01/13/10 to 01/23/10

Day 1: 1/13/10 WED
I am now cruising 30,000 ft heading to the suck. I have a layover in Atlanta and the n to Columbia, SC. After that, I am not sure. There is an in-flight movie on, The Informant. I might watch it.

Ok so The Informant was ok. I dozed off a couple of times throughout the movie. But, unlike at home where one falls asleep during a movie and stays asleep, I would wake up cause sleeping on planes doesn’t quite work for me. I don’t know why I am writing about this, perhaps it is a way for me to relieve the anxiety I am slowly starting to feel for the upcoming 10 weeks. I should probably study my Smart Book a bit so I will be better prepared for my first encounter with Drill Sergeants (DS from here on out). I still have the Soldiers Creed, Army Values, General Orders, and Photonic Alphabet memorized, which will help out.

So now we land and go to the reception area in the airport to call for our ride. It takes about an hour to arrive. When it does we load up and head off to 10 weeks of poop-ville. The whole bus ride over the anticipation of DS coming on the bus and yelling starts to build. It takes about 20-25 mins to get to the base from the airport. Once we hit the compound it was another 10-15 mins driving around. I swear they do this on purpose to build up that anticipation and then BAM! we become maggots. Well, we finally pull I to our stop, a sergeant, not a DS, but a sergeant calmly gets on, tells us to line up and gets off. Oh, ok. Where is the yelling and scaring us all turd-less? Talk about a letdown. Well maybe once we are standing in formation they will come. Uh, nope. We are blessed with the original sergeant and PFC. Well ok, this is reception after all. All that poopyness will probably come when we get to the base. So patience Vinnie.

After standing outside for like 10 mins we are shuffled into a room where we receive Smart Book, a bottle of hand sanitizer (which we are to have on our person at all times), another book that the DS’s use to teach us out of, and a couple of cards. We are assigned out company, squad, and roster number: B049-70. That means Bravo Company, 70th platoon, roster number 049. It is very important I remember this because that is how we will be identified. And true to word, so far everything they have done the next day has been by calling out our roster numbers.

Anyways, after that briefing and company assignments, we went to a different room with a rubber mat and stood at parade rest while a DS gave us a briefing on a lot of stuff: respect, sexual harassment, standing at attention and parade rest, more respect, and some other stuff. Then we went and picked up our PT uniforms. Our platoon is 60 soldiers large so doing anything takes awhile. Especially since we are all noobs right now. With that said, I am amazed at how hard it is for people to follow directions. We are told not to talk, what do people do? Talk. We are told to change into PT gear and tuck in our shirts in, what do people do? Leave their shirts untucked. We are told to move quickly, what happens? People lolly-gag around. Really is amazing.

After we get back from PT issue, we start going through our personal bags and sorting out what we get to keep and what not to keep. The funny thing about this is some of the stupid things other soldiers ask if it’s ok to keep. For example the DS says any electronic devices minus your cell phone, needs to be put in your personal. Oh, real quick, at this point we have our civilian bag and a laundry bag that was issues to us with our PT gear. So now we have everything dumped out and sorting though it the stuff we don’t need like civilian clothes will go back in our personal bag while the legit stuff goes in our laundry bag. So a DS will tell us what is legit and what isn’t. so if he says all electronic devise minus cell phone and charger goes in our personal cause it isn’t approved. Pretty simple, right? Not really apparently. One soldier asks, “what about Bluetooth headsets?” You kidding me? Another soldier asks, “what about electric shaver?” Well the DS made sure to make fun of these two.

So we did that for awhile and then had chow. I think at this point it is like 23:15 or so. Yeah, long day. I finally go to sleep thinking, “what did I get myself into?”

Day 2: 1/14/10
So I haven’t been able to keep up on this writing thing. Reception doesn’t give you a whole log of personal time. Any personal time we are offered usually gets eaten up by slow Derpy Derp Privates. Already in reception they are stressing team work unity, ect. Some soldiers just don’t get it. But I know I wont be with tem all at basic. So I just ride it out.

Today I was made platoon guide of our platoon. We have 60 soldier in our platoon yea, this should be fun.

It is kind of annoying being a platoon guide because now all of a sudden I have all the answers. After getting out clothing issued to us, we were given a task to stencil our names on our duffel bag, go in the barracks, change into our ACU’s, put the clothes back in the duffel bag, and get outside. Plus we had to have certain items in our pockets. Once we were released, all freaking crap broke loose. Privates everywhere stenciling their duffel, but the worst part was when we were changing. I was fielding questions from every angle. And it was questions I didn’t know the answers to. Even when I gave them an answer, they would hear something else form another soldier and come back and ask the same question. Yes, very annoying.

