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Pvt_Pritchett
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Name: Wiley
Gender: Male
Interests: My friends, Church, The Bible, History the older the better and World War II, Knives, Books, The Lord of the Rings, Narnia, Napoleon Dynamite, The Incredables, Pixar movies
Occupation: Military
Message: message me
Member Since:
3/26/2005
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| 20080225 [February 25, 2008]
Hello,
I have cool news, bad news, and bad
news. Cool news, I'm going to Alaska. Bad news, I don't think I'll
get Airborne while I'm here. And bad news, I'm going to Alaska. I
don't really know that much about it, but I think I'm going to be in
the 25th Infantry Division, seeing as how they're the only
non-Airborne regiment in Alaska from what I hear. DS Evershed said
I'll be in a Stryker brigade. (He always gets excited when you talk
about Strykers. He was in a Stryker brigade and he thinks they're
the hottest things since sliced bread.) I really don't know
anything about Strykers or what bases there are or where they are in
Alaska, so if you could find out some stuff for me that would be
great.
In the whole company, the only other
person going to Alaska is a reclass from another platoon. Everyone
else in my platoon who isn't going Airborne or SF (Special Forces) is
going to Hood, Riley or Drum, and believe me, I do not envy them.
I'm not going to lie, I'm pretty ticked
I didn't get Airborne, but I'm not disappointed in my duty station.
I'd take this over Texas, Kansas or New York. And [I'll] always be
able to go back and do Airborne. Now for what we did last week.
On Monday we left for our “2” night
bivouac. We got there, did our training, set up our patrol base, and
for the first time in the field, we didn't have to pull 50% security,
only 33% (meaning 50% or 33% of the platoon have to be awake pulling
security.) The first night wasn't too bad, even though it was cold.
We were in our sleeping bags sleeping for more than an hour on, hour
off, unlike we did it before.
On Wednesday we woke ( I thought that
[was] when the ten mile road march was going to be. I was wrong and
I think dad gave me a little something of what he had, because I did
not feel too swell. We woke up, did our training and went to bed.
But DS Fulk wanted to play “games” with 4th and 3rd
platoons (he chose them because he wanted to prove we were better
trained than 4th and he just wanted to humiliate 3rd.)
So we allied with 2nd and long story short, we were just
short of the objective with 4th, and with 3rd
let's just say we almost captured a DS.
Then we went to bed, woke up and did
squad attack and stuff til about 1200. (This was when I was not
feeling good at all.) After lunch they told us to drink 2 canteens,
get our rucks ready, and then to everyone's great joy, they let us
sleep for three hours. It was amazing. They woke us up at 1630,
made us do some stuff and had to sit on our rucks for a bit. I guess
I was looking pretty pathetic, because DS Evershed came up and asked
me what was wrong with me (he didn't use a very sympathetic tone) and
I told him I felt dizzy and all that. He didn't say anything, left,
came back a while later and told me to put my stuff on the back of
the truck. So during the 10 (that turned out to be 12.8) mile road
march that took five hours, me and another guy from my platoon rode
in the back of the truck and dropped off water cans. Fun. They got
done at around 21 – 2200. We were back at the range we started at
in the parking lot, and they told us to change our clothes, get our
sleeping bags and sleep. At 0300 they woke us up and made us do land
nav til 0800, then we came back to the bay and they let us sleep
again til 1600, and I don't remember what else we did the rest of the
week.
Later the same week...
I have some bad news. It would seem
(before I get to this bad news, I have more bad news. They pulled my
other wisdom tooth. The day before we leave for FTX, they pull my
tooth! Bogus.) that we aren't getting leave after graduation. I
don't know how it's going to work, but I do know I'm flying from
Atlanta to Fort Wainwright, which from what I hear is 1200 miles from
the nearest major city. So that kind of stinks. I wish I knew more,
but I don't. Find out as much as you can about Fort Wainwright for
me, if you please.
