Since I have started writing this blog, there have been a few posts I’ve been excited to write about. This post right here will be the one I am most excited to write, besides the one on graduation. Do you want to know why I am so excited? Well today I received my orders to my next duty station. That means the place the Army will be sending me after basic training. I signed a three year contract which means I will spend three years here. Would you like to know where I am going? Well, Lol, bear with me for a second. Of course I had my list of places I would like to go like Hawaii, Alaska, California, somewhere overseas like Italy, but I figured with my luck I would get sent somewhere random and stupid.
Well today my drill sergeant was in his office and was peaking out behind his door with his megaphone saying, ,” I know where you’re going for Duty Stations!!” and he would shut the door leaving us all in suspense similar to how I’m doing to you purposely right now. Finally he came out and started telling us one by one.
The guys with Ranger contracts haven’t gotten their shit yet, the guys who are going airborne are going to Italy, some guys are going to Ft. Polk in Louisiana, and then there are the lucky guys such as myself. Out of the 56 guys in my platoon, 13 of us got chosen to go here. I wish to God I could see my father’s face right now. I am going to Germany!
Can you believe that shit? I am literally in shock still. I freaked out when my Drill Sergeant told me, Ha Ha, I was like, “Bull shit, you’re lying!” This is the reason I joined the army, I wanted to see the world. I cant believe I am lucky enough to get to go overseas for my first duty station.
Now, in my last letter I mentioned I would be a mechanized unit. Well it is now set in stone and confirmed. I will either be in 1st I.D. (Infantry Division) aka ‘The Big Red One” or 1st A.D (Armor Division) aka “Old Iron Side” which are both mechanized units. After basic training (AIT included is over and I graduate, I will have the option of taking 14 days leave, ,which I will be doing and returning to Florida, or I could leave directly from here and go to Germany. I cant not see my family and head out to Germany for three years lol. The cool thing is I can bring my motorcycle with me and get it shipped with my personal things “fo free” lol. I’m sorry, I’m excited as hell and I’m rambling. I need to get more information as to where exactly in Germany I will be, what to do with my truck, etc… As soon as I find out more I will let everybody know. For now, I’m going to rest and get some sleep. (We didn’t do much today, just went to the range and shot all day) Germany!! Ha Ha!!
-PFC Zaleuke
Friday, August 28, 2009
August 24th, 2009
I don’t have a lot of time to write tonight but I wanted to write a little something. Some of you have been asking about what it is my MOS does. Well there are a few types of Infantry, two in particular are light Infantry and Mechanized Infantry. The light infantry walks wherever they go and packs all of their shit with them all of the time, they are pretty hard core because they have to deal with all of that suck. Mechanized infantry travel in Hummers and Bradleys and hitch rides on modes of transportation and fight primarily from their vehicles (50 cal. Machine gun). The best part is obvious—little walking and rucking. I got some good news today. My platoon was chosen to be the mechanized platoon which means all other three will be light Infantry. I am not Mechanized infantry—can you say sweeeeet?
I will head to a mechanized unit which could be anywhere really. I was hoping I would get this because honestly…between walking and driving, I’m sorry I’m going to have to go with driving. Call me lazy but I’m all about comfort here. If you have beef, I’ll let you borrow my boots and you can come here and ruck 8 miles and then we will talk lol. Infantry basically kick down doors, clear houses, kill enemies, fuck shit up…lol. No, but we are kind of like SWAT at times.
Anyways, today we woke up to a fun surprise. And that was a fantastic 5 mile run! How did it go? It sucked! I did it, but it sucked lol. We then went to the firing range and did some more shooting, then came back and cleaned our weapons for a few hours. We had some PT later on in the evening and now here I am!
It’s about bedtime now. I’m exhausted and my feet are killing me from the run. So I’m gonna head out. I’m sorry if this letter is too short or too random but I’m kinda spacey tonight anyways. I love you guys, I’ll write more tomorrow when I get more time. Also, thanks Dad for sending the pictures of me and the Mexican whores from Tijuana! The guys got a kick out of them.
-PFC Zaleuke
I will head to a mechanized unit which could be anywhere really. I was hoping I would get this because honestly…between walking and driving, I’m sorry I’m going to have to go with driving. Call me lazy but I’m all about comfort here. If you have beef, I’ll let you borrow my boots and you can come here and ruck 8 miles and then we will talk lol. Infantry basically kick down doors, clear houses, kill enemies, fuck shit up…lol. No, but we are kind of like SWAT at times.
Anyways, today we woke up to a fun surprise. And that was a fantastic 5 mile run! How did it go? It sucked! I did it, but it sucked lol. We then went to the firing range and did some more shooting, then came back and cleaned our weapons for a few hours. We had some PT later on in the evening and now here I am!
It’s about bedtime now. I’m exhausted and my feet are killing me from the run. So I’m gonna head out. I’m sorry if this letter is too short or too random but I’m kinda spacey tonight anyways. I love you guys, I’ll write more tomorrow when I get more time. Also, thanks Dad for sending the pictures of me and the Mexican whores from Tijuana! The guys got a kick out of them.
