Mailed blog – written by Julian

03 Jan 11

Wow, it seems like I’ve been here a year already.  I have to admit on the bus ride from the airport to Fort Jackson, I was pretty nervous.  As soon as we got here though, I knew exactly what I was doing.   I was making the greatest decision of my life.  We arrived at Ft. Jackson around 2200 and did some really, really slow paperwork and briefings.  Then we got a snack (they feed us very good here).  They went through our bags, made us throw out any contraband, and gave us the final “moment of truth.”  I swear sometime they process us so slow just to stretch out our days even longer.   Honestly though, they do a pretty good job.  There are 53 soldiers in my platoon, 29 females and 24 males.   That’s a ton of paperwork.  

So, back to that first night.  Around 0030 (that’s 12:30 a.m. for your civilian folks), they took us to get some PT clothes to sleep in.  0100 we got bedding and 0130 we were shown our barracks and told lights out at 0200, up at 0400, in formation at 0430.