Well, that was interesting while it lasted. I believe that it was Sunday when our head Drill Sergeant, DS Hockenberry, chose to give some style to those of us in glasses. Army glasses, the ones that you have to hear during basic, are hideous. Thus, they are called BCG's. Birth Control Glasses. Or rape prevention glasses. But if there are not bad enough as is, DS Hockenberry had us put green Army duct tape around the bridge of our glasses. We were kickin' it with some phat bling bling. I tell you honestly, I rather liked it.

Today we had to take it off. Someone informed the First Sergeant, or he just saw it for himself, and would not permit it. So we removed the tape, with some reluctance. I'll put the tape back when I get out of AIT and wear them in my civilian clothes. Who cares is women do or don't find it attractive, I think it's "pimpin'".

It was two days ago. My one month anniversary. On the 21st, Sunday, I had been in the Army for one month. I forgot to mention it, not because I didn't know, but because I had so much going through my mind. I left on the 20th of August and it feels like it was just a few days ago. On the 21st, I had my first taste of the military. Now, I'm almost gagging on it because I'm trying to dig in too fast. Time does fly when you're having fun.

Again, on the 21st of September, I forgot to post something. Well, two things kind of. I'm starting to get to people like I want to. I'm digging in and taking root. Soon, the seed will grow and they'll have trees and forests of their own.

I was standing in the company area, an outdoor bottom level to the barracks cluttered only by thick, wide, brick pillars. I was turned towards the sunset and admiring it. I was watching the water spray from the sprinklers with an orange tint in the "golden light," or "rose light" as Alyson calls it. I smiled, gazing upon the green grass and aged pines. It was so beautiful, and Private Love-no joke-came over and talked me what I was looking at. I told him and he replied with something to the like of "You're normal, but your weird, Gibson. You're normal because that's how everyone should be, but you're strange because they're not like that." I got to him by that and it showed by his words and the awkward way he said them. I couldn't have hit him harder with a shovel to the head. It felt so good to get to him like that...positive instead of negative.

In the stairwell, Dawit-the resident screw-up of the the company-and I were talking after checking Lunch and Dinner chow times. Dawit has been known to get the whole platoon doing military presses (fingers and thumb extended and joined with palms facing the sky. Upper arm parallel to the ground and elbows bent in a 90 degree angle. Raise your arms to full extension and then bring them back down to the horizontal position) because he didn't know when our platoon was supposed to eat. Well, we got to talking about how all our freedoms have been taken away while we were here at Basic. He hated it and can't stand being treated so horribly. I don't mind it, and I told him why and my personal philosophy on why we can't have candy or soft drinks or anything of utterly unnecessary luxury. People spend their entire civilian lives taking their freedoms for granted; in the military, we earn our freedoms so that we'll actually want to fight to keep them. For ourselves, and everyone else.

Dawit hasn't fucked up nearly as much. He's been doing his best to do anything but screw up. Sure, there are occasional slips, but it's good to see how well he took my philosophy. I'm kind of proud of him, actually. At any rate, it's toe-the-line. More to come later.

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Heart vs mind.