Kristie's Letter - Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Hey Family,

Well I ship tomorrow for Basic which means I'm finally done with reception (the 43rd). I'm not sure when I'll have time to write again so I'll give you a final update for now.

On Saturday, when we went ot the fireworks we rode in a semi truck trailer. There was like over 100 of us in one trailer. I felt like a Mexican getting smuggled into the US (haha). The show was awesme. I got real close with 2 girls, Courtney and Price. Courtney lives here, or in St. Louis and Michelle Price lives in Illinois so is about 20 minutes away from St. Louis. I get along with both of them so good. All of our bunks are close together so at night we all sit on one of our beds and just talk. I feel like I've known them forever.

Sunday was cleaning day. I've never cleaned so much in one day before. The males have lawn duty so they mow the lawn on Sundays.

Yesterday I had another hearing test and passed again. We also got all our immunizations. All you do is walk down a line and there are medics on both sides at 3 stations, so 6 medics all together. You just walk, stop, get stuck, and keep walking till you are done. It CRAZINESS! Then I had to get a penicillin shot in my butt. It hurt soooooo bad and it took hours for it to stop hurting. I guess it is supposed to help you from getting sick at Basic. I dunno. The rest of the day I got put on detail, which means I am helping, in my case I was in PABs (Personal Affairs Branch), kind of like HR. That was way fun. I was in charge of a bunch of soldiers. It felt good to be worth something instead of being a private. Today all I had left to do was get dental x-rays so I went back to PABs cause the head guy, Frank, loved me. I went in at 730 and didn't leave until 1730 except for chow and it took around 10 minutes to get my xrays cause I got put in the front of the line so I could get back to PABs fast. haha Everyone else was getting smoked all day. Courtney came in around 1000 to help me so it was me and her chilling all day.

After dinner chow we formed up in what will be our new companies and Price and I are together all through Basic but Courtney isn't. But have no worries we exchanged phone numbers.

Will I love all of ya. I gotta go to bed. Lights out was almost an hour ago but I stillhad to pack and I wanted to write.

Matt- I met a guy today that looked more like the guy in Save the Last Dance than you do Chris Farley. haha He just shook his head. He is sweet as pie.

Dad - I wish I could have your advice here. Even though you didn't go through this it seems like you did.

Mom - A hug from you would have been great this week but I know that's not going to happen for a few more weeks so I have to be strong. This place is almost starting to feel like prison. You can't get out anywhere. If you try and run away, the name holds true, you get lost in the woods.

Love, Kristie aka PV2 Johnson