We are lying on the floor of the 4th platoon's latrine hallway "practicing" point of aim.  We all grouped and zeroed two days ago, so today we sit around and clean our weapons for hours on end.  We get smoked occasionally when a DS wanders in and sees us bullshitting, but for the most part, we just sit, and clean, and wait.

The other half of the company is out trying to master the basic principles of rifle operation, sweating in the 100+ degree weather.  Here in the bay it is in the low 60's, we got MRE's (meals ready to eat), weapons, sandbags and no tasks to focus on.

I miss the friends that have made up my world for the last ten years, especially surrounded by guys 5+ years younger than myself.  There is a very definite break in wave length between the things I like & care about, and the general topics around the barracks.

Still . . . for the most part I've got good company here; highly motivated, mostly intelligent and extremely passionate young men with training & graduation as their ultimate goals.

I remembered another story I forgot to tell y'all;

The calendar here is pretty simple:  Our first day was Day Zero.  Today is day . . . ahh. . . twenty-something.  Thirty seven days to Family Day.  Day ONE, our second day here (made my head hurt too) saw one of the most awkward moments of my life . . . so far.

We had heeled the rail and were "preparing for the shower drill," when Drill Sergeant Johnson decided that at that particular moment 3rd platoon was not moving fast enough.

THE PUSH UUUP!"

Swathed only in towels, we froze.

"FRONTLEANINGRESTPOSITION MOVE!"

Terrified, confused and just a little shy, each one of us cautiously tried to find our way to the ground and into the pushup stance while keeping our towels and modesty in place.  We were all doubly un-successful.

Now, arms akimbo, heels together, we held our nude bodies aloft and stared hard at the floor in front of our faces.

If you have never performed a naked pushup in a room full of (naked) strangers, let me save you some time and trauma, and explain some fundamentals:

ONE:  The floor is always closer . . . than you think

TWO:  You WILL lock eyes with at least one other person.

THREE: There is no good way to cover yourself.

FOUR:  You will never be the same.

"ONE," Drill Sergeant shouted.  

We dropped. hit the tile and did our best to shield our shrieks of pain behind nervous laughter.  

"TWO"

We pushed, lifting our frigid parts from the floor and desperately hoping we weren't the ones on mop duty that night.

"THREE"

We dropped.

"ONE!"  We yelled.  First rep of five.

We walked away from that changed men.

This is Pennock, one of the six people in my platoon that I don't regularly want to choke.  Sounds terrible, but if you spent a day as a fly on the wall here, you'd understand.