July 2nd, 2009

Today was another god-awful day at reception. Drill Sergeant allowed us to go to bed at 10:oo pm and wake up at 3:30 am. While in bed attempting to sleep, we were woken up, had to get dressed and report downstairs because one new recruit misplaced his bags and we had to be lectured about not being "Fucking Idiots" So once we got to bed, and had to wake up, I only got about 3 hours and 30 minutes of sleep. As much as it sucks, I'm getting used to not sleeping at all. Apparently, this reception station at Ft. Benning only ships recruits down range on Fridays, so we were scheduled to ship off to BCT tomorrow, but we still had so much to accomplish before that could happen. We were all stressing out because we did NOT want to spend another week in this hell-hole. We spent all day getting things done, things which would normally seem easy. But somehow, getting issued boots took 7 hours. We waited in line the entire time, skipping lunch or "chow" as they call it. We also had to finish getting our shots, and our follow up dentist appointment. I was kind of happy to be there because we were allowed to watch "The Dark Knight" while we waited. Turns out I have one cavity, but they said it won't affect my basic training, and they will fix it when I graduate. We also got our "ranks" today which was one of the last things we needed. The are Velcro patches that display my rank, that I will wear on my ACU's. Lastly we got our dog tags. I really like these, along with all of my issued things that have my name on them. It makes me proud to be a Zaleuke, that is for sure.

When everything was said and done, we accomplished everything and got cleared to leave this God awful place. I am SO excited! Tomorrow starts day 1 of basic training, and we are all nervous as hell. I've made a lot of good friends here, and they are one of the only reason's my days don't completely suck. The best part of my day though was getting our "personal bags" back which had every one's cell phones and ipods in them . I got a chance to sit down and really talk to my father, and it really made me feel as good as new. He gave me some words of encouragement, which I will keep in my mind while I am getting smoked by drill sergeants, and losing hope. No one will stop me from graduating! I can do this and I will do it. It is time to man up and get this shit over and done with. I'm real thankful I got to talk to my dad. It made everything good again. Things here in the barracks are pretty wild at the moment. We are all packing all of our things into our small bags. One kid just got engaged over the telephone, and to top it off: I locked all of my ACU's (uniforms) in my locker, with the keys in them. So I had to go bug my "on call" drill sergeant and barrow some bolt cutters to cut the lock off. Now I'm going to stick to the combo locks my dad bought me so this won't happen again.

Now, it is bed time and I'm going to call my dad once more because it will be a long time before I get to talk to him again. I'm going to put on my ipod and fall asleep listening to some music. Tomorrow they take all of this stuff away from us once more. Good day today, and even better night. Tomorrow is going to suck but we are ready for it. I'll let you know how it goes.

PFC Zaleuke