Basic Training continued...

May 23, 2011
We had our first PT test today. It wasn't even a full test though. Only 1-minute pushups and situps and then the two-mile run. I still passed pushups and the run, but came up short on the situps, but close enough that I will be fine when we do a full test with two minutes. The run was weird, I don't get out of breath but it was already 90 degrees by 7 am and I have never been so sweaty before in my life. I'm considered high risk for a heat injury because I just came from a cold climate and I burn easily. So I have to wear a little string of bright red beads indicating how many quarts of water I've had in a day. We all wear the beads, but the high risk folks have red beads and get questioned very closely about the accuracy of my beads. We're doing a road march tomorrow out to the rappelling tower and it's supposed to be 108 degrees. The good news is that the heat makes my feet swell a little and I can't wedge them into my boots, but they haven't had time to take me down to be refitted so I get to wear tennis shoes. There is nothing about that that makes me sad. I lost track of the pushups today, but I believe it wound up at 137, I'm not positive though. I'm hoping for a much lower count tomorrow. Today's should have been higher, but I kind of performed at such a low standard for some of them that I didn't think I should count them.

I laughed in formation again tonight. I got caught, but it made Drill Sgt. Scott laugh too so he had to walk away and cover his face. He was trying to straighten the formation and some Hispanic private was standing so close to the guy in front of him that I didn't think it was possible for him to be any closer, but when the Drill came over to straighten the formation, he told the kid to fix his spacing and he inched so close that he was pressed up against the guy in front, which is when I laughed and the drill sergeant had to just leave him like that.

May 24, 2011
We just got back from the tower. One side you climb up and down on ropes, which isn't so hard, but freaked me out because there were specific instructions about how to fall into the net safely and I was completely lacking confidence in my ability to follow those instructions. So I had a death grip on the rope the whole time. The rappelling went okay. I actually thought that once I figured it out that it was pretty fun.

My feet have swollen to record proportions, so the drill Sgts think I should go to sick call tomorrow. I went today after the tower, but they said it wasn't urgent and to come back again tomorrow. There was a TV at sick call. It was weird hearing the news and music again for a minute.

Another fight broke out in the bay tonight and ended with one private shrieking at another that she's got goggle eyes (which she does) and the goggle eyes girl collapsed on the ground sobbing. She was able to rally and got herself back into formation before the drill sgt showed up for the head count.

Tomorrow we do PT and then apparently there will be days and days on end of classes. I'm hoping at sick call tomorrow that they hook me up with some compression socks or something and turn me loose. I'll let you know I'm sure. Love you all!

Julie
P.S. Didn't do a single push-up today. Sgt. Scott pulled me out of morning PT to help set up stuff for the road march.

May 27, 2011

We ended up doing the infamous obstacle course today. The first part was pretty boring, mostly a lot of standing around while some people made themselves louder and bossier in an attempt to prove their leadership skills. It generally ended with us failing every obstacle we attempted. The second part is just a speed race through the woods from one obstacle to the next. Stuff like hurdling walls, climbing rope ladders, low crawling and rolling in the dirt under fences. Drill Sgt. Scott is super competitive so he pretty much demanded that our platoon win, which we did. It was so hot outside that I think it is the sweatiest I have ever been in my life. Sweaty and covered head to toe in dirt. As soon as we finished the course a thunderstorm started and it has been raining on and off since. We came back, showered, and got our first lesson on taking apart our M-16s. Apparently there were other obstacles we were going to do but the 1st Sgt. called it a day. People here are weirdly uptight about lightening.

I also got lectured today because Drill Sgt. Scott says he can tell I daydream in formation and I need to be more aware of my surroundings. Honestly, I have no idea how he can tell, it's not like I'm screwing up or missing his commands. Whatever.

I'm headed to bed now, I had fire guard last night with possibly the most annoying woman I have ever met. She's dumb, but has a comment to make about everything. Talks in this strange nasally whine, and does not brush her teeth.....ever. She does not own a toothbrush. Then right after PT she'll come up to talk to me, invade my personal space and pant right in my face. It's worse than getting chewed out by a drill sgt. Anyway that's who I started my day off with at 2:40 this morning.

