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.