Weapons PT (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 111

I thought it would be interesting to map out our walk from the company to where

our training was. I used the runkeeper app on my iPhone. I was just curious

how far it was (.8 miles and we walked pretty slow...lol)

Had hall guard shift at 3:30 this morning until almost 5:00 because of the extra stuff that the last shift has to do to get ready for the morning. Technically sleep wise it may be one of the better shifts because you get to sleep through the night. It is a longer shift though. The extra duties aren’t much as I found out (this was my first time doing it). We had to do the wake up for everyone which consisted of going down the hall and flipping on everyone’s lights at 4:30 AM. We then had to take down the PT gear and fill up two of the coolers full of water. We had to go to the RFAC and get two bags of ice for the other two coolers and fill them up with ice and place the ice sheets just in case there is a heat injury during PT. Somehow I doubt this will happen today because it’s cold out!

We dressed in winter PTs this morning because it was freakin’ cold out there. We wore our sweat pants and long sleeved shirts. We also had to wear our IBAs and take our rifles out with us. We ended up doing a circuit with each station having a specific exercise for us to do with our rifles. Some didn’t work out too well because of our IBAs. I felt like a turtle on his back every time we did sit-ups or modified sit-ups. PT wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be because of the circuit though. The sergeants were spread out going from circuit to circuit and didn’t have a lot of time to just yell at us, so I guess it could have been worse (which I think will come tomorrow).

When I got to class today I found out that Charlie company didn’t even have PT this morning. Instead they had a surprise shakedown of the entire company, their rooms, lockers, bags...everything! People had to dump out anything that was in bags, they checked the ceiling tiles, and anywhere else they could think of. I guess they found some alcohol, but that is all I heard. Pretty crazy morning for them.

We spend the first part of class in the lab troubleshooting which I thought was pretty unnecessary. I was hoping to pretty much review all day. We did review for the second half of the day which was good, but it seemed a little rushed. Let’s hope the information sticks in my brain.

We had mandatory training tonight again. PFC Metal, the Hawaiians and myself all thought we were supposed to form up at the company at 16:00. We arrived at 15:45 thinking we were all high speed arriving early, but found out the formation left without us about five minutes prior. So we ended up walking over to the building where the training is at. We thought we may get into trouble, but as we walked in none of the sergeants said anything. We sat down and listened to a dude tell us how important it is to make goals and how exactly we should make them. We then proceeded to make goals and write them down on paper. Luckily the training was only an hour and we were outta there. We formed up and those of us at RBK marched back from the training. 

When I got back I jumped on my computer to check and see if my AKO states where I’ll be stationed. There were a few others in our class that found out they were going today, but at some point during the day the site went down. The site is actually down still down now! I can’t believe after all this anticipation, waiting and wondering the information is quite possibly there...only it’s not accessible. Darn! I guess I’ll check back tomorrow.

Tired (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 87

As noted yesterday I found out that I had hall guard shift with PFC Metal first thing in the morning 12:30AM until 6:30 AM. I tried to take a nap at around 10:00PM, but all I did was toss and turn until it was time for the hall guard shift....so much for sleep tonight.

The weekend hall guard shift, like any other shift is assigned one area for clean up. When I checked to see what we had I saw it was the laundry room. Not too bad, the laundry room is pretty easy to clean up, I thought we could have them done in 15 minutes to a half hour and be able to study and play on my laptop for the rest of the shift. The sergeant on desk had other ideas though...he had us clean the bathrooms and the day rooms as well. FML! As if having this hall guard shift wasn't bad enough now were doing three duties along with it. PFC Metal and I work well as a team though and we knocked them all out and had the sergeant inspect them all.

After our hall guard shift was over we both spent a little over an hour getting our room and lockers squared away for the coming inspection. We took the rest of the time we had left to take a small nap for about an hour. We woke up and went to the 9:00AM formation and waited on the sergeant as usual. The sergeant finally came out and said to come back in a half hour. So we went back inside and shortly before the half hour came up, we were told to wait outside our rooms with our lockers open. We waited...waited...and waited some more, then finally the sergeant started checking out each of our rooms. He got to ours and checked everything out pretty quick, we were now good to go and ready to finally start our weekend.