-PFC Zaleuke
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Aug. 21st and Aug. 23rd
I’m sorry I haven’t written in a few days, but I’ve been crazy busy, and quite a bit has happened. I’ll start with my PT test I took on Wednesday morning. I’m getting tired of these by the way, but I’ve been doing pretty damn good on them. So I won’t complain. I forget my overall score out of 300 but it was between 235 and 247. I did 53 push ups (more than last time), 62 sit ups (same as last time), and I ran my two mile in 14:00 flat (six seconds better than last time). So overall I did better than our previous test, too
easy- too easy!
After our PT test, we had to get ready to head out to the field for our three day, two night FTX (Field training exercise). We packed up our heavy ass backpacks, aka ruck sacks, and headed out to Hell on Earth. I hate Georgia, its weather, its land, and everything in between…We were only allowed to bring one extra set of ACU’s, so besides the ones I was wearing, I only had one back up set of clean clothes. FML.
We spent three days doing ARM (Advanced Rifle Marksmanship) which is where we go through houses and clear them out, so we are literally out on the range in the heat sweating our asses off all day. After day one I was already filthy and extremely tired, but an hour before bedtime one of the drill sergeants thought we needed to do some late night PT. During the course, one of our guys farted which made everyone laugh. This pissed the drill sergeant off and we got smoked for almost two and a half hours. We had to low crawl in the dirt for an hour enough times to make a “race track” impression in the ground. We then had to stand at attention for the remainder of time getting threatened with being sent back to Red Phase, and Article 15’s. By the time we got done, and finished setting up our patrol base in the woods, it was near 2:30 am. We had to wake up at 4:00 am…FML.
We had a long three days out in the woods lol. We have sleeping bags and items that “could” make us comfortable laying in the dirt but nooooooo.. we can’t risk unpacking that stuff because at any given time we have to get up and react to indirect fire. That means we grab our shit and run away as fast as we can to another designation which is previous set in case of a situation like that. It sucks because it means generally we sleep with everything on and nothing unpacked. I can’t tell you how much I love running through the woods, pitch black, 2:00am with a 70lb ruck sack on my back. I am so graceful as I jump joyfully over logs and creeks… I never fall….FML!
I am really tired of even talking about being out there, that’s how miserable it is. Our last day was slightly fun though at the last shooting range. We got to shoot at moving targets and it was almost like sitting on a hill picking off civilians….or enemies. I don’t want you to think I’m crazy lol. But it really was like a sweet video game.
We had a memorial today for Private “H”, he was the guy in our platoon who died from a heat stroke two weeks ago. I cant tell you how sad it was to see Sergeant Majors, Colonels, First Sergeants, and Lt. Colonels salute his picture, touch his dog tags, and leave him his cross rifles and blue chord. I can usually keep it together pretty well, but even I had a hard time. Final Roll call was pretty weird as well. They literally call out a few names of soldiers present, and lastly they call out the deceast’s name which of course will not get a response. I don’t like military funerals, but I have a feeling that I will have to attend many of them unfortunately throughout my military career.
This paragraph is being written on Aug. 23, 2009. We thankfully have had a few days of down time since our return on Friday, and I feel somewhat rested again. Yesterday, Saturday, we sat through a nine hour class on personal finances. It was all mostly things I already knew, but I enjoyed it. I found out that I can get all credit card/car payment interest rates down to 6% because I am active duty. Sweet! The entire time we were in class, aka: all day long, our drill sergeants trashed our bay just because they were bored. We had all of our bunks turned over, all of our laundry thrown into the middle mixed with one another, and pepto bismol thrown all over our bathroom. Wed had the pleasure of cleaning all that up too, lucky us.
Afterwards, the drill sergeants were going to make all four platoons take apart their beds and move them all downstairs (We hate doing that) but instead they had a competition. We had to pick a few guys from our platoon to do their best impressions of drill sergeants, as did each platoon. The two losers had to take their beds downstairs, and we were not one of them thankfully. Some of the impressions were funny as hell too, and its funny to watch guys do impressions when the drill sergeant they are doing is standing in front of them.
Today is another lazy Sunday, I love Sundays lol. It is also August 23rd which means that we have 11 more days of basic training left. We will start AIT on September 4th which will also be the start of Black phase. Family day will start Saturday September 12th which his 19 days from today. I’ve made my own elaborate calendar which is very detailed, and I mark off each day. I have a total of 47 more days until I graduate as well, I cant wait! I’m excited as Hell too see my friends and family.
Alright, I think I’m about done with this one. I want to leave you with a quote that I enjoy, and often keep close to my heart. From the great words of Colonel Sanders, “I’m too drunk to taste this chicken”.
-PFC Zaleuke
easy- too easy!
