Letter From Justin (Several days ago - oops)

So we got these sometime last week, but life has been entirely too busy to sit and blog.

Excerpt's from the letter:
"Just to set the scene for you, right now I am in the Latrine sitting on the crapper. It's like clockwork, about 10 mins after every meal everyone is in the latrine fighting for stalls. I'm smart, I put my toliet paper in my pocket so I can run straight to the latrine after chow and wait till it hits me. It's funny because the guys will peek through the cracks or look over the dividers to see who it is and tell them to hurry and I'm sitting there writing and laughing at them."

Well ummm I don't see scenes like this on the army commercials where they attempt to show you how much your child has matured!

"Most of us (they guys in my platoon) get along pretty well so it's fun. we start to get most of our privledges when we qualify with our M16's so when we do freetime will be much better. we will have a radio and get to lift and stuff. We start our M16 shooting tomorrow. It's 2 weeks long so I'm not sure at which time we qualify. Hopefully we get a 4 hour SandHill Pass. Sand Hill is the part of Ft. Benning we are on, it's pretty big. When we get it we can go get milkshakes, go to the arcade, pretty much do whatever. After qualifying we are allowed to order pizza for dinner the next day! The company next to us got theirs yesterday, it was rough watching them eat pizza. DS also said that when we go down to the riffle range we can get food from the "Veteran Van". I guess it's some Vietnam Vetran who drives around selling food to privates and the DS allow it if we are good. The guy is nice so I hear, he tells stores and takes IOU's.

"Weekends are pretty boring now. We are out of Red Phase AKA "total Control" where DS are always next to you yelling at you. So now Sat. after training usually about lunch time all but 1 of them go home and don't come back till Monday. But we don't have very many privledges yet so we have to sit and do nothing all weekend. We can't leave the bay, sit on our beds, sleep or do anything really. I am leaving for church in about 20 mins. though."

"I just got back from Church, RJ was there. First thing he told me was that he is engaged. The I talk to him about how things are going........He is going to start shooting this week so he will enjoy it more....."

"....Everyone is doing a countdown, we have 32 days left of basic. After basic is our 52 hor pass then AIT then graduation. We are on week 5."

"I just found out I can have my vehicle after graduation!! I'm really excited. After graduation it will be like a normal job, train at day go home (wherever that is) at night/evening. At least for airborne. So I will probably buy a laptop and stuff. I'm not postive but I will probably have someone drive my jeep here for graduation. I can't wait to have freedom."

"I have a couple of friends here that I am getting pretty close to. We are all SF so we will spend a lot of time together. We are thinking about getting a place together after graduation. We all want to get a motorcycle too. I most likely won't but it would be fun. Just so you know we recieved 2 new privates so it's 57 not 55."