Day 3: 1/15/10

I’m not gonna talk about much, well maybe I will. Found out we are shipping to basic early cause Monday is Martin Luther King Day so all the civilians want it off. So it they don’t get us through reception, then they have to work. This we found out yesterday. Even knowing that we still hurry up and wait. What it has done though is made us stay up longer and wake up early. Wake up call was 4:30 each morning so far. The night before I didn’t get to bet till about 00:00 maybe. So I had a massive headache the next day. Plus I think, but not sure that my energy drink consumption is finally getting to me. I would drink one everyday now I haven’t had one for several days. So my body is wanting some caffeine. Guess I will have to deal with it.

So on our last day in reception we were supposed to get up early, 4:00, and clean and get out in formation. And well of course our platoon is a bunch of retards so we didn’t get out on time which resulted in my platoon plus two others getting smoked at like 4:30 in the morning. It sucks, but welcome to the Army. Had to do overhead arm claps, military press, flutter kicks, and pushups.

After some chow we get our shots: 6 all together. I even got the H1N1 vaccine, sweet. Not that I was worried about catching it, but still cool. After shots we get our graduation pics taken. That was pretty sweet cause that means when I graduate, this is my pic.

The NCO’s were pretty chill today while we were waiting for everyone else to finish up. They were joking around and then told us to sing the Army song and were playing around with it: the females sing one part and the males sing the other. Pretty fun.

After some chow we wait around a lot, clean the barracks again, wait some more, then the meat wagons show up to take us across the base to basic training. This is when the butterflies start fluttering in the stomach a little bit. Not too bad though our duffel bags were loaded up earlier so on the bus we had our laundry bag stuffed with personal items and my personal bag. So it was bulky, awkward, and heavy. Well once we arrive a DS jumps on the bus, tells us to run to this area and splits us up in our platoons. So here are all these soldiers running down the sidewalk carrying all our stuff and the yelling starts. Some soldiers are still pulling a carry on so they get yelled at to pick it up and carry it. That sucks.

So now here are all these soldiers holding their junk standing in formation and if you move, you will have a DS or two in your face. They scream, “I didn’t tell you to bring anything, so you have to hold it!” there were 16 DS’s in this area; 4 for each platoon, so four platoons. We probably held our bags for 10-15 mins. That doesn’t sound like much, but when your bag is bulky and weighs probably 50-60 lbs, it gets heavy. Finally we are allowed to drop them, but since we didn’t snap back to attention, we had to try again. Several times we drop our personal stuff and pick it back up. Fun.

After the DS’s are satisfied we get a quick briefing by the 1st SGT and then the company captain. Then up to our barracks where we pick a bunk, throw our personal bag(s) on the bunk, run back downstairs to find our duffel bag, which is hard to do since they are all stacked in a big pile by platoons. We are trying to find our duffel bags when a DS yells at us, “you are staying in the same barrack, grab a bag and move!” So all of us male soldiers grab random duffle bags and head upstairs. We dropped the duffels on our bunks and yes, I grabbed the wrong one. Then it hits me, “oh crap! There were female bags there too.” I sure hope I didn’t grab one and vice versa. Well, I did. Grabbed a females’. No big deal hopefully some other soldier in my bay grabbed my duffel. Nope. So my duffel is in the female bay and it’s bag inspect time. We had to dump everything out so the DS’s could go through our crap to pick out the contraband. Pretty much everyone had cell phones so those went in a brown manila envelope, all our civilian crap in our personal bag and locked up never to be seen again till I leave. So I am thinking I am going to get smoked cause of the duffel mishap, but I didn’t, just made fun of.

Shortly after the whole dumping our crap on the floor and getting smoked for taking too long to do so, we did a…what they called it, I can’t remember. But, what it is, is that all 30 of us line up at the shower and we all showered in 5 mins. The fun thing about that was the butt freaking cold water. So we line up in front of a shower head, skip into cold blasting water, rub soap on the 3 most important body areas and rinse off. We did it in 7 mins 44 seconds. Supposedly a new record. Yup, welcome to the Army.

A lot of stuff that goes on here in basic is head games. Like the shower thing, we won’t do that every night, so no need to stress over that. All the yelling, easy. My dad yelled at me enough growing up that it doesn’t do much. Well it does cause I don’t want to get yelled at, but mostly they do it so we will move at a high rate of speed.

