RECEPTION BATALLION

Friday, June 18th

Hello everybody! This is my first letter home and I guess I'll just go into details about what's been going on down here in Georgia. As some of you know, my flight from St. Louis to Atlanta was delayed in Memphis due to weather. We left St. Louis at 3:30 PM and left the Atlanta airport at 10:30 PM to head down to Fort Benning. We got to Ft. Benning at around 12:30 AM and then started filling out some more paperwork, turning in our phones, etc. By the time we got to our Barracks and were ready for bed it was around 3:30 AM. At 4:10 AM we were woken up and had to get read for the day. Basically, Reception Battalion comes down to listening, patience, and knowing that it will be over eventually. Until it's over, you deal with the shit, and on a fairly regular basis, getting yelled at. You hope to keep moving so you don't fall asleep while you wait to get fitted for uniforms, shoes, or medical screenings of some sort.

Here's kinda a typical day.
4:10 AM wake-up. 4:45 AM fall into formation and sound off. 5:15 - 5:30 AM march to chow (breakfast), 6:30 AM fall into formation again, fill our camel packs with water and follow the Sgt. to wherever we need to be. Around 12:00 PM we head to Chow (lunch). Around 1 to 1:30 PM fall into formation again, and follow the Sgt. to our next destination. Around 5:00 PM we head to Chow(dinner) and around 6:30 - 7:00 PM head back to our bunks for the final formation and checks. Depending on how well the different Companies come together, and if we all can keep our mouths shut ....... the Drill Sgt. will release us for the night. Which then leads to the fiasco of Fire Watch.

Our first night, no one told us anything about Fire Watch. Knowing that other barracks have been doing it I head down (with a buddy) to get a debriefing (So the Drill Sgts. have assigned those waiting or finished with BCT to positions of Authority). Well, it's supposed to be lights out at 2100 (9PM). Some people are still up, some are dead asleep. We got back at 8:45 this night.... So these guys come up and wake everyone up except for this one guy. Everyone is yelling at him and nothing. So they start to flip his bed, and he finally wakes up with the most confused look on his face. It's almost like he has no idea where he is. So everyone is telling him to get off his bed and he doesn't. He just sits there refusing to move, or speak. So everyone starts yelling even more now. Finally it seems to sink in with the kid and he finally gets out of bed, this was seriously like a 5 minute debacia. We finally get our fire watch debrief, Basically we just stand guard for 1 hour during the night. There are shifts to cover from the time we go to sleep, which seems to be the most precious commodity right now.

OK, so that's pretty much all that's been going on lately. This has really been my first personal time to do anything. Since I'm a Specialist ( 1 of maybe 3 in 700 soldiers) a lot of people come to me looking for answers that sometimes I have and other times I have no clue. Either way, there's always people asking for an answer instead of finding one! Time to Go ........Sgt. just walked in, be back later tonight.....hopefully.
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Okay, so we just had to pack up all our gear and bring it down to the classroom we use. Mind you, I had just organized everything the way I wanted. So I load up all my stuff an we are supposed to be assigned a new barracks. Well would it surprise you as to what came next ????? Oh that's right, we moved back into the EXACT same barracks, back to the exact same bed. Foxtrot Mike Lima (Army Code)

In more general news, about 120 people so far have either Quit/"injured" and are leaving the Army. I saw a guy crying to a Drill Sgt. today that he wanted to leave. The thing about Reception is that you have to just deal with Shit! Yes it can be boring, standing in formation for probably close to 3/4 hours a day. It sucks....but as I said earlier "Embrace the Suck". Better days are ahead. Speaking of better days, I should actually be starting BCT on June 25th because reception sucks and takes a lot of time to process. Either way, Plan Accordingly.
LOVE YOU ALL,
Matt
PS: I won't have an address for at least another week. I'll keep you posted.