Even though we were both pretty tired, PFC Metal and I went over to the PX and the commissary to pick up some supplies and also eat some food. I was getting hungry and that was overpowering my need to sleep. Once we got back though we both literally passed out. I was only planning on sleeping for two hours, but it ended up more like 5 hours.

Woke up and studied a bit, then took some tests that we have to have completed before the 6th day of our class. We ordered Chinese food for dinner and had it delivered. We then had some Crown Royal and Coke with an ex-roommate to celebrate his coming graduation. Turned out to be a pretty good night.

Phase Up! (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 86

This morning during our pt formation I overheard the sergeant talking to the barracks next to us (RBK 9 - Another company with a different MOS, but it does have some guys from my old basic training platoon in it). The sergeant was talking about one of their soldiers that up and left in the middle of the night. He is now AWOL.

Our pt this morning consisted of the normal warm up exercises and then a number of push-ups and sit-ups. I’m looking forward to this weekend and a rest from pt at least for a few days.

Once we arrived at school and were in formation we found out that yet another guy from Charlie company went AWOL. Holy cow people are running away like crazy! This particular guy just decided to not come back from the 4 day weekend and the sergeants were wondering if anyone had heard from him. 

In class today we had a moment of silence for the 9/11 victims. In fact the entire school house stopped what they were doing and observed this moment of silence. I still remember when the attack happened. I was at work doing my IT job at the local newspaper when I heard the news. We turned on the TV and I logged into our AP photos feed and started seeing all the pictures that were flooding in from AP News. There were of course the photos of the twin towers getting hit, but there were also numerous photos of people jumping from the towers to their death. As far as work that day, nothing got done. We all just stared at the TV in disbelief and viewed the tragic photos that the AP was sending.

The safety brief seemed unusually long today. There are a number of new soldiers in Charlie and the sergeant had to go over some ground rules since this is their first safety briefing. We then had to file in alphabetical order to receive our company shirts we had to order earlier. There is a challenge coming up called “The Centurion Challenge” in which each of the companies face off against each other in a number of sporting activities and such.

After picking up our shirts, those of us that were eligible to phase up were told to go to the Charlie day room. Woohoo we get to finally take our phase up test. I had been studying for the test by trying to put together all the questions from the previous phase up test and going over them with others. We were told that it would be the same test, but it turned out to be a little different. Our platoon sergeant decided to give us the questions orally and we would write down the answers on a sheet of paper. Some of the questions were the same, others were from the policy letter that he just went over with everyone during the last training session. There were also a few chain of command questions thrown in as well. Overall it was pretty easy since most of it was just either common sense or stuff we heard all the time. Turns out everyone in our platoon passed. We all phased up!

The next issue was that we had to wait for the actual phase badges and also for our names to get put into the system. This last step is the most important, because it’s the system that they use to do the morning roll on the weekends and if we’re phase V+ then we don’t have to show up. The process ended up taking a while, so long in fact that it was pretty dark out by the time we left Charlie company. There is a rule that states soldiers cannot cross Barton Field after dark, so we had to walk all the way around it. It didn’t bother me too much, I was still pretty happy to be phased up.

My happiness wouldn’t last long as I found out they decided to restart the weekend hall guard shifts from the beginning because of all the new people here at RBK. Unfortunately PFC Metal and I are the first room, so we get to do a hall guard shift from 12:30 at night until 6:30 in the morning. Oh yeah we also found out that our room didn’t pass inspection, so we have to have another inspection at 9:00 in the morning. We have to be in ACUs and it will include a locker inspection. FML. The things both of us were dinged on have not been brought up in any other inspection. They are little things and they are things that we never change. Stupid Stupid Stupid!!! So we will not be enjoying any of our new found phase V+ privileges until Saturday night and Sunday morning.

