Easy day. Class on the "threat."
Old film. Not good. Class on
personal finances--how to balance
a check book! Cleaned weapons.
Played with my Claymore.
[Fiance] sent my term paper. [Private Charlie] thought
it was really good.
(Idaho state legislator)
finally talked to [fiance].
Her phone has been broken.
Very glad to talk to her.
New drills seem cool. We sounded
off well. I hate being "sick, lame, and
lazy" but I feel myself healing
already. Ordered to be in bed by
2100 hours. How unusual--wonder what's
up? [Fiance's] mail not getting through.
Oh God. I remember that film of Soviet soldiers jumping out of old BRDMs rather than their latest BMPs. Off the top of my head I could have provided a better lecture on the Soviet military threat. I wonder if this is actually the film that got me to start Russian goose-stepping through the barracks at night?
And after completing a year of grad school, I was getting a class on balancing a check book. Sometimes I really felt old there.
As a civilian, I never have the chance to ever write "played with my Claymore." Life is funny that way.
For some reason one of our guys who was a state legislator from Idaho wanted to see my paper on the Iran-Iraq War. I had my fiance send me a copy. I have no idea why he wanted to see it. He was a trip. Older than me and the word I associate with him is "Why?" Every single time he was told to do something by a drill sergeant, that word would come out of his mouth. Needless to say, the drills didn't like that. He's also the guy who tried to practice medicine on my back.
He was all right and a decent sort, but he fancied himself the barracks scrounger. I think he picked up anything loose so he'd be the one with the extras if troops needed something. Before the end of basic the drill sergeants went to the effort to bust him down in rank even though he'd get the rank back once out of basic training and he was back with his Idaho National Guard unit. That "why?" stuff really bugged them, apparently.
Having medication for my back and foot apparently was working out well. But having the opportunity to heal meant you had to pay the price of bringing up the rear of the formation with the others who were also on code and so not allowed to march with the company. That really did suck.
I can't place faces with the drill sergeants I thought were cool at this part of basic. I thought this was the goofy group, actually.
