New sergeants. Went on
sick call. Pills for back.
Code U--no ruck. Infected
toe--ointment + bandages.
Said I could have gone to
hospital for toe if I had waited.
Bitched at before going. Missed
training and gas chamber.
New sergeants seem OK.
Not Day 1 but everyone tense
just in case. Fire Guard
2300-0100. Will probably
sleep 4 hours tonight.
Letter from dad today. He's
worried about wedding. Must
talk to [fiance] about it. No luck
with phone today. Maybe we
can use them Saturday. Rumor
of 5 hour pass Sunday IF we're
cool. Hospital relaxing. Don't
want to go on sick call again.
Read USA Today, saw a little
TV news.
Well, I did it. And if you thought I was being a weenie for all my journal recordings of constant pain, I was justified. They even sent me to the base hospital for treatment. My foot really could have derailed my training and forced me to miss enough to be recycled for training. I missed the gas chamber, but as I think I noted earlier, that didn't seem to matter. When I was in the Guard I managed to keep my calm and use my mask when there was an unexpected release of tear gas that sent a large crowd of troops running away from the rolling cloud even though they too had protective masks on their hip!
Yet the new drill sergeants berated me for going in the first place. I don't know what the doctors gave me for my back but they also instructed that I not carry a ruck sack for a while. So I assume it wasn't a placebo.
Given that I probably didn't want to go on sick call with new drill sergeants to give them a bad impression of me, I'm glad I did anyway. And on the bright side, these new guys apparently didn't need to clamp down on us hard as part of their training, so I had that going for me.
And I had to deal with wedding issues. My dad was concerned that I wasn't getting married in a Catholic church. I really didn't have time to deal with that. Eventually, after I got back home, I got an official Papal okey dokey prior to the wedding that was enough to get my dad to the wedding if not to be particularly happy about it.
But on the whole, ducking wedding planning by being isolated in southern Missouri was one of the best calls I've ever made in my life.
There must not have been much news in the world of note since I didn't mention anything.
The hospital, I'll note, was a clean and calm place a world away from basic training. I didn't have to sing out cadence at all. It was like freaking Club Med.
