In Brandon's Words: Letter dated Nov 4, 2012

Most of this letter was written on Sunday morning before Brandon even knew he was going to be able to call me that evening.  Then that evening we were able to talk for almost an hour.  He was given the phone privileges because one of the other platoons screwed up big time.  (They basically stole food and then stole back their own cell phones.) As punishment they had to fill and empty sandbags all day while the rest of the company was given extra lone phone privileges.

November 4, 2012

Valerie,

I am great.  How are you? I hope that you ave having lots of fun at home because I know I am down here.  I am glad that you stay busy - do you get time away from the kids at all?  Because I am sure playing all day every day with 3 kids under 2 - well 3 now - takes its toll.  I tell you what.  I will come babysit sometime this week if you want - yeah right - you and I both wish.

I am sure I will get a letter or two from you on Wednesday because the mail usually comes Monday or Tuesday night.  However, we aren't going to be here.  We are going on a camping trip - okay - Field Training Exercises - but nevertheless it is a camping trip.  We are going to sleep away from our bay in the woods somewhere and practice being on a mission.  We might even attack other platoons in our company and take hostages.  It's going to be fun, but I think it is going to be cold.  And I bet it is going to be really cold.  Even so, I am very thrilled to go.  It will be fun.

Guess what!  I am getting stronger.  I can run pretty fast.  I am not the fastest, but I am faster than a lot of others in the platoon.  I think I told you I am a 14:35 2 mile run the last I checked.  Tomorrow morning I will find out again.  Hopefully I will have improved.  I am not sure about pushups and sit ups but I will definitely let you know when I find out.  However last night I did 3 diamond pushups and shocked myself, and then I did 10 more.  It was hard but I did it.  I was very impressed with myself.

I am learning to speak up.  I am not great at it yet, but often enough people around here turn their heads and ask if that really was me that spoke. I even got someone's attention from across the room while a group of people was talking around him.  I am very excited about all the changes I am making.  I hope and I am sure I will continue to make more better changes. I (speaking of changes) am not changing for hte worse.  I still do not swear even though everyone here does.  I do not add to conversations that are gross around here.  There is a lot of vulgarity and profanity and speaking bad of women going on and I try my hardest to not participate.  However, sometimes I wish I could go somewhere quiet like a library to study and write letters so I could concentrate.

We had a class all day on Saturday about personal finances.  Wow did I learn a lot - not really that was supposed to be sarcastic.  I was a re-hash of every personal finance class/seminar/program I've ever taken.  I kept thinking to myself - "yes I do that, that, that, etc."  Thank you so much for being so smart and trustworthy with out money.  Other guys around here worry so much and I got give it a second thought because I know what a wonderful person you are.

Yes, the class was for the younger guys around here that know nothing about finances.  And it was really good for them, but I wish I didn't have to stay for everything.  They talked about loans, car buying, bank accounts, debit cards and checks, and stuff like that.  I did however find the section on military financial aid for students interesting. And I did find what happens for a soldier who retires after the military interesting too.  At least there were dynamic speakers.  It wasn't that had not falling asleep, and it was informative.

I am so glad that I have you as my wife.  I completely trust you with our family finances.  And I have no qualms at all letting you take care of that, especially while I am here at basic training.  The lady at the finance class asked up if it was necessary to have a credit score, and then followed up with the response, "in this day and age - yes." I thought to myself - only if you plan on borrowing money - me, no.

I love our idea for finances - save basically everything except bills.  Who needs all of that other crap anyway.  Granted there are things that I want, but because we save a lot I don't ever want to spend tons of money on crap we don't need.  I wouldn't mind one day having a nice entertainment center, and a nice computer/printer, but I am happy we don't have to spend tons of money right now to get it.  Like you, I want to be well enough off with our finances when we get a little older that we can give someone a jar of money for Christmas, and we can send other kids who can't afford it on activities for school.  I love the idea of taking scouts out for ice cream one day and not having to turn in and receipts at church, but do it just because. I don't mind sacrificing.  I don't have to have every DVD or new computer equipment that comes out.  Thanks for mirroring that idea with me.  I love you sooo much for that.

Well, some fun things that we did this week were that on Friday we got to use Pugil Sticks.  Those are the sticks with the pads all around the edges.  I was a little nervous to use them until I found out I would be going against the strongest guy in our platoon.  Then I got really nervous.  But I was okay.  I held my own and I didn't get knocked out.  And I got a couple of good blows in.  I don't think I am as inept as I think I am.  It was a good match.  It was funny to watch everyone though because I am not really excited to watch fighting.  Although everyone else loves it.  Third and first platoons were cheering and yelling for their guys and having a blast.  Whereas fourth/second platoons were a lot quieter.  I think they were cheering on the inside.  Their drill sergeants probably didn't want them to yell.  I just realized I wrote this to you already in the letter I wrote you at the dentist's office.  Oh well, I think I added a bit more detail to the story.

I was going to tell you about our 8 mile ruck march and throwing hand grenades, but I think I told you about that too.

The last thing I was going to tell you about was that 3rd platoon is awesome. We have received many (indirect) complements from our Drill Sergeants.  Today DS C____ put us as door guards to make sure that one one came down from the bays except for meals and to guard the laundry room so no one would use it.  He said it was because 3rd was the most responsible and trust worthy platoon.  Yesterday DS P_____ came upstairs to let us know that he wanted anyone with information about screwups from other platoons to come to him and he stayed and told us a few stories that were way cool.

DS C____ used to be out drill sergeant but was placed in charge of 2nd platoon, and always tells us he misses us.  We have our days where we don't get our compliments - usually on a shooting range because of me (just kidding) but for the most part all the drill sergeants like us.  While we were being smoked (punished) as a company one of the drill sergeants (apparently, I wasn't there for this) told 3rd platoon that he was smoking us with everyone else because he had to, and he basically came across as remorseful that he was doing it.

Don't get me wrong, we definitely screw up sometimes, but I think we screw up doing normal things not stealing or being dishonest, but making simple mistakes or having a long day.

Well I think that is about all I have to tell you this letter.  I love you and I miss you and the kids.  Mom said that the girls were getting so big that I'm not going to recognize them when I get home.  After remembering them coming to visit Derrick in the hospital and how big they were then, she is probably right.  I don't think I will recognize anyone when I get home.

Thank you for talking to me on the phone.  It is always a very pleasant surprise to talk to you on the phone.  I hope you feel the same way about talking to me.  It was nice to have a couple of minutes (51 to be exact) to talk.  No pressure.

Every time I talk to you it makes my day and my week.  It makes life here a little more bearable.  I hope you have a better week this week than your Sunday went.  And I hope your Mom has fun with the kids.  And most important of all I hope you get a nice day off.  I hope that I will be able to take the kids off of your hands at least once or twice during my time home with you around Christmas.

I love you so much.  That you again for being the absolute best wife in the whole world.  You are amazing.  I don't have to worry about anything when I have you.  You and I together can accomplish a lot of things.  Thank you so much.

With all my love,

Brandon