The last three days have been difficult. Everyone here is catching colds and I caught one too. Mine has been pretty bad. Head congestion, headache, body aches, sore throat and cough. It started Friday morning. We woke up at 0830 so we could be at our live fire training (that's where we qualify to shoot the 9 mm pistol and the 12 gauge shotgun). For most recruits, it's the best day of bootcamp, but for me, it has been by far my worst. My body hurt so much I couldn't get comfortable no mater if I was sitting or standing. And there was a lot of both. On top of that, I probably only got a couple hours sleep, so I was exhausted. If you fall asleep during live fire, you get pulled out and sent back to your barracks. So that was another challenge. The 5 minutes we actually got to shoot the guns was very nerve racking. There were instructors all over the place screaming in your ear what to do and if you don't do it, it's called "breaking blue". If you break blue, there is a good possibility that you could get sent back a couple weeks in training. I'm not even sure how I did cause I was so nervous, and they rushed us out as soon as we were finished. I'll find out a week before graduation if I scored high enough for a ribbon on my uniform. I sure hope so. When we got back to the barracks around noon, we went straight to lunch. I had absolutely no appetite, so I barely ate anything. After lunch, I asked my petty officer if I could go to medical to get checked out. He let me go, and I spent about an hour there and came back with some medicine, which seems to be working. I still feel terrible, but all the body pain is gone.
Yesterday at lunch when standing in line, the 4 rows of tables next to us were a fresh batch of new recruits. You can tell because they all have freshly shaved heads. I thought to myself back when I was that recruit and I was looking up to the guys with longer hair-thinking I would never get there. It feels nice to know that i made it. I'm now the guy with the longer hair and I wouldn't go back for anything. We are now the senior division in our barracks building. Only 19 days til graduation!!! I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
I was thinking to myself, I'm more excited to be done with my job as starboard watch than I am for bootcamp to be done. I think bootcamp would be easy if I didn't have a job to do. I envy my shipmates that just get to do what their told. Oh well, like I said...only 19 days.
Thanks to everyone who is sending me letters. It definitely helps cheer me up. Special thanks to my brother Mike for his encouraging words. Thanks Mike! He was in the Army so he knows what I'm going through, but I'm sure his Army bootcamp was much more difficult that my Navy bootcamp is.
Hopefully this week will be easy and go fast. Ha.
R :)
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