BCT Day 58
The following information is a portion of “Marck’s Boot Camp Diary”. The information contains a straight-forward look at Basic Training Life on a daily basis. The information contained within this page is used with the express written permission of the author. For more information about the author view the “Author’s Information” at the bottom of the page. Some choice phrases have been censored.
September 20th, 2002
Another day is one more day closer to family day. Five more to go. Last night sucked, courtesy of DS Boston. First, he knows damn well we’ve gone a week without mail, yet he still didn’t hand it out. So if anyone had a question for me, you will not get my reply on time. And second, he made the entire platoon stay up all night, each squad pulling a two hour shift. We had to keep cleaning the crap we have to turn in. I still managed to get decent sleep, but that’s because I sacrificed a shower, flossing, changing clothes, and shining boots. Sometimes you have to sort your priorities and sleep was my priority.
We’re going to a museum later. It’s the General Patton museum. He’s a big figure in the army. You might have heard of him. This week is S-L-O-O-O-W. The best part of today is DS Boston has the day off.
It’s such a relaxing day. I’ve chilled all day long. The radio is a great addition to our barracks. I think it’s helping out morale, too. Louisville has the greatest station. It played Staind, Guns n Roses, Korn, Sublime, System of a Down, Drowning Pool, and No Doubt.
It’s like we’re slowly being reintroduced to civilization as we get ready to leave. We have the radio and we can eat whatever we want every day of the week. That chocolate pie and chocolate milk at lunch really hit the spot. My stomach’s not used to such sweetness, yet, so it’s hurting a little bit. There’s a lot of crap left to clean still. And we have an inspection Monday. It will not be a relaxing weekend. Cleaning stuff is annoying. All I want to do now is sit near the radio. No wonder we didn’t get it earlier. It’s made us lazy.
It’s 1540. There’s an update on the schedule. We’re not going to no museum. We’re cleaning gear all day. Nothing else. Good. I’m too tired to go anywhere. I feel like I have not slept in days. All I want is to have like three nights in a row to have a normal amount of sleep. That’s six hours a night by army standards. We have to turn all the **** in on Monday. At least I know we won’t be cleaning gear after turn-in. We’ll be cleaning barracks though. Argh. It never ends. Maybe I wouldn’t be complaining so much if I had gotten more than eight hours of sleep in the past 48 hours. T I R E D.
Oh. Some good news. I got my laundry back from laundry service. My green dress shirts are pressed and ready for graduation day and I have a nice battle dress uniform (the camouflage one) for family day.
If nothing else good happens today, all I want is mail. I want my contacts and I want a copy of the graduation info my parents got. We still have not been briefed on what’s going on. Our DSs don’t tell us ****.
DS Lewis lined us up and gave us all a soda. He said we deserve it because we’ve been busting our asses. Damn right we have. As we were drinking it he told us that just as easily as he gave it to us, he can make us lose it via a smoking if we **** up tonight. That was nice of him…I guess.
****! Just as I wrote about something good, DS Lewis told us we ain’t getting no mail tonight because it will distract us from cleaning all our gear. He said it’s not punishment. It’s just that it has to be done tonight. ******* mother******. That ought to be illegal. It’s been over a week of mail accumulating. That’s tampering with the mail, right? A federal offense? He said if the ***** done, we get our mail tomorrow. Now there’s no way I can reply to letters in time before people come see me. Maybe I’m bitching too much. Maybe we get a phone call Sunday. I can’t stay mad. 6 days left.
