My thoughts turn to Gomer Pyle out on the snowy tundra doing jumping jacks - I'm sure Nick thinks it was that easy. From what I understand, it is quite strenuous to run in a foot of snow, however he likes the moments when they have to "take a knee", putting one knee on the ground (packed snow) because it acts as an ice pack to his strained knee.He has spent a bit of money lately buying and preparing his uniforms with the various patches and such. Seems they will provide the stuff eventually, but they will hound you until its done - so better to just do it at your own expense. As one of the "new guys", many of the NCOs give them shit for a while - sort of like a Freshman in High School, but instead of punches in the arm, they make you see how many push-ups you can do or see how long you can "pick cherries" (stand with your arms fully extended and touch alternating fingers to your thumb).
It looks like his unit is going to be quite busy. Here are the plans as he knows so far...
- Next week he is on a 4-day exercise on the base where they will drop in (parachute) and take over a mock city.
- Sometime before July they will be going to Australia and then to Thailand for additional maneuvers
- He will be home in July for leave - don't know how long yet
- Mid-2006 it looks like their unit will be going to Iraq for a tour of duty. Obviously this info will change 48 times before then as well.
I gave him a book before he left, titled "Generation Kill", that I started reading on my trip to Germany. He told me last night that he has been reading it a lot and really likes it (wow, Nick likes a book). I planned to send (or have Nick send) it to Jonathan after Nick was done with it.
All for now.
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