Welcome to AIT! While I was on staff duty last night, that's what the drill sergeant told our company. I have now decided to also add the days we have to go! I'm so glad it's only a month. Now that I had staff duty and the morning to think, I have an awesome family (but I already knew that)! I had a great time with them, and even though our time was short, I greatly appreciated them coming (and bringing Brittney), and being able to spend nearly two full days with all of them. It always hurts to say goodbye (or see you later...a month later), but it's only because I love them so much and so I'm counting down the days I have left here until I get to go home for good (31 days until I see them at my turning blue ceremony and family day pass afterwards). Thank you again for making the 21 or so round trip to come see me, it was so great to be around family!
This morning we woke up at 0430 to turn in our linens and clean the bay. Everyone was moving slow, because for the first time we had a weekend where it felt like returning to work Monday morning. Even though I had two hours less sleep than everyone (being on staff duty), I popped right up (tired), ready to get this next month over with! At 0600, we were downstairs formed up, and went to PT. Today was actually chilly outside, and then it started to drizzle as we went out to PT. PT was agility group runs today, and I had been running in C group, but today I did about 3 miles with B group (7:30 mile pace). We were soaked with sweat and rain, because by the time we finished, it was a steady rain. We came back to the barracks, went up to our bay, and quickly changed into ACUs, before heading downstairs and to breakfast. Breakfast was quick, because we had to get back upstairs to get on our full battle rattle, form up downstairs again, and head out to today's training. For the training, it had stopped raining, so that was good news, but when we got there (about half a mile away), we knew what we would be doing. There were worn paths in the grass going from wooden barricades to wooden barricades. We then spent about two hours low crawling in teams to the first barricade, then high crawling to the second barricade. From there, we got up and ran and dove to the third (shouting, "I'm up, he sees me, I'm down"), and then commando crawled (held weapon by the handle aiming forward) to the last barricade. As we finished crawling to the different safety points, we had a class on limit of advance, which has two squads that flank each other and cover each other's side, while advancing. Then, you swipe through, and any enemies that were shot, we were shown how to properly check them for valuable information, as well as get out of the way if they have a grenade or other explosive. After our class was over, we marched back to the barracks and ate MREs in our formation area. After MREs, we went upstairs, took off our full battle rattle and ACU tops, and then cleaned our weapons (crawling around got a lot of sand on the outside of it). Around 1430, we went downstairs and got clean linens, then made our beds. Spence had caught the flu or something, and went to sick call this morning, and when we came back from PT this morning, he was packing his bag to stay at the infirmary. I then had to get his linens, too, so I made both of our bunks. The drill sergeant told us to make sure we had our rucks packed with the usual packing list, so this could be an indication of an upcoming ruck march tomorrow. After awhile, people started falling asleep, and so when our drill sergeant came out of his office, he decided to do a relay race to wake people up. First and second squad was on one side of the bay, while third and fourth squads were on the other. The relay race consisted of going over and crawling under every other bottom bunk in our rows. Being on the bottom bunk, my while bed was messed up and my sheets and blanket were on the floor. We won the relay, and so he said to stay awake! Mason came and helped me make my bed (which took about a third of the time). Afterwards, the duty day was over, and being AIT and no longer basic training, we had time (starting at 1630) to do what we wanted in the bay! This will be awesome if this is the case for the next two weeks before our FTX (field training exercise). I should have plenty of time to write and respond to letters. The only problem, that's also a lot of downtime, so I will just need to stay busy. A lot of guys brought back books from this weekend, so the guys read, took showers, did laundry, and wrote. Then, the unthinkable happened- someone kept their cell phone! Sigh. His excuse was he had too many things stolen, and when we turned them in, we placed them in bags and on top of a box outside of the drill sergeant's office. So anyway, one of those young, right out of high school guys took the phone, got mad he had it because of what happened in week three, and snapped the cell phone in half. He took it downstairs and put it in the amnesty box, and then we went to dinner. After dinner, the drill sergeant came in and asked for Dunbar (the kid who broke his phone). They went outside and apparently he told the drill sergeant he didn't do it. They came back inside and asked the platoon what happened. The drill sergeant told the platoon about what was in store if no one came forward, so Dunbar said he was the one who did it. The drill sergeant exploded and went on a rant about lying to the face of a drill sergeant and then took him with him to his office. This is just me talking, but people need to know to follow the rules and do is expected. I'm tired of these kids and their games. There's a good chance that he will be gone now, so as bad as the situation is for him, he was way out of line. Hopefully this doesn't cause the platoon to be punished for their stupidity, but we'll see. Our drill sergeant isn't on duty tonight, so we'll see what happens tomorrow. For the rest of the evening, there was some uneasy tension in the bay, which I made sure to stay out of. We had final formation at 2030 and received milk and mail (no letters tonight), and then I went upstairs and went to sleep. It sounds like we are bivouacking tomorrow, so hopefully this unusual cool weather lasts a little while!
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