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soldierofLHS

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I got to Ft. Knox and got inproccessed through reception. The first thing I did was find out my address and I immediatley got ot writing Julia letters. I knew it would be a while before I got any from her ecause it would take a couple days for her to get mine and then responding would take a few more. But I didn't really care, all that mattered to me was that she heard from me. There was a screw up in me shipping so I had to be at reception for a month before I start Basic instead of the usual week. After a few days I was allowed to use the phone and it was great to hear her voice again.

The first phone call felt great but at the same time was so hard. She started crying the second she heard my voice. I kept reassuring her that everything would be ok, we've been long distance our entire relationship so we would be much better off than others.

Turns out the Drill Sergeaants thought we didn't need to be receiving mail here sonce we were only supposed to stay a week so they only checked the mail room once a week. But the group That was here was staying a month so we all got mail. There were only 50 of us, and they were all cool as hell too.  Almost everybody became friends instantly since it was such a small group.

One day a little bit after I made the phone call I was laying on my bed when I heard one of the Drill's holler out:

"HENDERSON!!!"

Fuck, what did I do and how do they know my name already?

I ran down stairs and the drill sergeant had a box of mail Laying on his floor!

"You need to tell Ms. Julia Role-" he started as he flipped through the letters, "tell Ms. Role, tell her......NOBODY NEEDS TO WRITE THIS MUCH! Damn doesn't she have a life????"

Everybody started laughing as I walked over with a smile and grabbed my mail. The Drill Sergeant smiled and told me to go away. I went back to my bunk and counted. Seven. Seven letters from her. I read each and every single one in one session as I layed there. nothing else could have upset me that day. I was set in my mood of happiness.

The time in reseption was set pretty much not doing anything. I would sit around all day writing. I wrote Julia 4 letters everyday for almost 2 weeks but then I thought I would calm it down to two so when I actually got to Basic she would be fine with getting one a day.

The day came for me to go Basic. There were about 400-500 kids there, all but 50 or 60 were going. 170 with me to my troop. I packed up my stuff and headed to the buses. They took us to the gym by our barracks and we met our Drill Sergeants. They smoked the shit out of us. We got split up alphabetically and got put into four seprate platoons. I was put in second platoon. We grabbed our bags and ran to the front of our barracks. We had to empty out all our shit and sperate what we were bringing to our rooms and what we were putting in storage to not touch until we graduated. We got smoked more. We put our shit in storage then brought our stuff up stairs and chose a bunk. Second platoon was on the second floor. I was in the first room. I had seven roommates but didn't get a chance to look at them before I was doing push ups again. They smoked us in our rooms.

The Drill's marched us to the chow hall. We got smoked outside of it before eating. It wasn't just push ups either. It was mostly push ups, and a lot of "flutter kicks". We had to lay on our backs and lift our legs into the air and lift one while the other is being lowered simutaneously, never letting them hit the ground. It killed our abs. We did all kinds of different exercises. Over head arm claps, where we lifted our arms straight out at our sides and clapped them over our heads then bringing them back to straight again, which after doing about 50 or 60 started to hurt. Monkey fuckers. Where we would bend over and grab our ankles, lift our ass as high as we could then drop it down to our calves, lift again and drop again, over and over which starts hurting your thighs after quite some time. Those were just a couple of the dosen different exercizes these guys knew. By the end of the day I could barely move. We went to bed at 9:00 PM, or 2100, and had to be awake at 0430 the next day. I was still able to write Julia a letter before I passed out.

The next day we woke up, made our beds and did physical training, aka PT. I found out that normal Basic Training is a 9 week deal and then you get sent to somewhere else in the U.S. to have you specific job training, but with my job it was all one long 16 week ordeal. Our Drill Sergeants had the same jobs as us, and everybody at the troop were all the same thing I was. Also, because we weren't going anywhere for 4 months, at the end of the 9th week we got 3 days off to leave post and spend time with our family. The next letter was definetly going to have that news in it.

My roommates all turned out to be ok, and our room was split up by lockers, with four people sleeping on one side and four on the other. The three that were one my side and I became a little clique, wiith thje four of us together the majority of the time. My bunkmate and I ended up being close aas ever, with us taking turns doing each other's laundry, buying supplies for one another, helping each other get through Basic. His girlfriend nd him had been together for four years, and they joined the Army together. She was going through training in South Carolina, while we were in Kentuckey. Halfway through she decided that it was too hard and sent him a letter breaking up, with hope that they would get back together. It was really hard for him, and I had to help him through it. After he started eeling better itoly made me feel worse because I started thinking about what it would be like if Julia ended things with me, but when we talked about it in letters she made me feel a lot better.

Basic Training was hard on our relationship, but I knew we could do it. The days were numbering down and I couldn't wait to see Julia. I had only two weeks left before I would get my orders for my next duty station. I was hoping I would get someplacve close like Ft. Campbell or Ft. Drum, but because of my job, my options were very limited.

Week 8 rolled around, and we were all standing on ready line. When they called ready line, we shout a count to ten and at the end of it we had to all be standing in the hallway with our backs to the walls. It was the Drill Sergeants way of putting out information to the platoon without having to actually bust his ass gathering us up. We had come to find out that 90% of ready lines meant one of two things; A. we were about to get smoked, or B. we were about to get mail. But once in a while we got that random ready line. This was one of those.

We all stood there and waited for the Drill Sergeant. When he finally walked down the hallway he announced that our orders were in.

"When I call your name step tp the other side of the hallway. Cloud, Elam, Fahy, Gimlin..."

Elam was one of my roommates. His brother was a Lieutenant and looked up his orders for him so he knew where he was going. I prayed to god I wans't going through the same place. This was hard enough, I couldn't bear to go there.

"Glaser, Hepner"

My name was after Hepner's in our platoon.

Please god, don't make me go there.

"Glaser, Hepner,...Henderson"