And don't forget to send Brandon a birthday card. Click here for the details.
November 10, 2012
Valerie,
Good morning beautiful. It is about 4:00 am and I am up doing a fire guard shift, the worst one of the day because I have to be up before everyone else and I don't get to go back to sleep, oh and it's a half hour long. First call is at 5:30.
It was great to hear from you this week. I love getting your letters. You are one busy person. I am glad that you keep yourself busy. I am glad that you guys had fun on Halloween and that the candy and the party paid off. I can't wait to see the pictures of everyone that you took. You are right, I would almost rather be home for Halloween than for Christmas. I love that holiday.
The morning of Halloween we were standing outside downstairs for first formation and when one of the drill sergeants walked in he yelled "Happy Halloween Privates." And I was kind of sad. I got over it really quickly, and I kept you guys in my thoughts all day.
. . .
By the way that is really hillarious that the girls wanted the have the pumpkin everywhere with them for the week. I'm curious what they thought when it rotted and it's face caved in.
Thank you for keeping me informed on the family and what you guys are up to. I always have to remind myself that this no phone thing is just for basic training. And that I will have my phone with me all the time when I get out of here. And I will be able to talk to you at least once a day while I am gone in the future. I really am glad that we are still a family even though I'm far away.
[The rest of the letter is all about his leave and how he is getting home.]
With all my love
Brandon
11/11/12 (pretty cool)
Valerie
Thank you for always writing me. I love hearing from you all the time. I love hearing about the girls and Derrick. Laurie mailed me a couple of pictures of your visit to Logan. I might say you look as beautiful as ever. I still love the hair. You are pretty.
We have 5 1/2 weeks until we can see each other and only 2 until I get to talk to you all day! I am so excited to do that. I am really excited for everything I get to do with you. Today, this morning, I caught myself singing "Jingle Bell Rock" and it's still two weeks to Thanksgiving. I know. I startled me when I realized I was singing Christmas music that early too. I think I am really excited to see everyone, you most definitely, for Christmas.
Oh and I was going to tell you that the girls and Derrick are HUGE!! When you gave me the length and weights of all of them I didn't realize how tall they were, but seeing a few pictures - WOW! We are going to have triplets in a year or two when the girls quit growing so much and Derrick catches up. They are as cute as ever.
I am so glad that you are such a good mom. I still get people writing me and telling me that. Thank you. That means so much to me. I know that it can be hard for you and you are stressed out because of it sometimes, but you are amazing! and you are such a fantastic person. Keep up the good work. I will be there soon to help you - and let you sleep in more while I am there.
Alright, you have had a busy week. So have I let me tell you a few of the highlights. We went camping on Monday night and Wednesday night. Okay, we didn't roast s'mores - let alone have a campfire - but we got to make shelters. Everyone on the first night, kept asking around for rope or cord. I didn't know we would need it, not to mention I didn't have any. They needed it to build their shelter.
The guy that was my battle buddy was a little worried that we wouldn't get anything to keep us from the rain. It was supposed to rain that night. I told him it was okay, we didn't need cord. After I built my shelter with four Y shaped sticks and two cross beams and two rain ponchos and a center pole without cord, he believed me. [Here is a picture of what Brandon drew to illustrate what his shelter looked like. Blogger automatically rotated it counter clockwise - sorry]
The next night I brought cord and we made a cool little pup tent between two trees that was cool. We got complements for it. It didn't rain but the tent sure was warm and dry.
Alarm clocks to get up in the morning while camping are very annoying - bombs - they blew up two loud fireworks to wake us up in the morning. It did the trick. I was definitely up with a gun in hand and breathing hard the first morning. The next morning I just stayed in bed and practiced covering myself from shrapnel. Then I got up right after.
On Tuesday we went to the shooting range and practiced doing buddy team firing. We did a dry fire (no bullets) in the morning and then a blank fire (blanks). On Thursday we did a dry fire again and then live fire (actually shooting targets) Don't worry the Drill Sergeants were there to make sure we didn't shoot each other. I guess I did okay I wasn't yelled at too much. I didn't hate it - let's put it that way.
