letter 4-30

4-23

Well I'm in the middle of no where doing nothing but staring into the middle of the empty woods. We are waiting for lunch, I'm starving! We are moving in a wedge like an attack, then we eat, but we are waiting for everyone else. So it's another oppertunity to talk to you.

4-24

Sorry I got a little side tracked. After I wrote you we ate, ant then did night land navigation till about 2 am. Slept till 6 did more feild training, now we are back at base camp waiting for buses. So everyone is sleeping, big wusies, can't handle no sleep, bring it on! All in all it was pretty fun, could have been better but what are you gonna do!
I'm back feels so good to be clean again! I took a shower, and cleaned my rifle.

4-25

How are you today? I'm really really sorry, I had the chance to call you today and I dropped the ball. Luckily I'll have a call tomarrow. I would have only gotten to talk to you for about 3 min anyway, and that is almost worse than not calling. The reason I would have gotten to was because I was one of 10 that did the best on PT and BRM(shooting) So they took 10 people from each platoon in my company, so 40 people from charlie co. got to go to a church that does a soldier appreciation day, and they fed us pizza, ice cream, nachos, sodas, and candy bars, chips and cookies. They also provided us with their personal cell phones to call home. I thought I had more time, and when I got ready to call we had to leave. I think I may have broke my stomach with how much I ate. I'm so full. but it was awsome. Earlier today we did combatives and I went close to all out, and had no pain anywhere on my body. I'm healing up.

4-26

What a crappy day, our platoon lost the phone hopefully only for this week. Really stupid reason too. Crazy DS of coarse. Sorry. I didn't do anything and nobody else really did either. Some of us got burned, but the whole platoon paid. I feel so terrible for you and the kids. This will probably be my longest week now. No talking to you is going to be hard. Another day closer, I miss you so much. I'm back Oh by the way most of the guys here think Hope is a hotty, from the family picture. She might get a kick out of that! I'm not looking forward to the next overnight trainings, we leave on wed. and not come back until sunday. That will be in 3 weeks, but then our training is technically over. The next week we'll be getting ready to graduate, and the week after that will be graduation. Only 5 sundays left.

Joey's shots

About a week and a half ago I took Joey in to get his shots. He did really well! Later that day we were playing outside and he was being so happy and cute, so I asked one of the kids to get the camera for me so I could take pictures of Joey on his shots day to send to dad. Joey heard me and came running over saying "mom shots all better now, shots all better see" With the biggest happy grin, it was so adorable!

More letters

4-21

I'm on guard duty for some rifles while the rest of the guys are picking up bags for another company Delta. They graduated when we got here, and the next cycle is coming in. We have been the only company here for a while. Now there is Alpha, and Delta. We are the seniors Ladi freakenda. It is very pretty here. I love times like this when nobody else is here, it's so calm, and peaceful.

4-22

How are you? Just finished another letter only one more to go. ( He didn't get any mail then got 5 letters the same day) Reading your letters is the highlight of my day. I'm at another range again shooting last time at this range I did terrible, I don't know what happened. We'll see today how it goes. Tomarrow we go on a field exersize. Be there all day and all night we won't be back until Friday afternoon. I'm not sure what we'll be doing but I think it's going to be war simulations, sounds fun. Shooting blanks at each other and so forth.
Well I just finished shooting like I did. Like I said I don't know what happened before. I shot sharp shooter, 5 away from expert. So I have prequalified, Next Tuesday is qualification day, say a prayer for me, Maybe I'll get expert with more prayers.
Iwas looking at the upcoming schedule and it just seems like there is so much left. There is plenty completed, but there is alot left. However things keep going on, days aren't so long anymore, and the weeks seem to be moving faster, just not fast enough for me. I'm ok just a little more homesick right now.
The DS (drill srgt) are changing leadership, and guess what I got pulled into it. I'm a team leader I forgot to tell you, I've been trying to lay low cause pretty much everyone that has been through this has been telling me to do that. So Just doing my thing and then see ya later. Just trying to get through this is all that matters.

