trippy

Letters From Olivia

This is Olivia's first letter from Marines bootcamp, typed word-for-word as it is on the letter she wrote to Nathalie and me. Post any comments you want, and I'll tell them all to Olivia in my next letter to her.

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Nathalie & Chris,

I would have written sooner, but, well, I've been just a tad busy. It's been really crazy the past couple weeks and this is like the third letter I have been able to write (which is going to take me several days but that's Life for ya.)

Anyway, that was just an FYI so you know why it takes me awhile to write back. now to what I've been up to for the past two weeks. Well, actually three since you guys were in France. There wasn't really a lot to do. I hung out with my family and I got to spend time with Amanda. She's gotten so big! And she's so adorable! I took her up to After Hours and put her hand prints on a mug and let her paint the plate that went with it. It looked so cute! I can't wait to see it. I also let her paint a butterfly bank which she really seemed to enjoy. For my last meal, on Sunday we went to Red Lobster for lunch. I ate a bunch, but man was it good (you wouldn't agree [Nathalie], but I think Chris would :)). Then I went to the hotel, which was ok, kinda boring really. I saw Alias though! Sooo good. I want to know what is on those papers though.

Anyway, so the next morning I spent a bunch of time sitting around MEPS waiting. Then just as I sat down for lunch, they called my name and another girl's over the speaker to ship. We got all of our papers (didn't get to eat lunch though) and headed to DFW where we immediately got on our plane. We had a layover in Chicago but had to run to catch our next plane (which was a bitch to find the gate, we had to get help). I slept on both flights. Then we got to the airport and the fun started right away. We were marched into a room and had to do all this stuff and then we sat for awhile and then got on the bus to Parris Island. I slept again on the bus but at least my nerves had calmed down and I no longer felt like throwing up! Then a couple minutes in they woke us up and made us ride with our heads facing down. Then we lined up and filed in to the processing center. It was pretty crazy. Drill Instructors yelling and filling out all sorts of paper work. We got a phone call but all we could say was "This is Recruit Wise. I have arrived safely on Parris Island. Do not send bulky items or food. I will contact you by mail with my address in 3-5 days. Bye!" I think that was the hardest part. Not being able to actually talk to my parents. Then we filled out a whole bunch of paperwork and got issued our cami's, shoes, boots, hygiene stuff. Pretty much a whole bunch of stuff. Then we had to organize it all, fill out more paperwork. I don't even remember what all we did because we didn't sleep for like 36 hours. Man was it hard to stay awake. Then we finally got to our barracks but we still had more processing studd to do over the next 3 days. We received shots, got new crappy glasses (these things are so ugly and uncomfortable), went to dental, were issued out M16's and a whole bunch of other stuff that I can't really remember (a lot of the past couple weeks is a blur). Finally, we met our Drill Instructors. They're really not as bad as I thought they would be, so that's a plus. Our Senior Drill Instructor is ubercool. She has her mean moments, but overall she's cool. Then we have two Drill Instructors under her who are basically in charge of us. They teach us and march us to our classes. Our Senior DI does some of that too. SSgt. Wise (yeah, I know, I got screwed, they already know my name), one of our regular DI's, is ok. She can be bad at times but she's still pretty cool. The other one, SSgt. Ritzco, man do I dislike that woman. She is just demon spawn. I despise her duty nights. Just three more months though...sigh.

We've already started training and everything. Everything's pretty fast paced but that's a good thing. It makes the day go by quickly. I'm already sore and bruised though. Standing most of the day pretty much sucks too. And the way we sit isn't exactly comfortable. The weather isn't too bad yet. A couple times it's been really hot but that's about it. The weather changes really quickly here too. Like yesterday it was uber hot outside in the afternoon and then night after evening chow it starts pouring down rain. The classes are pretty cool, we learn a lot. The part that sucks for me is physical training (PT). It just...man that stuff sucks. Hopefully I'll get better at it though. Oh, the really fun part so far is the martial arts training. Man that shit is fun. So far all we've done is a couple bayonet techniques and punches though. It is so fun to beat the crap out of a dummy with a rifle (bayonet attached) or punch the hell out of a bag. I feel sorry for the girl holding the bag though. I kept knocking her back. The other only really sucky part is IT (incentive training) where you go to the front of the squad bay or sand pit and do certain exercises and yell and stuff. It wears you out. Luckily I've only had to go like 2 times. We'll see as the months progress. The first two training weeks are supposed to be the hardest, so we'll see how this next week goes. Oh! And the food doesn't suck. It's actually pretty good.

Let's see...anything else...oh yeah. I was a squad leader for about four days, which is actually pretty good. Compared to the rest I lasted pretty long. We barely get showers here. We have time to run in get wet and run out and that's it. Except for Sundays, Sundays we actually get like 20 mins to shower. But we do everything so quickly so there ya go. I still can't believe I go to bed at like 9:00 every night and get up at 5:00. I've even started waking up 30 mins before they actually come out and wake us up. I'm making a couple friends, my rackmate and two people in the racks beside me. Some people I already wish would be dropped but oh well. Thus is Life. Anyway, g2g. Things to do and such. Please write! Getting letters is the best part of my day! Bye.

-Livvie