Friday was a cool day. Somewhat boring, but cool non the less. We went back to the reception area and the clothing warehouse. We all got our dress blues - our dress uniform. It looks really good. Shiny black shoes, blue dress pants, white double breast pocketed shirt, a black outer suit coat, black tie an a black beret It looks good. We aren't supposed to mess with the clothes yet, but I am really looking forward to trying it all on together. Everyone looked good trying it on though. It makes me laugh just how many of the guys here don't know how to tie a tie and how many of them have only dressed up once or twice in their lives.
Saturday we did what was called the clinch drill where we had to go and practice clinches on a person who was attacking up (clinches are ways of holding a person so they can't hit you anymore and then you can start hitting them, or beating them up. I wish I could tell you that I kicked butt at this, but I didn't. We went against are Drill Sergeants who were not even hitting that hard. It was interesting. I am definitely not aggressive enough for fighting like that. I did do all the clinches, but during the 3 rounds I was up I could hear everyone saying "ohhhh!!!! - ohhh!!! - ouch!!!" etc. I am not used to using my brain while it is being pounded, even softly, and I was probably the only one who needed extra help doing the rounds. I was the only one that came out of it with a small bump and purple shading on my eyelid. Yes, now everyone in the company knows I can't fight. The black eye was not even remotely bad so don't worry. It made me laugh. I made sure everyone was laughing with me not at me - it was really funny.
I hope you aren't thinking to yourself, "oh no! What is he doing there? He's getting killed and he doesn't even know what he is doing. Why did I let him go?" Don't think that. I am having fun, creating memories, discovering new things about myself, and learning a lot. I am still glad I'm here and I am glad that I'm in the Army. There may be moments that I get down, but for the most part I am positive and happy.
There was a guy in here yesterday talking to me about it and he asked why I am here. I told him that I joined the Army to get flight hours (one way or another) and he said to me, "Yes, you need to go fly planes and leave the fighting to the more aggressive people" - well he said something like that.
[He gets introspective for the next page or so]
Well I guess that is about it for this letter, I hope not. I am going to keep writing to the end of the page. Hopefully I will come up with something new to write about. Sometimes I feel like writing to you is like talking to you on the phone. I just don't want to hang up or stop writing. I fell sometimes that this is my way to vent and really let go and tell someone how I really feel. I love talking to you on the phone or in person or by letter. I have always loved talking to you - literally from the moment we met. I love you so much and I miss all of you. I'm going to spare you anymore sappiness. But I hope you have a great week until you get another letter from me.
I love you,
Brandon
November 13, 2012
Valerie,
Hey cutie, I haven't heard from you for a while. I don't believe it is your fault. We just haven't had a mail call for about a week. I'm kind of curious what's up. I hope everything is just great.
I thought about you on Sunday. I hoped that your day was good. I just kept thinking about you and the kids and what craziness must go on inside sacrament meeting. I hoped that you had a good day. I want you to know that I think about you every chance I get. I love thinking about what you might be up to at any given time to the day. I just have to remember that you are two hours behind me. So when I'm having lunch you are probably putting the kids down for a nap.
I hope you know that I pray often about you and the kids. Every night before I go to bed. And I have a constant prayer in my heart for you all day long. I really hope that you don't feel lonely. It seems to me that you keep yourself busy enough with visiting people that you probably aren't that lonely.
I wanted to make sure I wrote you a letter this week before all of my nights were gone. I am in the laundry room after lights out cleaning my clothes, reading my Book of Mormon, and writing in my journal - yes I still do all of that. When I'm alone doing laundry, except for the hum of the machines, usually I am alone. So it is nice to sit in the quiet and write a letter to you without distractions.
This week we are supposed to be gone till late tomorrow and then we are going camping again Thursday and Friday night. This place really is like advanced boy scouts- camping, fort/shelter building, etc . . .
Monday we went on a land navigation course. I can brag that I am smart, but I guess I'm not that smart. Me and another guy in our group let some rookies find the course with the compass, and we didn't check them on what they were doing. They were too excited and kept running ahead. Me and the other guy were leading and I let him have the map. He told me where we were and I believed him - for a minute. Then I checked the map and found out where we really were. I then made a plan for the last hour of our course to get some points we missed to get a higher score.
