March 22 Letter from John

Dear Mom/Blog,
Time to update everyone on the craziness that has been the last week of basic. So...last week, some soldiers in my bay decided to do something extremely mean to a soldier that is just a little strange. They gave him a "blanket party." This involves placing a blanket over the soldier while he is laying down to hold him down. Then they proceed to beat the crud out of him. Well, needless to say the drill sergeants found out and the next day we got smoked for almost two hours straight. We also lost all of our personal time all week. AND we lost all of our shower privileges. This meant that instead of the usual unlimited shower time (not really unlimited, but I take 10 minutes) we had literally 30 second showers, supervised by a drill sergeant. It went something like this..."Get in, rinse off, wash your face, armpits, genitals, your butt, your toes, your feet, get out!...GET THE HECK OUT! Let me tell you, that was fun. The next day we found out that because of the mistakes of four people, the entire company was sent back to the red phase. CRAP. We only had about three good days of white phase before the idiots screwed up, and surprise, surprise it's the same people who screw up all the time.
Over the next four days we continued the 30 second showers and no personal time. On the fifth day we had shown a little discipline through the week so we got our showers back. If all goes well we should be back to the white phase soon and then on to blue phase.
In other news, today was a laid back day. We had uniform issue today. We went to get our "high speed" PT uniform. (The same uniform the drill sergeants wear!) and our class A uniforms. You know, the fancy uniform. It is custom tailored, and let me tell you... I look good in that sucker.
Tomorrow night is the live fire night infiltration exercise. AKA "Nick at Night". We crawl along the ground while live rounds are fired over our heads. Dangerous, but necessary training for a soldier. Knowing that I only have four more weeks of Basic is encouraging. And really we only have two more weeks of actual training. Then comes Victory Forge, where we put everything we have learned into action for 7 days non-stop. And then graduation week we just clean and turn in equipment, and have a pizza party...I am so looking forward to having a Dr. Pepper and a slice of pizza.
Well, off to bed. Hope all is well with the real world. What's this I hear about fat kids being taken from their parents in England???
Love you!
John