Post date: Nov 14, 2011 9:34:38 AM
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.
We ship out tomorrow "down range" or "up the hill" to start our basic combat training. I can't wait to finally get this started so I can start counting down the days before I see my wife.
I have to bitch a little now… I tell you, these guys just don't know how to shut-up. I know most of them are straight out of high school. They still act like this is high school. Whenever we are all together as a group and the DS leaves the room or the area, everyone starts talking. It starts off quietly talking then it continues to get louder and louder. Every once in a while someone will shush everyone, the the process starts all over again in a low rumble getting louder and louder. Even when the DS or cadre are in the room people just can't stop talking. We've been smoked for it a few times and the DS and Cadre have yelled at us for it. But nothing changes. I imagine when we start basic that crap will stop fast or I hope or else I'm going to get very strong.
We had inspection again the morning and other than the DS telling a few people to straighten their bunks there were no issues. We've come a long way. I had to assign people small, but specific task they are in charge of to keep everything in order. Hopefully we'll keep it all clean. A couple of people had to shave again and the DS took down one person's name for not shaving at all. What a dumb ass. We all know he'll be checking our faces, now he'll be spending some quality time with the DS tonight instead of sleeping.
We were all sent out for formation at 7:45, after waiting a little bit we were told to come back in an hour. So at 8:45 we went on the "nature hike". We walked out in the woods and the DS & Cadre showed us some examples of formations. After that the DS sat down on a stump and had us all sit down around him for some questions and answers about anything. It was a nice change in scenery and very laid back. When you don't have any privileges something as simple as that is pretty cool.
We also got our BCG glasses. They are these really huge thick brown glasses that everyone has to wear if prescribe. Picture a bunch of people walking around looking like "Revenge of the Nerds" only in army uniform.
We started watching a movie (some war movie with John Travolta as a guy who is interrogating an army ranger - I didn't catch the name), but after 45 minutes it was cuts short. A captain came in a wanted to do some Q & A to find out how reception was for everyone. After that we had the pleasure of standing in line for dinner at attention for an hour. Standing still doesn't sound that hard, but it starts to get tough after a while! People the DS saw moving hat to get out and do push-ups in front of him. Every time he would start talking my first reaction was to look at him because he was talking to us. Doing any movement (even following him with your eyes is not allowed). I'm in the barracks right resting my feet!
I have fire guard duty right now. Which really sucks. 3am-4am and we are waking up at 5am. Each hour of the fire guard shift has a different set of duties and responsibilities. Some of the earlier shifts have cleaning and all of them at some point have the fire guard head count. My special duties include talking out the garbage and taking out any laundry that is still in the washer & dryers.
Tomorrow is the big day, we are finally shipping "down range", I feel like they have just been fattening us up here in reception. It will be interesting to see how things change and how the people he will be changing.