letters 4-22

4-17

Hello Family it's Friday again. This week really did fly by fast. Finally time is going by like it used to. I'm so happy my locker is full of pictures of you. I love it. I didn't get any mail today, neither did anyone else. Crazy huh! Tomarrow we get to go to a football game off post. Sweet. If there are phones I'm going to talk to you most of the time. What is going on with the cell phones I might get mine back in a couple of weeks. Cool. I 'll be able to cal on Sundays, not for sure, but it sounds like it.
The sun is almost down now it is about 68-70 it is so nice. Oh I thought you'd laugh at this. You know what I like to eat alot now.. Salad with Blue cheese dressing (kind of like ranch but better) (his discription here makes me laugh cause blue cheese is my favorite) Cheese, onions, etc. and EGGS. Hard boiled eggs broken up. It's awsome. And breakfast is my favorite meal. The meal I'd hardly ever eat. I usually eat eggs, and bacon or sausage, an apple orange or grapefruit, 1 slice french toast, 2 bowls of cereal. When I'm done I'm not full it's only that I didn't eat fast enough or can't eat fast enough that I don't eat more. I've taken a few daws of recover from PT because I can. I passed all my PT's, which is great! I feel so much better now that I've had a day or two to recouperate, I think that I am also finally over that cold that I had when I called you. I've been taking advel the past few days and my ankles and ribs feel like they are finally almost totally healed. I'm still doing push ups and sit ups just no running.
If I didn't say this before the kids especially Joey all look different. It's crazy! I still think it's worth it though. I really hope things settle down for you in regards to work. I don't want you to work anymore. I hope that will soon be done. Like I said before I left no money jobs I'm done working for people that treat you like you've been treated. You are deffinately done when I get back dealing with people. I really only have like 4 weeks of training left then it's the fun stuff like getting army greens, pictures, etc. So the last 2 weeks should go by fast! Monday it will be 1 month, then just a little more time.

4-18

Good Morning my Family - How is everyone doing? I have all day to myself because I've passed everything to this point. Everyone that hasn't are all out training right now. Sucks for them, boring for me! Oh! you would be so proud of me. One of the kids that sleep next to me was upset about something and was teling me about it. I was trying to help him out by giving him some advice, then I stopped and thought for a sec. and said are you just venting? He said yes and I said ok I'll shut up and just listen... I'm getting better because of you. The drill srgt is having me make a table. Go Figure! It will be fun, and he'll owe me something maybe a phone pass or something, we'll see! I have about 1/2 hour then we leave for dinner and then to the game.
I just got back from the game it sucks that I only got to talk to you for a min. I should be able to talk tomarrow. It's 11:55 and I'm wide awake. The football game was cool it was military appreciation day. Even the cheerleaders wore camo.

4-19

I'm back nothing more has happened cause it's 3:24 am and I'm on fireguard. fun fun. Luckily it's Sunday morning and we sleep in til 6:30 so I'll sleep a little more. I really hope something happens so that you can come stay at AIT for a little while. Over all being able to talk to you is going to be so much better. I need to wake up some people gotta go.
It's crazy how depressed and girly some of these cry baby guys are here. Sometimes I think I'm in a girls dorm. Drama drama drama everywhere. I'm just observing and laughing at them. Although it's exhausting at times. It's nice to get away and go chill with Daneily "the other mormon" He is really cool and really mellow. What I would really like is to still be talking to you, that was so nice earlier today. There is a guy here who yesterday found out that his girlfriend died, and nobody told him. He found out yesterday at the game . She passed away a week ago. Count your blessings. I do. I can't imagine having to find out news like that, that way. How awful for him.
Tomarrow we are running a 3 mile run and shooting the rest of the day. This week should go by pretty fast also. lots of things to do. Most of it is fun stuff too. Lights out is at 8 instead of 9 tonight and it's 8:15 and they are still on. My drill srgt. is crazy. He reminds me of Nicolas from Ellis Woods when he talks, but I think he's losing his marbles a little. My other drill srgt. is awsome. But the one here right now, and of coarse he is the senior one, is a little insane. He'll be talking completely calm and for no reason at all go bazurk! then 2 sec later completely calm. He's like Nicolas cause he's a control freak, and his accent is very similar. Well he finally turned off the lights.

