Sunday (Basic Training) Day 26

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.

I tried something new last night. While we were packing rucks for FTX tomorrow, we removed one of our two sleeping bags from it. So I used it last night on top of my bed. I slept in my summer PTs (shorts and shirt) instead of my winter PTs. It was super comfy and it even messed up my bed less. I think I’ll be using that from now on. Easy to get and put away.

I had fire guard duty last night 2am-3am. At least we get to sleep in until 6am on Sundays. Yes it is Sunday again. Another day of no actual training, only a lot of cleaning. I got a lot more experience picking up tiny leaves one at a time. A lot of people complain about doing it, but I’m sure if it wasn’t picking up leaves it would be something just as stupid...perhaps cleaning each tile with a toothbrush. They just  want to keep us busy. I’m sure there would be some that would find a way to get into trouble if we didn’t have anything to do.

Went to church again today. During prayer request, there was a guy who said he’d been in basic for 10 months! He wanted to finally get through. That is freakin’ nuts! I think that might drive me insane. On the march back we were reminded by the DS that if we were in white phase, we could be marching ourselves back instead of being escorted by a DS everywhere we go. It’s the little things like that that would make it a little more enjoyable here. Another irritating thing is that we found out another platoon “The Warriors” will be getting another phone call today. This will be their 3^rd that I know of since we been here. My platoon has only been allowed one call. Everything is really up to each DS on how they want to handle it. One phone call a week I think would help out the moral of the platoon immensely. I know it would for me.

Since the gas chamber yesterday “The Terminators” platoon has had to hang their head whenever they’re in formation. They kept messing up doing a weapons count before the gas chamber. (It’s not too hard. Everyone stands up, holds their weapon above their head, then each person sounds off and kneels down 1…2..3…etc). They even had to hand their heads in the chow line. It’s pretty funny.

Out of the blue, a person asked DS Midget if we could make a call. DS Midget checked with the senior DS and he said we could have 5 minutes. It really was a tease but it was better than nothing. I was able to say hi to my wife and kids.