Security+ (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 84

This morning kind of sucked I found out right before bed last night that I had a hall guard at 12:30 to 1:30 AM. So I got three hours of sleep and then did the hall guard shift with PFC Metal. We did our duties and the sergeant on desk did a thorough inspection of everything. Normally we just switch out with the next ones on shift, but he wanted to make sure everything was done correctly. Not a bad thing because everyone needs to be doing their duties and this way they are guaranteed to be done.

I had a hard time getting back to sleep after my shift for some reason. I just tossed and turned all morning, then when I finally felt like I fell asleep my alarm went off to get up. I hate it when that happens!

PT this morning was the normal warm-up exercises followed by a lot of push-ups and sit-ups. There are rumors of a long run tomorrow. There is also talk of doing weapons pt as well as road marches in the future. Bummer...I thought I left that behind when I left basic.

Started Security+ class today. I was tired as heck because of the hall guard early this morning. The class is full of vocabulary and is the class a lot of people have trouble with besides CCNA. We are also back to the full day of class schedule. We start at 8AM and go until about 16:30, then come back for 2 hours of mandatory study hall from 18:00 to 20:00. This leaves almost no personal time, especially for those of us that live in RBK. After the mandatory study hall we have to walk back over to our barracks. After we arrive, I take a shower and have a little bit of time to call my wife and say goodnight...then it’s lights out.

Overheard Quote: “I wouldn’t have joined the army if I didn’t have some sad stories” (Our instructor talking a bit on why he joined the army)


Instructor

You need to go back through and put in all the NCO's names.  It would be way funnier, and trust me, at this point, they wouldn't care.

Moldavski!  (Opulence...I has it!)

Thursday, March 24, 2011 - 09:46 AM


Brandon

LOL...I decided from the start not to use anyone's real names except for my own. Pretty funny that you found yourself on my site. I am here in Korea with a few people from class and every time we are out and see Hello Kitty (which seems to be very common here) we all think of you.

Hope you are doing well SGT

Friday, March 25, 2011 - 09:56 PM


Instructor

Rofl,  I'm sorry if I misled you, I'm not Moldavski, I just like poking fun at him.  He talks just like the Russian guy in the DirecTV commercials.  Anyway, I'll let him know you said hello if I can find him on Monday.

I like the site, it's pretty impressive work.  Wonder if you are using an app or hardcoding it all.  I would suggest creating a page with links to all the days of each blog by title, or/and creating a search function that will grep the pages for keywords.  It's a little difficult to navigate through them as is.  Nice work though.

Don't know if you heard, but they shut RBK down.  Clark Island is history.

Saturday, March 26, 2011 - 07:49 AM


Brandon

Yes...tell him hello if you see him.

I'm using an app called iWeb for the site. It makes everything very simple...even a caveman could do it. On the main page of my journals it has a "go to archive" link as well as a search field. This sounds like what you are looking for. Take a look and let me know, I'm always looking for ways to improve my site

I hadn't heard that RBK was shut down. Wow! What was the reason?

Also since this isn't Moldavski who may I ask is this? Another instructor?

Saturday, March 26, 2011 - 10:47 AM


Instructor

Ahh, didn't see that link, that will work though.

RBK got shut down because it was designed to be a trap barracks anyway, meaning that when we get a ton of you students in the fall (think about it, everyone joins after school lets out in early summer, then spends 9 weeks in BCT, then we get them, so it puts it at like late summer, early fall for the big push of soldiers.) and here it is winter/early spring and all you guys have PCSd from that push.  There simply aren't enough soldiers right now to support leaving it open.  Plus all that power was going to his head - he got treated better than the freaking company 1SGs did.

Anyway, yeah, I'm a Software Instructor.  You can probably figure out who.

Saturday, March 26, 2011 - 11:14 PM

A Sad Day (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 76

Walking on the Barton Field track on the way to the IET center

on our last day with the software schedule.

