August 28th, 2009

This Georgia weather is a killer. It varys so much, it is so unpredictable. So, as fate would have it, I'm sick again. Everybody around me is sick, and with them all coughing all over me at night, ic an see how it would only be a matter or time I suppose.

Thursday, we got to the field and spent the day bounding with partners. It is where one person will advance on a target, get set, and cover his partner while he advances as ell. You have to stay parallel to each other to ensure we dont shoot and kill one another (in training only). It was a hot day but thankfully I got chosen for Ammo detail, so before and after I shot, me and a few of the other guys spent most of the day out in the sun and in the ammo shack loading magazines. I love days like that. I wasn't around too many drill sergeants and I got to spend the day shooting the shit with my friends.

After the day was over, me and 8 other guys had to stay at the range for clean up duty while the rest of hte company moved out to the camp site a mile away. Usually detail squads will get to hitch a ride on the deuce (short for Deuce and a half, which is a flat bed truck with cover used to transport equipment and soldiers from time to time) and we get to skip out on the walking. Now, of course, a mile ruck is pure cake but if I dont have to do it, I'm not going to complain lol. My buddy Salazar (who is now PG) said, "We can walk drill sergeant, its no big deal". I of course gave him an evil look but accepted it. So, drill sergeant got into his jeep and drove off while one of the more "adventurous" drill sergeants told us to get on our rucks and prepare to head out. He also said, "Make sure your shit is tight and secure beause we will be running there". For those of you that know me probably can recognize my facial expression as I thought, "What!?" So...we didn't just run to the camp site, we spritned there...in full kit. Lol, Salazar and I were the only two that did not fall out and kept pace with the Drill Sergeant. The others eventually made it there. As we were running, I glanced over at Salazar and mocked him by saying, "We can walk Drill Sergeant, its no big deal", in a severely sarcastic tone. Lol, it sucked but it was nice to once again be one of the few who did not quit and made it.

We settled for the night, and did some cool trianing with our Drill Sergeant until about 9:30 pm. He told us to go to bed, and as we began to head into the woods to our Apex, we all felt that single drop of rain. That single drop turned into a complete monsoon. It had been clear all day, and literally the minute we were allowed to go to bed it starts to pour. It rained form 9:30 pm until 10:00am so all throughou the night, all we could do was sit on the ground with our ponchos and wait for the 4:00am wake up call. I forgot to mention that my friend Thomas also got chosen to be the 3rd squad leader, so he and I, along with the other two squad leaders and PG at in the middle of the Apex in a huddle and laughed at how much life sucked. We were all soaking wet and our Patrol base was flooded in six inches of water so our ruck sacks and weapons were submerged. Embrace the suck, right?

We finally were woken up early, not that we were sleeping anyways to head back to the range where we waited until 9:30 for the busses to bring us home. That hot shower and warm bed felt so damn good, not that I got to lay in bed or anything, but I imagine it would have felt nice if I would have been allowed to lay down lol.

That's it for tonight, I'm going on 48 hours of no sleep, so I'm going to bed now. They are letting us sleep in until 6:30 tomorrow. I love how that is considered sleeping in now to me lol. FML.

-PFC Zaleuke