Training Day 35

Sorry the phone call was so early (it was 5:30 a.m.). I had already been up for hours, probably since 2:00 a.m. your time. I almost started crying when Dad picked up the phone but then I was fine. It did make me miss home a lot though. I'm pretty homesick, yea.

Firing week is nearly here, and I received a great quote from the PMI – a lot of people have problems with nervousness on the range, so he said, "You can't make the butterflies go away, but you can make them fly in formation."

There is a lot of drama these days – new squad leaders, people fucking with other people, I now have one of the dumber recruits as a bunkie so I'm fucked, and I'm kinda depressed. I dunno, I'm just sick of all the drama. I was hoping females in the Marines would be different but for the most part they aren't.

We did this MCMAP endurance course on TD 33 a few days ago which was CRAZY. We basically -- okay, it wasn't that crazy. It was fun though. It was a lot of 'field exercises' -- one person was dead, the other had to drag her with a specific carry across the field, low-crawling through mud, etc.

We're losing patience with each other. Example: we got to make some more phone calls home today, with a DI watching the whole time. You may have noticed I periodically would say, "Aye ma'am" because she would make some comment to me about something. The phone call was great! Sorry it was so early. I really have no idea what time it was but I'd guess around 7:00 a.m. my time. At least I got ahold of you. A lot of the girls didn't but that still counts as their phone call.

Anyway, one girl started crying so the DI comes out to where the rest of us are in formation studying and says, "You'd better not start crying your eyes out when you go in there, because that's disgusting. A squad leader too, right, Zaballa?"
Rct. Zaballa: Aye ma'am
DI Sgt. Goodman: You are disgusting.
Us: Aye ma'am

Granted, you have to agree with anything the DI says, but we meant it more. Recruits who make mistakes -- scratch their faces, talk, not go fast enough, open the hatch wrong, don't sound off, etc. -- now punish everyone. The guide and squad leaders all get quarterdecked for it too. We've all decided to 1) get on our faces and get punished with them as a platoon, and 2) keep tabs, and on rifle watches set the offender's rifle from safe to semi so they get watch instead.