Give it to Jason he'll try anything

Yesterday my little tornado Joey got into the pantry just before the kids got home, He got out the chocolate mini rice cakes, that luckily were almost gone, and dumped them on the fireplace hearth, and some on the floor. I was looking over the papers from school (Jason vacuums the living room everyday after school anyway) and Preston came in and said "Jason what are you eating?" I look over to see he has the rice cakes in his hands. He says "I don't know" and looks down at his hands then matter of factly says "They are worms crawling in dirt" and takes another bite, and goes back to his homework!

letters 4-16

In Hobie's letter to the kids he wrote
All day long we shot m16 's I only got to shoot 44 times cause I hit 40 targets. Only those who hit less than 25 got to shoot again. Which was alot. I shot for 10 min but was there all day. But it was still fun. My drill srgt only hit 36 ha ha! I beat him by 4 my other drill srgt was impressed, and he's hard to impress. My grouping was awsome. I only missed 1 out if 8 on the 300m 1 of the 175 and hit all my 75m Pretty good huh! 300M is more than 3 football fields. I couldn't believe I did that!

letters 4-13

4-13

Well the day has now passed. We were supposed to do my first PT, first of 3. But the weather would not cooperate. Too much lightning for the 2 mile run. Later on we did combatives, so I wrestled around with other dudes, pretty fun. The cool thing though is that Ft. Benning is the only Basic Training that will certify their soldiers to be level 1 in combatives.

4-14

Right now I have fireguard. It's 3:30 in the morning I'll have a 1/2 hour after my shift to sleep, so I guess I'm up for the day. We get to do the PT test today, and a road march. It might be an overnighter, I'm not sure, but it sounds fun. By the way MRE are not that bad if you get the right ones. I've only got candy in mine twice which kinda sucks. All the other platoons in my company (3 others) don't get to eat the candy we are the only ones that get to. Ha Ha my platoon has been lucky with drill srgts. They both are pretty cool. The senior one can be a pain sometimes but we still have way more privelages than any other platoon. Like calling home on Sundays and such, other platoons can't. We transitioned into white phase yesterday. That was kinda cool they took the 4 platoon flags down and replaced the red with white flags. We are supposed to get more privelages but we'll see.
5 more days will be 1 month since I left. That is crazy to me. It's been the slowest month that went by pretty fast. I think I'll be fine until May 30th that day will suck but I know I'll get to see you a few days later. Until then we will be doing alot of cooler stuff. No more gas, lots more blowing stuff up, doing missions at night against other platoons. Easter was hard for me, our anniversary will be very hard for me.

4-15

Time to answer questions. I got my moms on Tuesday both on the 14 th. We had some classes on rifle marksmanship which I qualified or passed on today. I am up everyday at 6 -6:30 doing PT and getting ready for breakfast. So when you up at 3 am that's what I'm doing. I got like 8-9 letters on Tuesday. On Tuesday I passed on all myPT stuff. yea. My push ups and sit ups I thought I got a 70 and 58my 2 mile run I got a 68. I need a 50% on all to pass so I did fine. Today I qualified on rifle. I qualified on rifles. Tuesday we did some land nav, the 3 mile pack (40-50 lbs) hike. The hike is required. So today my body was beat up! I feel good now (10 pm)
I'm getting so much stronger though. I'm doing well physically my dad was asking. I tell you what though I don't know what I 'd do without prayers and a priesthood blessing. I've told you my ribs and ankle hurt every night, but when I need them to not hurt and work I feel no pain or tolerable pain. Maybe when my faith grows I'll feel no pain. But I feel like Heavenly Father wants me to remember what he is doing for me everyday. I feel so blessed, no matter what I am going through aches and pains if I need to preform at my top level I know my Heavenly Father steps in and eases my burden, lightens my load. I appreciate my blessings even more. Even though I know I'll be blessed when the time comes, I still humble myself and ask again. What a blessing my time here has been.

