Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody.
Eightieth Entry. Aberg and MRE's.
26 Sep 03 | 1656 - Friday

Today has been good. Pretty damn good. We picked up early and due to a slight bit of slowness, we sort of got smoked doing rifle PT. See, I think that almost every time we got smoked as a platoon and the other 3 platoons in the company get smoked, too, it's a plan put into action to make us stronger, faster, and better all around. Today is even more confirmation of that. We got smoked for being "too slow" but we were exceptionally early and quick. On top of that, we only got smoked for 10 minutes at the most when it could have, and should have, been at least a half hour of pounding hearts and sweat-drenched bodies. Even more, DS Hockenberry wasn't stumbling over his words in rage, and his voice lacked a bark that comes naturally with his anger. We did good, and her knows it. In fact, later in the day, he commended us for doing a good job for yesterday and today.

Some people hadn't had the chance to group and zero yet. Others still hadn't finished. PVT. Shoulders spent all of yesterday firing, and most of today, too. Well, there is a female that is only slightly difficult to get along with that needed a coach. Murray was going to do it, but DS Valdez could see that he was willing, but quite reluctant. It was then that DS Valdez said something along the line of a compliment to me. "Gibson, you be her coach. Gibson likes everybody, and everybody likes Gibson, right?" The platoon responded with, "Black Lions!" It's a phrase our battalion says when we agree or when we say anything but "no." To the like of "hoah." I liked hearing that. It meant that I'm getting closer to my goals than I had originally thought...and so quickly! Job well done, Gibson.

Well, 12 out of 12 was the bare minimum to be zeroed and grouped. Six shots to group in order to see where you aim. Then six more to make sure that the new settings have you hitting on target. Aberg, the soldier from my hometown of Antioch, CA grouped and zeroed in 9 rounds. Talk about setting the standard! Then, on top of that, he zeroed before he grouped! Three shots dead center; some of them so close together that they shared the same holes. If I ever get stuck under enemy fire, Aberg, you'll be main fire and I'll be suppressive fire. Good? Good.

A lot of people's dreams came true today. We had MRE's for lunch. It's strange that we had "slide and eat" chow in the field, but back at the barracks where we have a cafeteria, we ate MRE's. The matter at hand, though, is that we got to eat MRE's. Don't ever let anyone tell you that MRE's taste bad or horrible. I was lucky, too. I'm vegetarian and when I went to DS Chun to get mine, he handed me a vegetarian MRE before I could even ask. He didn't know it, either.

Cheese tortillini, apple sauce, crackers, peanut butter, gum, hard candy and the best damn pound cake that I've ever had. I also had a packed of apple cider mix. I poured it into my mouth with the 7 pieces of hard candy already in my mouth...It was good. Soooo good. We could have the desert type stuff only while still eating; no saving for later. NO matter, it was ALL so damn good! But, that's all for now.

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