03/26/2007 Monday

Dear All,

Locked, cocked, and ready to rock for BRM week! I go to the qualification range on Thursday. I’ll qualify, but Expert looks a long way away. To be honest, even Sharpshooter (30 of 40 targets) might be a stretch. I’m not very good at this yet and I need more practice. Much more.

Right now I’m sitting at the CQ (company quarters) desk outside on duty. Mosquitoes are waging war on me, and the paper I’m writing on has some peeves of their mortal remains. They know to come here. There are two poor souls sitting here around the clock, so they basically have a free buffet. Don’t even have to work for it. And they’ve gone home and told friends, because every slap in the air we make takes out one or two of them. They’re that thick. I love my job.

I was unable to join the platoon for PT today because I—as well as five others—was selected to be in today’s “Duty Squad.” We go to the range or training area beforehand and set it up for the company, placing water cans, filling magazines with ammo, etc. It is not a punishment—it’s supposed to be a reward for individuals who don’t need more PT—but nobody really wants to do it. We like PT. I’ve been able to beg off so far because I want to improve my PT and would rather stay. But today I couldn’t escape. So we climbed into the Deuce and drove to the range. But first we had to stop at the water pump to fill up the giant Water Buffalo, a huge container of water on wheels, that follows us on training. I was closest ot the door of the truck so I got out to grab the big hose, hanging like the water hoses for steam trains, and direct it to the Water Buffalo. Seemed easy enough.. I unscrewed the top of the WB, held up the hose, secured myself…and then realized that I was totally unprepared for the volume of water that these hoses can push out. I went flying, it went flying—still on, of course—and DS “A” and the Duty Squad busted a guy laughing as I got an 0515 shower in full uniform. Cold water. Five gallons a second. Everywhere. I was invoking the names of every religious figure I could think of while I fumbles like a desperate idiot to regain control of the hose. DS “A” finally killed the water. I stood back up, drenched, and prepared to finish the job. Stand up, secure much more firmly, and…I go flying again. I was getting more angry than embarrassed so I somehow managed to jump and capture the hose and successfully held it down while the WB filled. It was a very cold morning. The sun finally came up and dried me off, but not before hours of silent shivering had passed. I. Love. My. Job. Of course the whole platoon got the story form the guys on duty squad, and DS “A” gave me some good-natured ribbing for it. I deserve it. I looked ridiculous, and all right, it probably was pretty funny. But not fun.

My battle buddy, Mard, at about the same time back in PT, somehow telepathically knew of my disaster and strove to publicly humiliate himself as well. Battle buddies stick together like that. The story, as I hear it, was tha the platoon was doing crab-walks down one side of the track and sprinting back. Mard had just stood up and was getting into his insanely fast stride when he tripped. The eyes of the entire company—minus duty squad—were on him. He was even mid-battle cry when he hit the sand, face first with no help from his arms, and crashed hard.

The entire company did a sympathy groan in unison. Mard called it his “sugar cookie,” and he just lay in this “sugar cookie” for a few seconds, trying to process when had just happened. And DS “S” called out in his customary form, “Soldier! We have chow in twenty minutes! Stop eating all that sand!” It’s sweet that he battle buddies both got humiliated today. Apart, but still somehow together. The battle buddy bond, I guess.

Otherwise the day was typical. Wake up. Shoot weapon. (Pardon me, fire weapon. Gotta get all this right.) Clean weapon. Clean Bay. Random PT/smokings. March. Chow. March. Clean. Sleep. I’d go into details, but I think you’ve all got the particulars by now.

Tomorrow is a platoon run. I love those. Somehow it feel liberating to hit the road and just start going, yelling cadence all the way and jumping like ninjas to avoid those deadly railroad tracks. They’re much m ore dangerous in the dark, you know. Because at 0500, for those of you unfamiliar with that hour, is typically very dark.

Anyway, I should have fun. And tomorrow is another day to improve my marksmanship. Go Army. In a way, sarcasm aside, I think I really do love my job. So far. We’ll se what the Officer Corps is like soon enough. But enough for tonight. Take care, sleep tight. See you at 0445.

-Jeremy