There's a First Time for Everything!

Ok...so I've had this set up for a while, and never actually blogged, so I'm going to try it out for a while. If you are interested in hearing about my Army Journey, this is the place to read about it. This first blog will be a recap of Basic Training.

Basic Combat Training (BCT) was actually a very cool experience for me. To be honest, it was nothing like what I expected. There was a lot of yelling from day one. There was a lot of intentional confusion. We started most days at 05:00, and ended most days at 21:00. We were busy pretty much all day.

I got to do some really cool training while I was there. I qualified with an M16A2 rifle as a sharpshooter (hitting 30 out of 40 targets), got to throw hand grenades (yes, real, live hand grenades!), and we did this cool drill called buddy bounding...there were two of us running down opposite sides of the same lane shooting live rounds at targets in front of us. One of my Drill Sargeants actually gave me a compliment at the end of my run through that lane...that was pretty cool!

Unfortunately, it was not all good stuff. I did in fact get hurt while I was there. In my 5th week of training I pulled a couple of muscles in my right side. I didn't think too much about it since the pain wasn't too bad. The unfortunate thing is that I kept training at 100% and aggravated the injury to the point where I had to go to the doctor and go on a profile for a few days. The meds they gave me didn't really do all that much for me, but it healed enough to be bearable again.

Sunday was a pretty cool day...I got to go to chapel, and then spend the rest of the day cleaning. One of the guys in my platoon told the chaplain that I play the guitar, so a couple of Sundays I was able to do a little praise and worship for the chapel service...the chaplain even gave me one of his prayer coins as a "thank you for your service" gesture. I thought that was kind of cool.

For those of you who have been praying for me on this journey, I extend my deepest and sincerest gratitude. I would never have made it through all of that without God, and I could feel your prayers daily!!