Fire Guard (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 42

An "action shot" of me doing fire guard. I was actually studying for CCNA2. 

At least we have some comfy chairs to sit it

This morning at 1:30 AM PFC Metal and I had our first hall guard shift at RBK. What a night and day difference between hall guard shifts at Charlie and RBK. At Charlie the shifts last 2 hours vs 1 hour here. At Charlie there are no electronics at all allowed during your shift, here we can use anything we want once we finish our duties. At Charlie there is no sitting (even on the floor) during your shift, here we have two nice comfy chairs with a little night stand between them for the hall guard shift to use. At Charlie they have to wear the full ACU uniform no matter when the shift is, here we can wear our PT uniform (shorts and shirt…what we have to sleep in, so we roll out of bed and we're ready to go). An hour really goes by quick. Our duties were to clean up the laundry room which was no problem and only took about 15 minutes. I played around on my iPhone the rest of the time and PFC Metal played his new Starcraft game until we woke up the next shift.

We were allowed for some reason to sleep in an hour later which kind of made up for the fire guard duty that we had to do. It would have been nice to sleep through the entire night and get the extra hour, but I'm not complaining. Charlie company didn't do PT and slept in as well, but this was all planned so they could do extra barracks maintenance in the morning. Since we are technically still part of Charlie company just living at RBK we woke up late and didn't have to do PT either. We just straightened up our room and had quite a bit more time to get ready in the morning which was a nice change. When I had breakfast I poured myself some coffee and had a plate full of food as well as a bowl of Cocoa Puffs. I was looking forward to having a little bit of chocolate in the morning. I decided to grab one of the little pints of milk instead of using the big dispenser to save a trip. When I poured the milk into my bowl it came out in chunks! Gross!! I guess I will not be having Cocoa Puffs this morning.

I mentioned about our new civilian teacher earlier. She is also down to business. She doesn't take any crap and even made a girl cry in class today. She told her to stop talking and to stand outside the door of the classroom with her notepad and take notes from there. The girl was in shock and just sat there and started to cry. 

After class and study hall we had another long and pointless formation at Charlie before we could leave and head back to RBK. OMG I'm so glad to be living over there (I think I've said that a lot already). After the formation all the people living at Charlie had to do more barracks maintenance the rest of the night instead of having personal time. Instead of having to do any of that I was able to head back to RBK and call my family (my sister just had a baby today…woohoo!)

Blue is Beautiful (Basic Training) Day 46

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.

This morning we found out something funny happened last night during fireguard. You see, there is always a DS on duty all throughout the night. They will at some point check each platoon by doing a walk through counting the people and the weapons. They also check on the Fireguard to make sure they are awake and posted. Sometime in the middle of the night our APG (Assistant Platoon Guide) must’ve heard the DS come in, although only in his subconscious or dream state. The APG jumped out of bed and ran in front of the DS.  The DS said “Private…what are you doing out of bed? Where are your shoes?” Our APG said, “Drill Sergeant I’m giving a LACE report” (A LACE report was part of a battle drill that we had to do over and over again. The team leader checks his team and their equipment and reports to the squad leader.) I guess the DS was a little dumb founded he just stared at the APG. It was then the APG realized he was out of be and a DS was in front him. The APG said, “Sometimes I do stupid things in the middle of the night.” Then he went back to bed. The DS came back in the morning and told our DS what happened and they both had a laugh. 

We had a good PT workout this morning, then breakfast. After breakfast we had a little company ceremony to make our transition to “Blue Phase”!!! So we are officially now in the blue phase. Not sure what that all this entails, but it will be better than white phase…which has been better than red phase. There are rumors that we will get our cell phones longer. It that’s true, I’ll be super excited.

We got scopes for our rifles today and then went to the big computer simulator to train on rifles with scopes. I was a sharp shooter…well a virtual sharpshooter. Now if only I can do that with the real thing. 

We had our peer counseling results review with the DS. Mine was as I expected, for the most part good. Areas of improvement communication, sounding off, and confidence. All but one said they would go to war with me – the one said he was afraid I wouldn’t be able to kill the enemy. LOL. If someone is shooting at me don’t worry, I’ll have no problem shooting back.

We were given the opportunity to get milkshakes again! I had a large Oreo shake. Wow that was good. I was going to go to the PX as well, but the place was so packed, they ran out of shopping baskets and wouldn’t allow anyone in until someone left with a basket. I hear we may be able to go tomorrow, so I’ll wait. Now that we’re in blue phase we were allowed to walk back to the bay when we were done as long as we were in a buddy group.

Not a whole lot going on today. Lots of hanging out in the bay. It can get a little boring at times. Lots of letter writing and people trying to take catnaps without getting caught by the PG or APG. Some can even get in their lockers and sleep.

The platoon has decided to spice up our chow formation. (During chow each platoon sounds off and enters the DFAC, it’s somewhat of a competition…for pride only. Somehow I have been made the star attraction. They have me walking up to the PG looking all pissed, then I flex and scream. We’ll see how that goes. 