After our PT test, we had to get ready to head out to the field for our three day, two night FTX (Field training exercise). We packed up our heavy ass backpacks, aka ruck sacks, and headed out to Hell on Earth. I hate Georgia, its weather, its land, and everything in between…We were only allowed to bring one extra set of ACU’s, so besides the ones I was wearing, I only had one back up set of clean clothes. FML.
We spent three days doing ARM (Advanced Rifle Marksmanship) which is where we go through houses and clear them out, so we are literally out on the range in the heat sweating our asses off all day. After day one I was already filthy and extremely tired, but an hour before bedtime one of the drill sergeants thought we needed to do some late night PT. During the course, one of our guys farted which made everyone laugh. This pissed the drill sergeant off and we got smoked for almost two and a half hours. We had to low crawl in the dirt for an hour enough times to make a “race track” impression in the ground. We then had to stand at attention for the remainder of time getting threatened with being sent back to Red Phase, and Article 15’s. By the time we got done, and finished setting up our patrol base in the woods, it was near 2:30 am. We had to wake up at 4:00 am…FML.
We had a long three days out in the woods lol. We have sleeping bags and items that “could” make us comfortable laying in the dirt but nooooooo.. we can’t risk unpacking that stuff because at any given time we have to get up and react to indirect fire. That means we grab our shit and run away as fast as we can to another designation which is previous set in case of a situation like that. It sucks because it means generally we sleep with everything on and nothing unpacked. I can’t tell you how much I love running through the woods, pitch black, 2:00am with a 70lb ruck sack on my back. I am so graceful as I jump joyfully over logs and creeks… I never fall….FML!
I am really tired of even talking about being out there, that’s how miserable it is. Our last day was slightly fun though at the last shooting range. We got to shoot at moving targets and it was almost like sitting on a hill picking off civilians….or enemies. I don’t want you to think I’m crazy lol. But it really was like a sweet video game.
We had a memorial today for Private “H”, he was the guy in our platoon who died from a heat stroke two weeks ago. I cant tell you how sad it was to see Sergeant Majors, Colonels, First Sergeants, and Lt. Colonels salute his picture, touch his dog tags, and leave him his cross rifles and blue chord. I can usually keep it together pretty well, but even I had a hard time. Final Roll call was pretty weird as well. They literally call out a few names of soldiers present, and lastly they call out the deceast’s name which of course will not get a response. I don’t like military funerals, but I have a feeling that I will have to attend many of them unfortunately throughout my military career.
This paragraph is being written on Aug. 23, 2009. We thankfully have had a few days of down time since our return on Friday, and I feel somewhat rested again. Yesterday, Saturday, we sat through a nine hour class on personal finances. It was all mostly things I already knew, but I enjoyed it. I found out that I can get all credit card/car payment interest rates down to 6% because I am active duty. Sweet! The entire time we were in class, aka: all day long, our drill sergeants trashed our bay just because they were bored. We had all of our bunks turned over, all of our laundry thrown into the middle mixed with one another, and pepto bismol thrown all over our bathroom. Wed had the pleasure of cleaning all that up too, lucky us.
Afterwards, the drill sergeants were going to make all four platoons take apart their beds and move them all downstairs (We hate doing that) but instead they had a competition. We had to pick a few guys from our platoon to do their best impressions of drill sergeants, as did each platoon. The two losers had to take their beds downstairs, and we were not one of them thankfully. Some of the impressions were funny as hell too, and its funny to watch guys do impressions when the drill sergeant they are doing is standing in front of them.
Today is another lazy Sunday, I love Sundays lol. It is also August 23rd which means that we have 11 more days of basic training left. We will start AIT on September 4th which will also be the start of Black phase. Family day will start Saturday September 12th which his 19 days from today. I’ve made my own elaborate calendar which is very detailed, and I mark off each day. I have a total of 47 more days until I graduate as well, I cant wait! I’m excited as Hell too see my friends and family.
Alright, I think I’m about done with this one. I want to leave you with a quote that I enjoy, and often keep close to my heart. From the great words of Colonel Sanders, “I’m too drunk to taste this chicken”.
-PFC Zaleuke
Thursday, August 20, 2009
August 17th, 2009
We here in Delta company, 4th platoon are drop dead exhausted right now. We had a rough day today which is expected after the past two days of us doing absolutely nothing. Well, let me start with what happened last night before I get into today’s events. I probably saw one of the craziest things Ive seen in a long time. The entire company (all four platoons) were assigned tasks to do in order to fully clean the common area. I was sweeping the floor, and I hear a loud metallic “Bang”!
It took me a second to realize what it was that I saw, and what it was that I heard, and then add the two together. One of the soldiers in another platoon, who happened to be on crutches, got pissed off at someone and snapped. He took one of his aluminum crutches and did a full tomahawk swing with it, thus bending it over the kids head (literally) and split that Mo-Fo’s head wide open. I was like, “Ohhhh!!...Nice!” but that was of course my first reaction, and we all know I really need to filter and or completely not speak until I’ve had a moment to gather my thoughts lol. I got some weird looks after that comment, but I played it off of course. Honestly though…how often do you see shit like that?! I enjoy shocking things. One of the older soldiers who was an ex-Marine/ex-SWAT took his ass down and restrained him until the MP’s came to arrest him. Very eventful. Oh yeah, the kid is okay, he got 8 staples in his head, and his gash was so rad, you could see his skull!