Day 5: 1/21/10 2:33am

Right now I am on fireguard and writing…like this is a big no-no. oh well. It is hard to find time to write a daily journal about all the stuff going on and send letters out at the same time. Only sent three letters out so far. Those who are reading this feel free to write me. I may not get a letter to you, but I sure would love to hear from everyone. My address is:
SPC Vince Dilworth
F Co 1-13th INF REGT
1st PLT “Ruff Riders”
Fort Jackson, SC 29207

So please write! On Sunday we were issued a bunch of gear. We don’t keep it, just ued is at basic. We got a ruck sack, flak vest, helmet, vest with magazine pouches, grenade holders and canteen pouches, along with canteens, a sleeping mat, magazines, wet weather gear and I think that’s about it. Well tomorrow we are heading to Victory Tower for some repelling down a 40’ wall and we are marching there. This means we are carrying our ruck sack with some other stuff like the vest with all the magazine clips and grenade pouches attached. Shouldn’t be too bad. I think it is like 2-3 miles away. We will see. Oh yeah, on Tuesday we were issued our M-16’s as well. That was pretty exciting. The Army is very serious when it comes to issuing out weapons. They definitely don’t take it lightly we attach these things called BFA’s (blank firing adaptors) and a three point sling. That was a pain to assemble. But that enables us to sling our weapon and pull up a secondary if needed. Now everywhere we go, we have to carry these things. It’s kind of annoying, but they are getting us used to the fact that it is our baby. This is what will save our lives. And yes, we do have to sleep with it. We eat with it. Go to church with it. We don’t shower with it or use the latrine with it, but other than that, we have it.

Day 6: 1/22/10 Friday

I am sitting in a class right now trying to stay awake. It is pretty tough. Sitting in a classroom with lack of sleep and staying awake is tough. The DS from the four platoons walk around eye balling people for sleepers. They tell us if we are feeling sleepy, stand up and go to the back. I haven’t stood up yet, even at my worse, but it is hard. Especially after eating chow and then sitting down. Ugh, very tough.

Anyway, yesterday we hiked out to Victory Tower. We left at like 07:00 for the hike. We were carrying our ACH (helmet), FLS vest (which is the vest with magazine clips, grenade bags and two canteens), plus our ruck sack. Oh, and our M16. It was raining so that was fun. It turned out to be 2.8 miles to Victory Tower. We marched in tactical formation. The boots I wear have been giving me hot spots on my heels. My right heel has a small blister on it. I have been wearing two socks and mole skin whenever I wear my boots. It helps. It is hard for me not to pop them, but I won’t. There are some soldiers who have to wear their PT shoes cause their feet are all effed up. They even had to wear them during the march. It is mostly girls. Them and their precious little pitties.

Once at Victory Tower we were told we would not be doing this today cause of the rain. It looks pretty fun. It is a 40 foot tower with multiple obstacles. It is a steel tower which becomes slick with the rain. So we marched back.

On the way back there was a female soldier who wanted to quit cause her back “hurt.” Well DS Byles (short black bad ass DS for our platoon) wouldn’t let her quit. She kept whining and moaning and he would say, “shut up private!” Pretty funny. He wouldn’t let her quit. And you know what? Sh made it…barely. These ruck sacks probably weighed 25-30 lbs plus our FLS vest, another 10-15 lbs, mostly water in the canteens. And our 8 lb M16. Not a whole lot of weight but her back was a “pain level 30!”

After the march we had chow and then we had a class on dis-assembly and assembly. Was 1:54 I believe. I think I was like the 3rd or 4th fastest. The winner got a five minute phone call home. Some soldier who was in the ROTC and played with M16’s before.

Speaking of phone calls, some of us had our cell phones given back to make our quick “I am in basic and I am safe” call. I tried calling Amy first, but no answer, Probably working (sad face). Tried to call the parentals, no answer. So I called Abe, he answered. It seems like we won’t be able to use our cell phones other than that while here. Oh well, probably better off that way. Get a little homesick talk to people I will get.

Going off on a different subject now. Our wall lockers are supposed to have locks on them and lock. If they aren’t locked when we leave, the DS’s will trash your crap. If your bed isn’t made, it’s tossed. So far there have been like 5-6 lockers tossed. Four of them they just tip the locker over and crap goes everywhere. On soldier yesterday had his crap thrown everywhere. He was pissed. Well this morning it happened to him again. Several bunks were tossed. None of my stuff has been tossed yet: discipline.

Today we had our graduation pictures. It’s a sweet feeling but at the same time it is a big letdown cause we still have 8 weeks left.

