WORST/BEST OF RECEPTION SATURDAY 6/19

Alright so reception has been very slow considering it is the weekend. We got an extra hour of sleep so we woke up at 0515 (5:15 AM) !! Very Exciting! Fire Watch was a complete failure last night. I had the 0300 to 0400 shift, but was woken up 3 times before my shift because one person put down a fake name to avoid duty (more to come) and twice people couldn't find those to wake up for the next shift. Needless to say I was confused when the light came on and I looked at my watch that read "00:04". Overall the day was kinda annoying. Our Drill Sgt. assigned my platoon to clean out another platoons barracks until we were told that we were relieved. Well I guess Drill Sgt. forgot about us because 3 hours later we were sweeping the floor, cleaning the bathroom, etc. for the third time. Half the platoon quit cleaning and were just screwing around, while I led the other half to keep cleaning. Eventually I found out the Drill Sgt. had left. I found this out when I asked for more to clean. I reach out for more the DS isn't even there..... I would think normally they would drool for the opportunity.

Anyway, we then hit the rain as we headed to chow (dinner). This is where the night started to improve. So we line up in formation as a way to organize almost 500 people who are in reception right now to get chow and eat as quickly as possible. So while it's raining and we're in formation Sgt. "G" asks for someone who can sing. So we get this guy up there and the Sgt. whispers the song to sing into his ear. Turns out to be the the Nation Anthem. So to visualize this, imagine ^ 200 soldiers, some in ponchos, some covered by the roof of the walkway leading to chow, singing the National Anthem at the top of their lungs in the pouring rain while waiting to eat. Needless to say this has been by far my most memorable and favorite part of being here so far. You already have friendships forming and you can see how other people are looking out for those in their platoon.

But for as great as that was, we still have a lot of 18-19 year olds' who just don't know when to shut up. Dinner chow always ends our day. We file into a final accountability check. Well the Drill Sgts. have no problem waiting until we're completely quiet. Well, 30 minutes later .....an people still won't shut the F**K UP!!!! It's so simple to do! Just shut up, stand in formation, and have some patience! It also fails to show that when people are yelling for everyone to "Shut the f**k up" then for everyone who yells that, two more people then yell the same thing and then four people yell it and it snowballs until half the room is yelling " Shut the F**K up to get people, to put it plainly, to shut the F**k up. They all fail to realize just how counter productive their yelling is. (Sorry for the language, but it's a word use frequently here) NOTE FROM MOM - I edited this a bit just couldn't type the word all the way out -

Well once that was over with (we finally got quiet) we called out our platoon. Basically the Drill Sgt. calls out your platoon number (ours is Charlie Oscar 662) we all come to attention and yell "HERE DRILL SGT. !!!!" and then count off our roster number until the last man who then says "Charlie Oscar 662 all present and accounted for Drill Sgt.!! HOOAH!!! Well, one group I guess is still struggling to do this: DISCLAIMER: These are words my DS used, not my opinion, just forwarding the information. If you are offended by the word retard, STOP READING.

So the DS goes into reaming the platoon by calling them retarded "Band of Brothers!!? More like Band of Retards. How F**king difficult is this? F***** retard Deja Vu. Lets try this again. Ready......???? 1...2...3... " (They Fail
AGAIN) I'll let you guess at the rest of what he said. Once that DS was done, then we had the other DS take over. And that was entertaining to say the least. He called out two people who were complaining about Fire Watch and made them explain why in front of 250 soldiers of whom everyone of them as done fire watch. The the DS pointed out that their refusal/fake name were just a giant "F**k You DS" which he returned by calling them "pussies" and definitely came back with his own version of "F**K You" which had it been the "Old Army" would have involved getting "physical".

So an annoying day turned into a pretty fun and entertaining night. I just finished my fire watch detail (23:00) and am heading to bed.

PS - I'm starting to enjoy my shaved head, and also took my picture which should all be ready at graduation.
Love You All,
Matt.