Moving on, lol. This morning we woke up at 0430 and cleaned our bay for a solid three hours because the new company commander was coming through to inspect bays. We ate chow, I had four glasses of chocolate milk by the way, and we headed to the busses to head out to the range. I have a new found love for hand grenades, they are everything that Sylvester Stallone makes them out to be in the movies. Lol, seriously though they are pretty cool. We had to throw a few practice grenades before they trusted us to throw real ones. It can be pretty scary holding a live grenade in your hand, and all of the practice I had playing Team Death match on Call of Duty 4 did not help me much. Lol, damn video games have really cheated me.
After we were finished we had to stand in formation for about 20 minutes in the pouring rain with full gear on. Then they surprised us with the fantastic news of having no busses to pick us up. So we had to walk the three miles back in the pouring rain. We are used to this by now, so it was not big deal, but there is always a catch to something that seems too easy. The kids on “profile” who are the kids who go to sick call and cant march or walk…yeah, we had to carry them. All of them. They just happened to be the fat guys and bigger guys I the platoon too. It was horrible lol, carrying their fat asses with all of their gear and weapons for three miles. Awesome!
You can imagine why we would be damn tired lol, plus we got smoked for about 30 mins when we got smoked for about 30 mins when we got back because we all took showers. I don’t care though, that shower felt damn good. Tomorrow will be an easier day I assume, we are only going back to that firing range that is a video game to learn how to kill people on the move. You can sugar coat it all you want, but that’s what it is. We are learning to kill people. What do you do at your job?
Lol, bed time. More later.
-PFC Zaleuke
It took me a second to realize what it was that I saw, and what it was that I heard, and then add the two together. One of the soldiers in another platoon, who happened to be on crutches, got pissed off at someone and snapped. He took one of his aluminum crutches and did a full tomahawk swing with it, thus bending it over the kids head (literally) and split that Mo-Fo’s head wide open. I was like, “Ohhhh!!...Nice!” but that was of course my first reaction, and we all know I really need to filter and or completely not speak until I’ve had a moment to gather my thoughts lol. I got some weird looks after that comment, but I played it off of course. Honestly though…how often do you see shit like that?! I enjoy shocking things. One of the older soldiers who was an ex-Marine/ex-SWAT took his ass down and restrained him until the MP’s came to arrest him. Very eventful. Oh yeah, the kid is okay, he got 8 staples in his head, and his gash was so rad, you could see his skull!
Moving on, lol. This morning we woke up at 0430 and cleaned our bay for a solid three hours because the new company commander was coming through to inspect bays. We ate chow, I had four glasses of chocolate milk by the way, and we headed to the busses to head out to the range. I have a new found love for hand grenades, they are everything that Sylvester Stallone makes them out to be in the movies. Lol, seriously though they are pretty cool. We had to throw a few practice grenades before they trusted us to throw real ones. It can be pretty scary holding a live grenade in your hand, and all of the practice I had playing Team Death match on Call of Duty 4 did not help me much. Lol, damn video games have really cheated me.
After we were finished we had to stand in formation for about 20 minutes in the pouring rain with full gear on. Then they surprised us with the fantastic news of having no busses to pick us up. So we had to walk the three miles back in the pouring rain. We are used to this by now, so it was not big deal, but there is always a catch to something that seems too easy. The kids on “profile” who are the kids who go to sick call and cant march or walk…yeah, we had to carry them. All of them. They just happened to be the fat guys and bigger guys I the platoon too. It was horrible lol, carrying their fat asses with all of their gear and weapons for three miles. Awesome!
You can imagine why we would be damn tired lol, plus we got smoked for about 30 mins when we got smoked for about 30 mins when we got back because we all took showers. I don’t care though, that shower felt damn good. Tomorrow will be an easier day I assume, we are only going back to that firing range that is a video game to learn how to kill people on the move. You can sugar coat it all you want, but that’s what it is. We are learning to kill people. What do you do at your job?
Lol, bed time. More later.
-PFC Zaleuke
August 15th, 2009
I am writing this letter to inform all of you that I have nothing new to report . We honestly haven’t done a damn thing today, and it has been awesome! We woke up late today (with permission) and honestly sat around the bay and did literally nothing. Today I wrote some letters to people, sat under my bunk for several hours and bull shitted with the guys for the rest of the time. We got several people to do the “Impossible Sit-up” which is where you blind fold them, one person stands over them with their ass exposed, and as they go to do their sit-up you remove their blind fold and they come face to face with another man’s ass. I don’t know why that is so damn funny to me but it is. I’m 22 years old and I am going on 12. I honestly don’t think I will every truely grow up.