I'm going to have to stop this letter
now if I want to send it to you before FTX. [Field Training Exercise]
Bye. | | |
| 2008111 [January 11]
Yellow,
So today was one of the worst
experiences of my life. CS gas stinks. “I hate it with a fiery
passion that consumes my soul.” Somewhere between clearing and
sealing my mask and going in the chamber, the seal on my mask was
broken. I walk in there and my eyes immediately started watering.
It was bad. After a minute or two of pain, I found the leak and held
it to my face and it got a little better. But then we had to take
them off. Fun, fun. I think I now picture hell to be something like
the gas chamber. And the worst part was, we went last (every time a
group goes in, they break a new tablet of CS gas.). So the gas had
built up. And then, I had to go in again because a DS said I didn't
have my helmet strap on (not true), but that time it wasn't that bad,
they didn't keep us in there too long.
Luckily, the day had just begun and
could still be saved. After the chamber, they gave us a class on
chemical attacks, and what to do, and how to decontaminate yourself.
Someone volunteered me to be the victim/demonstrator. They basically
had me rub a charcoal like substance on my hands and face. By the
end of it, I looked like a coal miner or chimney sweep or something.
It was fun. Who doesn't like rubbing mud on their face every now and
then. I know I do. So that made the day a little better.
2008112 [January 12]
So two of the quitters who changed
their minds and came back, changed their minds again and quit. This
happened on the 9th or 10th. That left us with
24 people. Today we got five reclasses. 2 SPC, 2 sergeants and a
staff sergeant are now in our platoon and in our bay sleeping and
living and doing everything we're doing. It's going to make for some
awkward moments.
We now have this thing called “personal
time”. We can take showers and write letters and stuff. It's
pretty cool. That means I might write more letters – MIGHT.
Chances are I won't be able to think of anything to say and I'll end
up wasting an hour of my life. Or I might not.
2008113 [January 13]
I just discovered that my Mormon
comrade has some Mormon propaganda books like The Pearl of Great
Price and other stuff they don't always want people to know.
Speaking of my Mormon comrade, next
time you communicate with Greg, tell him I know a victim of Date 'em,
Dunk 'em, Ditch 'em. I laughed quietly to myself when I found out
about that.
2008114 [January 14]
So, so much for white phase. The
stupid people in my platoon had 12, count 'em, 12 cans of dip in the
bay. Needless to say, the DS were not happy. We've spent most of the
day getting smoked, and they put us back in total control/red phase
until further notice. Not cool. What makes it even better is,
somebody told us they were going to search our bay today, and they
still left it in here. Plus, two of the main people with it were a
squad leader and the platoon guide. Awesome.
2008115 [January 15]
As I was writing the last paragraph, a
drill sergeant walked in and long story short, we got about 3 hours
of sleep because two of our quitters tried to go AWOL. They got
caught, and we got into trouble for letting them get out of the
barracks without anyone knowing.
So I may have overstated how bad the
gas chamber really was. But it was still really bad, really bad.
2008118 [January 18]
We did a 4 mile road march yesterday to
range, where we shot the M240B and the SAW. It was fun. We stayed
there all day 'til it got dark and then it was even more fun.
I wore my winter boots on the march,
which I thought were broken [in]. I was wrong. I got blisters on
the bottoms of both my heels. It was not fun. After we got done
firing at 20:30, we sat around for what we thought was transit to
pick us up. But then, much to our discouragement, we were told we
were going to march back. That was not cool. I think at about mile
.6 the blisters ripped open and I walked the rest in severe pain.
Not cool at all. Then today we went to another range and shot the
MK14 (grenade launcher)(automatic) and the .50 cal. Very fun. I
couldn't really march anywhere, though, without pain, so that put a
damper on the fun.
I think I've been writing this letter
for far too long, so I think I'm going to end it now.
Maybe I'll end it after this,
So, I've only gotten one letter since
I've been back. What's with that? You should really step up the
letter production over there.
Ok. I'm ending it now.
