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September 3, '98 Dear Elven MUD, Hello all... how are you today? I trust that all is well with the MUD and such. God, Sandalwood, and Ellyll are good folks, so I have no wories about the state of the MUD. I'm sitting here while I have a moment writing this letter to say hi to everyone and stuff. I miss y'all, and I thought maybe a little scoop on how things are going for me here at Basic Training might be of some interest to some. Hmm... who knows? Maybe, maybe not. All I know is that I wish I were able to get online for a while, or have a soda, or have a smoke, or just sit back and RELAX for longer than 3 minutes at a time. You get the idea. It's been 16 days now, 7 of those at Reception Battalion (where you go to get your uniforms, learn a few things, get used to some things, ect.) I'm going insane. I miss so much of home that sometimes I think I'll burst if I don't make some kind of contact with home. I guess that's why I've written my wife (Rosepetal here) about 15 letters so far. Being away from her is the real killer. Basic is very, very difficult, particularily the Physical Training (PT), but I could do it 8 hours a day 6 days a week for 5 years if I could go home to Stacy everynight. Oh well... just another way to practice discipline, I guess. Do you know how hard it is to keep from crying when you're in the chow line, where you're NOT allowed to speak, and a song that reminds you of your wife, whom you haven't seen in weeks, comes on? Porbably not, I bet. ; ) Well, let me tell you... it's tough. Hell, for days I couldn't even look at my pictures of my wife or my little girl. *sigh* There's another nail for my heart. Sometime while I'm gone, Adreanna will do a lot of things for the first time. Missing those things sucks... big time. Then again, there are other circumstances there, too. The main one being that Adreanna's mother (Maoceia here) got voilent to the point that I had to call the police. Ugh. Enough of that. Let's see... what else to write. Well, for those of you that don't know and would be interested in such knowledge, my MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) is 19K (19 KILO), which means if I make it through all this bullshit, I'll emerge in December as an M1A1 crewmember. The M1A1 (and M1A2) is the best tank in the world. I'll either be a driver or a loader... for about a year, before I head to OCS (Officer Candidate School). Our first taste of the tank was at Reception. We could hear them firing in the dinstance... 4-6 miles away. It sounded like thunder. BOOM!! This past Monday, we actually got assigned to 3-man crews and got into the tanks. It was wild. I now know how to prep an M1 for startup, including activating the main power and actually starting the jet engine that powers it. Cool, eh? *grin* Yesterday, we learned on M-4s (the M-4 is a replacement for the M-16 rifle... almost a duplicate) ..how to load one, take one apart, put it back together, clear it, etc. Very cool stuff. We have 30 seconds to clear the weapon during the test, I've got my time down to 13 seconds. Woohoo! The academic-style training isn't that bad, actually. The worst part of this whole hellish experience for me is PT. As many of you could probably guess, I'm not in the best of shape in the world. I'm improving, but the process is painful in the extreme. Oh well... when I feel like I can't go on, I just focus on my wife and daughter... and I can go on a little bit more. Hell, if it weren't for those two depending on me, I don't think I'd have much of a chance of making it through this. Bleh... here in the hallway of the Medical Clinic (I've got a bad cold) everyone is talking about home and family and wives. I'm so jealous of the guy to my right... he's going home this weekend. Lucky bastard! Oh well... I can't wait to see my wife in late October, assuming that I'm still here. If I've made it that far, I will be in the best shape of my life. *grin* We shall see. All I can do is try my damndest, and I do a lot of that. The real pain is the running. I have the speed & endurance of an 80 year old man. Well, it isn't that bad, but you get the idea. I need to get up to 16:36 (minutes:seconds) for 2 miles in the next seven weeks. I hate running. Running is bad for your ankles, your knees, etc. Oh well. Everything you do is bad for something, eh? Well, I've got to get going right now. You take your "free" time as you can around here, and mine just ran out for now. If anyone would like to write to say hi, etc., what ever, I would LOVE it. Send e-mail to <dropouts@thesurf.com>. My wife can then print the e-mail and send it with one of her letters to me here. Take care, one and all. I truly hope that i've left the MUD in good enough shape for you all to be haveing a wonderful time. I'll try to write again soon... Bryan S. Slick Private First Class, U.S. Army (known to most of you as Legolas) |
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