Basic training is at last over. Apparently my brother Andrew who was posting my letters on here got a little behind and then just gave up on it all together. I'm sitting in the USO right now at the Columbia, SC airport still trying to believe that I am actually done and getting ready to leave for AIT.
Since my brother failed to post updates, if you weren't on the mailing list for my letters you pretty much missed out on reading about the rest of basic training, because it's too much for me to recap. I'll summarize by saying that I had a narrow escape with a doctor at the medical center, I threw a live hand grenade...two of them actually, shot a machine gun (which was pretty much one of the biggest highlights at basic), SUFFERED while living in an open bay with 57 other women, discovered that I fight with my eyes closed, got the biggest blisters on my feet that I have EVER had, almost went down as a heat casualty, became so sweaty that I took off my shirt, held it up and watched my sweat drip off of it (was not wringing it out or squeezing it), and lost way too much weight. It was fun a lot of the time, and miserable some of the time. Sometimes I really, really disliked my drill sergeants and wished harm on them, and then sometimes I liked them.
Now that it's behind me there's a small part of me that feels kind of sad, but not really sad enough to say that I'm sorry that it's over. Mostly I think it's just that you get so used to getting up before the sun, getting bossed around and barked at all day by the drill sgts for everything and nothing, eating the same things over and over and over again at the same times every day, and then going to bed with the sun that the idea of launching back into some personal freedoms just doesn't seem quite right. I feel like there should be someone here to monitor my every movement to make sure that I don't do anything stupid or break any rules, and there should probably be more rules. Seriously, the girl next to me here is on her third or fourth little bag of cheetos and we've only been here for an hour. Good luck to her on the next PT test.
My flight doesn't leave for another 8 hours, so I have all day to sit here and monitor the cheetos intake of the privates. :(
3 comments:
HEY! Glad things are well. I have missed the updates and wondered how you were doing.
Wishing you all the best, and keep me up to date on how you are!
greg
congrats soldier!
Congratulations on making it through! I hope your 8 hours of wait time pass quickly and that AIT provides new (yet manageable) challenges. When you know your new mailing address please pass it along!
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