Last night I had hall guard shift. During last weekend I guess the Command Sergeant Major came in and asked the soldiers on hall guard what the 3 general orders were. They were unable to tell him and he was not pleased. So the first thing we had to do on our shift was recite the 3 general orders to the sergeant on desk before we started our shift. We then had to put up signs with the general orders on them in all the stalls. Now every time a soldier takes a dump they can stare at the 3 general orders and let them sink in. 

PT this morning was muscle failure along with some extra core workouts. We did a lot of push-ups & sit-ups as well as the “4 for the core” exercises. Today’s muscle failure was not as bad as last weeks. I think we did a few less sets all together, but it was still a good workout.

Today is a sad day...it’s the last day of our software block. This means we will be back to the normal 8-5 schedule of school. No more leisurely breakfasts or long naps at the IET center. We tested out of Solaris Admin. I took the test and was the first one finished, I had to wait outside for about 10 minutes or so before another person came out (I needed a battle buddy to go to the break area and wait). We then had to wait about 2 hours while everyone finished and the tests were all graded. We then went back in and were told our scores. There were two people that got 100%. The instructor asked the class who they thought were the ones. Everyone said me and another guy that sits next to me. The instructor said “good guess, but neither of them scored 100%”. Bummer. He ended up telling the class who it was and then started calling everyone else up to get their scores. I ended up making a stupid mistake (I actually misread a question and scheduled a cron job an extra day), so I scored a 96.6%. Still not too bad. Next class is VOIP (Voice Over IP with switches).

After that we ate dinner and marched back to RBK. There were rumors that we were going to take our Phase V+ test here at RBK, but so far we haven’t heard anything. I’m hoping we will be able to take it at some point this week. It won’t make much of a difference this weekend because I should have a pass for the four day weekend.

the wife

Babe, I love the photo to this entry. Muah.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010 - 12:31 AM

Command Overload (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 68

I had to get up at 1:30 AM for an hour long hall guard shift. While I’m thankful that it’s only an hour and we can use electronics, it’s still a bummer to have to get up in the middle of the night. I’m just glad I don’t have to do it that often. The guy I was with wanted to do all the cleaning in the bathrooms because he thought it would make the time go by fast. Who am I to argue with that? The only problem was that when I finished the shift I had a hard time getting back to sleep. I kept tossing and turning looking at my watch and seeing my time available to sleep keep shrinking. It seemed as though right when I fell asleep the alarm went off to wake up.

This morning’s PT was AGR (ability group runs). I of course got in the C group which is where I normally run. The sergeant told everyone that was 27 or younger to move up to B group..LOL. After all the younger guys moved we were left with only 12 people. We started off with a light trot and to my surprise we never sped up. Also to my surprise we had two people fall out. I was thinking to myself for the first time ever that perhaps I should have moved up to the next group! At our turn around point I hadn’t even broke a sweat. Then finally when we got to the top of a hill the sergeant told us to sprint down and back up the hill. I took off and came back up. We ended up doing that 3 times and after that I was sweating pretty good. We then started a jog back and about a quarter mile from our starting point the sergeant released us and told us to run at our own pace back to the start. So I ended up with a pretty good workout even after the slow start.

Yesterday all of Charlie moved over to Bravo barracks, so everyone from RBK was told we don’t have to come to the morning formation. They are remodeling Charlie barracks right now and will be for a week. This is great news because we can now go back to our schedule of a leisurely breakfast which was nice. We then walked over to the IET center where I promptly took a nap. I had no problems falling asleep this time!

I woke up about an hour later and startied checking out the news on my iPhone when a sergeant walks up out of nowhere and rudely awakens PFC Metal who was still napping next to me. She told him he couldn’t sleep here and to sit up straight. “If you want to sleep go back to your barracks”. I think it makes the sergeants feel better about themselves when they can give out a good yelling at a private. PFC Metal was a little disoriented at first because he was dead asleep when this sergeant started yelling at him and nudging him to wake up. It’s funny to look back on and laugh now, but what a crappy way to wake up. Normally the sergeants don’t go in the IET center, it’s for the soldiers who are attending AIT. So this was a rare occurrence.  

