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.