Boot Camp is over: oh, the horror, lol

My time at Boot Camp! It wasn't what I expected at all! I don't know if you guys remember, but I was expecting it to be like Summer Camp. Oh, how wrong I was! I'll come right out and say it was the hardest thing I've ever done. As the days went by (and they felt like long, drawn out epochs), I must say I respected James Williams more and more, because I could never do (well, maybe . . .) the Marine boot camp. Holy Crap! My hat is off to him. So, funny stories. The trouble is I can't tell a lot of them here. It would be better face to face, but even then, it's hard to really appreciate them if you weren't there. So, I have that Iron Curtain to deal with.

I did have a huge locust land on my face at BEAST, a week long trek, outside in the 100 degree weather, with a million tons of gear on, in full mop gear (with the darn gas mask), sweating oceans, miserable, hungry (MREs, while good, aren't filling), tired, etc . . . I swear, the locust was the size of my face. My entire face. It scared the crap out of me. I did love standing guard outside the tents looking up at the night sky. It was so peaceful. Lots of time to talk to God. I think I read the New Testament close to 20 times.

There was a time when I made a wrong turn (because I was in the wrong zone) and when I re-emerged from some back-alley trail, I bumped into this hornet's nest of TI's. It wasn't pretty.

Over all, I stayed out of trouble. Eating was awful. There was no time. TI's are screaming at you, pounding the table, you barely taste the food, you shovel it down, you feel like a sardine. Everything is rushed from revelry to taps. I was always stressing. There was barely any down time. I felt like I was getting brainwashed. Everything is a blur now. I really couldn't describe a normal day. Every day was different, with new challenges, or new applications of old ones. I missed everything I loved: hobbies, friends, family. I missed books. I finally got my Bible in the 6th week. I was somehow put into a Special Operations flight, so the physical training was more intense. Everything was more intense. I say that because I sprained my knee in the 4th week of training, so I had to go to different squadrons to eat chow, and their chow hall was NOTHING like ours: relaxed, very little TIs, no yelling, more food, fresher food. Everything had a better quality. And here I am thinking the whole base was like MY squadron. But no! I had to be lucky one of six that got stuck in all the rigor of a Special Ops flight. Oh joy!

The obstacle course was easy, but I did sprain my darn knee. It was really throbbing at the end of the hour-long march back. After I sat down for an hour in a mandatory class and got up again to use the latrine, it locked up on me. I was just so scared and stressed. If you're too injured or sick, they send you to the 319th where you heal to the point where you can return to training. That's good and all, but at the same time I'm stressing, because I wouldn't graduate on time and everyone would have bought their ticket to come see me for nothing! I ended up fibbing to the hospital about the full extent of the pain in my knee so I could take the final PT evaluation. I took it, passed it, and the big stuff got behind me. I took a sigh of relief.

I could literally sit down and talk about boot camp all day, but it really is a blur and it's getting late and I need to get to bed. I'm in Tech School now, in Biloxi Mississippi, the same place where my brother Chase is stationed. I got to see him yesterday and we plan on hanging out more tomorrow. If you don't know already, I'm studying to be an Air Traffic Controller; the program is pretty rigorous, so please pray for me. But there's such a crowd here that I won't even be starting the darn classes until 5 to 6 weeks from now. On top of that, the National Guard and Reserve guys get to cut everyone. In the mean time, I'll be stuck doing details, which isn't bad. As the weeks go by, I'll get more freedom and thing will get more laid back.

Thanks a bunch Matt for all the kind words. Can't wait for my Mac to be mailed to me (I'm borrowing my room-mate's lap-top to type this) so I can blog a little bit more before the classes begin. There's so much stuff to talk about, so many movies and so much music and news and headlines. I feel so behind.

Love you guys!!!