letters 4-10 -4-12

4-10

Pretty fun day shot m16, cool. Shoot tomarrow also. Time has been going pretty fast at times it seems slow, but looking back its almost been a month. I hope it goes by even faster as we transition from red-white-blue. There are guys that say in blue they were doing pretty much anything in reguards to cell phones and mp3 players etc. That would be great! At AIT I know we have internet too, That will be nice rather than writting letters. And you can send pictures daily or update daily. I just want access to talking to you when I want.

4-12

I had a big day yesterday so I never had time to write. Oh I forgot after I got done writting on Friday Night I went to bed. Then the tornado alarms started sounding. Before that we had some awsome lightening. Then the alarms went off. They (drill srgt) told us we can sleep in till 6:30 but because of the tornado's we have to sleep downstairs in another room. The whole company 250 of us. that sucked. On top of that they woke us up at 5:30. So we didn't get to sleep in our beds, and we got woken up early. I blame all those who went to that movie about Christ (The Passion) God was not happy. That's just what I think.Yesterday we shot m16 and had to zero them. Adjust the sights. There were only 3 wo could not zero in our whole platoon. That was fun but it took all day long. By the time we got back we ate dinner, did PT, had our squad meeting, went to bed. Now its now, so Happy Easter I miss you all so much.
I just realized at breakfast I missed the Saturday egg hunt. I have to admit I was preety sad about that. We have not got mail for a few days because Friday was Good Friday and Monday was something else. Just got back from church. One of the drill srgt said you didn't hear this from me but tomarrow sometime you'll be moving to white phase. Hopefully that will mean something we'll see.

4-7

I'm on fireguard again 10-11 shift. My time is almost up. We had a combat medic come in today and told us what fort sam would be like. It sounds great. We can have a computer and it will have internet hookups, sounds like we can have cell phones. You can come visit. He also said it's going to be fast paced and hard. We will be EMT-B certified in 2 weeks (that's a 3-6 mo coarse) done in 2 weeks crazy! About reservations I don't know anything either so maybe just call down here and ask.

4-8

I got in trouble today with about 7 other guys for wearing warmer clothes under our PT's I had to write a 650 word essay. Fun. (In John Ellis' letter he said one guy got caught so they checked everyone.) So I don't have much time to write cause I wrote the essay already. We did land navigation all day after morning PT pretty fun. Then I wrote my essay. It was good I must say. I got your letter, the smell good one. Thank you. I love mail call cause I always seem to get one. I got one from a seventy, pretty cool. Well I'm really tired, alot of standing in freezing cold today.

letters 4-3 - 4-7

4-3

Well I'm sitting here doing nothing, starving, I'm always hungry now! I can't eat enough and I'm still not gaining weight. Crazy huh! I miss our nighttime snacks.

4-4

We've been learning combatives (fighting) this morning. Pretty cool. Then we got our heads shaved again. This time I look like a skin head. Before it wasn't this short. It's just before using a razor. So far the only thing that has been a surprise to me is that the drill sargents are not as crazy as what I would have expected. The kid in the bunk below me is getting depressed cause he hasn't heard anything yet. Man I miss your snacks!!! Mostly cause I am used to eating a little all day not alot 3 times a day in 7-10 min. Also I drink way more water than you now. Just at the meal times I have to drink 1 large glass of water, and 1 large glass of poweraid then I usually get a glass of milk if I have time. But breakfast, lunch and dinner I have to drink both, secondly I have to eat 1 piece of fruit before I can eat the rest of my food. I can't wait to eat at my pace again and taste the food again, and have your food again. If you send me a package I ave to do 40-50 push-ups. If it has goodies in it the drill srgt. will eat it in front of us. If you send me a musical card I will have to sing and dance in front of everyone. So don't ok! Days like today just drag cause we don't really have anything to do and we can't rest, eat, or call. But I can call tomarrow. How are things with my dad? What about Grandpa? Well I should probably be getting off to bed. 1 week down 9 to go. June 3rd is family day. I don't know if you can reserve a place yet. What's going on with the house? There are some weird snoring here, so I wear ear plugs cause it drives me nuts! Luckily I'm usually pretty tired.