After lunch at the DFAC we headed over to our CLI class. This time it wasn’t all just a refresher for me. We went over a whole bunch of new Unix commands that I was not familiar with and some that I have messed with very little. We also went over the VI editor which I have experience with, but do not care for too much. Tomorrow we will be practicing all we have learned so far and reviewing for the test which will be the following day.

We then ate dinner and marched back to RBK where I took an extra long relaxing shower. Let me tell you those feel so awesome after a day out in the Georgia sun in full ACUs.

Hungry Howies (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 53

This morning I had hall guard duty with PFC Metal. The weekend hall guard duty here at RBK is actually 6 hours long! Ours started at 6:30AM, which seemed a bit early after staying out late last night. Add to that a lot of beer and the hot wings and you could say I wasn’t feeling a 100%. I can’t complain too much about the weekend shift because it doesn’t come up too often and we get to sit in the comfy chairs and use electronics. So most of the shift I was on my laptop, iPhone, or reading my book. 

I watched a movie... the third in the Twilight Saga “Eclipse”. Which the sergeant saw and commented on how good the quality was. You see there are terabytes and terabytes of movies that soldiers have on their computers here. Some are purchased legally, some are backed up copies of their legal DVDs, but I would venture to say that most are illegal downloads of the movies. In fact I watched one that a soldier let me use and it was actually a recording made from a person in a theatre. The quality was watchable, but you could actually hear the audience laugh during funny parts. Anyways the sergeant wanted to know where we got it from because he wanted to go there and download movies too. I told him I got it from a buddy. This started quite a long conversation with the sergeant (Sgt. Cujo by the way). We all talked about kids, news, movies, computers and regular army life. This was a little strange, maybe it’s a drill sergeant thing where these guys can just change their personality like a light switch. He was actually normal and laughing with us, treating us like normal people. I kept wondering if he was on drugs, or maybe since he was at the end of a 24 hour shift his mind was not working normally. I’m not complaining, I was happy to chat with him and it passed the time.

Our roommates were on the schedule to relieve us, but only one showed up. He said the other guy is running late and asked if one of us could cover for him until he arrives. He also said he would pay us for it. I didn’t have anything planned and since PFC Metal’s wife was still in town I offered to stick around. I ended up doing hall guard from 6:30 until 14:30. Surprisingly the time flew by and my roommate finally came to relieve me. I promptly went to my room and took a nap.

I woke up from my nap and shaved to get ready for the recall formation that was coming up in a couple hours. We went to recall formation which took quite a while, instead of lining up by platoon we did one mass formation and it took forever for everyone to get in alphabetical order and get checked off. There are a number of new people as well. I remember those first few days I was here, they sucked because of the lack of communication. I feel for those guys!

When we got back to the barracks our roommate ordered us all pizza from “Hungry Howies” and we got the cajon crust style pizza. This turned out to be the absolute highlight of my day (besides chatting with my family of course) The pizza was awesome...so awesome in fact that I suggest anyone who likes pizza and lives in the Augusta area to give it a try. Check ‘em out online here: http://www.hungryhowies.com

Nick's mom

Good Morning
Just wanted to Thank you for sharing your experiences.  My son just arrived at Ft. Benning on Aug. 3,  he is going DR tomorrow.  I found your journals while searching for any info on Ft. Benning basic training.  I am completely Army ignorant and have appreciated your mature insight.  I would like to Thank you and your Wife for your service and wish you and your family  Godspeed.

PS:  We are Mac fans also!

Monday, August 9, 2010 - 07:19 AM

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!)

GreenJackets (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 24

The internet has finally come back up, it's been down for two days. There are rumors that some people here tried to change some settings on the router to give themselves more priority. Don't know if they're true or not, but ever since it came back up it's been slower than ever. I can't wait until I get my new iPhone, I'll use it to tether and it will be cheaper and it will not be bogged down with all the people here playing online games.

