Post date: Nov 18, 2011 5:28:33 AM
(Original Date: Saturday, May 1, 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.
Stayed up late last night reading all my letters. It was so nice to hear from home. I received letters from my wife, my kids, and even a friend of mine. So nice to hear of what's going on in normal life. Luckily, I didn't have any guard duty so after reading I was able to sleep the whole night.
We were informed last night that one of our guys got an article 15. Not anything you want on your army record. He was wearing some special boxers or briefs on under his shorts and was warned once. He was caught again and then received the Article 15. Dumb!
We finally had our first complete PT test this morning at a little after 5am. It was pretty cold out. I scored a 207 (you need 150 to pass basic) 47 push-ups, 41 sit-ups and 15:45 2 mile run. I had my watch and I was pacing myself for a 16:00 run. So I'm happy with my results. What is surprising is that I want to improve my PT score, I will need to start doing PT on my own. Our morning PT is a joke, so the only time we actually seem to get exercise is when we get smoked. We only for runs about once a week. On the score sheet that gets posted the DS highlighted all the people that didn't pass and wrote "Doo Doo". It was almost exactly half of our platoon. I hear rumors that if 70% of the people don't pass, then we can't transition to white phase. That would be a bummer!
We went to the virtual range today. Our goal today was to group and zero. Grouping is when you aim for the center and shoot three shots. The three shots just have to be grouped together within 4 centimeters. They don't have to hit the center. Once you group the computer automatically adjusts your sites for the center. Then you have to hit the center of the target 3 times (within 4 cm).
We did some more army modern combatant training (MMA styles). We then got a chance to go to the PX (the store). I bought some body wipes (to take "showers" when we go out on our FTX an overnight stay in the woods), some soap and laundry detergent. Our laundry guards are pretty liberal when it comes to using detergent. We all got another buzz cut as well. I imagine it is to make sure we get a good seal on our gas mask tomorrow. We then got together as a platoon and went through all the items required for out camping trip (FTX). Then packed our rucksacks with all the required items.
There was a bot of a blow out today over the nightly guard duties. The guy who is in charge of making the schedule has been going in order except when it comes to him. He always gives himself the first shift. That way he can always sleep through the night. People started noticing and there were a lot of loud voices and arguing going on. The roster guy got the hint finally and changed it accordingly.
We had mail call again tonight and I got 12 letters! Only problem is that I have to do 5 push-ups for each letter. I started doing them and 3 people volunteered to take 10 each which was cool. I was still a little sore from the PT test in the morning and a few minor smoking we got throughout the day.
Gas chamber tomorrow and perhaps a phase change to white. The DSs said if we do phase to white the "their foot will only be ankle deep in our ass instead of knee deep like it is now in red phase. I'm hoping we can use the phone as well. We've only been allowed on call so far.
Spec. Payne
Hard to believe that morning PT is a joke already. But I am relieved to hear you say that however. I am 37 and heading down to Benning 28June. Your wife told me about the blog after I asked for help on Facebook. Keep it up, you seem to be doing fine.
Friday, May 7, 2010 - 06:08 PM
Brandon
Yeah....I really expected the morning PT to be really tough from the start, but I guess because of all the injuries they changed everything. The new recruits are used to only playing video games all the time :) So the PT starts off very mild and eventually works its way up to some decent workouts. If you are in any kind of shape it will be easy for you. The best advice I can give is to add your own workouts each night to better yourself.
Sunday, June 20, 2010 - 06:30 AM