Friday The 13th (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 58

This morning I think our PT sergeant was having a bad day. He is a delta company sergeant (we rotate out sergeants here at RBK) and he just seemed pissed from the start. He called out the exercises pretty fast, having us switch from one to another over and over. He wanted to go for a run, but the other sergeants I don’t think wanted to run because they went up to him and had a little conversation and ended up leaving. Without the extra sergeants he couldn't take us for a run, so he had us sprint back and forth on the field we were working out on. This is the first PT session where we had people actually fall out. We had three guys throwing up and one had to be helped back into the barracks. Pretty crazy start to the day.

The rest of the morning was perfect. PFC Metal, the young Hawaiian and I all did our duties in our room and then went to the RFAC pretty late. We took our time eating while the buses pulled away. After a while I looked up and noticed that there seemed to be only officers and NCOs around, so I suggested we make our way outta there. We walked to the IET center and took our morning naps. All three of us passed out. This is the perfect way to start the school day nice and refreshed.

Lunch...then school was next. This is our last day of Windows 2008 server. We will test out of it on Monday. There were a number of people that just couldn’t stay awake in class, I guess they didn’t get their morning nap..LOL

My wife had her last day at her job today. Seems strange being the sole provider now. She is going to get the house ready for renters since we were unable to sell in this crappy housing market. The last thing I wanted to be is a landlord. Uggggghh. We are going to have a local property management take over everything because we have no idea where we will be. That is one thing that has been on our minds for a while now. Where will I get stationed. I filled out the “dream sheet” or “wish list” as some call it. It is all done online now via your AKO account. I have no idea how much they even look at the places, but I hope I get someplace at least decent. I chose Ft. Lewis in Washington State because that would be the easiest transition for me and my family. The base is actually only about a half hour from most of my family and my wife’s family. I also chose a base in California and one in Texas. I figured if possible I’d like to be on the west coast. For my oversea assignments I chose Germany, Hawaii and then Korea. I really have no desire to go to Japan or Alaska. Korea just seemed better than either of those. My wife asks me every day if I have found out yet where we are going. I check every day and have to tell her “no baby...not yet”. From what I’ve heard from others I may find out in the next week or two...or three. I guess we’ll see.

For now we are putting everything we haven’t sold into storage. My wife is going to stay with family until we get shipped to wherever this adventure takes us.

Overheard Quote: “Get off your knees, this isn’t the navy” (The PT sergeant after a few people dropped to their knees doing push-ups during PT this morning)

People fall asleep in class all the time. Some teachers let it go and others make you do push-ups.

I say let 'em sleep and it's on them to pass the class. I've been there...sometimes you just cannot keep

your eyes open!

PT Test (Basic Training) Day 24

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.

Stayed up late last night reading all my letters. It was so nice to hear from home. I received letters from my wife, my kids, and even a friend of mine. So nice to hear of what's going on in normal life. Luckily, I didn't have any guard duty so after reading I was able to sleep the whole night.

We were informed last night that one of our guys got an article 15. Not anything you want on your army record. He was wearing some special boxers or briefs on under his shorts and was warned  once. He was  caught again and then received the Article 15. Dumb!

We finally had our first complete PT test this morning at a little after 5am. It was pretty cold out. I scored a 207 (you need 150 to pass basic) 47 push-ups, 41 sit-ups and 15:45 2 mile run. I had my watch and I was pacing myself for a 16:00 run. So I'm happy with my results. What is surprising is that if I want to improve my PT score, I will need to start doing PT on my own. Our morning PT is a joke, so the only time we actually seem to get exercise is when we get smoked. We only go for runs about once a week. On the score sheet that gets posted the DS highlighted all the people that didn't pass and wrote "Doo Doo". It was almost exactly half of our platoon. I hear rumors that if 70% of the people don't pass, then we can't transition to white phase. That would be a bummer!

We went to the virtual range today. Our goal today was to group and zero. Grouping is when you aim for the center and shoot three shots. The three shots just have to be grouped together within 4 centimeters. They don't have to hit the center. Once you group the computer automatically adjusts your sites for the center. Then you have to hit the center of the target 3 times (within 4 cm).

We did some more army modern combatant training (MMA style). We then got a chance to go to the PX (the store). I bought some body wipes (to take "showers" when we go out on our FTX an overnight stay in the woods), some soap and laundry detergent. Our laundry guards are pretty liberal when it comes to using detergent. We all got another buzz cut as well. I imagine it is to make sure we get a good seal on our gas mask tomorrow. We then got together as a platoon and went through all the items required for out camping trip (FTX). Then packed our rucksacks with all the required items. 