I was surprised to be woken up at 4AM to find out that I had a 4 hour hall guard shift to do. The schedule has not been up on the wall on our floor, so I haven't been paying attention. They also changed the hours to 4 at a time for the weekend because there are less people here. So I got up, got dressed and guarded the hall. I didn't have to do it for the entire shift though because all the new people had to get in formation at 7:00 for a financial briefing that was scheduled for most of the day. 

A little before 7:30 I ran in and quickly shaved and went down stairs. Once at the bottom of the stairs they posted the results of the knowledge test we took last night in order to phase up. I checked and found that I scored a 33 out of 50. 35 is passing, so I failed. What a bummer! I really felt confident when I took the test. After speaking with the guy who graded them, I found out that they were really strict with a number of the answers. So if they asked a name of the a person in the chain of command and I only put the name without the rank in front of it, then it was wrong. I had a number of little things like that. I guess I'll get a chance to to retake the test next Friday. Turns out that all 4 of the people in our room who took the test scored a 33, so nobody will be phasing up in our room. We will next time though for sure, I'm going to try and get everyone together to study before we take the test again.

We headed off to the financial brief. Once there the instructor introduced himself. He sounded like a guy trying to impersonate Tom Hanks in Forest Gump. The class went from 8:00 until about 16:00. A long day of everything from how to maintain good credit to saving for your future and retirement. I think it's a great idea for the young bucks, but I've already been around the block a few times and everything he went over I already either knew or experienced already.

We then had to go to a baseball game. Yes we had to go, it was an order from our company commander. Mandatory fun. I thought this was a little strange that they can force us go to a baseball game. I really didn't want to go, I have a lot of homework and I'm not the biggest baseball fan in the world. We left at 17:00 in about 10 or so buses packed with soldiers from Ft. Gordon.

We watched the Augusta GreenJackets beat the Kannapolis Intimidators 3-2 at Lake Olmstead Stadium. It turned out to be a little better than I thought it would be. It was military appreciation night there and it was cool to be one of the people that were being appreciated for serving my country. It made me proud to be a soldier. Sometimes that can be overlooked when I'm dealing with a bunch of crap all the time. It was also nice to get off base and see actual civilians. We had the illusion of being free….LOL. 

The ride home was long and I was in a bus full of young guys all jacked up on Mountain Dew and sugar. By the time we got back to the company area it was 23:30. I jumped in the shower and crashed.

Overheard Quote: "I don't remember being this stupid when I was younger" (One of the older guys talking to me on the way back to the company before getting on the bus. A number of soldiers were arguing over the stupidest things)

Zombieland (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 18

Last night I decided to watch Zombieland through my Netflix account (love that!). I've heard a number of people say it was a good movie and I just never got around to watching it. So I watched it and I'll have to admit that I enjoyed it. Of course it had lots of zombies and violence and blood, but what surprised me was that the movie was actually about finding love….oh and also Twinkies. 

I had about 10 minutes left in the movie and all of a sudden I hear yelling outside our door. All phase IV people had to go out in the hall with their ID cards for accountability. What the hell, it was 23:00. Grrrr…had to pause the movie, get accounted for, then finish it up so I could go to sleep.

One of the guys in our room last night never came back after leaving sometime during the day. Guys came in and turned on our lights sometime after 1:00 AM looking for him. (something I also hate about living in a room with all these other people) He ended up showing up before our morning formation and the sergeant was a little pissed. He did a lot of yelling and the guy had to do some extra duty, but I guess he didn't get into any real trouble.

We had an early formation at 8:00 instead of 8:30 like the rest of the weekend. Nobody actually knew until a few minutes before, so there was a lot of hustle going on. I was actually already up, I was planning on eating before what I thought was our 8:30 formation. Luckily we didn't have any duties after formation, so I was able to head to the DFAC then.

