3/11/2007

Dear All,

We are now approaching the end of Week 3. Yesterday while we were on the range we had a surprise inspection from the 1^st Sgt. We passed, thank God, but not by much. Some other platoons were not so lucky. The end of week 3 is very significant for us: it marks the end of Red phase and the beginning of White Phase. Red Phase is Total Control, and in White Phase the platoon has more freedom. Some more personal time, we march ourselves to chow, showers longer than two minutes...there are a lot of advantages to moving to White Phase.

If we are allowed to, that is. If we don't have our act totally squared away, we could very well stay in Red Phase. For all of training. We could graduate under Red Phase. Our Drill Sergeants go home earlier in the day, back to their families, in White Phase. And even earlier in final Blue Phase. If they have to stick around under permanent Red Phase...well, it wouldn't be pretty.

Seeing as Sunday is reserved for cleaning and thus pretty boring, I think this is a good opportunity for a few more words on the guys in the platoon. I'll give a basic profile of the few I'm closest to.

My battle buddy, Mard, is a 29 year old OCS guy with a background in computer engineering. He has a wife and three kids, who he misses quite a bit, and wants to be a pilot. Mard has a reputation in our platoon for being a PT stud and generally the most squared-away guy here. There's little he doesn't get right the first time around. This makes him an ideal battle buddy. We never get each other in trouble, we sleep in the back of the Bay, and we are generally ignored. It's perfect. They just let us be.

Lewis, my bunk neighbor, is a 27 year old former chemicals marketer from Chicago. His job was to booze and schmooze, and he took a significant pay reduction to join the Army as an OCS candidate. He's generally squared away, but he has a tendency to desire leadership a little more aggressively than is ideal. This singled him out to the Drill Sergeants early on. He's usually on point, but his persona means he gets a lot of grief from the DSs, especially DS “M”. Just too many questions and too many instructions to other soldiers. Good guy, really. Just an ideal DS target. But they like him enough to give him responsibility as a Squad Leader. He thinks they're out to get him, but I think they're actually fostering his leadership. Tailoring it to the Army style. The man has potential.

Chong is an enlisted man in his mid-thirties. He's a Korean immigrant who earned his citizenship a few years ago. His wife, however, did not, and he joined the Army to earn it for her. If that doesn't work, he says, then he's requesting a duty station in South Korea so as to be near her. Really a fantastic story. He's quiet, reserved, with a good sense of humor and a keen sense of direction (he was on my Land Nav team). The extra tragedy is that he's been here in BCT for months. Last cycle he caught pneumonia nd was recycled here. He'll make it through with us. He's a good man and an able soldier. Sometimes I catch him sitting alone and staring off into space. “Wife-sick,” he explains. I'm sure he'll get to see her soon, one way or another. He deserves it.

Pittman is our problem guy. He's a good guy in general, but as I've explained earlier, he's found himself centered in the DSs' sights. He's here for the skills and the money; the Army is his escape from a dead-end job and no prospects of higher education. He has a tech-school degree as opposed to a high school diploma or a GED. His dream is to get through this successfully, return home, and marry his girlfriend. The Army is his key to everything.

It's just a pity he's so bad at it. In time, with effort, he'll be squared away. I fully expect to graduate with him. He just needs time and effort.

We have four seventeen-year-olds in our platoon. Their parents, with their consent of course, signed them away to the Federal Government. One was kicked out of high school for disciplinary problems (and he's a problem here). Another just disliked high school and dropped out to earn his GED at 16. Some of them are good at this, some of them are not. But they all need some time to mature. We all get so mad at them before we remember how young they are. It's easy to forget here. They are young in all respects, and I know BCT is changing them. They're almost growing up in front of us. Easterling and Dunn are our oldest. Dunn is 41 and Easterling is 40; both are older than our Drill Sergeants. Both are OCS. They're pretty quiet about themselves and their families, at least around me, so I don't know too much about them.

Johnson is a former police officer. Another of our guys worked as a contractor in Iraq for years before he decided that he'd rather serve the Army directly. We're a motley crew of men: we range from 17-41. 23 of us have bachelors degrees. Another three have associates. Our civilian annual earnings ranged from $0-110,000 annually. We have talkers and quiet folks, big and small, American, Mexican immigrants, Koreans immigrants, citizens of American protectorates like Guam and Puerto Rico. Cops and gang-members. We're truly a diverse group of men, in the Army for a hundred different reasons, struggling to function as one team. It's fascinating to be part of.

I wish I cold go further into more of these guys. I just don't know enough about them. Quidachay is from Guam and is in his mid-thirties with a wife and three kids. He's very large and originally got a lot of flack for it. But everyone immediately learned about the real Quidachay: the overweight man from Guam with the cheerful disposition is a warrior at heart. This guy takes it all in stride and pushes as hard as he can. Nobody expected him to run. He stays with us as long as he can, which is always much longer than we expect, and it practically kills him. Want push-ups? He's on the job. The man just has heart. Drill Sergeants have taken a great liking to him. Just yesterday morning, as I was about to lap him on the track, a DS running in formation with is platoon saw Quidachay and started shouting at his men. “Do you see this man?” he screamed, “I want this man in my Army! Look at him! He's huge! There's no way he can run, but he is, and he's pushing hard! Look at this man and then try to tell me that any of you have an excuse!” And as he passed Quidachay, “You! Fat body! You are an inspiration, soldier! You inspire me! Keep running! You show these men what determination looks like!”

They've also made him squad leader. They all respect him. It was amazing to watch. On Day 1, everyone from our junior DS to the Company Commander was on this guy and giving him grief. By Day 2, nobody dared insult him. A real success story.

But enough for now. There's more work to be done, and I'll have plenty to talk about tomorrow. We're all in good moods today, Red Phase is almost over, and things are looking up. It's a good Sunday. I hope the upcoming week will be goods; it'll make us or break us. I'll write soon.

-Jeremy