Talked to him again...Finally!

I stayed home from our Church Lenten Tent Revival tonight, because I had a feeling Aaryk would try and call again. He did!

He's still sick, and bruised and just dead tired, but he's almost to the halfway point!

Just to give you an idea of what his days are like, here's what he told me tonight:

0500 reveille
0530-0630 PT
0630 chow
0700-1000 class
1000-1130 cleaning, straightening up barracks, inspections
1130 chow
1200-1500 class
1500-1800 class
1800 chow
1830-2100 class
2100 get ready for next day
2200 lights out

Classes consist of everything from bayonet training to troop leadership and tactics. He said that for him it was mostly review and it was all coming back to him. For some of the guys whose prior service was Air Force or Navy, a lot of this is new and the pace at which they are expected to learn it means that on average about 1/3 of each platoon won't finish.

The only thing that concerns Aaryk is the possibility of being injured. If he gets hurt he'll get held over to the next group and have to go through all of this again. As a result he is being careful, but still has to push pretty hard. His knee is bothering him quite a bit still, but he is confident that he'll get through this part of his training with no problem.

He said that he managed to not get made a squad leader, but this week he would probably get roped into being a fire team leader. Each squad is made up of 9 guys, consisting of two fire teams and a squad leader. He would be in charge of three other guys in the squad. Which means that if they screw up, he gets to pay for it!

Let's see, I think that's about it for our conversation tonight...Well, at least for the parts I'm going to share! I hadn't realized how much I miss just hearing his voice. Every day is one day closer to being together again though.

Hey, thanks to everyone who has been praying for us, writing to him, and generally looking after us. I may not say it often enough, but we really do appreciate it!