The rest of the day was pretty mellow. Hall guard shifts, studying, and copying the stupid policy letters. I was able to finish that, which was one of my goals this weekend. I also worked out a bit in our room. Pretty much a laid back day all in all. Nice to have a day off from all the BS.

I had lunch again with the depressed guy to see where his head was at. Also because PFC Metal has his wife here, so he took off and is eating with her. I tried to let the depressed guy know that this isn't going to last forever and if this MOS isn't something he wants, he should see if he can get re-classed into something else. He is only in the reserves, so once he's out of school he'll have it pretty easy. He just has to make it through AIT.

Recall formation (the last formation of the weekend) was long and hot. During this formation a sergeant usually walks through the ranks and checks attendance as well as shaves and haircuts. I made sure to shave for the second time today a half hour before formation because of this. I probably need a haircut, but they didn't say anything this time. It took about 50 minutes for everyone to get checked and for mail to get passed out. This whole time everyone just stands around at attention, parade rest…or as some people do "parade pretty". Not only was formation long, but it was also a little tough. Because of the four day weekend there were a number of family members and kids in the company area waiting for their soldier to get done so they could visit for a little longer. Makes me miss my wife and kids even more. I was able to talk to them all today, but that still isn't as good as seeing them in person.

One guy in our room (the guy who got into trouble today) has to actually move out today because of the classroom integrity deal I spoke about earlier. He's not too happy. I hear we'll be getting new people from Bravo and Delta company. There are a number of people trying to jockey for room changes before they get here. So we may end up with more people out of our room and new people in it.

Overheard Quote: "Middle aged black women find me attractive" (A private sharing some personal information with me and PFC Metal)

Independence Day (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 17

Last night (very late) two of our roommates came back after a night out on the town. They just turned Phase V so they now can go off base and drink. They came back pretty lit up with stories of milfs, chunky women, girls from our platoon and much more. It sounded like they had a pretty interesting night to say the least. After they settled down I was able to take a short nap before my hall guard shift at midnight. The guy who was supposed to be with me never showed up. I did my two hours and then woke up the next shift and slept in until 8:00 AM.

We celebrated Independence day with a crap load of formations. We had formations at 8:30, 11:00, 13:00, 14:00, and 18:00. Are you kidding me? It really sucks when we have to keep coming back and forming up over and over again. We had a mandatory BBQ at 14:00. During this time they fired up the BBQ and some soldiers manned it. The rest of us were required to stay outside or in the day room only. I decided not to partake and went with another guy to the DFAC. I've had enough cheeseburgers and hotdogs lately and just wasn't feeling it. We were also required to wear ACUs the whole time and it was warm, so eating dinner in the air conditioned DFAC sounded nice.

The guy I went with to the DFAC is having some issues here and being in the army in general. He's really depressed and wants to leave. He is 27 and has a child at home. I spent the whole time talking with him about these issues. I don't think he'll make it, just because he has no desire to be here. He actually hates it here. I think he feels like I felt a few days ago when I had a bad day, except his never get better. I feel for him. He's also having a tough time grasping all the concepts and stuff in class. He doesn't have any background with computers and he's falling behind in the class. Basic training and AIT can be a tough and lonely place. Especially if you don’t have a very good support system.

I had hall guard duty again at 18:00 and this time I had a guy actually show up to do it with me. We had to do a bunch a cleaning earlier, so everything was already done. We both just sat on the floor of the hall with our laptops "guarding it". My butt eventually went numb…the dangers of guarding a hall!

Overheard Quote: "What should I think when my husband tells me I love you like a stripper loves dollar bills?" (One of the female privates talking to another)

Mini Reunion (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 16

Today was much the same as yesterday, except I had hall guard duty from 6:00 to 8:00 AM. This meant I was the one who turned on the lights in everyone's rooms to wake them up at 7:30 for an 8:30 formation. The guy who was supposed to be doing hall guard with me was not in his bunk this morning. Who knows where he is. Who cares I guess. Since I didn't have someone to help me I really didn't do much. I just did my homework for most of the time. After I was relieved I had just enough time to shave and get ready for formation. 