There was a bit of a blow out today over the nightly guard duties. The guy who is in charge of making the schedule has been going in order except when it comes to him. He always gives himself the first shift. That way he can always sleep through the night. People started noticing and there were a lot of loud voices and arguing going on. The roster guy got the hint finally and changed it accordingly.

We had mail call again tonight and I got 12 letters! Only problem is that I have to do 5 push-ups for each letter. I started doing them and 3 people volunteered to take 10 each which was cool. I was still a little sore from the PT test in the morning and a few minor smoking sessions we got throughout the day.

Gas chamber tomorrow and perhaps a phase change to white phase. The DSs said if we do phase to white then "their foot will only be ankle deep in our ass instead of knee deep like it is now in red phase. I'm hoping we can use the phone as well. We've only been allowed one call so far.

Spec. Payne
 

Hard to believe that morning PT is a joke already.  But I am relieved to hear you say that however.  I am 37 and heading down to Benning 28June.  Your wife told me about the blog after I asked for help on Facebook.  Keep it up, you seem to be doing fine.
 

Friday, May 7, 2010 - 06:08 PM

 
 

Brandon
 

Yeah....I really expected the morning PT to be really tough from the start, but I guess because of all the injuries they changed everything. The new recruits are used to only playing video games all the time :) So the PT starts off very mild and eventually works its way up to some decent workouts. If you are in any kind of shape it will be easy for you. The best advice I can give is to add your own workouts each night to better yourself.
 

Sunday, June 20, 2010 - 06:30 AM

Pain in the Butt - Reception Day 2 (Basic Training) Day 2

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Some guys doing PT on their own 

(A good idea in reception, so you can try and stay in shape)

These entries are from the letters that Brandon has mailed to me. 

Last night really sucked. Fire Guard had started. Fire Guard is where two people have to stay up for an hour in rotating shifts throughout the night. It wasn’t even my turn, but everyone doing it was so noisy I only slept about 15-30 minutes at a time. Woke up with a headache that has stuck with me all day. To top it off my stomach is acting up too. For breakfast all I could eat was a bunch of fruit. I’m hoping I start feeling better before we actually start basic. I can’t imagine doing any physical fitness right now feeling like crap.

We started the day after breakfast with all our shots and filling out medical forms. One shot in the butt – still feels like a charlie horse. Two shots in the right arm and one in the left, then four little tubes were filled with my blood (my DNA kit). Next came the hearing test. 8 guys stuck in a very small box. Everyone was sweating and tired. It seemed to take forever. One dude had to stay behind because on the plane flight from MEPS he lost all hearing in his right ear. Not sure what’s going to happen with him.

Lunch was lasagna, which i ate, but nothing else, my stomach is still not 100%. After lunch we filled out our DEERS paperwork and all other financial paperwork. DEERS is for all the benefits for dependents. Then there was a lot of sitting around listening to briefings (Red Cross etc.) trying very hard not to fall asleep.

We also took photos of our company and I had to put on my soldier face (no smiling).

We finally have another break, I tried to call my wife and she didn’t answer…damn.

*side note: I heard a rumor that the sergeants can’t swear. It’s pretty funny to listen to because everything is “doggone”, “where’s the doggone thing”, “you better straighten up your doggone collar” etc. You still hear a four letter word every now and then, I can’t imagine the Drill Sergeants hold back. In fact, he walked in last night and saw we were on our phones and started screaming “Get the fuck off the phone!!!!”

*another side note: The D-Fac (aka Dining Facility) has a fascination with only using spoons no matter what you are eating. Have you ever tried to eat a salad with a spoon?

We had chow tonight, my stomach is still a bit of a mess. I basically only ate veggies. As I sat down and realized they have soft serve ice cream machine. What a temptation, but I’ll be staying away from that. Right now everyone is just hanging out in the barracks. Nobody is sure how long we have, or if we’re here for the night. Rumor is we may be shipping out to basic on Thursday. There are a lot of different personalities here. There are a group of guys that just can’t stop talking and joking. I hope I don’t end up with them in basic. I see a lot of "smoking" (this is what they call a physical punishment like push-ups etc.) in their future. There is this one guy I can see totally breaking down and quitting. He already gets picked on a lot by the recruits, I fear a drill sergeant is going to tear him apart. There are also 3 foreigners  who are joining to get their American citizenship. Pretty cool, I didn’t even know there was such a thing.

A clip from a DVD I purchased near the end of basic training.
This shows the process we went through to get all our shots at Fort Benning.