Best Letter Yet!

Letter #3 to Mom

This is the letter I received from Chelsea today, Sept. 27, 2010

I do not know when she wrote it as it had no date. From what I can tell, I think she wrote it on Sept. 20^th. I’ll have to remind her to date them.

"Hi Mommy,

I finally got your letter last night along with a card from Grammy and Pop-Pop. It was nice to finally get mail other than my bank statement of $0.00!

Our training schedule got moved around a little because of the heat. I don’t think it’s been that hot but a few days they said we couldn’t do any strenuous activity outside.

We had to go back to medical to get our blood drawn on Monday L and yet again they had to stick me twice! That makes for 7 sticks in the last 2 weeks. Lucky for me I already had some of the shots before. I went yesterday morning to have my knee looked at again. The Corpsman said one of my thigh muscles had tightened up and was pulling on the knee joint causing the pain. She said to ice it and stretch and put me on light duty for yesterday and today, so hopefully I can get back to training tomorrow.

As of right now my graduation day is still Dec. 3. The 2 trips to medical and 2 light duty days didn’t affect anything, as far as I know. I don’t know why it happened and neither did the Corpsman because I had been pretty active before.

The physical stuff hasn’t gotten really difficult yet, other than my body just being tired. It got a few days off though. We’re supposed to do our first hike this Saturday. It’s only 3 miles so hopefully it won’t be so bad and my knee will be better.

We have 2 people on bed rest and another on light duty so I get to sit here and make sure nothing happens to the bed rest recruits while everyone else is out at a training activity. I’d rather be watching but it’s what they told me to do L. We’re supposed to make out first trip to the PX tonight to buy things we need like extra PT gear, hair gel and stuff like that, so I hope they don’t give me bed rest watch again. I do like the extra “free time” I get though so I can tell you a little more about it. Sorry if I repeat anything from another letter…I can’t remember what I already wrote.

When we first got here, for me at least, there was no moment that I thought, “What did I get myself into?” The 6 girls I went down with on the bus were divided into platoons. Five girls in one group and 1 in another group. (I was in the group of 5).

Next we went to get all our gear. First we got our sports bras, underwear, soap, tissues etc. Then we went to get our clothing and boots. Everything was very fast paced…they wanted to get us in and out as soon as possible. Next we filled out some paperwork, got briefs on choosing a bank for our direct deposit and papers for out service record. We didn’t sleep Wednesday or Thursday night. That Thursday we packed all our civilian things in a brown paper bag, taped it up and put it in storage.

I decided to put all the underwear and bras I brought in there. I’m glad I did because all our whites are now ivory and stained from the laundry markers.

Anyway, Friday we went to medical to get all our shots and stuff, which I think I already told you about. Friday night we got a little sleep because we took our IST was on Saturday. So Saturday we took our IST and lost 2 people from our platoon because they didn’t pass. Also that girl whose father swore her in got emergency leave 2 day after we got here because her little sister died. After lunch on Saturday we met our drill instructors and chain-of-command.

Sunday and Monday were our forming days where they basically teach us how to be recruits. Sunday was pretty laid back because of church and 4 hours of free time in the morning. I’ve been trying to lay low and fly under the radar but now since I’m on light duty they sort of know me, though only one know my name. For the most part they don’t bother me too much because I do try and do what I’m told. Some people here aren’t that lucky. There are 2 or 3 that get IT (Incentive training – extra PT) a lot because they don’t really try and the DI’s can see the lack of motivation.

I’ve made some good friends already – ones that I will definitely keep in touch with.

Right now there are 61 of us all sleeping in a big room on bunk beds…I’m glad no one snores. Sometimes at night I do hear people talking in their sleep saying, “Ay Ma’am or “No Ma’am. There are a lot of people that have attitudes and get nasty towards each other some of the time. I try and stay away from them. For the most part everyone is pretty nice except for those few.

I had read about the bathrooms but I thought our stalls would at least have doors and divisions between the showers…boy was I wrong!

All the senior recruits say that we get more freedom during phase 2 & 3 so hopefully our hygiene gets better. 61 of us have about 2 minutes to take a shower and all but 2 days we’ve been here all we do is rinse off our body and wash it with soap. We’ve only washed our hair twice since we’ve been here. I’m going to see if they have shampoo and conditioner at the PX.

Oh, also during receiving they took all our hair stuff and girly products and made us put them in a bag for everyone to use. How unfair is that?, because not everyone brought it.

The food is ok. I haven’t had to start eating meat yet. I probably eat 600 to 800 calories per meal but I’m still always hungry. Breakfast is my favorite. We get scrambled eggs, a hash brown and either a pancake, waffle or French toast (YUM!) (with syrup), different choices of fruit, cereal (I started putting milk in it for the extra protein), yogurt and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Right now we only get to take one piece of bread. I’m hoping they put me on double rations soon. One night for dinner we got lasagna…that was my favorite dinner. Someone also said during phase 2 they let us go to the chow hall by ourselves to eat so maybe then I can get a little more food.

One exciting thing though, our first paychecks were deposited on the 15^th and we got our military emails, not that I have access to it. Not much else has gone on here. Most of us just try to make it meal to meal. Breakfast to lunch is the longest. We wake up around 4, go eat around 4:30 or 5 after we get dressed and undressed 10 times and don’t eat lunch until sometime between 12:30 and 2. Dinner is early though. I don’t know what time (they don’t let us see any clocks) but most days I think it’s between 4:30 and 6, since our free time starts at 7 and lights out at 8. That’s pretty much it.

I like getting mail. It was sad watching everyone get lots of letters last week and all I got was my $0.00 bank statement. Tell people to send me letters…I like getting them. You can also send newspaper clippings and pictures. We are also allowed small packages. Thanks.

Love,

Chelsea"

Send her some letters everybody!!!