Mailed blog – written by Julian

17 Jan 11

“Motivated, motivated, down right motivated.  Ooh, ahh, I wanna hurt somebody.  Ooh, ahh, I wanna kill somebody.  Beat ’em with a stick, beat ’em with a stick.  Whaaaa!”

That’s one of the chants we’re currently allowed to use.  We’ll get to say and do more fun things as time goes by.  It’s funny, they keep saying, “Privates, basic training starts today.  You’ve got a long ten weeks ahead of you.”  Amusing because we’ve already completed two weeks and they say it every day.  It’s all a part of the game.  However, in a way it did all start today in that our Senior Drill Sergeant came back from his leave.   Until now, things had been just kind of tense.   Now that he’s here, things have gotten much more tight.   That’s a good thing though as many of us still need to work on our discipline, even two weeks in.

Today we had a briefing by our battalion commander.  It was really engaging.  I’ve said this before, but the training we are undergoing right now is for a very real war.  Lt. Co. Hernandez did not sugar coat anything or mince his words.  Every bit of this training counts, because in six months we’ll need to have our buddy’s back and it’s a manner of life and death.

Tomorrow, basic training starts:) haha.  But the fun exercises start.  Right after breakfast we’ll have the great experience of the gas chamber.  We’ll spend five minutes in CLS gas with our masks on and then we’ll remove them and have to recite a bunch of stuff.   I’ll let you know how that goes.  From there we’re going on a day and night land navigation exercise.  We have to find points plotted on a map, in the forest, with just a compass and protractor.  Then we’re camping!  And, staying true to my camping luck, it’s going to rain.  Joy!