Time for an update!

IAW (In Accordance With) the ever-gentle prompting by dearest Shannon, I am well overdue for an entry...
Oh let's see...since my last entry:
Boot Camp - Boot Camp was pretty lame...From 14 FEB - 16 APR 2008, I was at Naval Recruit Training Command (RTC) - Great Lakes, IL where I underwent Basic "Sailorization". Three months after the fact, it's a little hard to explain all that we did, but as I jog my memory we learned about naval history, ships and aircraft, basic damage control, fire fighting, and line-handling, and of course we PT'ed some; surprisingly we PT'ed less than I thought we would - I actually got out of shape...Anyway here is a copy of the 2nd and 5th letters I wrote home:

02 MAR 08

Hi Mom, Dad, Janet, and Brian!

I’m about halfway through my first week of Boot Camp now and I’ve determined that Boot Camp is about as close to prison as I’d ever like to be – well, there’s still some cool stuff that I’m learning and doing, but next to taking care of our basic needs, they treat us like we are a bunch of idiots…Maybe it’s just a part of the “sailor-ization” process, or it’s a strategy to keep us all in line, but I’m know I’m bigger and better than that; my RDC’s know it – I’ve proven I have the potential to them (they promoted me to Division Yeoman, so now I’m in charge of everybody’s paperwork – I’ll be tracking and documenting everybody’s progress through Boot Camp…It’s an important job – it won’t mean anything beyond Boot Camp, but I haven’t had to “scrub any toilets with my toothbrush”, which is nice!)...it’s really not that bad, I’m just frustrated with the treatment – mostly about how much trouble one gets for making a simple mistake, even an honest mistake that would easily be corrected with simple words…Instead I got a ridiculous “tongue-lashing”. I hear the Fleet is better; this is just the way Boot Camp is, so I’m just going to work on getting our of Boot Camp ASAP!!

In other news, the division is getting a nasty “bug” that took out about 30 of us – I’m still decently healthy and trying to stay that way, so please pray about that! It’s nice having three square meals a day, but we are starting to workout six days a week so hopefully they’ll feed us more! I’m getting better at ironing (in the dark!). I still get double creases but I have some of the sharpest creases in the division – there are a lot of guys worse off than me! I guess there’s not much else to say at this point, but I dream of home often enough. Keep praying for me to play along in this crazy game of “Simon Says”, for me to get “thicker skin”, and stay healthy, and be a good example to these guys!

Miss you and love you all!

~Jonathan

23 MAR 08

Dear Mom, Dad, Janet & Brian,

In case you haven’t noticed the pattern, “Holiday Routine” breaks up each week of Boot Camp; so this is the middle of the 4^th week. This week has been pretty good, although, I’m finding myself pretty tired – to the point where I fall asleep during marching drills, which is pretty ridiculous! Let’s see, the beginning of the time since I last wrote, we learned about “line” (or “rope”, to the layperson) and we had a lab where we untied a “ship” from a “pier” and pretended to set sail, and then came back and tied the “ship” up again. It was actually pretty fun, and the division came together for a little bit, teamwork-wise. After that, Chief nominated me, and 3 others from my division, to go before an Awards Board and basically interview/be judged as 1 out of about 7 award winners for the “top recruit” of all the divisions with the same “graduation” date (~800 recruits), BUT, only 2 recruits from each division are allowed to go before the board and the randomly picked two out of us four and, unfortunately, I wasn’t picked – I was pretty disappointed – I really wanted to win one of those awards, apparently I prepared for nothing and missed out on a pool PT session; but in the end, it doesn’t really matter beyond Boot Camp, no one in the Fleet will care, it just would have made for an extra special “graduation”, even then, after graduating from Cal Poly, this is small stuff, I guess. Anyway, after that, I got qualified as a marksman for the 9mm pistol (not bad, but I’m not a “Sharpshooter”, or “Expert”, yet) and I get to wear a 2^nd ribbon at graduation (the 1^st is for joining during wartime – everybody gets that), hooray! The whole ribbon business is where this place, and I guess the military, as a whole, is like boy scouts on steroids. I suppose it’s a great motivational tool; I’d definitely like to try and get as many as I can!
Today, we got our dress uniforms back from tailoring. Monday we take pictures and re-tailor them if they need it.
That’s the latest! Hope you guys are well! Thank you for the prayers – the cough is basically gone and my knee is better. I have a drill/marching inspection to stay awake and in-step through, a test, and firefighting lessons to get through, probably before you get this letter, but that’s OK.

Happy Easter, by the way!

Love,

~Jonathan

Hopefully that gives you a little taste of my time in Boot Camp...It wasn't a terribly pleasant experience, but I'm still glad with my decision and things have gotten vastly better, but I'll get more into that later...

Needless to say, I "graduated" from Boot Camp (technically, I "pass-in-review"-ed ) and here are a few pics:































After Boot Camp, from 16 APR - 19 MAY 2008, I went (literally) across the street to the Naval Service Training Center (NSTC) where I spent a month attending EOD/Dive Preparatory School where I PT'ed some more, learned my IWP's (in-water procedures), and became familiar with dive physics and dive medicine. Then we got our orders to fly down to Panama City, FL for Dive School!!


















And so, here I am now at the Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center in Panama City, FL. We classed up last Thursday and got beat-down (a relatively brutal PT session) and am recuperating this Memorial Day Weekend! That's a pretty cut-and-dry recount of the past 3 1/2 months...Training from this point on is supposed to be pretty hot-and-heavy and I'm not sure how often I'll be able to make entries, but I'll do what I can!