Day 7: 1/23/10

Yesterday DS James, our platoon DS, told us we have to perform the community shower like from here on out cause some boner soldier hasn’t showered in like 5 days. So last night during personal time the DS comes in and lines us up. Then he calls the one solder up front and makes him go in the shower by himself and start showering. Then he told us we didn’t have to do the shower thing. He more or less did that so the solder growing frum-unda-cheese would be clean.

Found out last night that we start BRU (or BRM-I can’t tell what he wrote) next week and we will do the gas chamber as well. This morning we did a run. I am in group D there are A,B,C, and D groups for running. So A is the fastest and Dis the slowest. I am on the edge of moving up to B. I will be in that category shortly.

Today we did some combatives. Pretty much a little Brazilian ju-jitsu. It’s amazing how uncoordinated some people are. They stick out like a sore thumb.

Right now we are in class learning about our as masks. I have worn these before for work, so it’s really not new to me. I’m really not too worried about the gas chamber. Sure there will be snot and saliva everywhere, but not much I can do about it.

Two soldiers were yelled at for “fraternizing.” One soldier started arguing a bit with the DS. They separated them and the girl isn’t too happy cause she is feeling picked on. She was the one that started crying a few days ago too. She has attitude. I won’t be surprised if she gets recycled. Our PG sucks too. She doesn’t know what she is doing. It is really annoying too. She has attitude as well. So she will cop this attitude when she tries to order us around. We need a new PG.

So far we haven’t been smoked a whole lot. Guess they don’t do that much anymore. Guess the Army is moving to a little softer side. So really the DS yells a lot. You really have to piss them off: not do what they say, ect to get smoked. We were even told we have to do PT on our won otherwise we won’t graduate. So really basic isn’t too bad so far. Yet some people struggle.

Day 0 1/12/10

Day 0 1/12/10 Tues MEPS

Get a wakeup call at 04:45, not bad. I actually was able to sleep a little but whenever the heater would kick on I would start roasting so I kick some covers off. Then the heater would turn off so then I would get all cold. I never could find the happy medium. I was close with sticking the one foot out but later that would prove useless.

Anyways, wake up, grab a quick breakfast, then roll call in the lobby, then load up on the bus and hauled to MEPS. This place sucks, there is no other way to describe this place. There is a lot of waiting and doing nothing. Plus a lot of the civilians that work here treat everyone like garbage. But it is a necessary evil if you want to enlist. This if my 5th time at MEPS too, very poopy. The 1st time was for the ASVAB, that wasn’t too bad. The 2nd was for my physical, which I failed my urine test because of too much protein. 3rd time was to urinate in a cup again. 4th time was to ship, but because I sprained my ankle the week before I did not ship. 5th time is now. So here I am waiting till like 1300 or 1400 to take a bus back to the hotel. If anyone is ever thinking about joining the military, come to MEPS. Granted basic training will be worse, but this is a good introductory taste.

So we got here about 05:55 and had to weigh and height measured. I am 68.5” and weigh 195. I had to be taped which means I weigh too much for my height. Had my neck and waist measured which results in 22% body fat. 26% is the limit. Once that was all done it is sit and wait time.

At 10:00 we had lunch. At lunch, there is some disgruntled fat guy standing behind a counter giving out sandwiches. You can tell this guy doesn’t want to be here but he can’t get any other job so he does this and makes probably $8 an hour and takes out his frustration on us by yelling, “FIND YOR NAME ON THE LIST AND SIGN IT!” Then he asks you, “turkey, ham, roast beef?...mayonnaise?” And he talks so quick that you can’t understand him, “lettucetomatoespicklesgreenpepperscucumbers?” “Yes,” is what I answer. He definitely is not happy.

There is this nurse guy who works here. He is probably 6’ and weighs 350-400 lbs. just a big fatty. He has the bi jelly front that hangs down to his knees, pretty nasty. Anyways, a bunch of us are in line in this hallway and he needs to get through the door, which he can’t cause he’s a fatty, so he yells, “make a hole!” Yup, make a hole indeed. In fact let’s make another doorway for you tubby.

Then later as I’m sitting, waiting, again he walks across the room with peoples’ medical records in one hand and a candy bar in the other. Then he starts flipping through the records. Nice. Gets chocolate on those papers. Pretty sweet seeing stuff like that.

So now it’s 11:25 and I am waiting. UGH! Oh well, I should probably be enjoying it while I can. Once basic comes it will be non-stop go. And we do have TV’s here and arcade games to keep us entertained. I know reception won’t have that. Plus we will have to stand. So enjoy the couches while I can I guess.

