Independence Day Part II

Josh called today while he was on a seven hour pass, the platoon was out and about waiting for the 4th of July festival to start at the Fort.

Last week they were out in the field for their four day FTX (field training exercise) they slept in tents and had numerous training exercises. He said it was a little tiring and a little boring at times. The did several training exercises including going through old buildings hunting "terrorists", at one point they were crawling on the ground while there were live rounds going off over their heads...The trip was capped off with a 15K ruck march where they had all their gear and fully loaded ruck sacks that contained an extra 70 pounds of gear, he said this took about four hours to complete. After the march, they did some night ops.

They were all dead tired and pretty dirty when they returned to the Fort. Josh said he didn't realize how dirty he was until he took off his uniforms and sand came out of his pocket and boots! Even though he took all four of his uniforms, he kept one aside to change into when he returned to the Fort. It was a real pleasure to put on dirty, grimy, wet stuff out in the field when the day began at 4:00am.

The Value Tag ceremony was held at the very end when they returned back to the Fort. This is a true ceremony with the platoons superiors in attendance and each member of the platoon receives a special dog tag with the Army values on one side and the Warrior Ethos on the other. 220 volunteers started BCT and 198 received their Value Tags and were welcomed into the Army family. I have probably downplayed the significance of the ceremony, it marks the official transformation from volunteer to soldier. Josh was very honored to have received this distinction, I could hear it in his voice. He received his tags on July 2nd, his grandfather Evans' birthday, that made it significant too.

On Thursday he will take his final BCT physical test and will start AIT on Friday.

As I look back, the time has gone by pretty quickly, his September graduation will be just around the corner. Sometime in the next few weeks, Josh will receive his orders and will know where he will be for the next couple of years. There are rumors that they will be sending MP's to Korea and Africa. Several of his friends in AIT just got orders to Colorado. Truth is, he could end up literally anywhere in the world...