Michael Dunn's Blog

Today was pretty miserable.  We did a 10K road march to our training which took about 2 and a half hours.  That part really wasn’t bad.  It gave me time to think and keep to myself.  It was another tactical ruck march which meant we were spread out.  Just like a couple weeks ago.  The bad part was that it was raining the whole time so we were all soaked by the time we got to our training area which was out in the middle of nowhere.  After the march we were all miserably cold since our bodies were cooling down and we were soaked to the bone.  It was horrible, I won’t even lie.  The training wasn’t bad though.  We were out in the middle of the woods learning tactical movements and stuff.  Like first we learned how to make a concealed hasty  fighting position using the terrain, trees, logs, etc.  Then we learned how to move stealthly through the woods using sound and light discipline.  After that we learned some squad movements and how to cross a danger zone and stuff.  It was really good information that I learned today.  I really enjoyed it.  I just hated being soaking wet and cold.  The drill sgts. were really chill with us today.  They joked around a lot and let us ask questions on just about anything we wanted to know.  Even stuff that had nothing to do with the military or what we were doing.  We even talked about football for a little bit.  It was weird, but I wasn’t about to complain.  Now we are all back at the barracks.  Warm and in dry clothes so I couldn’t be happier.  Dinner is in a little bit, and tomorrow is a blood drive so we get to sleep in until 6:00!  It’s like an early Christmas present.  I’ve never given blood before but I plan on it tomorrow.  I’m not a huge fan of needles but I can suck it up for this.  I’m gonna go for now, I might write some more later. 

Okay, I wasn’t going to mention anything about this but the situation has turned into something so comical I couldn’t pass it up.  Last week we had a guy kicked out of our platoon for making some racial remarks towards some of the hispanic guys in our platoon.  Our drill sgt. said that kind of stuff won’t be tolerated and he wanted nothing to do with this guy.  He didn’t say it quite that nicely as I am sure you can imagine.  He went to this guys wall locker, threw everything out, and told him to get the you know what, out of his platoon.  This guy wondered around until somehow he ended up in 2nd platoon.  The funny part is one of 2nd platoon’s drill sgts. is Puerto Rican.  He has been getting smoked constantly since he got  put in 2nd platoon.  Not only that but his battle buddy is now a hispanic guy who they also make act as his translator.  Haha.  To top it all off, they made him take off all his name tapes off his uniforms and his new name is Hernandez.  You have to picture this.  A white, redheaded guy from Michigan, gets in trouble for making racial remarks toward hispanics.  As his punishment, he gets smoked all the time, has a Spanish translator/battle buddy, and is now called Hernandez.  It is just too funny.  The drill sgts. have been making an example out of him.  I had to share that real quick.  I’m off to bed.  Talk to ya’ll tomorrow.