At last a letter!

Sept. 5, 2008
Well, I'm finally here. Reception isn't hard, it's just boring. It's like Satan's checkout counter. And it's only day 2. There's just so much standing around waiting. I found out in Optometry that my glasses are no good. My vision has worsened. Slightly.
They issued me a camelback, though, so that's cool. I've had to be in PT gear the whole time. My clothes and other things are in my bag locked in another part of the facility. Anyway, I have fireguard tonight, so I should go for a bit. I'll write more later.
Sept. 6, 2008
Now it's 4:15 a.m. and I have fireguard again. I should get to sleep through the night tomorrow, though. I don't mind fireguard much. I get along ok with my group. They're good guys. They're all over the place.
My thoughts are everywhere, aren't they? I've heard I get 2 weeks for Christmas, so that'll be good. We'll be together again soon.
Sept. 11, 2008
So, wow. 1st day of Basic Red Phase is over. The "Shark Attack," as they call it, proved too much for some. It's been helpful knowing that they laugh later about it. One of my sergeants back home was a godsend that way. I'll have an address for you soon. For now, I have to sleep.
Sept. 15, 2008
These last few days have been hell. Not really in a bad way. We have 3 main Drill Sergeants. One is our Senior D.S. He's in his 50's, I'd guess, cool, calm disposition. We lucked out there. Another is in his 30's, likes to make us do P.T. Typical D.S. The third is a legend in cruelty. He made us disassemble our 30 bunks and reassemble them downstairs in the formation area. He gave us an hour to do it. So, we did it in 45 min. Yeah, that made him mad. So, he made us break them down and take them back to our bay. He gave us 40 min. And they had to be in order. We did it in 30 min.
We had to do the gas chamber today. Not nearly as bad as everyone said. Well, for me. Come to find out, only 3% of the populace is immune to CS gas, but about 10 % are CS tolerant. I am CS tolerant. Woo! We decided that my platoon would sound off with our platoon name upon exiting the chamber. Everyone else said, "splarplughwppl" or something like that. So, because my lungs cleared almost instantly, I sound off so LOUD so that I made up for the platoon. The D.S. of another platoon was like, "How come you couldn't do that?" to them.
My battle buddy is this pretty cool 20-something kid. He's lived in Germany for 18 years. Speaks German, English, and French fluently. (Can you tell I finally have enough time to write?) I don't have fireguard tonight, so I can finally catch up. So far I've been issued a lot of crap, including vest, helmet, and an M-16 4A.
All in all, I'm doing ok. I need to sleep for now, but I'll send this tomorrow.
Spyder

I was so excited to get this letter today. I edited out the mushy stuff to spare you guys, but if you want to read it too, I can include it. It's such a relief to hear from him at last. As usual, I'll let you guys know when I do.