We had a weird thing happen to us today with one of our drill sergeants. He is one of our replacements who is a pain in the ass. In reality he is special forces and is a total bad ass, but he is mean as hell. A lot of us call him “the man with no shadow” and often exchange his name and Chuck Norris’ when we tell old Chuck Norris jokes. Drill Sergeant “B” ‘s tears cure cancer…too bad Drill Sergeant “B” has never cried. He came into our bay today and made us all go down stairs ASAP. We were all like, “Damn…not again”. He eventually came downstairs with a football and we all played football on the PT track as a platoon and it was fun as hell. We were all really thrown off by that whole situation. Touch football in basic training? That is honestly the only thing we have done today. Ive spent a good amount of time working out in the bay by doing pushups and stuff to pass the time. We are all getting prepared for another PT test which will be on Wednesday of this week. I’ll dominate that again as always.
I don’t know if you remember me telling you about my battle buddy a while ago when I first got here, but every day he seems to prove me wrong. When you think that there is no possible way a person could get more stupid, it happens. The best way I could describe him would be Lloyd Christmas from Dumb and Dumber. Honestly, its pretty damn close to that. He provides me with hours of endless laughter from day to day. Today while I was laying on my bunk writing a letter, he was passed out on the floor next to me. My friend Nick and I took a sharpie and drew a sweet mustache and soul patch on him. About five minutes later we had to all head down to form up for chow, and after everyone laughed at him, he realized there was something on his face. He saw it was a mustache and when we told him we had to go right now, he grabbed shaving cream and a razor. Let me say this again… “He grabbed shaving cream and a razor” to get off a sharpie mustache. That whole situation honestly floored me. The thought process that must go on to determine that he needs to shave a penciled in mustache is amazing to me. That ladies and gentlemen will be the person who could be covering my ass in a fire fight on day…Awesome! A literal Gomer Pile with a whopping 33 ASVAB score. He means well, but come on! Lol is a little common sense too much to ask out of somebody?
I don’t know if I have told you all about this or not in a previous letter because honestly its hard to keep track of everything I write but I got promoted within the platoon the other day. I am Alpha Fire team leader for my squad. I answer to my squad leader and platoon guide only and I am in charge of about 8 guys. Its honestly not a huge responsibility but it gives me something to do at least. I was Brave Fire team leader before, and if my squad leader messes up and gets his ass fired, I’ll have to take his place. I would’nt mind being a squad leader actually because you really don’t do shit, just tell other people what to do and make sure it gets done. I made one of my buddies “Assistant TO the Fire team leader”. I think its funny to break the chain of command down to the ridiculous. I may even make a “Secretary to the Assistant TO the fire team leader” position. LOL, it just depends on how bored I get and how much I want to irritate my Platoon Guide, which is quite often lately.
Alrighty, well that is really all I have for now. Monday we have grenades and stuff like that so I will probably wait to write again until then because tomorrow is Sunday and we will probably do even less than we did today. So peace out suckas! …..yeah….. excuse that one, it kind of slipped out (That’s what she said) LOL!
-PFC Zaleuke
We had a weird thing happen to us today with one of our drill sergeants. He is one of our replacements who is a pain in the ass. In reality he is special forces and is a total bad ass, but he is mean as hell. A lot of us call him “the man with no shadow” and often exchange his name and Chuck Norris’ when we tell old Chuck Norris jokes. Drill Sergeant “B” ‘s tears cure cancer…too bad Drill Sergeant “B” has never cried. He came into our bay today and made us all go down stairs ASAP. We were all like, “Damn…not again”. He eventually came downstairs with a football and we all played football on the PT track as a platoon and it was fun as hell. We were all really thrown off by that whole situation. Touch football in basic training? That is honestly the only thing we have done today. Ive spent a good amount of time working out in the bay by doing pushups and stuff to pass the time. We are all getting prepared for another PT test which will be on Wednesday of this week. I’ll dominate that again as always.
I don’t know if you remember me telling you about my battle buddy a while ago when I first got here, but every day he seems to prove me wrong. When you think that there is no possible way a person could get more stupid, it happens. The best way I could describe him would be Lloyd Christmas from Dumb and Dumber. Honestly, its pretty damn close to that. He provides me with hours of endless laughter from day to day. Today while I was laying on my bunk writing a letter, he was passed out on the floor next to me. My friend Nick and I took a sharpie and drew a sweet mustache and soul patch on him. About five minutes later we had to all head down to form up for chow, and after everyone laughed at him, he realized there was something on his face. He saw it was a mustache and when we told him we had to go right now, he grabbed shaving cream and a razor. Let me say this again… “He grabbed shaving cream and a razor” to get off a sharpie mustache. That whole situation honestly floored me. The thought process that must go on to determine that he needs to shave a penciled in mustache is amazing to me. That ladies and gentlemen will be the person who could be covering my ass in a fire fight on day…Awesome! A literal Gomer Pile with a whopping 33 ASVAB score. He means well, but come on! Lol is a little common sense too much to ask out of somebody?
