Post date: Nov 17, 2011 1:00:50 PM
(Original Date: Sunday, April 25, 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 woke up at 4:00am and had to be in formation by 4:30 for PT test. We all got in lines and took turns doing push-ups and sit-ups for 2 minutes each. A DS scores you, if you have bad form that repetition will not count. I did ok 47 push-ups and 41 sit-ups I think. (I have to wait for the official score to be posted.) Next up was the 2-mile run. It was pouring down rain along with thunder and lightning. Because of the lightning warning we were unable to do the 2-mile run. Instead we went and cleaned the barracks. We also ended up getting smoked as a platoon because the DS saw two Fire Guards with their PTs on underneath their ACU uniform. This is a big no no. There’s no mixing and matching uniforms. So the two that got caught had to stand and watch everyone else do push-ups, v-ups and a number of other exercises.
After breakfast, we went to a total of four different classes by platoon switching every 50 minutes or so. All classes had to do with our weapons cleaning, loading, fixing jams, and firing positions. We then had lunch (MREs). The DS collected all the contraband (candy) as usual. We found out where it all goes… he takes it home o his kids. LOL!
We were in our bay cleaning and we’re told that we are going to do some combat movement training. We had to put on our vests and helmets and to report to formation. When we got there we marched to the PT Field (the big sandbox). The first combat movement we had to do was a low crawl. It’s basically just dragging yourself through the sand. You can’t lift your head off the ground or any part of your body. This wouldn’t be a huge deal, but we were in the sand and it had been pouring down rain all day. After we all did the high crawl. This is very similar to the low crawl except we can use our elbows. Halfway through this crawl the event was cancelled due to lightning. Everyone was covered in sand from head to toe. When we got back we were given two hours to clean everything up. After getting smoked, because we took too long getting up to the bay with all our sandy equipment. We swept up the floor multiple times and each time we would get enough sand to create a small beach. Before we did all the cleaning, but after we took a shower, we were smoked again pretty bad. What sucked is that we were all nice and clean and we had to do all kinds of exercises on the dirty sandy floor.
We have one cool DS. He is always helpful and tries to teach us stuff. He gives us a lot of practical examples and stories from when he was deployed. We also have one DS who is just basically an ass all the time. Our head DS can be cool sometimes, but most of the time he’s an ass too.
One more week of “Red Phase” the last day of red phase is the gas chamber! Not looking forward to that. I am looking forward to changing to White Phase. Each change phase is suppose to allow more privileges and in white phase we actually start shooting our weapons.
Random DS Quote: “I’ll give you midnight snack…open your mouth”.
Hew
its amazing thinking of you up at 4am on a regular basis lol, i remember you sleeping more than any person i ever knew when we were younger!!! i think getting up at 5:45ish this last year at work really helped you..anywayz....
Sunday, May 2, 2010 - 12:03 AM
Brandon
Yeah...it's really funny now thinking that sleep until 6:00AM is "sleeping in". I've actually become used to it.
Sunday, June 20, 2010 - 06:34 AM