Smoked

Dear All,
Well, it’s another day and another fire guard shift. I only have duty from 2300 to 0000, so it’s not so bad. At least I can put together a few hours of sleep before our 0430 wake-up. Everything is still going well. I’m shaking my cold, so that’s a plus. The weather is still chilly overnight (our morning), but warms up in the afternoon. We’re so busy that the days are flying by. Today we were issued our gas masks (which means that day is coming soon), and had our first classroom instruction on land navigation. So far, I’m picking up all of the concepts really easily. The hardest thing for me has been learning not to think. I realized early on that, as a private in the Army, life is simple; too simple. And you only succeed if you do exactly what they say, and I mean literally. If they tell you that you are going to exit through a certain door and to open it, you are only supposed to open it. Don’t exit. You will do that when they tell you to.
Of course, not everyone has grasped that as firmly as I have, and our Platoon has been “smoked” plenty for it. The first 3-4 weeks are “Red Phase”, which is the soldier’s wake-up call to Army life. You have to be everywhere 10 minutes early, and follow specific rules….specifically. If you don’t (and by “you” I mean anyone in your Platoon), the Drill Sergeants are like (as they like to say) Milton Bradley and Parker Bros. combined they have games to keep us “entertained” all day. Needless to say, I’m getting in shape. There are 3 drill sergeants assigned to my Platoon. Acosta looks like the Hispanic Adam Sandler, Morrisette is the black version of Ivan Drago from Rocky IV, and Guerra is the “good cop”. They are fair, but they hold us to a high standard – which is good, and I’m looking forward to week 4 when they start peeling off the weak links.
I’ll write more again when we have the chance, but free time is limited. I almost got a phone call the other night…so stay tuned because I may be able to call home soon. I hope all is well at home. I heard the Steelers won – hopefully there were some good commercials.
Talk to you soon, Nick.