Toni Basic Training Letter Aug 21, 22

August 21

Dear Mom,

I LOVE YOUR LETTERS!  I love reading them and your voice! I don't get a ton of time to write but I read your letters every night! I love that I always have mail it is the best! It is so cute OMG I showed all my friends my dogs and my little brother (SO PROUD!)  GMA Diana wrote me, Aunt Cathy, Bob and Sandy and Ms. Dee!!  And Gabby!!  But your letters are always the best. I love you so much mom! Dad is so silly, we have these high speed beds that lift up and have storage under them called coffins so I have plenty of space for your letters! In fact send more! Don't forget my 1,000,000 pictures!
*(Dan was worried I was sending too many letters and she wouldn't have the space to keep them so I wrote her and told she could throw them away or mail them back to me if she didn't have enough space to store them.)*

I am SO PROUD of you mom. Like I brag about you all all the time and how my mom and family are working out just like me. I CAN'T wait to see you! So I'm always hungry even though we eat 3 HUGE meals every day. At 6:30-ish at 11:30 and at 16:30 every day.  No snacks and no sleep. We are so tired that when they send us to the bays to clean all the females go sleep on the floor in the latrines and on the sinks and even while we are on the toilet. I like to sleep under the sink.  OK girls are NASTY. We/they walk around farting and talking about "I just ripped one / I need to crap" all day.  That's all I ever hear! But once you shower together, sleep together, eat together and poop next to each other with no dividers it's pretty easy to get used to it. I'm gonna pick up this letter back up tomorrow LOL on that note! Love you

August 22

Oh yeah I forgot to tell you how I got smoked because I stole toilet paper from the cadre Port-a-potty… totally worth it! So we were at the final day of Land Nav and there was no toilet paper except a small role in the urinal. So naturally I decided to grab some out of the drill sergeant Port-a-potty and this kid started yelling at the top of his lungs "THAT'S THE CADRE LATRINE!" And he yelled it like 3 times. So then a drill sergeant says, "HEY YOU!" And I was like crap… And I turned around and I walk towards him with my battle buddy Williams, Z--. He's like "why were you in the cadre bathroom?" I said "because there's no tissue paper drill sergeant" and he said OK I just sent me back to the latrines. Then on my way back to the bleachers and he said "Did you go in the cadre bathroom" I said "no drill sergeant I just reached in to get TP." He asked me again and so I just said "yes drill sergeant" so he yells at me and puts me and Z-- on the ground holding our feet 6 inches off the ground and says if he finds TP he's gonna smoke us more. So he walks away and me and Z-- start cracking up and another drill sergeant hears us and smoked us for like 30 minutes. But during our smoking when we were laying down looking at the sky it was so nice. The sky was so blue and the clouds were fluffy and there was a breeze and me and Z-- look at each other and go "WORTH IT" and just kept laughing.  They let us stop after a while. The food here is designed to go in and out within 15 minutes. Every time we eat everyone sprints to the bathroom yelling "MOVE I NEED TO CRAP!" Especially the females. And you know you had to go when you walk out with your pants around your ankles.  OH, I wrote my name on my underwear - like right across the butt cheeks and it's so funny because everyone knows it's me. *(She tells us that people steal everything from each other so she has to write her name on her things)* Honestly all people talk about here is poop and farts. Shower time is fun, we all lined up naked with our flip-flops and towels and wait to shower and we all sing and some girls are always yelling and beefing OMG but it's funny everyone gets along here. Except the girls and second platoon… They are so mean… They get their own bay and if we go over there they harass us and are so mean! But we don't hang with them. Plus they lose everything.

OK so we have finished our first week of white face and everything has calm down so much. We got to walk to church today! It's like a half a mile, it's not bad, maybe more. Church is so boring now because all I want to do asleep but I've gone every day so far, plus it's nice to get out and walk (just the 6 of us).  Not to mention there are some hot marines here sometimes. OH YEAH! Please write Williams, Z-- and Carr, H------. Same address as me. They never get mail from even their own family and every time we get mail there eyes water up and Z-- is this super pretty girl from Pennsylvania. She's a sprinter. Her family is crazy, her mom is 74 and her dad is 50 and they have eight adopted kids! And H------ is totes my BFF. I was so excited to read Zeke and especially Zac's letter!! It was so funny because everything he talked about I could relate to. Like the first few weeks when we got dropped on the ground outside (which is like sharp cobblestone/feels like sharp hot glass shards) the ground is like 200° and it burns and cuts your hands.  Zac complained about that and I laughed. Your hands and heels become calloused so it doesn't bug you after a while. My heels have tripled in size, like I grew new heels, they feel numb when I take my boots off at night. He also talked about all the dummies and how no one listens but everyone tries to "lead" and when someone does the right thing they get called Drill Private. It's SO ANNOYING!  But I really am so proud of Zac and I'm happy to be able to relate to him finally. I am also sad because I know that he will be deployed and it scares me for him. Oh, speaking of that, I want to switch to active duty and re-class to Combat Engineer. I really enjoy the lifestyle and the "traveling" and I want to be able to tell all these amazing stories that I hear. But I'll have to see when I get home.