After formation we did the usual detail. Clean up our company area and a few extras thrown in the mix. We are part time students, part time soldiers, part time janitors, and part time landscapers here at AIT. LOL. We ended up having a formation at 11:00 and 13:00 as well, I guess just for the heck of it. PFC Metal's wife came, so he was able to get a pass after the 11:00 formation until our final formation at 18:00, then he left again…lucky dog.

I ended up working out a bit in my room, did some homework, wrote out some more of the policy letter that we have to do before we can phase up, and also played on my laptop a bit. PFC Metal actually ordered us some little fold up stools that work out great. They can be stored in our locker and can be pulled out and sat on next to my bed. Good for using the laptop. Which I did a lot today as well. It wasn't all Facebook and Netflix though, I did do some of the Skillport work that we need to get done for school. Skillport is a distance learning program we can do on the internet. We have to finish a number of courses on it before week 12. We will also get promotion points for doing the work as well, so that is an added bonus. There is a lot to do, so I've been trying to do some each night.

When I went to dinner at the DFAC I ended up making my way over there without a battle buddy. This is a big no no, but there was literally nobody available to go over there with. This 4 day weekend has everyone gone. I saw a couple of guys leave for the DFAC about 5 minutes earlier, so I knew I could walk back with them. It's still crazy that a 36 year old man can feel so nervous walking a block away by himself. I made it without getting caught. This DFAC is not our usual DFAC, I guess our normal one and this one take turns shutting down on the weekends. While eating at this new DFAC I found myself surrounded by my former Gladiators from Ft. Benning. PVT Lurch, PVT Skelotor and PVT Cock were all there. It was like a mini reunion. Good to catch up with them and see how things are going with people at the same base, but in a different MOS. Turns out it's pretty much the same. 

Hall guard duty at midnight tonight turned out to be very boring and again I was the only person to show up for my two man shift. What gives?

First Guard Shift (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 5

These entries have been sent via email from Brandon. (Yay!)

This morning we got up at 4:00 AM...only problem was that I was up already for 2 hours. They don't have "fire guard" shifts here at Charlie Company, they have "hall guard" and of course CQ duty as well. Their shifts are 2 hour shifts instead of 1 like we had at basic. They have a lot of people doing side jobs for shifts here too, but the going rate is a bit steeper than back at Ft. Benning. They charge $20 before midnight & $35 after midnight! So I had to "guard" our hallway for two hours LOL. We also had a list of cleaning duties that had to be done as well, but we knocked those out in 1/2 hour.

I don't think I mentioned much about our rooms. They can hold up to 12 people. Ours currently has 8. The guys in here weren't too excited when all the new guys came because we doubled their population in this room. There is me, PFC Metal, a guy from 2nd platoon & one from 4th platoon all from Ft. Benning in this room.

We had more briefs from commanders and others after breakfast. Basically saying the same thing... stay focused and don't get into trouble. We then went to get our equipment from CIF. At Ft. Benning this process took the better part of the day and we left with a duffle bag and a ruck full of stuff. At Ft. Gordon it took only a few minutes because I already had a camelbak and a laundry bag, they only issued me wet weather gear (aka a raincoat).

We had lunch and a little down time. I was able to say hi to my wife (on the cell) and also make a quick stop at the PX to pick up some pain reliever. I had a major headache so this was awesome!! One of those little things you take for granted until you are at basic and not allowed to have any drugs unless prescribed...yes they would even prescribe Tylenol to people, but it's a pain in the butt because you have to go to sick call and spend half the day there.

So there are a number of freedoms and conveniences that are nice to have here at AIT compared to basic, but I think I miss the organization and the sense of being part of a team that we had while in basic.

Later on in the day everyone went to the dentist for a checkup. I got an "OK" (All dental work has to be finished before you can graduate...one less thing to worry about)

Overheard Quote: "Chuck Norris doesn't tea bag... he potato sacks" (a private in formation talking to the guy next to me)