But then we found out from other guys we met on the road doing the same things that we really didn't have an hour left. More like we had to turn and go back now. Anyway, I basically got everyone out of the woods because I knew how to get back. At first no one believed me that I knew where we were. Next time I'm keeping one of the compasses. Oh yeah it basically rained the whole time too. That, and a couple of other instances, made our Drill Sergeants forgo the night land nav course. I was kind of glad.
Anyway, I learned some things. Not about land nav, but about people management, and when not to let others do things and make all of the decisions. It was a good learning experience for everyone involved.
The army is like boy scouts in more ways than one. They guys here are young and they love to goof around. Bodily noises are still hilarious. Being loud and obnoxious when you can is still something fun to do. Running around and doing crazy things like picking up a branch and hucking it as far as you can is still fun. It makes me laugh.
I told my battle buddy J____ (he's 18) that I feel both really old and really young being here. Old because I was 10 or 12 when most everyone here was born. They talk about Pokemon like it is still the coolest thing around. And yes, they did like Power Rangers like you did. I feel young because I socialize with 18 year olds. I joke around with them and do fist bumps and other things like that. I can talk to them like a friend and not like a father - unless they need some advise (I do that as well). I can keep up with most of them doing exercise and running - although I do burn out a lot faster than others. I am definitely not first, but more importantly, I am not last.
A lot of times some of the guys around here make me feel old by asking if I need help lifting something. It makes me feel somewhat like the old wagon driver on Maverick where Maverick says, "hey old timer, are you okay?" and he responds with , "Why does everyone keep asking me that?" It is definitely fun to be here and definitely a new experience.
Most of the time I stay quiet and let the younger guys figure out what's up. DS R__ assigned all the youngest guys in the platoon to be squad leaders. So yes, my squad leader turned 18 like three weeks ago. I just sti back and let them handle it. For one so I don't have to worry about it, and more importantly so they can have leadership experience. I have lots of that. I am sure I will get more leadership roles when I'm out of basic training.
Moving on to different topics. It is really cold down here - especially in the morning. Sometimes they make us stand outside with just a tee-shirt and our camo top and pants on - while we are breathing out steam. Brrrrrr.
It's really clear here weather wise so at night all the heat leaves. Luckily it warms up pretty good during the day. Unless it is raining. Then it is cold and wet. Don't feel too bad. We do have weather equipment to help keep us dry.
Well that's about all of what I've been up to for the past little while. Just trying to stay focused and do some good while I am here. Oh yeah, speaking of doing good. I was going to tell you. Some - well lots of the guys here if they need something done they will some and find me bacause they know I can do a lot of different things and because they know I love helping out.
Two of the guys in our platoon asked me to help them fix their black berets. We are supposed to shave the fuzz off of it and shape it a certain way, but while shaving and shaping these guys put holes in their berets. They asked me - they guy with the sewing kit - to see if I could sew it back together. It was a little tricky on one and a lot tricky on the other, however; I did it. I now really don't have any black thread left, but I do have two guys that like me even more. I think that it is cool to be able to do something like that and help out someone else. It makes me feel really good about myself.
Another guy in the platoon asked me if I could teach him about land navigation some more because he didn't quite understand it. So we squared him away a bit more. I think he learned something. And just today another guy was talking to me and told me that he knew I was a nice guy. I love it. I am so glad I'm not the cocky guy, or the mean guy, or most especially - the stupid guy. There seems to be a lot of people around here impressed with me. That makes me feel like a million bucks.
I hope you don't mind me bragging a bit and telling you what a cool person you married. I love being with you because I feel like we are cool and awesome at everything - including being a married couple and parents. It makes me so glad that we work well together. We can make being separated by thousands of miles work well. Not many people can say that they have a wife quite like you. You make me so happy how you are willing to go along with me on crazy adventures and do fun things.
I can't wait to see what adventures are in store for us. I know I can do it with you by my side. I know I can do anything with you there being my beautiful, smart, talented wife. I hope you feel like you can do anything with me behind you.
Anyway, I better cut this now. I need to go to bed. But I will be thinking about you all night. I hope you have a wonderful week and I will talk to you next Friday or even Thursday night. Happy Thanksgiving.
With all the love in my heart.
Brandon
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