Second Letter From Boot Camp

Don't even remember the day. It's like 20140820, I think. Nothing, bar nothing, no movie, or youtube video, or book can prepare you for meeting your drill instructors. Boot Camp nearly broke me in the first two days after they took charge of our platoon. The yelling, punishments, running around doing dumb stuff because one, one person screwed up. But once I accepted that every platoon was doing the same stuff, and that it was all part of the process, I got my motivation back in time for training day 1 and 2.

Its hard, but drill is fun and I'm okay with the rest. I do get really mad at recruits who are motivated and don't run and yell hard like I do. It is hard and rough here, but I am can feel myself getting used to it and even starting to enjoy it. I get along well with my platoon mates, at least the good ones. I might beat up the nasty recruits who don't try to do well.

T1 (that's training day 1) we had classes, and MCMAP, Marine Martial Arts. Less fun then it sounds, especially when I already know the basics he was teaching. Mostly it was just tiring from doing the same thing over and over. T2 was morning PT, which trashed me, drill and classes. Everything before that was "forming" or basically processing us and teaching us to be recruits. The rest of the week is a lot of PT and classes. Hope it goes well.

First Letter From Boot Camp

Hi everyone

This is Joy Glass, Jonathan Glass' wife. I will be posting letters that I get from him at Boot Camp (Recruit Training) on this blog for him.

Thursday 20140814
Things happened so fast that its hard to keep track. They throw stuff at you, and then make you inventory it, yelling and ridiculing those who mess up. It happens a lot. Even I mess up occasionally. I already almost "this recruit" instead of "I."

The arrival was pretty crazy. A female drill instructor came up to the van door and just starts hollering in our faces. It was really hard to do what they asked us to, right after going through to silver hatches (oh doors) because my hands were shaking and they were screaming instructions while we had to shout, "Aye, sir" or "Yes, Sir." They took us to a lot of rooms, threw stuff at us and gave lots of instructions, then yelled at people who messed up.

Oh yeah, can't forget the medical check-ups. Shots are tomorrow. That will suck even more. Learning (and failing at) all the little details like how to hang up a bag. A lot of people are really dumb sometimes and get us in trouble. Our platoon gets yelled at a lot and we don't even have official drill instructors yet. We get them Friday. Still having fun in spite of it all though.

 

We Have An Opportunity For You "Time to Go"

The call came on a Tuesday, it was my recruiter, Sgt. Lovett. He said they had an opportunity for me, to go to recruit training on August 11th. I told him I would talk to my wife about it and call him back. I had previously turned down an offer because my wife and I weren't ready for me to leave. Since then we had taken steps to ensure that we would be prepared if another such offer came. This opportunity gave us almost three weeks to complete our preparations. Considering that it would let me get started earlier in the year and thus get me back home earlier next year, it seemed like a good idea.
One hiccup that I discovered was that it involved changing jobs. Where I previously was contracted as a Field Radio Operator, my job if I accepted this offer would be 2841 Ground Radio Repairer. It's a more technical job, that doesn't necessarily involve much field work. But it's also a job that offers new skills that have a place in the civilian market. Besides this I already know I enjoy working with electrical components because I did wiring at a sign factory for my very first job.
I talked it over with my wife, and we decided to accept. My new ship date placed me leaving for boot camp exactly one week before our 1st anniversary. We agreed to celebrate a week early. The following morning was a wednesday, I went to the recruiting station early in the morning for PT and to fill out paperwork. Sgt. Lovett told me that I had to do the 1.5 mile run portion of the IST because I didn't do it at the pool function. At that time I wasn't on the short list to ship, so I went to the PT at the track field instead. Sgt. Lovett drove me to where they did the timed IST run. I ran as hard as I could, hard enough that I retched and nearly threw up at the end. We had used my watch to time the run by eyeball, and Sgt. Lovett said that he recorded it as 11:20, but that being unfamiliar with my watch it was possible that it was as fast as 10:20. Either one is a pretty good time, and since I ran my fastest It's nothing to be ashamed of. After that we returned to the office and I initialed and signed the new contract paperwork. We talked about doing my reserve brief Monday morning. The reserve brief would consist of driving me over to where my Reserve unit was and talking to someone there about where I would be working.

The next few days were weird. It was hard to think about going to boot camp without my heart racing. My wife broke down crying at least once every day thinking about me leaving. Her parents offered to fly her to Austrailia to stay with them during boot camp, and she spent several days drying to decide what to do. In the end she decided to stay in America so we could keep our home and she could be closer to me for writing letters.

On Monday, the day after my wife made her decision, I had my reserve brief. My reserve brief was just that, brief. I went to the recruiting station at 8AM, and had to re-sign the contract paperwork due to a mistake on the previous one. I've gotten used to this by now, I've filled out this same form at least a dozen times since enlisting. After that My recruiter drove me to the reserve station in Alabama. It was a large building, with a central gym type area that I glimpsed through an open door, and countless offices and halls, a veritable maze. Sgt. Lovett guided me to the Marine wing where I was introduced to the 1st Sergeant of the unit I would be joining. He briefly explained how the reserve unit works and gave me his card. He asked if I had any questions and I asked if I could see where I would be working. He called over to the Comms area and told a Sgt. that we would be coming over. We exited the back of the main building and walked around a large steel building that looked like one of those storage units. The comms area was in an identical building on the other side. The Sergeant there introduced himself and showed me the work area. It reminded me a lot of my work at Adam's Signs, the sign factory in Ohio where I did the wiring. Plain concrete floor, steel building, and electronics and equipment for working with electronics everywhere. The Sergeant explained that they don't do much actual repair on site. Mainly they diagnose the problem and send off the equipment to be repaired. He opened a cage and showed me the shelves upon shelves of radio equipment, which I shall not describe in detail for many reasons. Suffice to say that it was fairly interesting. I asked him if they ever get to go out in the field and the sergeant said that it is possible. He said that to get in the field as a radio repairer you have to be exceptional: in top physical shape, a good radio repairer, and a better radio-man than the radio operators. Well I would feel like I was letting myself down if I was anything less than all of the above anyway, so no problem. Sgt. Lovett asked how many radio repairers he had and the sergeant said that he recently lost several. He mentioned that one of them had left to join MARSOC. This piqued my interest and I asked how possible it was to make it into MARSOC or recon from this job. He said it was definitely possible, but not probable and not to get my hopes up. I said I understood, and that it was just nice to know there was a chance of doing something more challenging. I know what I've signed up for, and understand that nobody is obligated to let me do anything other than diagnose, operate, and repair radios.
I will strive to be exceptional in every area of my life and work, and If that opens doors for special opportunities, fine. If it doesn't, also fine. Whatever I do I'll do to the best of my ability for the glory of God.


Sergeant Lovett and I had an uneventful and fun drive back to Pensacola. I found out that he was also a gospel singer when he was younger, and sang in church and with his sisters who he described as being exceptional singers. We sing different types of gospel music, but love for music and singing crosses the boundaries of genres and church denominations.

All that remains is to finish putting my affairs in order so that when I leave I won't have to be worried about anything left undone.