Letter No. 8

Dear Everyone,

Tuesday, August 10

Okay, so thank you for the card, the singing one I mean (Meredith sent him a Toy Story singing card – prompted by Dad). No, I didn’t do any IT for it. Petty Officer was in the office when it was passed out. But I was trying to find a way to open the thing without it sounding off, so I could read the thing. Someone suggested pulling off the pull tabs that plays the card when it’s open. BAD IDEA!. Only made the card play when it was closed. By this point everyone is giggling like idiots and I’m thinking, “Oh No”. So I dropped the card and started stomping on it. And that only made it repeat.

STOMP
“You gotta friend”
STOMP
“You gotta fr”
STOMP
“You gotta friend in me”

That’s about when I picked it back up, sprinted to the trash in the head and pulled the speaker out and snapped it. Everyone was laughing and somewhat disappointed that this didn’t get out to the Petty Officer. DON’T DO THAT AGAIN.

Thursday August 12

OK, so we S.O. our drill assessment. Yeah, FIVE POINT ZERO. All 86 of us had zero unsats in our hour-ish assessment (which consisted of marching to the drill hall and going through every movement that we’ll have to do at graduation). No divisions ever Five Oh’s drill. So that was awesome.

Oh, PO Maudsely said we have to write, “this is a great experience. My RDC’s are nice. Send cookies” (FYI, they eat all our cookies. Every time. They’re eating someone’s right now as I write this.)

But yeah, I did say they’re letting loosea bit. Still Boot Camp though. We did neckerchief tying drills (1 min to tie this thing). Got it perfect the first time but did 40-8 counts because it wasn’t even.

Oh, the RDC’s got pizza (for themselves) from that place Dad always used to insist we order from when we lived in Grayslake (Wayne’s).

But they do get more hilarious. Chief said once we get closer/after Battlestations, we’ll start doing pranks and stuff with the other divisions and having a bit more fun. But we have to stay locked on. We have no competition with any division on anything except out test averages. And when I say no competition, I mean it. We got 2hits on one inspection. The closet the other divisions were was 20-ish. I think I’ll explain the flags and honors like Hall of Fame, CNO gold/silver, Battle E in the next letter.

Love,
Al

RDC Quotes of the Week
OK, so the new thing is “IT DOESN’T MATTER IF (fill in the blank).
For example:
PO Maudsely: “Yeoman, what time is chow?”
Yeoman: “It is at …”
PO Maudsley: “IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT TIME CHOW IS!)

So, they either ask a question and then cut off their reply OR when someone asks a stupid question.

PO Maudsely: “Do you like pink ponies?”
Recruit: “Uh …”
PO Maudsley: “IT DOESN’T MATTER IF YOU LIKE PINK PONIES!”
So yeah, we find this funny as hell and now do it to each other.