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!)

Ahhh...Saturday (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 38

A photo of Barton Field from the RBK side. We cross this field heading

to Charlie company or the DFAC. The field is huge! There is a dirt running

track around it that is 3.2 miles long.

Today started off great. I must say that I like staying at RBK. Our morning formation only took a few minutes and our duties were to do a quick police call around the outside of the barracks which took a whole 5 to 10 minutes, then the rest of the day was ours. I did a little homework and then went shopping for some supplies. Another nice thing about RBK is that we are much closer to the main PX, commissary, the clothing store, and the bowling alley. I was able to get all my laundry done and put away after shopping.

I walked to the Charlie Company DFAC for dinner (our RFAC is closed on the weekends unfortunately) with the young Hawaiian (a young private from Hawaii) and as we were eating, we talked to some of the people still back at the Charlie barracks. They said all the ones that were phased back have been doing duties all day long with a formation about every 2 hours. I’m so glad I’m outta there! They all have to be in ACUs too when doing duty. What a bummer for them.

Night time came and I went and had a couple of beers with PFC Metal and his wife who was down visiting. As phase V and being of drinking age, we are allowed to drink at only one place on base which happens to be the bar in the bowling alley. The bowling alley is conveniently located right across the street from the RBK barracks.

All in all a very laid back and relaxing Saturday. A much needed change of pace after being busy all week long.

1st Weekday @ RBK (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 33

Today was my first weekday at RBK. I’ve heard all kinds of stories about what it will be like living here during the week and most of them were all about how little time we will have.

I woke up at 4:30 AM to shave and brush my teeth and we had PT formation at 5:15. RBK used to march over and do their PT with Charlie company, but starting this week we will be doing our own PT. This is a good thing because it will save a lot of time. We did PT across the street in a baseball field, pretty much the normal PT sessions we’ve been doing at Charlie. I’ve heard that when we have Sergeant Clark do our PT sessions they will be altered a bit and will be more intense.

We had breakfast at the RBK DFAC a.k.a RFAC. This place is so much nicer than the Charlie DFAC...it’s incredible. There are also always open seats. The food is good. One of my favorites is the yogurt parfait and the pancake sandwiches. There are LCD TVs on the walls and even flowers on the table...even though they are fake it’s still a nice touch...LOL.

Hurried up and finished breakfast, then took a quick shower and cleaned our room. The rooms have to be spotless before we leave. Had to be out in formation for the 7:30 bus ride to Dixon Hall for classes. We arrive before everyone else so we get to sit down and take a quick 15 minute nap before the rest of the companies start arriving.

After lunch Sergeant Cujo found a couple of people with cell phones and took them away. He also spoke to everyone in formation and made some threats about taking more away if he found them and doing a shakedown right then and there. He pretty much left it at that and warned people about bringing phones to classes.

We then had class, a break for dinner, then study hall. After study hall we went to formation and marched to our company area. Had to wait there through mail call and some announcements. RBK people were then released to walk back in buddy teams to RBK. When we arrived we found out we had another formation. Holy cow...I’m hot and sweaty and just want to get in and take a shower. We had some more announcements and I heard this is somewhat unusual from others. I guess they usually don’t have nightly formations at RBK (good).

Finally got back to the room at 21:00, time enough to take a shower and make a quick call to my wife before lights out at 21:30. A busy day indeed. Not much personal time and always on the go doing something. The time crunch is better in the morning I hear, but with the study hall at night we sure don’t get much time at all.

Lockdown (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 32

A photo of the outside of RBK. It looks pretty bland, but it is actually
very nice inside.

Today we had formation at 8:30 and as soon as accountability was taken we were released for the day. It seems strange not standing in a formation for at least a half hour to an hour doing nothing, I think I may like RBK.

Didn't do much in the morning. I studied a bit and cleaned the room. About lunch time me and PFC Metal walked over to the DFAC. During the weekends we do not have any DFAC open near us, so we have to walk about 15 to 20 minutes to our old DFAC if we want free food. When we got to Charlie company we heard that they were on lockdown. I guess some people came back drunk last night and one person came back without having a battle buddy (a big no no). I also heard the Command Sergeant Major came to the barracks and they were not very clean. Then this morning some of them thought they were released for breakfast and they went to Burger King. A sergeant walked in and took their phase badges, effectively phasing them down for 48 hours (unless the commander wants to do it longer). So there are a lot of them in ACUs on this hot day, and they have no privileges since they are on lockdown. I think I got out of there just in time!

The rest of the day was pretty laid back. I watched a movie on the laptop...The A-Team. I used to watch the television show as a kid and it was pretty good. A lot of unrealistic action adventure. Plus it had Rampage Jackson in it, who I like on The Ultimate Fighter.

Later on we walked on over to the Charlie Company DFAC again for dinner and headed to Charlie Company for the weekend recall formation. The sergeant did accountability and checked everyone's haircuts and shaves. (Luckily I shaved before heading over - for the second time today). Those of us in RBK then took off and headed back to our barracks.

We had a briefing at 2100 for all the new people at RBK from Charlie. The student leadership went over all the basics and what is expected here. They also answered any questions.

Overheard Quote: “Don’t take this the wrong way, but your wife has very large boobs!” (A private talking to PFC Metal while we were hanging out)