Lots of first aid classes, 4 marches (short), PT in the mud, etc. At the first aid classes they had us do three types of carrying in a relay race out in a muddy field. My partner, Reed, weighs 234 lbs. I could barely lift him, the fireman carry was impossible for me. Had a leisurely dinner for once, despite almost always being near the end. Left my ruck sack on the floor and the DSs stoll it. Happened to a bunch of people, oh well. Going to clean my boots now.

Everybody is getting pink eye, I really hope I don't get it. Still have a cough which sucks enough. The marching we did today wore me out. Tomorrow seems to be all classes, I hope they're platton and not company level. It's so hard to stay awake in class.

My cold/allergies are bugging me bad. Dust makes me choke up, I hate that.

2156: Just got out of the shower. Almost went to the pit for leaving gear unsecure. Did PT inside and it actually improved morale for the most part. No FG tonight, woohoo!

DS Maximus is looking over the sick call forms: knee pain, back pain, pink eye, heat injury, back pain, and so forth.

Had homework on the 5th, wrei three times each: Soldier's Creed, General Orders, and the M4 Cheat Sheet. DS Maximus just went to the orderly room to do a security check. Dollman, my CQ partner is off finding a bookman who didn't fill out a sick call form properly or something.

0026: TIme is dragging.

0032: Had to bring the sick call status sheets upstairs to DS Maximus.

At the CQ desk now. Have to answer the phone, make sure fire guard does their thing, call the on duty DS if there are any problems, etc. This is going to be a long hour.

Today sucked, marched with our kevlars, LBVs, ruck sacks (inside: wet weather gear, poncho, pro mask, ACUs, socks, underwear, cold weather boots) a mile to Palma hall. Had first aid and evaluating a casualty. Then we marched to lunch with all the same gear. Told we would march back at 1240. Everybody was there at least 5 minutes early. THe DS' didn't show up for another 10 minutes. Of course they blame us.

After more first aid we did the 3km road march that was cancelled on Saturday. My calves are killing me. It was hard. Then tonight we had to do the "change clothes 5 times in extremely short periods of time" drill. At least no pit! This has been one of the roughest days yet. On the plus side, I got a letter from Mom.

Got CQ at midnight, hungry again, will definately have to learn to eat faster.

Thomas got into a conforntation with another private. No blows or anything, but that's the third private he's pissed off. He threw a snowball at me and it hit Dougherty ealier and Doc almost took it to him, he was really mad. I had dropped a piece of ice down Thomas' shirt earlier and laughed my ass off. I got Palazzo witha cold shower the other day too.

They're letting us use the phone and watch the superbowl. Reed went down stairs to use the phone alone and 1st Platoon wrapped him in duct tape. He hopped up 3 floors to get assistance. ROFL.

I'm a basketball baby
And I'm bouncing down the line
(repeat both lines)
So you better get out of my way now
Before I bounce all over you
Before I break your heart in two
With a little (hey), a little (hey), a little rock 'n roll
And a lotta (hey), a lotta (hey), a lotta heart and soul
Gonna rock your soul
With some front back go's

Everywhere I go
There's a Drill Sergeant there
(repeat both lines)
Drill Sergeant!
Drill Sergeant!
Why don't you leave me a lone
Why don't you ever go home

Here we go again
Same old shit again
Marching down the avenue
x more weeks and we'll be through
I won't have to look at you
You won't have to look at me
Am I right or wrong (your're right)
Are we weak or strong (we're strong)
Sound off (1, 2)
Sound off (3, 4)
Break it on down now (1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3!, 4!)

Went to Mass again today because Delgadillo said Laramore was going. Stogel went with me but neither Delgadillo nor Laramore were there. I think Laramore is in Delta Company. Stogel is an atheist so he mostly dozed.

We have to come up with a motto for 4th platoon. Bailey (our bookman) has suggested "Born to fight, trianed to kill, ready to die but never will." Not bad.

Packed our ruck sacks. Putting in the cold weather boots is really difficult. Ackfeld is turning out to be a good squad leader. Put a lock on Southard's duffel bag after he went to sleep and he couldn't get into it while I was at church. Funny thing is Kirk had a key and was there the whole time.

Got our volume 2 smartbooks, it's mostly about weapons and twice as think. I still want the CCT book. They sold the old one at the PX, maybe I'll pick one up next time.

Snowing and really cold outside. Cold enough we have to wear our pile caps. Everybody is complaining about stuffing their cold weather boots into their rucks. Chow is the highlight of the day.

Got our weapons back and nearly froze in the process.

Thomas got added to a smoke session for dancing in the hallway. The DS only had him do 20 pushups where the others just kept going. The DS must have been amused by the dance.