Overheard quote: “It sounded like you have a live duck in your ass.” (PVT Lurch describing our APG’s farts.

Sleep Deprivation (Basic Training) Day 30

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 really sucked for a lot of people. Since my battle buddy went AWOL during his laundry guard shift. We now have to staff it with two people instead of one. Last night we had to staff fire guard, CQ desk and laundry guard. So every hour 6 people had to get up. I had to do two shifts, which really sucked.  Fire guard shift at 22:00 (10pm) with PVT Cock and CQ desk at 3:00am with PFC Metal. So not a whole lot of sleep last night. To make matters worse we still have to be in full uniform with helmet and body armor. What a pain in the ass! 

There was a bit of good news though! After I sealed my last journal entry about 22:30 our lone cool DS came up with mail. He thought nobody would mind getting out of bed for that. It was awesome because I got five letters from my wife, kids & grandma. 

This morning PT was actually stepped up a bit. Until now it has been a complete joke, but today we did quite a few more sit-ups, pull-ups & push-ups. That with an individual smoking I received shortly after PT. You see the first person to see a DS come into our bay has to sound off. Depending on the circumstances it’s different. If there are no DSs already in the bay or their office, we have to say “At Ease”. If there are already one or more we say “Drill Sergeant on the floor”. Anytime either is said everyone has to go to parade rest position. Most of the time we have a DS in the office, so it’s usually Drill Sergeant on the floor. I screwed up when they came walking in and started to say “Drill Sergeant …” then corrected myself and said “At Ease”. They told me to get down and push. Then they weren’t happy that I wasn’t sounding off. Then I wasn’t sounding off loud enough. I had DS A-Hole telling me louder…louder…louder etc. Finally, they let me up to finish getting ready.

We headed out to the big sand pit and worked on buddy movement again. “Cover me while I move…got you covered…moving” then we would tactfully move to the next cover while the buddy would lay out suppressive fire (he would do this by saying “bang” every few seconds...lol). This would repeat as we bunny hop down the course.  

When we got back from that we had lunch and then some outside classes. (First aid and other miscellaneous items) We then were released to take showers. At least today we got hot showers and we didn’t have a DS timing us. Yesterday the senior DS said we had to take a heat dump. (not the thing that happens after you eat  spicy food) It was basically a very cold shower that he made us stay in for 2 minutes. When I first stepped in it took my breath away. 

It seems that since we have 35 guys all on the schedule (waking up, working out, eating) that everyone has to take a dump at  the same time, problem is there are only 6 toilets. So when it’s time to go there is mad rush to the latrine. 

Today has been tough.…real tough…only because of the lack of sleep last night has made it very hard not to nod off in the classrooms. I almost fell asleep standing up today! Also my battle buddy is not allowed to have his rifle again… so guess what? I get to carry the damn thing around all day long, for who knows how long. They should just turn it in already. 

PVT Brown Noser saw that we were going to the sand pit for the buddy movement earlier and promptly volunteered to stay with my battle buddy all day. I heard they just hung out and somehow got some skittles (forbidden) and ate them. He is always getting out of stuff.

Funny how small privileges prove to be so huge now. Our company was allowed to purchase Gatorade tonight, as long as they drank it all before coming back to the bay. There was a mad rush, I think 90% of our platoon left. I volunteered to stay and be weapons guard. If it was candy, then maybe. LOL.

Overheard Quote: “I’ve been in here 20 minutes. They just keep dropping, I don’t have to do anything!” (A private in the stall next to me…interesting bathroom conversations.)

AWOL (Basic Training) Day 28

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 had the midnight shift for Fire Guard last night with PFC Metal. Everything started off normal until I did the head count. Originally, I counted my battle buddy, he had laundry guard the hour before and I just thought he hadn’t made it back up yet. When I went to turn in the numbers the replacement laundry guard said there was a note from my battle buddy saying he couldn’t take it anymore, he was going AWOL. It was either that or kill himself. This was reported to the DS on duty and after about 30 minutes everyone in the company had to get up and get in formation.

The Company Commander came in and the 1^st Sergeant came in. I had to tell them all I knew, which wasn’t much. I was as surprised as everyone else. Now they are on alert looking for him. He has a warrant out in all 50 states for his arrest. To top it off, I have to carry his rifle around, everywhere I go now. That is a pain in the butt. Oh...after the DS fired the cop he made me the new cop, oh yay! (Sarcasm)

We had a 5k ruck march. Our rucksacks are kind of like those huge backpacks that you see the serious hikers use. They can hold a vast amount of crap. Since we were going to do this march to do our camping trip, they decided to just do a 5k march in a big circle. It was pretty tough. Not just the march, but the strap on my rucksack broke about 2/3 of the way through. I had to hold my strap with one hand and my rifle with the other. The rest of the day my legs were like jello. It probably didn’t help that we had to do all those lunges the night before. One guy, from our platoon, fell out (PVT Spiderman), but he missed a lot of previous workouts to get him in shape because of the spider bite. We were told 6 people fell out all together from the company. The 1^st Sergeant and Company Commander were a little pissed, because this is the first time that has happened since he has been here. I have some sores on my feet because of the boots. I’ll try band-aids tomorrow and moleskin later if needed. 

