March 8, 2009

Hey there!
I am finally receiving letters from you guys. We have a break coming up the last weekend in April. All the guys are going out to Columbus for steak and beer. We get our cell phones at that point too.

So Jones and I got to stick each other with IV's in first aide. We both did perfect. Not to worried at this point about needles due to the amount of shots and blood i've had taken since i got here. no joke!
I passed my written test for first aide as well. Over the the past 2 days we have been going over land navigation. That's where my colors start to shine here. ha ha. They sent 4 man teams into the woods by ourselves and told us to plot out 3 specific spots on a map and find at least 3 of them in 3 hours with just a compass and protractor. not to mention to get where we train, it's a 3 miles march with a full loaded pack sack on. I SWEAR to every direction you walk on sand hill here, no matter far you are somehow always walking uphill. It's CRAZY!

We start BRM Basic Rifle Marksmanship by the time you read this, and will get to do that for about 2 weeks really heavy. I will get to qualify for my M4 and I also get to shoot the 77lb. M19 fully auto granade launcher tomorrow!.

So about the snow here, it was crazy. Never seen so much rain the day before, snowed all day the next day. And since then it's been bright and sunny. The snow was a freak occurance and the whole state pretty much shut down I heard. I thought it was funny cause it melted once it hit the ground and was so light and fluffy but more misty air then anything . but it kept up inside for the day.. So no complaints.
By the way on the land course, I had to do it twice. Once in daytime, once in the dark not allowed to use a flashlight. That made things fairly interesting.
I think I am going car shopping the day after graduation. In airborne school and ranger indoctrination I will have use of laptops, cell phones, cars just like normal again. we even get weekends off while training. If I were married i could live in one of the many nice houses on base or off. But being single I will be living with probably 1 or 2 guys in the barracks which on post are like really nice apartments like city view quality from what i have seen marching around.
So army life after training seems like it will be really amazing.
About the car thing, we joke here that combat boots are my form of transport that we will ever need again. ha ha. I wish i was that hardcore.

We have already lost like 6 people due to injuries. Don't care how big and badass you think you are around here, you can always trip, roll your ankle, hurt your knees in a split second with all the rocks and hills around here. It's no good I tell you!.

I can't wait to get some mail from everyone. !
Corey