End of week 4

18 Jul 10

Mom and Dad,

It was great finally talking with you on the phone yesterday.  Like I said, we were rewarded for our performances on the PFA, PI and WIT.  I ran a 9:48 for my mile and a half, or something like that, not sure of the official time yet.  I also SO’d by Personnel Inspection and Weapons Turnover Inspection, getting my hellweek off to a good start.   But, as always happens, the good is followed by the bad.  Our marching was off after the phone call and my fellow sticks (8 of us total) had trouble executing our moves perfectly.  So Chief threw our flags across the drill hall and beat us while the rest of the division hydrated.  Sometimes “one team, one fight” sucks, but oh well.

I’m taking charge of the sticks and having us practice in the compartment so we don’t look like a “hot bag of ass”.  Honestly I don’t think we were as bad as the RDCs think, people just need to concentrate more and anticipate.  If we don’t crush our drill inspection on Wed, boot camp is gonna be hellweek every day.  But I’ll be in amazing shape!

After our drill beat down, we returned to our compartment to find our racks destroyed. The RDCs threw everything around so we could rearrange it perfectly for our Zone inspection tomorrow.  And we have to wake up at 0400 again, which sucks.  On the bright side, we’ve got less than 3 weeks to go.  I can almost taste the Gino’s deep dish pizza.  And despite the constant put-downs, they revealed that we are actually first in our battle group, which includes all the divisions of the USS Triton and a few in the next ship over.  Clearly they don’t want us to get complacent.

Alright, time for my Hollywood shower (longer than 60 seconds).  I’ll be spending the rest of holiday routine helping people study seamanship.  Then we clean the compartment spotless for an hour, and then who knows.  I want some pics of Luke and Leia [Editors note: Luke and Leia are the two kittens Jackson’s parents just got).

Love Jackson