I'm so happy to hear how well you are doing. Dad brags about you and so do I! I'm so so so proud of you doing P90 and walking and eating so healthy! You can do it! I'm so excited to see y'all change and how skinny you'll be. I love your letters, I give up my sleep to read them because they are like the best part of my week. I'm so happy you found my peace sign picture!  I was hoping that would make its way to you. I look so goofy in my ACH (Kevlar helmet).

Oh yeah so we are starting our fifth week of training, we spent this whole last week zero-ing our weapons on the range which was cool (it takes forever). We get these high speed CCO red dot laser scopes when we shoot which is also really cool. We have our second PT test on Wednesday and next week we do rifle marksmanship qualifications. Something funny-we have to wear our eye-pro (shooting eye protection glasses) ALL DAY every day from last week until the week we graduate… They are the worst when you look so dumb! LOL. We also get fitted for ACU dress blues on Monday! So lots of fun things have been going on.

So I should tell you about some of the people here…
So I need to start with S--bolt. She's the worst. She's about 5 foot and has anxiety and "I need other people to do everything for me" disorder.  Words can't truly describe her, she's always picking scabs on her face and her hair is ALWAYS a MESS. She can't make her bed, do her hair, study, or work out on her own! She makes everyone SO mad. And the worst part is she's from Georgia!!  Bringing shame to our state SMH. Everyone here just size and says "freaking S--bolt". The other day she tripped over her own feet running to headcount formation and just laid on the ground dead like...

*(she literally drew this on her paper)*

And we thought she was really hurt but all she did was scrape her knee. She made people prop her head up and proceeded to go to the HOSPITAL… OMG MOM you would punch her in the face.  When she got home she said it was the worst pain she's ever felt. On a scale from 1-10 "it broke the scale". We asked her what the final diagnosis was and she said "abrasion to the knee". We all died laughing I wish you could meet her. Oh, there's a guy here named Sy--n and he's from Washington State. Weirdest person ever. One time he told the drill sergeant he was ready to lead and so the drill sergeant made fun of him and made him be in charge of cleaning detail for the male bay.  The next day the whole bay was dirty and the drill sergeant roasted him and made him count off air push-ups. THE BEST part is he was CRYING hysterically counting 1, 2, 3,... bawling. Drill sergeant was like why are you crying?! He said "because I failed my battle buddies drill sergeant" and drill sergeant made us do push-ups until he stopped crying.  It was hilarious because he's the size of dad. Then there is SHIN, this 5 ft. 28-year-old guy that looks like he's 50. He's so small but does 300 push-ups, situps and squats every night. He's got a really thick Korean accent and anger issues.  One day he asked if the drill sergeant if he could punch someone in the face because they accidentally scratched him what their weapon. He said "No Shin, WTF?"  Shin said "drill sergeant I have anger issues". When we do PPT he workouts with a group and calls it SHINSANITY. He's crazy. There is a lot more people to talk about but I'll have to save that for another letter.

I'm having a lot of fun here, I love my platoon and the friends I've made. Gabby wrote me and she said she is excited for school, one of her roommates is super dorky with short hair and really big muscles LOL. Oh yeah her letter made me cry because she told me that a girl I went to elementary through high school with and used to ride the bus with overdosed on heroin. It killed me to think people my age that are dying. I haven't written her back yet but I will soon. Sorry my letters are so scattered I have ADHD LOL. So the candy of choice here is menthol and lemon honey cough drops. Hmm, what else… I think that's all for today. Keep sending me letters! Send me more pics please! BTW I love Connor's grad announcement!! Made me so happy! Send me pics of family and friends! You can send my grad announcements and stuff so I have lots of pics LOL.

I love you. Keep up the good work!! 

– Toni