Well it’s 12:15, still sitting in the same spot. I went to the bathroom to take a leak and while I was ther I checked my cell phone for messages. We are not allowed to use them while we are here, but they can’t see me when I am in the latrine. My roommate last night told me how he made the mistake of pullig his cell phone out and then promptly got his butt chewed. So here I sit, bored, watching “the George Lopez Show” Lou Diamond Philis is a guest on the show today. Very bored right now I am.
I move back to the ARNG Liason office where some other guys are watching Ultimate Knockouts on Spike. Much better than that crap on the other TV.

I am maybe back there for 30 minutes when we get the call to leave MEPS with our flight info. They hand us this brown manila envelope stuffed full of stuff and tell us not to loose this otherwise we will be stuck in reception for 6-8 weeks while they make another one. I am guessing it has all our personnel info inside. I will be holding on to this envelope very tightly.

We take a cab back to the hotel and arrive just before 14:00. We are given the freedom to leave but have to be back by 20:00 for another meeting thing. I text Russ to see if he can come hang out, pick me up and go somewhere. Not till 17:00 he says cause he is working. So in the mean time I play Call of Duty 4 again where I proceed to beat the living crap outta the other guys. Pretty fun it is.

Russ shows up at 17:30 and we head to the Gateway and eat at Costa Vida. Good stuff. We walk around for a bit and talk before he takes me back. It was nice to do that. Especially considering the punk stood me up on Sunday for family dinner. That last dinner together with the fam.

Back at the hotel I am watching TV till 20:00, go to the meeting to arrange travel to the airport. My flight doesn’t leave till 08:30 the next day, which equals sleep in time for about 45 minutes. After the meeting a couple more games, back to the room, watching some TV. Talk to Nate, Virg, and Amy again. Then off to bed

Life at Basic

DAY 1 (1/11/10):
Two hours before reporting to the hotel I received a call from my NCO's wanting to know why I wasn't at drill on Sat, Sun. I did not attend and didn't let anyone know either. My reason for not going well, is cause I didn't want to since I was leaving for Basic. It's a piss poor excuse, but that's the reason. I was informed that I was technically AWOL and it's a criminal offense and that I could loose a rank and in general it's not fun. Part of me suspected that not going to drill was a big NO-No, but I was more worried about getting stuff at home done. Error in judgement on my part.

Amy has dropped me off now and I'm sitting in my room with my roomie for the night. He is swearing in tomorrow. He seems like a good kid. No complaints. But then again I will only be in the same room as him for a night.

There isn't a whole lot to do at the hotel. We have a briefing at 20:00 and that's about it. The hotel does a game room with an Xbox so some of us went and played Call of Duty 4. It's funny how a lot of these guys will talk about how they play online with there friends and how they have a clan and blah blah blah, but once we get playing, I freaking mop the floor with them. It's definitely a fun feeling.

Pretty much that was the evening. We played video games, had a quick brief meeting, watched some TV, bought a chocolate milk and granola bar for $4, called Amy and went to bed. Fun!

ADDRESS AT BASIC

SPC VINCE DILWORTH
F CO 1-13TH INFANTRY REGT
1ST PLT "RUFF RIDERS"
FORT JACKSON, SC 29207

Basic Training - Round Two

On the 11th of January I will head to the hotel in preparation for basic training, again. The first time around back in October I sprained my ankle a week before shipping which prevented me from attending basic training. I had to get a doctors approval before a new ship date was secured for me. Now that it is upon me, I kind of have this nervous excitement going on. Part of it is "Am I really doing this?" sort of a thing. I feel like I will do fine. I have attended several drills here with the Recruitment Sustainment Program and have learned a lot. I have been doing some conditioning, but not as much as I should in all honesty. Running will be my weak point, which I have been doing, but still feel like I will suck at it. Oh well, guess we will see what happens.

While I am at basic, I am going to try and keep a daily journal and send home weekly updates to Amy who in turn will post them here on my blog. That will give friends and family something to read about. Should be fun to read. Amy is going to be one of my main points of contact, so if anyone wants to write me while I am at basic, get a hold of her. And please write!! I imagine it will be like a mission somewhat, where getting letters from friends and family is the greatest thing. Here is her number: 801-616-7437. Well, thats about it for now. Gotta get to bed so I can get up early and get a few more things done before I report to the hotel tomorrow afternoon. Wish me luck. See you all and hear from you all in 10 weeks.