.
We got scopes for our rifles today and then went to the big computer simulator to train on rifles with scopes. I was a sharp shooter…well a virtual sharpshooter. Now if only I can do that with the real thing.
We had our peer counseling results review with the DS. Mine was as I expected, for the most part good. Areas of improvement communication, sounding off, and confidence. All but one said they would go to war with me – the one said he was afraid I wouldn’t be able to kill the enemy. LOL. If someone is shooting at me don’t worry, I’ll have no problem shooting back.
We were given the opportunity to get milkshakes again! I had a large oreo shake. Wow that was good. I was going to go to the PX as well, but the place was so packed, they ran out of shopping baskets and wouldn’t allow anyone in until someone left with a basket. I hear we may be able to go tomorrow, so I’ll wait. Now that we’re in blue phase we were allowed to walk back to the bay when we were done as long as we wore in a buddy group.
Not a whole lot going on today. Lots of hanging out in the bay. It can get a little boring at times. Lots of letter writing and people trying to take catnaps without getting caught by the PG or APG. Some can even get in their lockers and sleep.
The platoon has decided to spice up our chow formation. (During chow each platoon sounds off and enters the DFAC, it’s somewhat of a competition…for pride only. Somehow I have been made the star attraction. The have me walking up to the PG looking all pissed, then I flex and scream. We’ll see how that goes.
Overheard quote: “It sounded like you have a live duck in your ass.” (Pvt. Lurch describing our APG’s farts.