Home Stretch

25 Jul 10,   5-1 Hold Day

Mom and Dad,

I got a chance to read your letters today, and see the pics of the kittens.  I can’t believe how much they’ve grown!  They’ll be full grown tigers by the time I have leave.

We’ve started studying Damage Control (aka fire-fighting, etc), and Anti-terrorism.  These are the big sections for the final test.  We also had our PFA weigh in on Friday.  I’m 155 pounds, same as always but I think my body composition is better, because I’m much stronger and “defined”.  Some of my shipmates lost 20+ pounds.

This coming week we have our firefighting labs with live fire, which should be fun.  Yesterday was Saturday, a day which I used to enjoy but now I dread.  Since it’s a “hold” day, we don’t learn anything new, which means we have more time to screw up and get beat.   Going to Freedom Hall for PT we really screwed up our marching, so right before bed we got beat for almost an hour, so we had to sleep all cold and sweaty. Hopefully people will pull it together for this final stretch. 

This week we’ll also have our last personnel inspection (PI), this time in our dress uniforms (dress blues/whites and NSUs).  I have become an expert at folding my dress uni’s and I’m getting pretty good at the square knot for my neckerchief. 

We received our National Defense Medals and ribbons, and tomorrow we get our collar devices and patches (E-3 for me) for our dress uniforms.  It’s for inspection only though; I’m still nothing (as the RDCs reminded us).  I’m hoping this week breezes by, we are so close!

Next Tuesday is test 3 and Battle Stations, after which it’s smooth sailing until graduation on the 6th. 
Everyone around me is dying of the flu or some “ricky crud” (or “AIDS” as the RDCs like to call it), but I am feeling healthy as an ox. 

Time for my Hollywood shower, dress shoe shining and study sessions.  Hopefully I’ll have exciting fire fighting updates this week!

Love Jackson

…. Bonus Letter ….

So we had lunch at 1110, which means I still have an hour of holiday routine left.  My dress shoes look sharp, I disinfected my locker, and I held a study session on anti-terrorism and Force Protection.  Everyone here is totally focused on graduating.  Wearing our dress uniforms for PI is such a tease, but it’ll be good when I can finally wear that and call myself a United States Sailor.

Despite “beatings” and being treated like poo in general, I’m happy I made this decision and proud of how I’ve handled boot camp.  So far I’ve accomplished the challenge, and it’s exciting to think that the journey is just beginning.  Rumors are already starting to whirl about A-School.  Word on the street is that HMDA school doesn’t start until the 23rd.  The RDCs have us until Aug 10, then those of us who have to wait for A-school move to ship 5 in the meantime. Sort of like a transition between Hell and Heaven. 

I’ve heard they let you watch movies and relax a little bit over there; after all we’ll be sailors by then.  But the idea of 2 weeks of nothing to learn (and probably  lots of cleaning) does not appeal to me. This would put my graduation at January 23rd, 2011.  Probably a very frigid graduation.  Hopefully I’ll know more for certain in the coming weeks.

In other news, my bunkmate has a respiratory tract infection, and this past week we had a shipmate get ASMO’d 2 weeks [Editor’s note: ASMO == Assignment Orders, where you get “sent back” in boot camp].  The shipmate was caught passing notes to a girl at medical, so they sent him back in training to week 2 and obviously to another division.  Yes, if you break the rules they WILL ruin your life.  He was a good shipmate too, but we know not to interact at all with females, so he made a really pointless mistake.  Also, the females have just as much time to shower as us, so any recruit dumb enough to want to hook up with one is asking for it.

While I have the time, I’ll tell you more about my division.  Chief Alex is a Gunner’s Mate (GM) who’s served mainly on destroyers.  GM == bad ass with guns, from pistols to ship turrets.  Next is petty officer Carlyle, who is an Air Rescue swimmer.  He’s bald, in intimidating shape, and is scary when he’s angry (often).  But he’s cool and committed to making us good sailors.  Then there’s AC1 Neifer, who’s an air traffic controlman, and AO1 McCormack, and aviation ordanceman.  A diverse group of good role models, but when pissed they can all bring the hurt.

Being the EPO (Educational Petty Officer) I’ve become familiar with every single person in the division.  90% of them try their best and work hard, but the bad seeds really bring us down sometimes.  Most of the guys I hang out with are Nukes, aka the “smart” guys.  There are a LOT of corpsmen, like 20 or so here, with 4 or 5 of us being HMDA. 

RDC nicknames have stuck since P-days.  We have Dirty, Creepy, K-Fed, Stretch, No-Neck, Nancy, Slowpez, etc.   Luckily I didn’t screw up enough in P-days to get a nickname.  Now I’m usually just referred to as EOP, or “Dehn you douche bag” or some other expletive.  We’re so used to it that it’s funny, but laugh too much and you’ll be doing 8 count body builders.

I’ve become so accustomed to boot camp life, I seriously won’t know what to do what I can once again control my day.  It’ll be like a Borg being separated from the collective! 

More to come later.  Also, I’m gonna want some deep dish Chicago pizza, and an milkshake!  Start researching awesome places to eat in Chicago!

Love again, Jackson