Going to Mass again tomorrow. Laramore is supposed to be there. Delgadillo is going too, Brock and FUsco (19D's) go to bible study so maybe I'll go to that next week. Stogel said he might go too, even though he's an athiest. Wonder how Nogle's doing.

Been goofing around tonight, cleaning and organizing lockers. Might have FG tonight.

March was cancelled but I guess I already put that down. SDS Mittleman made us get into formation for lunch and smoked us and yelled at us for an unknown crime. He marched us to the DFAC berating us for not sounding off. Then he marched us right back to the barracks and fell us out. It was snowing and he didn't let us put up our jacket hoods. They ended up feeding us MREs because we wern't scheduled to be in the DFAC for lunch. The bastard!

Went to the PX and spent anotehr $75. Had to shake down our lockers because people were missing stuff. Called home but got the answering machine. Turned our weapons in. Watched the "Duty" video, it was 2 minutes long and was "garbage". Now we're cleaning the barracks.

Road march cancelled on account of weather. It was raining when we got up, now it's snowing. They say in Kentucky one day it's 6" of snow and the next day it's all gone. It hasn't been too cold here, where in reception it was totally freezing. Hopefully today will be laid back and nobody will screw up. Only got about 4.5 hours of sleep last night, if we have a sit down/shut up class I'll be falling asleep.

Palazzo was fired as out squad leader last night. He hasn't been doing that good of a job, and yesterday he wore contact lenses to the pugil stick fights and lied to a DS about it. They were <em>not</em> happy. So now we have Ackfeld and already he is a marked improvement. 1st squad is going to kick ass.

The barracks are never clean, if you sweep right after somebody you'll get a pile just as big. Mopping is innefectual as everybody just tracks dirt and makes muddy footprints. Buffing is even worse as it makes the floor slippery and everybody slides everywhere.

Saw a deer when taking out the trash yesterday. Just a small doe but it was cool anyway. Ainscough is dancing to the DS' radio, Haha! Need to do laundry.

Today was good and bad. In the morning we had pugil stick fights. My opponent had 10 lbs on me but I had 6 inches on him. I won. When I raised my stick in triumph, the whole platoon went nuts. ;)

Next was the bayonet obstacle course. It was exhausting and muddy. We had to low crawl right through a mud hole with barbed wire over it.

The Drill Sergeants jerked us around during weapons count formation, which pissed everybody off. One DS said PTs, another said ACUs. I just want to sleep and eat!

Had to pack our rucksacks for the 3km road march tomorrow, that's why I'm up so late. They didn't tell us until the last minute.

Had a class on military courtesy, those always suck.

Almost ran into DS Rolls on the way to the latrine. My 'corrective training' was 'walking the mile'. I had to do 2 pushups for every square of tile down the hall, and yell 'Walking the mile, Drill Sergeant, walking the mile!' after every set. I got to 66 before DS Leon interrupted me so we could go pick up our gas masks. DS Rolls excused me from the rest later on.

Fireguard, it sucks. Had to clean the latrine (with Dollman) then did some of my battle buddy's laundry. One of the washers leaks so had to mop that. 15 minutes of chill time before I can go back to sleep. Having to carry this M4 everywhere is a pain too. BTW, Dollman has a twin in anothe rplatoon. He has a tattoo on his back that says 'Original' while his brother has 'Replica'.

DSM keeps walking in and making us do pushups for stupid stuff. Now he's working two privates from another platoon (don't know why). Earlier DS Leon was making them do the "Spiderman". We were all on the ready line and about died from keeping the laughter surpressed. He had them on the wall with one leg up like they were wall crawling, then he would say "use your Spidey Senses and go over there". They would have to do the web sling and shuffle down the hall. It was funny as hell. They've been working them for like an hour, I got to find out what they did.

Dougherty told DSM he wanted to quite and DS Leon explained about military prisons and he changed his mind.

When doing pushups for SDS Mittleman you have to say 'Drill Sergeant, Private Dumbass requests permission to recover' but for DSM you have to say 'Drill Sergeant, thank you for conditioning my mind and body, you may do so at any time. Private Dumbass requests permission to go to the position of attention.'

DSM has a mini baseball bat he walks around with, slapping his palm like he's going to give somebody a beating. He also has a hockey glove he hits empty canteens with in the classroom.

DS Maximus called us to the ready line for weigh-in. We are in PT's waiting. We all agreed to pull our socks up all the way and when he say us he shouted "get those socks down, it looks gay" We all surpressed our laughter, it was hilarious. Morale is high today, needless to say. Tomorrow we fight with pugil sticks.