Letter No. 5

Sunday August 1, 2010

Dear Everyone,

Thank you for all the letters. Claire and Calista, your drawings were cute. Everyone else, the letters are always a pick me up before bed.

Well, how did this week go? I've been sick as heck since Tuesday. Went to pick up cold meds. Wednesday, I was supposed to get people who missed our first test (due to watch, illness, etc) but was too sick. Went to medical Thursday, finally got put on light duty. So now it is just a really bad cold/upper respiratory infection but the Doc said that she was worried it might turn into pneumonia. I got put on full duty again Friday.

As for my division, it was a bad week. We're going over weapons cleaning inspections with the M9 (pistol). We have an inspection on it next Friday. We were royally screwing it up. The inspector goes "release the magazine . . . proceed" and we go before proceed and miss the question. So, we do 20 bear crawl laps around the compartment and now my hands are raw. The day before, I got IT'd for calling Chief a "Petty Office Chief" and did 8 laps bear crawl. Each lap is about 75 yards. On the last lap P.O. Maudsley tells me to start doing 8 counts (I was supposed to be doing 8 laps, but . . . ) and all told he basically forgot about me and I ended up doing them for an hour. You have to go until he says stop and you never ask if you can stop. By that time, Chief had come back to the compartment and asked if I did anything else wrong and I explained that on my last lap, P.O. told me to do 8 counts. He told me, "Well, don't make a stupid mistake like that again." So yeah, any indiscretion can turn into a lot of PT but thankfully, I got the sense that I didn't screw up too bad, I was just paying for my screw ups.

Well, what else . . . EPO is going good. We had our first test Monday, still don't know how I personally did. The Division did OK, 4.08/5.o, which is good. We "flagged" it, meaning we now get to carry a flag with a scroll and quill on it whenever we march somewhere, and we march alot. Some Divisions end up getting one for almost every event and carry close to a dozen of them, for drill inspecting, etc. But we really should have done better. We're still going over alot of basic stuff but we should hopefully be going over more technical stuff soon (line handling, fire fighting, damage control). We have our pistol and gun familiarization the week after next (firing guns = awesome).

Also, we're apparently a "Grad and Go" Division, meaning I am flying out Friday, Sept 3rd in the morning for California. Still waiting for more details on that because the SWCC guys at the Dive office said we would not do that. I am actually seriously considering switching to Diver, but a) I'm definitely not sure yet, and b) I'm playing it by ear for this other guy who is trying to switch as well. Don't read too much into this. I'm just trying to figure out if I am more suited to something. I have friends who are doing both.

We got our dress and service uniforms this week which was awesome. We also got haircuts (high and tights woot!) and our dog tags. They weren't kidding about the historical-ness of these things. Our dress blues have 30 buttons (they are basically pantaloons) and they are made of this extremely coarse wool that's itchy as heck (hopefully that will improve in the wash). They are also heavy too. I guess the general consensus is that the blues look awesome, but are absolutely a pain to wear while the whites might look a little stupid, but are comfy. Whites have normal pants with a belt and are made of this light, comfy material. We also got our service uniforms, a khaki button down with black pants.

I'm making some good friends. Butts (first name, Austin, but no one goes by their first name) is now my rack mate on the bottom bunk. We shift around as people leave or get moved closer to Divisional leadership because they are having problems. We've had a few guys leave. 1 is getting kicked out. Another 3, soon to be 5 or 6, are losing their contracts because of more in depth physical problems or they get injured so they are getting move out of the Division. One guy tore his shoulder and a few have color deficiencies or eye problems that the initial physical didn't pick up. Butts actually lost his combat air rescue contract but decided to stay here in this Division. He's trying to get FMF Corpsman (Marine Doc) or another air crew job. He finds out this Monday.

Hope to hear from all of you in your letters. Hopefully, I can get another phone call but don't count on it for at least another week or two. Hooyah 818! "No short shorts!" "This is my dirty gear and I LOVE IT!" (Inside jokes, I'll explain in the next letter).

Love,
Al


Quote of the Week

P.O.Maudsley: "Look, just use gravity. I understand you won't get that because it's a magical thing from imagination land where you can meet Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny but it exists and you need to use it"