We received an update on my battle buddy. Evidently he made it off base. He went to a Walmart and bought civilian clothes, then checked into a hotel room at 2:00am. The MPs or DSs or whoever were actually planning to pick him up there, but he woke up and left at 6:45am before they got there. They had his accounts frozen and let his relatives know he was AWOL and also they could into trouble if they help or harbor him. From what the DSs say the relatives were extremely helpful. They know he now only has $100 and no more access to his account. 

We practiced some more team and buddy movements in the big sandbox. So everyone was pretty sandy by the end of the training. We always have so little time to do anything (we had to get everyone showered and changed into PT uniforms… the entire platoon had 15 minutes). The DSs  then got pissed when there is sand everywhere. We just needed a few minutes to clean and it would be good.

We were also told that since some medication was found in someone’s locker that was left open the other day, that the entire company was going to get a shake down. I think they called it something like a health and welfare check. A number of DSs came in along with 1^st Sergeant and Company Commander and had us all just line up an watch as they tossed “everything” out of our locker. It really sucked watching all your stuff get thrown all over the floor. All my letters and personal crap, it pissed me off. They didn’t find a whole lot, just some cracker wrappers from the cafeteria in a guy's boot  (all food is strictly prohibited in the bay) and a blank bullet (no ammo of any type is allowed in the bay). So we’ll see what happens to those guys. The idiot with the cracker wrapper is a huge brown noser, so I thought it was ironic that he was caught. I think that will be my new name for him… PVT Brown Noser. We were told at this rate we’ll be in red phase until we graduate…please no!!! I guess the other platoons were a lot worse...so I guess that is a good thing. 

At the end of the night, we heard that the my battle buddy called the DS and apologized. The DS said he’d be back tomorrow. Very interesting, I wonder if he got caught or if his parents convinced him to make the call...we’ll see.

Random DS Quote: “Can you see yourself doing that? Get naked and get in a sleeping bag with your battle buddy…just don’t get a hard-on, that would be wrong!” (A DS explaining a way to warm up someone with a cold injury – body temp drops too low)

Last Day Reception - Reception Day 8 (Basic Training) Day 8

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.

We ship out tomorrow "down range" or "up the hill" to start our basic combat training. I can't wait to finally get this started so I can start counting down the days before I see my wife.

I have to bitch a little now… I tell you, these guys just don't know how to shut-up. I know most of them are straight out of high school. They still act like this is high school. Whenever we are all together as a group and the DS leaves the room or the area, everyone starts talking. It starts off quietly talking then it continues to get louder and louder. Every once in a while someone will shush everyone, the process starts all over again in a low rumble getting louder and louder. Even when the DS or cadre are in the room people just can't stop talking. We've been smoked for it a few times and the DS and Cadre have yelled at us for it. But nothing changes. I imagine when we start basic that crap will stop fast...I hope, or else I'm going to get very very strong.

We had inspection again the morning and other than the DS telling a few people to straighten their bunks there were no issues. We've come a long way. I had to assign people small, but specific task they are in charge of to keep everything in order. Hopefully we'll keep it all clean. A couple of people had to shave again and the DS took down one person's name for not shaving at all. What a dumb ass. We all know he'll be checking our faces, now he'll be spending some quality time with the DS tonight instead of sleeping.

We were all sent out for formation at 7:45, after waiting a little bit we were told to come back in an hour. So at 8:45 we went on the "nature hike".  We walked out in the woods and the DS & Cadre showed us some examples of formations. After that the DS sat down on a stump and had us all sit down around him for some questions and answers about anything. It was a nice change in scenery and very laid back. When you don't have any privileges, something as simple as that is pretty cool.

We also got our BCG glasses. They are these really huge thick brown glasses that everyone has to wear if prescribed. Picture a bunch of people walking around looking like "Revenge of the Nerds" only in army uniform.

We started watching a movie (some war movie with John Travolta as a guy who is interrogating an army ranger - I didn't catch the name), but after 45 minutes it was cut short. A captain came in a wanted to do some Q & A to find out how reception was for everyone. After that we had the pleasure of standing in line for dinner at attention for an hour. Standing still doesn't sound that hard, but it starts to get tough after a while! People the DS saw moving hat to get out and do push-ups in front of him. Every time he would start talking my first reaction was to look at him because he was talking to us. Doing any movement (even following him with your eyes is not allowed). I'm in the barracks right now resting my feet!

I have fire guard duty right now. Which really sucks. 3am-4am and we are waking up at 5am. Each hour of the fire guard shift has a different set of duties and responsibilities. Some of the earlier shifts have cleaning and all of them at some point have the fire guard head count. My special duties include talking out the garbage and taking out any laundry that is still in the washer & dryers.

Tomorrow is the big day, we are finally shipping "down range", I feel like they have just been fattening us up here in reception. It will be interesting to see how things change and how the people will be changing.