a long month....

so far I have not received a phone call from Joel since August 6th :( Im really hoping that I will be able to talk to him soon.

However he does write a lot of letters which helps with my sanity

here is a little glimpse into basic....

Day 21 Joel Got to go the range and learned range safety got to shoot their M4. Had to clean their bay for 4 hours (man thats a long time spent on cleaning). He said the Drill Sgt's are crazy they are always getting "smoked"someone is always messing up and getting everyone else into trouble. The food is sometimes good they had biscuits and gravy for breakfast today.

Day 22: 3 weeks down 1/3 done with basic almost there. Today they went to the Combat simulator Joel said it was like a giant game of duck hunt (I love nintendo thank you :) He had 3 shifts of flag duty which is helping raise their battalion American Flag. Not getting a lot of sleep, only 3 one hour naps last night. There is a thunderstorm rolling in...

Day 24: Everyone is counting down the days until they are out of red phase and into white phase (Red phase= hardcore White Phase = a little less hardcore) Unfortunately everyone keeps messing up so the Drill Sgt are keeping them there... so far to this day Joel has not messed up! Yeah!

The Drill Sgt took the top 3 trouble makers of the platoon and "smoked them" for 45 minutes in front tons of people, I guess they had it coming to them. Joel said he got to go the church on Sunday he loves singing worship with hundreds on soldiers he said "I imagine this is how Angels sound in heaven." They all went on a 4 mile march with 40-50lbs of gear... they get haircuts every other week...sometimes food is delivered to their barracks and they can eat outside other times they are eating MRE's

Day 25: Its thunder-storming pretty good lots of rain, thunder and lighting (which helps keep the temp low) Somebody forgot their weapon in their bay and they had a negligent discharge of a weapon during practice. Someone actually fired off a round but good thing it was blank other wise someone would have died. The guy who left is gun is getting a Article 15 ( Joel didn't say what that means but it doesn't sound good to me)

I did find out from Joel that "family day" is October 7th or 8th and his 36 hour pass is October 9th and 10th! Im so excited I going to go up there and visit!!!

He sounds great but he does miss everyone, however he loves getting letters and pictures from everybody so THANK YOU!!!