October 18

Mom & Dad:
Hey! I haven't heard from you guys in about 2 weeks :( Hopefully, I'll get a letter from you Monday. This week has been crazy. Monday we had GFT (Ground Fighting Techniques) which stunk, as usual. We aren't learning anything useful, and we cram 200+ people into a small room and then we get smoked if anyone talks. And they aren't the normal "Do Pushups" smokings, they make us do things like low crawl through the sand pit.
Tuesday we got to play with the M2 .50 cal machine gun, and the MK .19 Grenade launcher. They were both fun, but nothing really special.
Wednesday we did small team tactics, learned the basics of fighting formations and that stuff. Then Thursday we got to use the M249 & M240B machine guns which were pretty cool. We'll have some of each assigned to our platoon.
Yesterday we had something called the Battle March and Shoot. We had to do some first aid & radio tasks then carry a guy for 3 1/2 miles (all of us carrying about 50 pounds of gear). Also, did I mention this a race? So we ran the 3 1/2 miles. I'm hurting today. When we got to the end, we had to do a 25 meter shoot, 40 rounds, at a man-sized target. We were all stressed and as tired as we could be, so our shots were not as accurate as they could have been. Now, the other 3 platoons had been preparing and practicing for 2 weeks, and we had been told what we were doing the night before we did it. So we lost in a bad way, and so we got yelled at.
Today we're getting class A's, but I already have mine since I'm funeral detail, so I'm sitting in the bay writing letters.
I'm including a picture and a drawing...The drawing is an example of what we do when we're bored (don't ask, it's weird), and the picture...It's from 2 weeks ago, we had a guy leave for 2 weeks because of a stress fracture. Before he left he took some pictures & mailed them to us. So here's a picture for you.
Well, that's about it. Hope to hear from you soon. I love you guys. A month an a half!

PFC Brad Hopper