Chapter 3

Right now it's lights out and I have never been more thankful. However these wool blankets suck. We have 50 females in the entire bay, split among 4 platoons.

I was assigned to the top bunk and my battle buddy Davies is on the bottom bunk. Next to us we have Ace and Benson.

Starting at lights out 4 people will be on fireguard at all times. Fireguard was explained to us as the time we clean the bay and have accountability of personnel as well as other sensitive items. Drill Sergeant Hunter said she wrote a list of the fireguard shifts and that the bay better be clean in the morning. I don't even bother looking at the list and just go to sleep without saying a word to anyone.

"Pssssss! Carlin. Get your ass up!" I hear as someone shines a light in my face. "You're on fireguard. You got five minutes to sign in!"

"Ahh I'm up. Get the light out of my eyes" How does this dumb ass expect me to see

"Gosh don't be such a cranky ass Miss Ohio" As I rub my eyes I am able to see its Sams. I jump off the top bunk and give her a quick hug.

"Oh my God! Where have you been?"

"Carlin you have way to much energy for 02:30. I'm in 1st Platoon. As far as I can tell it's plum full of Blue Falcons. Especially my battle buddy Taylor. I've already been smoked twice because of her"

"What's a Blue Falcon?" This is only the second time I've heard my battle buddy Davies say anything.

"Buddy Fucker, it's basically just a big screw up" Sams says with great confidence "Sams, Nice to meet you…"

"Davies, nice to meet you too"

"Carlin I hate you! How did you get so lucky? She's totally in shape. My battle can't do one pushup!"

"I'm just good I guess" I laugh "Well we better go sign in for fireguard"

Ace, Benson, Davies and I walk down the hall together to sign in for Fireguard. We then covered the list of duties we had for our shift. They consisted of buffing an area of the bay as well as sweeping it. We also had to clean the 'Latrine' better known as the bathroom. After we finished we still had 20 minutes of our shift left so we met at the table with our log in book and started to get to know one another.

"Where's everyone from?" I asked

"I'm from Arizona" Benson answered quickly

"California…L.A. to be more precise" My battle is from LA. If I lived anywhere like that I certainly wouldn't be in the Army.

"Floridian here! I miss the beach already!" Maybe I can make Ohio sound way cooler than it is.

"I'm from Ohio" Ask another question Spencer before they think your…

"Well you're the first person I know from Ohio…What's everyone's MOS?" Thanks battle

"I'm a Chaplain Assistant…56 Mike" Benson answered first

"68 Whiskey…Medic" I piped in

"31 Bravo, Military Police" Davies has the same job as Glen!

"Ya'll make me want to change mine. I'm just an 88 Mike." Ace doesn't seem very happy with her job.

"Well Sams from 1st platoon is an 88 Mike too. Maybe ya'll go to AIT together." I turned towards Davies "My big brother is a 31 Bravo too. He loves it!"

"Well we should go wake up the next group" Benson says

"Yeah. I'll wake up Ky..I mean Woods. I'll wake up Woods and her Battle Buddy." Davies says before running off to their bunk.

"See you girls in the morning" I say as I walk back to my bunk and quickly climb in to sleep a few more hours.

~~~ 0430

"WAKE UP FEMALES" The lights flip on and all I hear is a high-pitched voice yelling,

"First formation is at 0500"

I hop off my bunk and start to make my bed. I'm franticly running from one side to the other tucking in my blanket when I run into Davies

"Ooof…I'm sorry battle!" I elbowed her right in the head. I am such an idiot. Wait she's laughing

"It's ok Carlin. Calm down… I'm fine. Here I have an idea" She walks to the other side and starts helping me fix my bed. "I mean we might as well help each other make the bed. We are practically sleeping together" I stopped what I was doing. What does that mean? Oh Carlin, focus and help her.

"Right" I say as I laugh nervously.

Aiden never makes the bed. It drives me crazy. He drives me crazy. I haven't even thought of him very much but when I doo it's just about how he annoys me. I haven't had time to think about anything really. Before I know it we're done with the beds.

"I guess it does go faster when we work together" Like it's really that big of a surprise. Nice one Spencer

"Yeah. I guess we'll make a good team." She says as we run out from the bay with the rest of our girls from the platoon.

It's almost 1030 and we're sitting in class. People are falling asleep left and right. I mean I'm not a huge fan of sitting in a packed classroom for hours hearing about the command structure but there is no way in hell I am dumb enough to fall asleep. One kid who dozed off has been doing mountain climbers for a good 5 minutes now.

I start looking around the room and I see Davies 3 rows to my right and Woods is sitting in front of her. My battle buddy looks wide-awake, in fact I see her trying to help Woods by kicking her chair when her head drops. I'm all for helping people but does she understand that if she gets caught she could get me in trouble too.

Glen told me you either want to go unnoticed or you want to stand out by doing everything right. I prefer the unnoticed plan right now. Davies is so going to ruin that. I mean if I could run my 2-mile in 13 minutes I wouldn't care. I'm at least around the 17-minute mark, which isn't that impressive. Please just let me get through this class without being in trouble!

We just finished lunch chow, which means we can't be pt'd immediately. Well we're not supposed to. We did Front, Back, Go's for a while before chow because so many people fell asleep during class.

Front means you're doing push-up, Back is a flutter kick on your back, and go means jogging in place. Therefore a Drill Sergeant will stand in front of the entire company and rotate between yelling Front, Back or Go. I'm pretty sure even some of the guys were crying.

That's another thing about basic. Everyone cries! I don't care who it is…they've cried. It's getting better though. Some cry because they are in pain, some cry because they are homesick, and some cry because they don't think they can make it.

Anyways we're standing in formation and Drill Sergeant Kent comes up to our platoon.

"Privates, now is our time to use the phone. You can call whoever you want. The purpose of this call is to notify whoever you need to and let them know you're here. Give them your address so they can write to you and all that shit." DS Kent seems like he's given this speech too many times to actually care "If we get any calls from parents saying any bad shit…let's just say you're in for a long night. You only have 5 minutes once you step in the booth"

We line up behind the booths and the first row steps in. I swear if my dad doesn't answer the phone I am going to be pissed.

"Next group in the booth, your time starts now"

I quickly dial the number and here the phone ring. My dad answers thankfully.

"Hello, Carlin residence"

"DAD" I screamed

"Spence. Honey how are you doing?"

"I'm good. It's not been much fun"

"Well Glen told you it would get better after the first week"

"I know. I'll be ok. Do you have paper and something to write with?"

"Yeah"

"Ok, here my address…" I gave my dad the address to the company and continue on with the conversation "Have you heard from Glen?"

"Got an email yesterday. He's doing just fine"

"That's good" Then I hear Drill Sergeant Barrett yelling that it's time to get off "Poppa I'm sorry but I gotta go. I'll call you next week. Love you. Bye"

"Love you too sweetie. Bye" As I hang up I try to hold back the tears that have gathered in my eyes. No matter how much I wanted to get away from my mother, I miss my father and Glen more than anything.

The rest of the day was filled with more class. I actually am looking forward to lights out. It's the best part of the day. I don't even mind fireguard. Maybe I can get to know Davies a little more.