LDRSHIP

27 Nov 08

Happy Thanksgiving! We're all sitting in our barracks hanging out and just kind of taking the day off I guess? So while I have some free time, I figured I would update everything. This week is the first week of Basic and so far so good. Doing all the push ups and everything kind of stinks, but I'm looking at it this way, I'm getting paid right now to get in shape! :p

A few days ago we went up and did a high ropes course call Victory Tower. At this place. it's probably 35, 40 ft in the air and we climbed it, climbed ropes across it, climbed down it, repelled off it, and a few other things, but it was so much fun! We've went on a road march as well so far. That's how we got to Victory Tower. That will be the first of many, but we were issued our M16's yesterday so now we'll be carrying those with us on the next one because now we have to carry our weapons everywhere we go!

Today some things have happened worth blogging about. The first of which being our Thanksgiving dinner. Today we were served Thanksgiving dinner by all our superiors and officers. It was a really cool sight to see because since I've been here, all I've seen of them has been being proud, angry, can't-do-anything-without-getting-yelled at drill sergeants and then having switched to where they and even the higher ranked officers dipping out our mashed potatoes.; that was humbling. To be so proud of something and get still humble enough to do things like this? Isn't that a whole lot of how being a Christian is supposed to be like? I must admit..the Army has a lot more things figured out about life than what you would first think. Even the 7 Army values relate so well with Christian life. Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless, Honor, Integrity, and personal Courage. I have seen a lot of these these values displayed so for in our Sergants, but today, selfless service was definitly the BIG one :):)

Another thing happened today that stuck in my mind as well. Yesterday we signed a paper saying we would follow all the rules of being in the barracks and stuff, and one of the rules was NO food in the bays. NO EXCEPTIONS! So we get down to the chow hall and the lines of food are decorated with candies and such ok, cool whatever, kind of wierd, but cool Thanksgiving decorations. People start taking some, taking some, next thing I knew I see people starting to stuff it in their pockets. Ok, whatever, lets go fill in formation. So we get back to our company spot in the barracks and the thing the drill sergeants do is have us empty our pockets. Guilty. So many people had candy he had us emptying everything on the ground. After we were done getting punished for doing it, he said something I remembered.. "I'm glad you guys showed me this. Now I know you guys can't be trusted." Integrity. That is one of the 7 Army values and we failed today. :( Hopefully we've learned our lesson.