Love you all. Hope everyone is doing good.

Love Jule
P.S. 85 pushups today

May 29, 2011

Dear Family,
135 pushups yesterday, another 85 today, more might still be coming, but I have my fingers crossed that it won't come to that. Tomorrow will be dreadful since an officer came by to do a bedcheck and found some girl soaking her feet, another one got caught with an anklet on (contraband), the girl on fireguard was cruising around the room visiting with people, someone came darting out of the shower half dressed, in front of a male drill sgt. (who was really embarassed and let out a string of profanities on his way back to the doorway), and two minutes after they left this place has turned back into party central. I thought for sure they'd circle back for another visit, but apparently not. They also had some girl on fireguard count all the weapons. It took her three times to finally produce the correct count of 59 weapons, and not because there were any missing. Another person is dropping out. She got tested for anemia and is being sent home. Why they don't just treat her for it is a mystery to pretty much everyone. Another girl is getting a bone scan done for some mysterious hip pains tomorrow. Our drill sgt. is pretty much convinced she's gone. Two other ladies are on profile, meaning they can't participate in any PT and will either be recycled or discharged if that doesn't change very soon. Also three separate women admitted to me today that they want out and will jump on the chance to get a medical discharge if the opportunity arises. Very weird. I think a lot of it is because the last day or two we've all been attending a training class called Combat Life Saver. It's combat first-aid which is pretty much completely unlike any other first-aid class I've ever attended. You're talking about using hemostatic dressing to plug up arteries, tying tourniquets on any bloody wound while under fire and reassessing the need for a tourniquet later, what to do for someone with a collapsed lung, blast trauma, and my favorite, telling your wounded battle buddy to tie their own tourniquet and then play dead while you continue to lay down suppressive fire. It's all very interesting and made even more so by the fact that the drill sgt. instructing the class was a combat medic in Iraq until he himself took a bullet in the femoral artery and was saved by "combat gauze". He has crazy disturbing stories and actual footage from a camera on his helmet, it's weird watching people go down and he just keeps shooting and you can hear him yelling over there trying to figure out how bad the injury is to the casualty. Then he finishes off his presentation telling us that his MOS was some radio repair person and he never thought he'd be in combat, but I guess that's pretty much all he did on deployments. So now everybody wants to quit. Of course, his slide show of combat wounds doesn't help.

In other news, our platoon is finally starting to get mail. I hope someone has sent something. We are all jealous of the people that got letters from home. One of the married guys was so happy about getting his wife's letter that he started crying before he even had it opened.

It's a weird feeling being here all isolated and without communication. I think we all feel a little worry that we've been forgotten somehow. Some of the younger girls especially are not holding up so well in that respect. I feel the worst for the mothers. A few of them cry themselves to sleep every night. Our platoon has it the worst, or that is the general concensus throughout the bay. I think there are 10 of us in 4th platoon and we are the only ones who have not been promised phone calls home, our PT is much, much harder and our drill sgts. alway find some extra way to punish us for mistakes. Right now we don't get time to do laundry, forcing us to use the 3rd party service which is questionable as to when your laundry will be returned. We have not been allowed to go to the PX at all, and they decided to extend our red phase out which means we still don't get to go to church, since some idiot in another company "went to church" and got busted at a Burger King off base, so now the Battalion Commander says no church until after red phase. At least the Mormon boys are in the same boat for now and still holding our little pseudo services. I found out today the guy that organized it all is actually the son of Pres. Parker, my stake president in Huntington Beach. Small world when you're a Mormon. I'm off to bed, had quite a workout when someone passed gas during land navigation classes. Drill Sgt. Scott warned us never to do it, because he can't stand it, but some selfish guy in our platoon let one rip and we all paid the price for the next 45 minutes. He said to consider it a "warning".