Training Day 20

Thanks for the hair gel. I don't need any more as we just made a PX call and I bought 3 more bottles. We re-gel our hair several times a day with a LOT of gel. There can be no flyaways and the buns have to look like they are held up by magic—no bobby pins or hair ties or anything else like that can show. So those bottles we go through FAST.

I'm having a good time. We won initial drill, meaning we beat Platoon 4001 (the scores were close – it was 63.7 to 63.5) and will march in front of them with the series guidon (a red flag). It was a moment of victory that awarded us a lot of hell from the DIs, who were making sure we knew nothing had changed and we were still recruits. I'm glad we won though. It would have been a lot worse if we hadn't.

We are in Phase II now and Swim Qual Week has started. It's really not that hard to swim in the water in cammies – they can be sort of filled with air and they kinda float. Anyway, we all jumped off a ten-foot thing into the water, swam 25 meters, etc. Piece of cake. Some girls didn't pass; one somehow almost dislocated her shoulder. Weird.

Rifle range is next week. Gonna go study knowledge now. The test is coming up.

I got like over 100 birthday cards. A class of first graders made me cards too which greatly added to the numbers. And just so you know, the present you sent was great. DI Sgt. Sagullo's exact words were "How cute, Snider. Now start pushing." SUCCESS!

(Rose's mom here: I gift-wrapped a little sample packet of moisturizer that I picked up at Whole Foods, decorated the tiny present with stickers and included it in a letter.)

P.S. Funniest thing just happened. You're supposed to run for any DIs hatch to open it for them. So a DI comes in, looks around and starts to walk out. I go booking it for the hatch and out of nowhere she starts SPRINTING for it. Luckily I beat her. Afterwards everyone in the squad bay just cracked up. I have NO idea why she decided to do that. She didn't say nothing or crack any expression or anything!