Mailed blog – written by Julian

06 Feb 11

While most of the world is gearing up to watch the Packers take home another Super Bowl trophy, here we sit outside (cold) cleaning our weapons (for the third time since we last shot) for the next 90 minutes.  The dilemma is that there’s only two drill sergeants for all 171 of us privates, and they both want to watch the game.  They put us out here on the drill pad to clean our already clean weapons because they can see and hear us from their office…and big screen TV.

Believe it or not, it’s about that time.  I’m officially halfway done.  I figured now that I’m settled in I can explain some of the day-to-day happenings and my surroundings…should inquiring minds want to know.  Also, I really try to remember what I’ve written, but at times I’m sure I repeat myself.   Sorry, So here it is!  Get ready for the G. I. Jules halftime report, sponsored by calorie laden MREs!

First things first, where do I live?  Well, I definitely remember mentioning the “Trailer Park” when I first got here.  The area I live in is all modular buildings, they’re kinda crummy.  We have a classroom building, three barracks (living quarters), and one office building perpendicular to all that.  My bay is on the second floor of building one.  There are 28 of us in one room, 17 very strong Death Dealers and 11 puny Outlaws from 1st PLT.  We have just five shower heads, so that gets real crazy and there’s usually 3-4 females per shower head.  At first it was a bit stressful managing that much estrogen in on tiny shower room, but we’re used to it now.  We have six toilets that stop working every other day, and currently we only have three functioning.  That makes latrine breaks tricky.

We keep our humble abode clean on our fire guard shifts.  Duty rotates every hour from bunk to bunk.  Each shift has set chores, along with ensuring all weapons are present and on safe and keeping all soldiers in bed and accounted for.  Once a night, the bay gets a surprise visit from the Drill Sergeants.  Man, our hearts race when we hear that knock on the  door.  They come in, check our work, make sure we’re doing our job correctly, and usually throw some stuff around and yell at us a bit.  The biggest pain though is the disruption of sleep.  You can’t just roll out of bed either.  We have to put our full ACU uniform on; including boots and GREEN socks.  Then after guard duty, we have to take that all off and put our PT uniform back on.  It’s a lot of busy work in the middle of the night.  We usually sleep a couple of hours, do a guard shift, and then sleep a couple more hours.

Breaking news:  Just got word the Pack is up 14-0, I’m cheering with you all back home.  We’re back in our bay, people are running laps and giggling, singing is coming from the shower, and Gomez is passed out next to me.

Now I’ve covered our housing and sleeping, that leaves eating and daily routine.  I’m not gonna lie, the food here is pretty darn good.  Breakfast is hands down the favorite meal.  Oatmeal, fresh fruit, cereal, yogurt, hashbrowns, biscuits, and real orange juice.  So good.  For lunch and dinner you get yummy baked chicken, fish, pasta dishes and a full salad bar.  We measure the days in chow time.  Best pre-BCT advice I was given.  Daily routine; wake up SUPER early, usually 0440 for me.  Slick that hair back and pin the heck out of it.  Run out for PT formation.  Exercise in cadence, get yelled at because we stink at it.  Roll around in the sand.  Run either 2.5 miles or 30/60 sprints.  Go back and change to our ACU’s.  Breakfast CHOW!  More classes or field exercises.  Dinner CHOW!  Platoon time in our bay classroom,  usually cleaning weapons.  1930 to 2030 is personal time to shower and prep for the next day 2030 is last formation and 2100 is lights out.  VERY full days.

So, there it is, all the mundane details.  Anything I could do to keep my mind off how much the Packers are ruling the world right now.  Okay, have to wake Gomez up for shower time!