I don’t know if I have told you all about this or not in a previous letter because honestly its hard to keep track of everything I write but I got promoted within the platoon the other day. I am Alpha Fire team leader for my squad. I answer to my squad leader and platoon guide only and I am in charge of about 8 guys. Its honestly not a huge responsibility but it gives me something to do at least. I was Brave Fire team leader before, and if my squad leader messes up and gets his ass fired, I’ll have to take his place. I would’nt mind being a squad leader actually because you really don’t do shit, just tell other people what to do and make sure it gets done. I made one of my buddies “Assistant TO the Fire team leader”. I think its funny to break the chain of command down to the ridiculous. I may even make a “Secretary to the Assistant TO the fire team leader” position. LOL, it just depends on how bored I get and how much I want to irritate my Platoon Guide, which is quite often lately.
Alrighty, well that is really all I have for now. Monday we have grenades and stuff like that so I will probably wait to write again until then because tomorrow is Sunday and we will probably do even less than we did today. So peace out suckas! …..yeah….. excuse that one, it kind of slipped out (That’s what she said) LOL!
-PFC Zaleuke
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
August 14th, 2009
I am tired. I am really tired. Lol. My feet hurt, my toes all have calluses on them, my heels have them too from all of the blisters that have come and gone. I feel good though, almost accomplished. Today we had a six mile ruck march at 0430. Usually I am bitching and complaining the entire time (to myself. I wouldn’t dare complain to a Drill Sergeant) but this time I felt good. I had a good night sleep, so this six miles went by fast. We had out 70lb ruck sacks on (the weight will vary depending on the packing list they give us) an our IBA vests (40+ lbs), and they even let us ruck in our PT uniforms today. I looked like a lumberjack wearing PT shorts, a tucked in T-shirt, and combat boots with scrunched down green socks (Sexy, I know). We only have an 8 mile, a 10 mile, and 15 mile march left to do. That sounds bad, but its really not, they go by quickly.
Lol, oddly today when we hit the 3 mile point (we usually set our rucks down for about 10 mins and get in the prone position) they passed out fruit to everyone…I was like, “What the hell is this?” So when my Drill Sergeant came down the road and handed me an apple, I said, “Drill Sergeant, would you happen to have any kiwi or honey dew melon?” He just kept walking and said, “Zaleuke, it is way too early for me to be dealing with your shit!” Me: “Roger That.”
Yesterday and today we spent our day out in the field getting familiar with some bad ass weapons. I can now operate an AT-4 Rocket launcher, and also an M-203 grenade launcher. I got the chance to fire both of them, and it was so damn cool. The M-203 is an attachment that you can add to the M-16A2 and M4 rifles. We got to blow up some shit finally Lol. Monday we get to throw grenades and tomorrow we get to start learning about convoys and stuff. This is the time we are really going to start learning stuff that applies to my MOS.
I forgot to mention, we advanced to Blue Phase today! Last night we had to play some stupid games with Drill Sergeants, including a two mile run in ACU’s and boos (after we ate chow) so I threw it all up. As Ron Burgundy once said, “Milk was a bad choice!”. LOL, it wasn’t that bad though, it wasn’t like we were getting smoked but rather us getting recognized for reaching Blue phase. We are starting to be able to joke around more with the drill sergeants, we are getting called soldiers now instead of “cum dumpsters” Lol so that’s cool too. We all feel more like soldiers and very accomplished as well. Only three more weeks until we complete basic training and I’m so excited.
I got some mail yesterday from my sister, Sammy, and my father. My dad sent me a really cool letter and said some things that I think every kid needs to hear once in his or her life. Dad, that will be a letter I keep for the rest of my life. It meant a lot to me, thank you, you made me tear up infront of my buddies and also got me called a fag, LOL, but it was worth it.
A new company of recruits arrived today next to us in Charlie company and I saw them getting the piss smoked out of them. I wouldn’t go back to Day 1 for anything. I don’t know where that came from, but I just remembered that part. I’m running out of things to say now, but I’m sure more crazy and funny stories will be soon to come—they always do around here. So that is going to be it for tonight. I love you all, best wishes, and goodnight.
-PFC Zaleuke
Lol, oddly today when we hit the 3 mile point (we usually set our rucks down for about 10 mins and get in the prone position) they passed out fruit to everyone…I was like, “What the hell is this?” So when my Drill Sergeant came down the road and handed me an apple, I said, “Drill Sergeant, would you happen to have any kiwi or honey dew melon?” He just kept walking and said, “Zaleuke, it is way too early for me to be dealing with your shit!” Me: “Roger That.”
Yesterday and today we spent our day out in the field getting familiar with some bad ass weapons. I can now operate an AT-4 Rocket launcher, and also an M-203 grenade launcher. I got the chance to fire both of them, and it was so damn cool. The M-203 is an attachment that you can add to the M-16A2 and M4 rifles. We got to blow up some shit finally Lol. Monday we get to throw grenades and tomorrow we get to start learning about convoys and stuff. This is the time we are really going to start learning stuff that applies to my MOS.
