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More letters from Chris (page 2)
Picture #1 is out of the front of the building. The four buildings you see side by side are classrooms for a particular subject. The first two are BRM (Basic Rifle Marksmanship) classrooms and the second two (I think) are NBC (Nuclear Biological Chemical). We don’t use these classrooms in this OSUT because we are chemical specialists. We learn all that in AIT. That is also why our basic is one week shorter because we skip all the BCT NBC. If you can figure this out, I’ll give you a dollar when I get home. I wish the Army had a book on all of these. Anyway, behind that which is hard to see but you can see it over the roofs is the post motor pool. I wish you could see some of the cool stuff that goes in and out of there. Behind that there isn’t much; just field training and if you go far enough you might run into a range or two.
Picture #2. This is technically facing away from the back of our building. Both picture 1 and 2 were taken from a third-story window. The large building in the center of the picture is the chow hall for 54 B Chemical Operations Specialists. The chow hall to the left of that is for 88 M Truck Drivers. To the right of our chow hall about 50 feet is another building like ours. You can see the shadow on the ground. The big grass field in front of the chow hall is sometimes used for PT and other training. Behind our chow hall you can kind of see another building; that’s the Commander’s office and the arms room. It’s too bad I didn’t have this camera a few weeks ago. Every tree on post was either yellow or red. It was really pretty. The reason I said this was technically facing away from the back was everything we do happens there so it seems like it should be the front.
Picture #3. This is a picture of the front of the building. It’s actually bright red brick but it’s in the shade so you really can’t tell. If you look back at picture #1 you can see those same candy cane looking tubes just from the other side. This is exactly the same as every other building for Basic Training and there are about 50 around here. The first floor is for females and drill sergeants’ offices. The second and third floors are for males. If you look at the third floor there are six window sections but only two full windows on the right side. (He drew two sets of six windows.) My room starts on the left side of window #3 and goes to the right side of window #4. It kind of sucks because there is a big brick section in between our two windows but it’s okay because I’d rather be there than in an 8-man room. Also, as you can see by the color of the sky, the weather has been really nice here lately.
Picture #4 As you can see this is me. I’m wearing my BDUs (Battle Dress Uniform) with the LCE (Load Carrying Equipment), a rucksack, and a protective mask. I also have a Kevlar helmet on my head. This is the standard equipment for a road march. I guess I’ll just start at the top. The Kevlar helmet on my head weighs about four pounds and is extremely uncomfortable so I folded a washcloth in quarters and put it in there so it feels much better. The chin strap on it kind of sucks too, but you get used to it. Next is the LCE. All an LCE is, is a pistol belt with shoulder straps. It holds two canteens, one on each side; and two ammo pouches, again one on each side. The ammo pouches are what the front straps hook onto and that is what I’m resting my hands on. Next is the protective mask which is attached to my left hip. The case has one waist strap and one strap that goes around the left leg. It also is uncomfortable but you get used to it. The last thing is the rucksack. It’s just a backpacking backpack but it’s a little smaller than a commercial one. Talk about ten pounds of shit in a five-pound bag, this is a prime example. This bag is too small to fit everything on the list so I leave out the chemical suit; but here is the packing list for the standard rucksack.
Weapons cleaning kit It’s definitely a circus act trying to fit all of these items in that little tiny rucksack but when it’s all packed it weighs plenty.
November 23, 1999 Hi Mom and Dave, No time to write. Confidence Course last week: it was great. Also I was on a cannon detail for a retirement ceremony for a two-star general. I shot 5 founds out of a 75mm Howitzer – one of four lucky guys out of 800 candidates! Ha ha ha. Having a great time and as you can see by my writing have very little of it to myself. Still breathing. Love, Chris. P.S. See you soon!
December 9, 1999 Hi, Mom and Dave, Been in AIT for about a week learning all about nerve agents and other NBC stuff. First test tomorrow -- no problem (I hope). This was one obstacle on the confidence course but I didn't have time for it. Christmas Exodus is eight days from today! See ya soon, Chris
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Picture #5 These are all my friends that live in 2-man rooms. From left to
right in the back row: the Asian-looking guy’s name is Craig Nakasone and he’s
actually Hawaiian. We’ve had some interesting conversations about the best places to
eat and scuba-dive. The next guy over from him with the serious look on his face (the
darker black man) is Deon Parker. He is one of the hardest working people in this platoon.
He has a low sugar problem and was fainting all the time but seems to be doing better. He
is from Florida. The next guy over, same height as Parker and the exact opposite color is
Jonathan Jones. He’s fun to be around but he really misses home. Christmas Exodus
will be good for him. He is always asking for cough drops. He’s from Kentucky. In the
front row from left to right, the black guy with the goofy face and stripes on his arm is
Rico Stewart. He is currently the phase leader which means he is what is commonly known as
a Drill Private. He is from Washington State. The Hispanic man next to Stewart is Ivan
Palacios. He worked at Payless Shoe Source before he came here. He wanted a future so he
decided to join: sounds good to me. He is from new Jersey, but he is originally from
Ecuador. That really handsome guy next to him, well, I think you can figure that one out.