Bye | | |
| 200817 [January 7]
Hello,
Friday we started a fun
adventure. Somebody had the smart idea that it would be better to,
instead of waxing the beach (I may or may not have told you what the
beach was, I don't remember, so I'll tell you again. The beach is
the middle of the bay where we're not suppose to go. We have to
clean and wax it every day, and it gets old. The DSs have been
wanting to re-tile the floor for a while, and so the story continues)
to rip up the whole thing and lay a new one. We have a couple people
who have done tile before, so they thought they knew what they were
doing – mind you, they had the proper tools, we don't. The guy who
was the loudest and who said he was the most experienced (deleted)
said 8 guys could strip the floor in 1 hour. Right. He asked the
DS, who said yes. He then asked the DS if we could have some tools
and the DS said, “You have tools, they're called E tools.” So we
all grabbed our shovels and started chipping up the floor. Two days
later we got it done. It still doesn't look right, and I'm pretty
sure the DSs are not going to be thrilled.
200818 [January 8]
Another fun adventure we
had was before the drug test on Saturday morning. The DS told us to
fill our canteens. Then he made us drink it all (1 quart), then we
went to eat (where we have to drink a lot anyway), came back where he
made us drink another canteen full. I was about to throw up. 3
people did throw up water, and one guy threw up the water and
breakfast all over the CTA. It was not the most pleasant stuff to
do.
We did a 1-1-1 today. 1
mile run, 1 minute of push ups and [1 minute of] sit ups. I did the
mile in 7:44. I was not disappointed. So it would seem we're in
white phase now. Not too bad so far.
Some more people tried to
quit today. 5 people told the DS they wanted to, and I guess they
scared some of them into not quitting. So now we have 3 less people
than we did before, although we did get a restart from another
company. He was on week 13 and got caught stealing. So he got sent
to our company, that's on week 4. That would stink big time.
So definitely write
letters.
Oh, my. BCG (Birth
Control Glasses) are so funny.
Mormons believe some weird
stuff. We have one. He was one of the guys who was going to quit,
but got scared. I was glad.
That's all folks,
Bye
P.S. So I just thought of
this. The rumor is, we're doing the gas chamber on Thursday. That's
it. Bye
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| Postmarked
10 Dec 2007 Hello
all,
I've
started to get letters regularly, so I guess I have to write back.
Tell Calli good because you'd be sad. Mom, would you be so kind as
to print your letter. It took me twice as long to read it in the
dark as the other ones. Sending letters on different days is all
well and good, but make sure that you send them far enough apart so
that they get here not all the same day. I had to do 75 pushups for
the three letters I got (25 per letter, but then once I did those, I
had to keep on pushing because I called him Sergeant instead of Drill
Sergeant. I ended up doing about 120 pushups.) So you can send them
far apart or all at once, just so they don't get here all on the same
day. And if you do send them all at once, put them in the same
envelope. I don't like doing pushups for letters right after we get
smoked, which is what usually happens.
Alas,
the Drill Sergeants know me by sight and by name, not through any fault of my own, but because of my
dashing good looks, ha ha. It really is because of the way I look,
though. It would seem that Drill Sergeant Evershed and I look alike.
We were at the range and a DS was walking by me. Stopped, looked at
me for a minute, told me to cross my arms, put my eye pro on my hat
[neither of which they are allowed to do, according to Brady] and
then called all the other DS around, and now all the DS call me 'Baby
Shed', 'Mini Shed', or sometimes Drill Sergeant Evershed. It's
funny, but I'd like it better if they didn't know who I was.
When
we got here they were redoing the bathrooms in all the bays, so they
put up a trailer on the other side of the barracks. All the
companies showers, toilets and sinks are in that one trailer. If you
wake up in the middle of the night for guard duty, or something, and
have to pee, you have to run (in your sleeping uniform, by the way
which happens to be summer PT's) the 100 yards to the bathroom in the
freezing cold. And you have to go with a battle buddy, so you have
to wait for him to get ready before you can go. It's not a very
pleasant experience overall to go to the bathroom. We will all be
very happy when the bathrooms in the bay are fixed.