I forgot to mention, we advanced to Blue Phase today! Last night we had to play some stupid games with Drill Sergeants, including a two mile run in ACU’s and boos (after we ate chow) so I threw it all up. As Ron Burgundy once said, “Milk was a bad choice!”. LOL, it wasn’t that bad though, it wasn’t like we were getting smoked but rather us getting recognized for reaching Blue phase. We are starting to be able to joke around more with the drill sergeants, we are getting called soldiers now instead of “cum dumpsters” Lol so that’s cool too. We all feel more like soldiers and very accomplished as well. Only three more weeks until we complete basic training and I’m so excited.
I got some mail yesterday from my sister, Sammy, and my father. My dad sent me a really cool letter and said some things that I think every kid needs to hear once in his or her life. Dad, that will be a letter I keep for the rest of my life. It meant a lot to me, thank you, you made me tear up infront of my buddies and also got me called a fag, LOL, but it was worth it.
A new company of recruits arrived today next to us in Charlie company and I saw them getting the piss smoked out of them. I wouldn’t go back to Day 1 for anything. I don’t know where that came from, but I just remembered that part. I’m running out of things to say now, but I’m sure more crazy and funny stories will be soon to come—they always do around here. So that is going to be it for tonight. I love you all, best wishes, and goodnight.
-PFC Zaleuke
Saturday, August 15, 2009
August 12th, 2009
These past few days have been Hell and I’m glad they are over. I’m gonna come out and say that I hate camping. Camping in Georgia actually because it is too much like Florida. That means it sucks. We left Monday morning and headed out to the field to do some more target practice before we qualified. When we were leaving to get on the busses we had our heavy ass ruck sacks with us. We have to “front load” them because it makes it easier to fit on a bus seat. Apparently our platoon was too slow doing something, so we had to play “get up, get down” over and over again with all of our shit on. What a great way to start out the morning! Monday was basically a huge blur because it was the same as every other hot and sweaty day. I pre-qualified with a mediocre score of 29, which is considered “Marksman”, one shot away from sharpshooter. We spent the night out in the woods, and we slept in the leaves on the ground. Surprisingly I was one of the few who didn’t wake up with spider or ant bites. It wasn’t that bad of a night though. Thomas was my battle buddy for the night so we stayed up talking about family, girls, etc.
Tuesday morning, we woke up at 4am and I had a good ‘ole dry-shave with a dull razor in the dark (sweet!) Breakfast was pretty good, and we got to get in about an hour nap afterwards too which was awesome. We spent most of the day in the shade awaiting our turn to qualify. One thing I was not told was that you can only get a high score on your first time shooting. For example: If I were to go out and shoot 15 out of 40 targets, they would make me go again. On my second try, if I were to shoot a 39 out of 40 targets, it would only count as 23 out of 40 (bare minimum to pass) because you did not do it on your first try. Luckily for me I did’nt have to worry about that. On my first, and only try, I shot 34/40 and fell short of Expert by only two targets. I’m slightly disappointed, only because I have been taught never to be satisfied with anything but perfection…but shit, ocme on! I qualified and I also met my goal of getting sharpshooter. They gave me a medal that is an Iron cross with a target in the middle which I already pinned in my Class A jacket. I was never worried about not qualifying but I’m pretty proud of myself for doing well.
The rest of the day, we got classes on how to creep up on people in the woods and slit their throats from behind, had lunch, and got smoked a few times for reasons that are still unknown to me, but by this point I just roll with it because its almost second nature. We got a bus ride home, got yelled at some, got mail (which was awesome) and ate chow and went to bed. I got a cool letter from my Dad which made me laugh, a sweet letter from my Mom that made me smile, a few cards, letters and pictures from my sister and niece Kelsey, and a funny ass letter from Daniel which I really really enjoyed (Jackass, you got me with that joke by the way lol) and Sammy sent me more of those plastic sheets for my binder (thank you by the way.)
Now today, Wednesday Aug 12th was cool as Hell, but got dampered by some unfortunate news. We got to go out on the field to take classes on the 50. Cal machine gun and the Mark 19 grenade launcher. Let me first say “Holy Shit!” and also “Yes, Yes, Yes!!” Lol, these two weapons kick so much ass its not even funny. I spent my day today shooting machine guns at old tanks and vehicles, tearing them to shit. What did you do?? Lol. I made some range cadre (Army guys who aren’t Drill Sergeants that help us out in the field) laugh today when they used me as an example for the 50. Cal. I sat down and they tried to start telling me what to do, and I cut them off and said, “I know what to do Sergeant… I play tons of Call of Duty 4 for Xbox and I rape on the 50. Cal…” in a slightly serious, slightly sarcastic tone. I love when I get the response, “Private… (deep breath)…(slight smirk)…”
Now I was saying earlier how our fun day was kind of ruined by some bad news. Our battle buddy, and brother, Private “H” passed away this morning due to complications with his condition. Apparently his parents made the final decision to pull the plug this morning around 8am. It really sucks around here right now, everyone is down and some are really torn up over the situation. If you think about it, we are spending 14 weeks together 24/7. We have all gotten pretty close to each other, and we are all we have to keep each other sane. When one of us dies, you can imagine that it will have some kind of effect on the platoon. Apparently we will be having a memorial service for him next week sometime that we will all be able to attend.