4-5

General Conference weekend. Wish I were there. Went to church we had a fast Sunday which was pretty cool. Not much happening here on Sunday. I hope they let me call you today they said they would. So how many days till I see you again? Just got off the phone with you, great to hear your voice. So glad to hear the spirit in our home is good, peaceful. That makes it easier too. Hopefully I'll get more freedoms the longer I'm here. I'm hungry again, some guys are sneaking saltine crackers, pb &j from the cafeteria. They share with me cause I'm papa Cluff.

4-6

Just got some letters from you and Ellis, love it. Today we fought with Pugel sticks. They look like a big q tip. Lot of fun, our platoon now has won two of the three events we have done. Pretty cool. The drill srgt. love it. My ankle has been killing me. So of course I have been praying for it to heal. Now with my ribs, that still hurt when I'm not doing anything and now my ankles the same, but as soon as I do anything I must do to graduate, no pain, I'm fine. Miracle, I'm so blessed. I have so much joy here because of these little miracles in my life here, in this crazy place. Someone wants me to make it through this. Tomarrow I'm getting gassed. I'll have to let you know how that goes. I keep telling others around here that are missing their families that you are doing this for them If you quit you are doing it for yourself. I miss you but this is for our family. I do have friends, the older guys are lwss crude and mostly not at all, and there is a mormon named Daniely from Orlando who is 32 that is really cool. My bunk mate is 19 crude and lonely, no letters for him yet.

4-7

Got gassed today. Jason may think I'm a woosy but getting gassed Sucked! Holy crap I'm glad that is done. That stuff they gave us is the weakest stuff the army uses and it is terrible. It was a type of nerve gas that makes your eyes burn and water and your skin feels on fire. and the bset part is you can't breathe without it feeling like your breathing sharp burning air. They make you take off your mask for a second at first and say your roster # and last name. Then you clear your mask. Which hurts bad couse the gas is in your mask so your eyes and lungs all burn while you struggle to breath. When you finally recover then it gets really bad. Some guys in front of me couldn't put their helmet on so I had to suffer. If you did something wrong you got to go back, that was not going to happen to me and it didn't! When I finally got out several seconds later 20-30 I couldn't see much at all, but my vision cleared up. You couldn't touch anything at all cause it would make it burn more. After we finally aired out enough then it wasn't bad at all anymore. But during it it was terrible! The other crappy thing was it was freezing. We sat around cold eating MRE's I was miserable. Today was a good day to end. We did PT early this morning before we got gassed. Ate breakfast then froze outside till we came back from being gassed. Then we did PT till just a little while ago. My stomach is already getting defined. Awsome. They said it will be hot here. It hasn't beenat all yet. That normally wouldn't bother me but they don't let you choose what you wear, so I've been pretty cold.I'm looking forward to the warm, never thought I'd say that! I did 400 crunches today pretty cool. Not at the same time, 200 earlier, 200 again. The best thing about today was your letter. Thank you.

