We received a letter this week from John. He had written it 1/22-1/24 so it is now a week old. The mail is slow getting out of the base. He had not been given his address yet but he was hoping to send it in his next letter.

He has a tough Drill Sargent. He called John Grandpa at least once already. He is the oldest man in his group but there is one 34 year old. His group is called Delta. He said the other guys are just kids and loud mouths. They do not follow orders well and as a result his group had to do at least 2 hours of push-ups one day as a result of their actions. Guess he will be building up muscles form that. He said the funny thing is that he is in better shape than all of the other guys even if he is Grandpa.

During processing he had to get shots and he had a slight reaction to one but the doctor said it was OK. He also got his hair shaved off and it made his head look BIG. They are feeding him well but he only gets 5 minutes to eat at each meal. They do allow him to go to church on Sunday (not sure where , guessing a Chaplin on base) but you have to sign-up to be able to go.

Today (2/1/09) I got a surprise phone call form John. He had gotten a special privilege to call so he must have done well this week in training. He had about 5 minutes to talk. It was so short but he said he was fine and doing well even thought it was tough. He wanted to know how things were here and I told him everything was going well thanks to all of the help and encouragement we have received from friends and family. He was really surprised that we had not gotten more letters from him and that we did not have his address yet. He seemed in good spirits. Makayla got to say hello and that was all we could fit in.

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