Well none of my uniforms fit like when I got them. We haven't done height and weight since we got here so I don't know how much weight I've lost, but I'd guess about 10-15 lbs. so far. All that married weight from my wife's good cooking (which I could really go for right now). :)
The wheels are falling off the platoon right now. Peer leaders were chosen by the DS and no one is following their lead or coming together as a team. Correction: There are about 15 of the 55 of us that are mature enough to move forward and want to be here (in the Army, that is). Everyone is at each other's throats constantly and the DS's recognize this and are turning up the heat. They're playing mind games with us and making us march around with our White Phase guidon* all furled up - which is the equivalent of riding a tricycle when all your friends are riding 2-wheelers - it's humiliating. I'm doing a good job so far of not letting it get to me. It's really the slackers that are upsetting me. All just part of the game.
BRM this week has been going well. Tomorrow is pre-qualification where we shoot at pop-up targets our ranges from 50-300m. If we hit 40/40 targets we get a meal from anywhere we want. I'd order a feast from BWW's if given opportunity. (Wifey note: Buffalo Wild Wings).
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| On the 300m pop-up range |
After we got back from the range today we had locker inspections. The DS's went through bay by bay ripping people's lockers apart looking for contraband. Some people's lockers got totally dumped and had their stuff strewn out across the bay. The DS's were definitely profiling because my locker was squared away when they opened it and I fixed all the damage they did to it in less than 5 minutes. Others were not so lucky. The DS's came out with a handful of contraband with the most notable being love letters between two soldiers in another platoon - the DS's made him call his fiancee and tell her everything. Yeah. The other was a bag of sunflower seeds hidden in the ceiling tiles in my bay. No one fessed up to it, so we all go dragged out to the "beach" as we affectionately call it and the smoke session started. About 5 minutes in, a guy from my platoon took the fall for it even though everyone knew it wasn't his. That was enough to satisfy the DS so the smoke session ended early.
On the way back everyone from our platoon "admitted" to eating some of the seeds even though non of us had ever seen the bag before. The bag was found on the 3rd platoon side of the bay so our DS knew we were all lying but surprisingly he was thrilled we were all lying as a team. We were sentenced to cleaning the bay and to figure out who actually had the seeds. The rest of the company got smoked for the other stuff that showed up in the search. The night ended up much better than it looked like it would and we made it to bed by 22:00.
One of the tactics I've been using to keep my sanity throughout all this stress is to escape to a place far from here. A few months ago, my wife and I celebrated our anniversary at Disney World. It's the least stressed I've been in a along time, so normally I just picture myself there. Silly, but it works.
*The furled guidon symbolizes a failure to progress to the next phase with the rest of your company.
October 6 Thursday
Today marks one month since leaving home. One month and 9 days til Family Day.
We skipped PT this morning in lieu of an 8K road march - another graduation requirement. We wore all of our gear and about 1.5 gallons of water. The pace was pretty slow, so nobody fell out (that's a first). I was tired and the end and my shoulders were pretty sore, but nothing worth complaining about. We've got another 10K before the big 15K at the end of our cycle. The weather was cool this morning and most of the march was over before the sun was up. Plenty of time to think and pray on the move.
Random note, I found out one of the guys from the 3rd platoon just moved about 3 miles from where I live, so we'll probably end up in the same NG unit, so that's pretty cool.
We shot at pop-up targets at 75, 175, and 300m today. I shot 30/40 and 31/40 the two times I shot which is better than I've been doing so I'm pleased with it. After range time, we hopped on a bus back to our company area. My feet were glad we didn't walk. Nothing too interesting happened after range time. We got about an hour of free time before bed though so I got to shower and read my Bible for a while. Not a bad day.
October 6 Thursday
Today marks one month since leaving home. One month and 9 days til Family Day.
We skipped PT this morning in lieu of an 8K road march - another graduation requirement. We wore all of our gear and about 1.5 gallons of water. The pace was pretty slow, so nobody fell out (that's a first). I was tired and the end and my shoulders were pretty sore, but nothing worth complaining about. We've got another 10K before the big 15K at the end of our cycle. The weather was cool this morning and most of the march was over before the sun was up. Plenty of time to think and pray on the move.
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| On the move with our Captain |
Random note, I found out one of the guys from the 3rd platoon just moved about 3 miles from where I live, so we'll probably end up in the same NG unit, so that's pretty cool.
We shot at pop-up targets at 75, 175, and 300m today. I shot 30/40 and 31/40 the two times I shot which is better than I've been doing so I'm pleased with it. After range time, we hopped on a bus back to our company area. My feet were glad we didn't walk. Nothing too interesting happened after range time. We got about an hour of free time before bed though so I got to shower and read my Bible for a while. Not a bad day.
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