More Basic Training

June 12, 2011

Dear Family,
We received an announcement yesterday that although we are stuck in red phase, we will be granted church privileges. All is well that ends well. A couple of other girls in my bay who are Baptist signed up to come with me because they don't hold Baptist services on this base. The Protestants are holding a "gospel concert" instead of services. The sign-up sheet for that is a mile long. It doesn't appeal to me at all, but to each their own.
Yesterday was our first day of combatives training. Thus far all that it has entailed is doing "warm-up" drills in a massive sandbox. Those warm-up drills are potentially the most brutal physical work out we've done since I got here. I was super sweaty and then rolling around in sand. Let's just say that hours afterwards I was still finding sand in my ears and hair. They have said that combatives will be set up by weight, so hopefully it doesn't go too poorly for me. I know that today one of the drill sgts. was watching me in the pit and came up and asked me what kind of exercises I had been doing before I got here. She just kind of nodded her head when I told her that I lifted weights and commented that "there's more muscle there than I guessed." So I'm hoping that most of the drill sgts feel that way since two of the others have made remarks about me getting really beat up during combatives.

I just got back from church services. It was so good to go to church. As soon as our drill sgt. was gone the missionaries came hustling up and the Elder and Sister were so happy to see us and find out which company we are from. The first things they said were "You have no idea how worried we've been about you. We've been trying to get you here for weeks. You know that it's not legal to refuse to let you attend services?" For some reason it felt really good to know that there were people there that were just as upset about us missing the meetings as we have been. I saw a bunch of guys from my RSP unit there. They said that they'd been looking for me for weeks and worried I'd missed my ship date. In the meantime the people from my platoon were baffled by the number of people there who knew me. I didn't even realize how many of them would be there. We had a full chapel and the missionaries were busy. My company brought 17 people to church and I think that only 5 of us are active members. I brought two girls from my platoon with me.

June 14, 2011
...we did platoon peer evaluations Sunday night where we were asked to list the 5 weakest soldiers in the platoon. Our drill sgt. collected the sheets and then read the stuff out loud. It was mostly the same 5 people over and over again. However, I was listed 6 or 7 times for "seems like she doesn't want to be here" mostly. This is because Drill Sgt. Scott loves to pick on me and say things like "Black! You look like you're ready to quit. Are you ready to quit? I''m not sure you're going to make it, Black!" I also got listed once saying that I seem like I'm sick all the time. Even the Drill Sgt looked confused when she read that one. Anyway, I felt a little disheartened at first, even though I'm positive that my Drill Sgts don't think I'm really going to quit or don't want to finish this. My squad and a lot of the privates who know me came up to me afterwards to let me know that there wasn't any reason for me to be on that list and that people just hear the drill sgt. say stuff and assume that I am a problem. Drill Sgt. Scott did find out the other day that I'm not scheduled to go to OCS and that I am staying as enlisted for awhile at least. He hates officers and he's lightened up a tiny, very tiny bit since finding out that I'm not on an immediate track to be one of them.

June 15, 2011
Scratch that. DS Scott has not lightened up at all. It was just the calm before the storm. He was all over my case yesterday evening. I couldn't breathe right. He told me I was weak, weird and lazy. So nothing new. He says that stuff to me all the time. His insults just came with greater frequency yesterday evening. Both of our drill sergeants had the day off today though, so I think I only got barked at once or twice by the fill-in guy.
We've been spending a lot of time at the ranges lately. I love the shooting, but I've been struggling getting a feel for it. It's a long story that I'm too tired to write out, but essentially there have been some real fiascos when it came to zeroing and such. Tomorrow we'll try to qualify and I'm quite concerned. I wish that Glen were here to help me figure this out. The drill sgts. are not especially helpful at all. In fact, the truth is, they're half the problem.
Still in red phase but it seems like the behavior of some of the other platoons has started to improve. Hopefully I will get to call home soon. I'm hoping for this weekend, but we shall see.