On a lighter note, the other night before we left, my friend Logan Thomas who I mentioned earlier woke me up to show me something cool. It was a note from his mother to him, and in her note she asks him if he knows a “Mike Zaleuke”. Apparently his mom found my blog online somehow and follows it. It really is a small world, lol. Out of all the blogs and people in the world! The funny thing is, Thomas is one of my closest friends here at basic training. He and I get along great and are constantly bullshitting around with each other. He is a major reason I am still mentally sane, lol. So, if you are reading this, Hello! LOL.
Okay, well that about wraps up my past few days. I qualified, did real good, I’m home safe resting on my ass, and I’m personally in a pretty good mood. Again, thank you for all of the letters, keep them coming, and I will continue to write. I love you guys.
-PFC Zaleuke
Tuesday morning, we woke up at 4am and I had a good ‘ole dry-shave with a dull razor in the dark (sweet!) Breakfast was pretty good, and we got to get in about an hour nap afterwards too which was awesome. We spent most of the day in the shade awaiting our turn to qualify. One thing I was not told was that you can only get a high score on your first time shooting. For example: If I were to go out and shoot 15 out of 40 targets, they would make me go again. On my second try, if I were to shoot a 39 out of 40 targets, it would only count as 23 out of 40 (bare minimum to pass) because you did not do it on your first try. Luckily for me I did’nt have to worry about that. On my first, and only try, I shot 34/40 and fell short of Expert by only two targets. I’m slightly disappointed, only because I have been taught never to be satisfied with anything but perfection…but shit, ocme on! I qualified and I also met my goal of getting sharpshooter. They gave me a medal that is an Iron cross with a target in the middle which I already pinned in my Class A jacket. I was never worried about not qualifying but I’m pretty proud of myself for doing well.
The rest of the day, we got classes on how to creep up on people in the woods and slit their throats from behind, had lunch, and got smoked a few times for reasons that are still unknown to me, but by this point I just roll with it because its almost second nature. We got a bus ride home, got yelled at some, got mail (which was awesome) and ate chow and went to bed. I got a cool letter from my Dad which made me laugh, a sweet letter from my Mom that made me smile, a few cards, letters and pictures from my sister and niece Kelsey, and a funny ass letter from Daniel which I really really enjoyed (Jackass, you got me with that joke by the way lol) and Sammy sent me more of those plastic sheets for my binder (thank you by the way.)
Now today, Wednesday Aug 12th was cool as Hell, but got dampered by some unfortunate news. We got to go out on the field to take classes on the 50. Cal machine gun and the Mark 19 grenade launcher. Let me first say “Holy Shit!” and also “Yes, Yes, Yes!!” Lol, these two weapons kick so much ass its not even funny. I spent my day today shooting machine guns at old tanks and vehicles, tearing them to shit. What did you do?? Lol. I made some range cadre (Army guys who aren’t Drill Sergeants that help us out in the field) laugh today when they used me as an example for the 50. Cal. I sat down and they tried to start telling me what to do, and I cut them off and said, “I know what to do Sergeant… I play tons of Call of Duty 4 for Xbox and I rape on the 50. Cal…” in a slightly serious, slightly sarcastic tone. I love when I get the response, “Private… (deep breath)…(slight smirk)…”
Now I was saying earlier how our fun day was kind of ruined by some bad news. Our battle buddy, and brother, Private “H” passed away this morning due to complications with his condition. Apparently his parents made the final decision to pull the plug this morning around 8am. It really sucks around here right now, everyone is down and some are really torn up over the situation. If you think about it, we are spending 14 weeks together 24/7. We have all gotten pretty close to each other, and we are all we have to keep each other sane. When one of us dies, you can imagine that it will have some kind of effect on the platoon. Apparently we will be having a memorial service for him next week sometime that we will all be able to attend.
On a lighter note, the other night before we left, my friend Logan Thomas who I mentioned earlier woke me up to show me something cool. It was a note from his mother to him, and in her note she asks him if he knows a “Mike Zaleuke”. Apparently his mom found my blog online somehow and follows it. It really is a small world, lol. Out of all the blogs and people in the world! The funny thing is, Thomas is one of my closest friends here at basic training. He and I get along great and are constantly bullshitting around with each other. He is a major reason I am still mentally sane, lol. So, if you are reading this, Hello! LOL.
Okay, well that about wraps up my past few days. I qualified, did real good, I’m home safe resting on my ass, and I’m personally in a pretty good mood. Again, thank you for all of the letters, keep them coming, and I will continue to write. I love you guys.
-PFC Zaleuke
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