Letters 3-31

3-31I woke up about 3:45 and couldn't go back to sleep. Had a pretty fun day yesterday. We did an obstical course, did our PT test, and then did a bunch of strength exercises. I will be cut when all is said and done. I already feel stronger and more healthy. I was so worried about my ribs but everytime that I did something I didn't really feel my pain until I was done. All day. What a blessing, I was praying my heart out. Well guess wat it isn't tuesday anymore. I'm on Fireguard now and it's 1:20 am wed. I jusst talked to you around 11:45 ish Tuesday became pretty crazy we did another obstical coarse and got soaking wet. Before that we did 30/60's which is sprint for 30 seconds and then walk etc. We ran 1/2 mile warm up 1/2 mile 30/60 then 1/2 mile cool down. Then we ate and went to a class on IED or explosives that Iraq's use to blow us up, crazy class. One of my drill srgt. told us some really crazy stories of when he was there. I'll have to tell you some day. After that we did the obstical course we got sandy and nasty when were done. Then they washed us off with the coldest water, I couldn't even talk, then we had BRM Basic Rifle Markmanship. Just an intro to what is coming up.Oh! When I finally went to sleep about an 1 1/2 later you called, and freaked me out they didn't tell me why you called only that I needed to get my butt down there and call you cause the red cross called. So after I calmed down I slept for 5 min and now here I am at 1:40. I went and got my laundry and stuff in the middle here. I was glad to here your voice and the kids in the background. I wish I could have talked more. I miss their voices. I don't know if I can do AIT and not see you for that long. I am so blessed my ribs only hurt when I am not doing anything they feel totally fine during thephysical activities, and hurt alot later! Not more than before, they are actually getting better, but they still hurt. Such a blessing! When you heard me on the phone and didn't recognize me it's cause I have a cold, but it doesn't bother me to much. Just sounds bad! Well my shift is over. How is my dad doing by the way? and Grandpa?

Hobie 3-29 -3-30

Hobie's letters
The first week he was in processing, So basically everyday he stood in line for hours, to get things like uniforms, shots, financial paperwork, and all that stuff! He's been at the real Basic training since last Thursday. He says to summerize last week "Civilians were mean, drill sargents were mean, processers were mean, the lines were long, and all in all I hated it!" It's 2 days into red phase which lasts about 2-3 weeks and so far it's been pretty easy. Yes they make us do things because we mess up, and they make us do things when we don't, so who cares! I'm eating well, I feel good with the one exception.(he bruised his rib) Enough of that it's not that bad, It's not fun, but not that bad! Oh my drill sargent is hispanic and no one can hardly understand him, which makes for some fun if you can imagine!
3-29

Well it's another Sunday,went to church this morning at 8:30 found out there are some mormons around here! I got a blessing and I gave 2. I met and was a part of Hyrum Smith's great great great grandson's blessing. Pretty cool, and very spiritual. Tomarrow we do our first PT. My feet don't hurt as much, they are getting used to standing around and that makes me happy.
3-30

It's 2 am Monday morning and I am on Fire Guard, or Guard duty. I'm sitting at a desk logging in all the people coming and going. If you can imagine ther really isn't much activity. I sleep on the top bunk #142 of 160 beds close to the back of our room. Everyone on both sides of me are pretty cool. The guy right below me is a 19 year old noisey, question asking, pain in the neck! Yeah me! Naw he's alright, but still a pain. That pretty much summerizes the letters so far I'll add more as I get more! I did get to talk to him the other day, and he sounds really good! He's excited to start learning things! He did ask for everyone to pray for him, he said his rib is starting to feel better, but he doesn't want that to cause any problems that could cause him to have to stay longer!

Hobie's Address

I just got Hobie's address if anyone is interested in writing! He can't recieve any packages, they will be thrown away.
PFC Ronald J Cluff
RN# 142
C Co, 2nd Bn, 47th Inf
5375 Hanson Drive
Fort Benning, GA 31905-4930
The letter I just got was a form letter from the commander, but as he writes me I'll post things here about how he's doing! He sounded really good last week when we talked on the phone. He sounds so happy and excited! They already shaved his head, and he has about 1/32 inch of hair he said. As of then he'd been doing alot of processing stuff like getting uniforms, and shots!
Posted by Brittany at 7:00 AM 1 comments

Hobie

I wanted to create a blog so I could post Hobie's letters and everyone could get on and check how Hobie is doing, and see all the cute things happening in our lives!