Food
wise, I haven't really had to eat anything that bad. I try to get
biscuits and gravy for breakfast, we usually have MRE's for lunch,
and supper is usually chicken or turkey or something. All the side
dishes are in a buffet, so I can skip over the stuff I don't like.
Running
wise, I can do a lot more than I thought I could. We did the first
PT test on the 1st. Everyone stunk it up. I ran 1 mile
in 9:32. The next day they put us in fast groups and slow groups.
I'm in the slowest one. We went to the PT track and ran for 15
minutes, which is something I couldn't have done before. They said
we ran 1 ¾ mile which is really something I couldn't have done
before, seeing as how I could hardly run a whole mile at all.
We
qualified today. I shot 34 out of 40, which means I got
Sharpshooter. Two more, and I would have gotten Expert.
Our
DS made a bet with all the other platoons that percentage wise we
would have more goes than no-goes, than they would have. We have 34
people in our platoon. Everyone else has 45 up. So we could only
have a few people not make it their first time. We ended up winning
by one person. All the other platoon's DS were not happy. Ours
were, which is a good thing, because we've messed up a lot lately and
they've been waiting to smoke us for it all 'til after BRM is over so
we won't be tired and mess up. Now BRM is over and we don't really
have anything to do 'til we leave, so they plan on smoking us A LOT.
Now they'll only smoke us really bad, instead of really, really bad.
Everyone
here is sick. We're all coughing up lungs and stuff. It's not
pretty.
Heidi,
can you tell the 'Social Society of Sunday Night' (the DS gave me a
funny look because of that) the stuff in this letter. I don't really
have time to write many letters any who . I've been writing this one
over the past three days. I think that's quite long enough.
Bye,
ME
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| Postmarked 3 Dec 2007
In the past week I've started 2 letters
and have had to stop writing them for one reason or another, so this
is what I've done this week. Friday, about 10:00, run off the bus,
sat in a line on top of our stuff, and if we moved we had about 3
Drill Sergeants yelling in your face. Then they had us run about –
I don't know how far – and if we dropped it you would have to do
push ups. Then there was a lot of running, yelling, push ups,
general all around pain. We did that 'til about 1:00ish. Then we
went to bed, then woke up at 4:00. Army values classes, did some
other stuff I don't remember, all the while doing push ups and
getting yelled at (I think it's funny that they don't tell you to
side step at chow until you're at chow and they're yelling at you for
not side stepping.) It's kinda of been like that ever since –
well, not really – never mind...
We are focusing on BRM* (ask Brady or
somebody what it means because I can't spe don't
want to spell it) for the three weeks before Christmas leave, so I
should be qualified when I get back [home.]
Tuesday they started teaching us the
beginnings of GFT (Ground Fighting Techn... don't know how to spell
that ) Wednesday we did a two mile road march (Brady will probably
laugh at that) and did the obstacle course, the one with the mud and
barbed wire and rope climbs and crab walks and all that good stuff.
Thursday they took us to a range and we
zeroed our weapons (M4s which we got last Saturday) and we'll be
training with them all next week.
I think we're doing Eagle Tower on
Thursday (The only reason I know this is because my platoon had to
clean the Day Room and there was a big white board with it all
written down) and BRM the rest of the time.
I'm in the 1st Platoon Bravo
Company 1/50 IN. The Drill Sergeants aren't too bad if we do what
they tell us to, but as always we screw it up and end up getting
smoked. It doesn't help that there are a few morons, and a few too
many people who don't know what 'shut up' means. The main reasons we
get smoked are because we are too slow and we don't know how to shut
up.
It rained here a few days. I laughed.
My platoon started out last week with
45 people. One week later we have 36. Most of the missing nine
people “quit”, which means they became “permanent latrine
orderlys”. [re: the movie, No Time for Sergeants]
Don't forget to pick me up at 7:00 on
the 14th.
They say it might take a while for your
mail to start to get to me, so I don't know if you have sent
something or not. But do tell people to write as much as possible.
It's dark as I write this, so I can't
really see. That's one of the reasons the writing is bad. [It was.]
Bye *BRM (Basic Rifle Marksmanship) | | |
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