Guest post by Lori Hahn. Thank you, Lori.
Hi Starr Ann! Hi Margo,
We are in the final week of basic. I’ll be marching all perfect and stuff and in my greens on Monday. Families are coming. No one will be here for me, but my best basic buddy Charlotte has her whole family coming from Arkansas. Cousins and everything. I think it’s an entire family made up of cousins from the sounds of things though! I tease her that way. Got a couple of letters from Amanda. That seems kind of ridiculous considering her building and mine are LOS (that’s line of sight for you civilians). We’ll be able to see each other on Sunday when we have an open pass. She got her assignment to go to combat medic school. She told them she fainted when she saw blood, but they said she’d get over it.
I had to do all these field exercises, like setting up land mines, firing an M-60, and jumpin’ in and out of fox holes and throwing grenades for a couple of days. That was kind of cool. When we did the grenade throwing thing, it was with live grenades. The drill sergeant got down in the hole with us and we jumped out and tossed it and jumped back in the hole. Problem was when the girl who was always messin’ up didn’t clear the wall with her grenade. It dropped right down where they stood.
The drill sergeant picked her up and tossed her in the hole. She made it in, but he had to go to the hospital, because he wasn’t quite there himself. I hear he’s going to be okay, but won’t be back for graduation. Couldn’t help but think that Iraq and Afghanistan might be full of such mishaps.
I thought I’d let you know that I have my assignment too. Now, don’t get all scared or anything, but I will be going to a six week school for 21S – Topographic Surveyor school. I’ll support a combat artillery unit. My orders say I’m going to go to a unit somewhere in Iraq—they ain’t talkin’ about ‘xactly where. I was told I needed to learn about caves and rock formations and tribal behavior. They’re going to teach me that too.
I hoped me and Amanda were going to be together, but the buddy program only lets us join up together, apparently. It’s kind of like foster care when we finally find a family that fits. They tell us we can stay and then we don’t. So, it ain’t nothin’ new.
Hey, girls, don’t you worry about me. You know I will be duckin’ and coverin’ if anything comes my way I can’t deal with. I just worry about these other kids. They ain’t as tough as me. All I know is I look pretty damned tight in those greens and can break down my M-16 and put it back together faster than any of the men in the battalion.
Love to the critters and Jodie.
Lane
