Apr. 11, 2009 - April 11 - Army Mom Blog
April 11
We finally received a letter from David. And much to my relief, it seems that basic combat training is going mostly smoothly, so far. He says the physical training has been “a breeze,” which doesn’t surprise me considering his excellent physical condition when he arrived. He thought Victory Tower was fun and is actually helping the DS train the platoon on combatives since he’s learned it before from Steve-O.
John and I both expected the mental component to be the more difficult aspect for him, and it does appear that is the case. He misses Carly and his family very much and generally “hates the place with a passion.” Luckily, he does like his three roommates who happen to all be married, mature and intelligent. He’s gotten into a few tussles with other recruits and they hazed him on his birthday, but he doesn’t seem too upset about that.
Here’s a funny for you. He told us how he posted up the other recruits in his Punishers’ Platoon while they waited in line together to go into the gas chamber. Once he got inside though, his mask wasn’t sealed and he had to breathe the gas for the full three minutes instead of the twenty seconds they were supposed to. He felt pretty stupid when he came out in a MESS! Oops!
He’s gotten one chance to make a 30-second phone call (to Carly). It should have been longer, but the DS hung up the phone when he saw that David had removed his protective eye gear to read the calling card. To make matters worse, he was sobbing on the phone and the men were teasing him about it until they had THEIR calls home and ended up crying like schoolgirls too.
As of yesterday, he has been in Basic for two full weeks. The initial reception phase only lasted for three days, so it’s been a total of 17 days. According to the graduation date I was given, he’s got 56 more days, so it really is just the beginning.
Boots. There was something wrong with his boots when he got them and his feet started bleeding in the first five minutes. He was able to swap them out, but his feet have been messed up ever since.
He says the food is terrible. I wonder if it will get any better, or if he’ll get used to it over the next several weeks. Well, he will never take my home-cooked meals for granted again.
In his letter, he refers to the other recruits as “men.” I know this is a subtle thing, but I think it is interesting that he does not call them “guys.”
I have read his letter several times. We’ve all written to him too, and I hope they mean as much to him as his letter does to me.
We miss you and love you David. You make me proud.
