Another Slow Day (Basic Training) Day 59

Sometimes it can get very boring in the bay...people do
strange things to pass the time!

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.

Last night was awesome. No fireguard shifts for me. I went to sleep around 21:30 and wok up at 05:45. It felt great sleeping through the entire night and sleeping in a bit as well. Poor PVT Cock got a couple of extra fireguard shifts in addition to his own. After everyone came back from the Powerade guy last night, he stayed down in the CTA to console a friend of his in another platoon. Our PG was trying to get a head count and PVT Cock was missing. Our PG got pretty frustrated and when he finally found him, he gave him extra shifts.

We had duty food for breakfast in the CTA for some reason. The DFAC is only 30 meters away and we aren’t going anywhere… go figure. After breakfast we formed up in a field as a company for the change of command ceremony. Our company commander is leaving and a new one is coming. We did a lot of standing at attention and parade rest. Listened to a number of speeches, then it was done. Everyone was invited to a reception...except us (all of the soldiers). LOL.

We then packed our rucks for tomorrow. We have “Raider Challenge” (each platoon will be competing against each other in a variety of events and we have a 15k march back with the ruck. That is the last major event of this cycle. 

Our PG then assigned everyone to a particular cleaning task. (PVT Slowens and I got the supply closets.) Shortly after, the people who either failed or were unable to pass the final PT test were given a retake. There were 7 from our platoon and all except 3 passed this time. Our ex-cop missed the push-ups by one! After all our cleaning duties we all started cleaning the machine guns again…yay.

PFC Metal came back from sick call right before lunch. He got a shot in the butt and some cream for his butt because of his poison ivy. Ever since FTX-2 we have had quite a few cases of poison ivy in our platoon and throughout the company. One guy had it on his little unit…ouch!

We cleaned our personal rifle and then had dinner. After dinner people finished up with their rifles and we studied a bit for “Raider Challenge” which is tomorrow. PFC Metal climbed into his locker, shut the door, and went to sleep. LOL.

Overhead Quote: “I’ve reached my limit drill sergeant” (PVT Home School during a previous march… this phrase has now become famous and is heard quite a bit.)