August 7th, 2009

Today has been a weird day for me. It has been an off day for most of us as a matter of fact. The day started off with a four mile ruck march for PT. I can’t tell you how much I strongly dislike ruck marches. If you are in the front of formation it isn’t so bad, but if you are in the back it sucks. People start to drag ass after a few miles and huge spaces start to form and create gaps in the formation. Drill Sergeants hate this so they tell you to “step it out” to catch up. Of course my ass is usually in the back of the formation. When the gaps start to form, people run to catch up and it creates a huge chain reaction which ends up in the entire platoon running instead of walking. I weighed my ruck sack today—97 lbs plus all the gear I was wearing . Four miles seems very far when your shoulders are screaming from intense pain and agony, and your lower back feels as if it is going to snap in half. Guess what? Welcome to the Infantry! Lol, I made it though, sweaty as Hell, but I made it.

After that, we didn’t do much. We got to go to the PX and buy things we needed. I spent about 25 bucks on laundry soap, PT shirt, bungee chords, and a towel. Cool huh?...Lol, as we were standing in line to check out, our Drill Sergeant, Drill Sergeant “K” who is leaving tomorrow for good () came up to me and a few guys and asked if we thought he was a “Candy Ass” drill sergeant. We obviously said, “Of Course not Drill Sergeant” to avoid getting smoked. He responded with “Bull Shit”—let me prove it to you that I am. When you get done paying for your shit, go next door and buy yourself a milkshake. (There was an ice cream shop outside) We are also not authorized to have that kind of stuff, so I called bull-shit immediately. I said, “There is no way you are serious, Drill Sergeant, you are not that nice”. He said he was serious, and I asked him if I would have to throw it up later, he responded with no. So still skeptical, we went with him and got milkshakes. It was really weird. Oh my God…I can’t tell you how good icecream is when you can’t have it.

You all really don’t know what you take for granted in life. When I first got here I wanted music, cell phone, computer, etc. Now I just want the bare essentials: Ice, Air Conditioning, Junk Food, lol…It’s 1900 right now and we still haven’t been smoked for it, so that’s good. I however will not rest easy until Drill Sergeant “K” is gone. He is on call tonight unfortunately, and 99% of the time we get woken up in the middle of the night for something stupid.

We hung out for the rest of the day and played it cool. Drill Sergeant “K” sat us down and told us some war stories and also gave us the update on the Solider who went down yesterday. He only has a 10% chance of a full recovery and will likely be a vegetable for the rest of his life due to severe brain damage. It sucks because we have all gotten pretty close here and now one of our brothers is down and out. We are praying for him, but the outcome doesn’t look too promising. Brutal, huh?

Alright that is it for today. I’ll write again tomorrow if I can, but probably Sunday because Saturday will be a busy day for us. I love you guys!
-PFC Zaleuke