Finally... some free time not after lights out. There isn't much to spare, however; next formation is at 1600, and I have shoe-polish on my hands. Today (this morning, actually) we met our first real, hardcore drill sergeant. I don't know where he came from exactly- he just showed up and shouted and said "I ain't your recruiter, I don't give a ----!". This one girl was getting heat stroke and he shouted "Sit her down! Go get her some water!". Then he yelled at her some more. I tell you, we felt no love from this drill sergeant. Everyone seemed effectively intimidated- their ploy worked.

I find myself enjoying the military lifestyle yet again. I think I've figured it out- no one here knows I'm smart. Other people think for me, I can basically be "Joe Blow" for the summer, which is an enormously valuable break. I don't have my ACT printed on the board in the TAC Office (the TAC office is the command center for our barracks)- it's kind of a great secret. No one expects me to be a certain level of coherent and intellectual, so I'm simply abandoning it altogether. Except in the journal/coorespondence, of course.

Sunday May 24th continued
1940 hours

I have to pull my first fireguard tonight- that's when you stay up for an hour , clean the latrine and count heads, report to the TAC office, and check for fires. This is probably important because our barracks here are WWII era, wooden, and no fire alarm systems. They've had them burn down before.

Everyone here in the barracks seems to be getting extremely desperate for women. Pair that with half a barrackfull of cigarette smokers and heavy drinkers, you have a pretty weird environment. Sometimes, that is. Get this many of us together with the comforts of civilization and you'd still have some kind of crazy times. It's fun though. As a non-smoker and non-drinker, I'm doing good. The only thing I miss is seeing women who look like women- nothing but BDUs around here, though.

The guy above me (from Harrisonville, Ar.) and the guy on the top bunk just next to me are going boot-polish crazy. They've been polishing those boots for at least 2 hours all told. A discussion about the writings of John Steinbeck popped up just down the room, but was soon replaced with the usual "I need a smoke, a woman, and a beer". The guy next to me on the bottom bunk seems really intelligent- he's quiet, but he's always writing in a little book. Plus he's got a college degree in Computer Science or something like that. Just got married two weeks ago- from Massachusetts.

We stood in the hot sun for about half an hour at least today, in full BDUs. That's all I ever wear anymore- BDUs. It's kind of crazy sometimes, always looking just like everyone else. It's like I've been doing this forever.

I have had the chance to speak to some females recently- a girl named Stetson (last name) from California. She has a hard time even doing her 1 pushup for female entrance qualification to go to basic. It was funny- she and another female sitting there agreed they'd have to practice their "pushup". Singular. I told some of the guys about it down by the phones, they seemed to get a real kick out of that too.

Let me tell you about some of the guys here. First there's Huckley (last name again), a big 'ol Missouri hillbilly from about 2 hours from here. He's got an ignorant type southern accent (to distinguish from genteel ), but he's a pretty good guy. He's 17 years old, got a 5 month old baby and a wife back home. Said half the girls in his graduating class of 10 (girls only) were mommies. I guess there's nothing else to do down there in those Ozarks. He's not all dumb though- got lots of common sense. Today he just hauled off and bench pressed me to the ceiling to prove he could do it. One of those type yay-hoos.

There's Rostrum, one of the boot polishers. He's gotta be no taller than 5'2", maybe 90 lbs. He's really quiet and has a ton of military background in his family. Green Berets, Rangers, all branches- you name it. He looks military all around, as do his boots. Like mirrors.

There's a bunch of guys- all kind of big, kind of look alike- then there are the smaller ones. We either have shrimps (like Rostrum and "Flipper"). I'm in the middle (tall but thin), as are a few others. There's the guy next to me in line order, for instance. His name's Perry Potter. One time when we were filling out paperwork, he saw me writing my city address and probably thought I was copying off him at first. He's pretty sharp though- figured it out. He's from Maysville, Ks.- his Dad is the band director up there. Almost joined the 312th, even. I told him he should have.

We also have our share of jokers, which will wreak havoc for us all in basic we figure. These are Nash, McDonald, Payne (a blabbermouth female), and others. I figure they'll all tone down when we get a hardliner drill sergeant.

There are lots of others I've met- Norman, Kawaguchi, Copeland, and on and on. It's odd because you don't learn people's first names around here- you learn MOS and line number. They'll most likely split us up on Wednesday when we ship to basic- I'll be sad to see some of these guys go. It's been a fun few days, in the cracks between official reception activities at least.

We cleaned some more today- Corporal asked for 30 volunteers, and I volunteered. Turns out we got to clean the storage unit, which is air conditioned. We got enthused about that, since everyone else had to go and clean the barracks (no air). As I worked it really struck me what an unintellectual endeavor all this is. The funny thing is it's OK with me. What could be easier than doing exactly what I'm told all the time?
I'm going to send all this off now.
Hope y'all are doing good, I ship for basic Wednesday.

Dan