First Week at SOI

So I've been at SOI for officially a week now. California is not so sunny and not so warm like I imagined it was all year round. I had quite a scare the first few days here. My orders told me to check in on Monday by noon, but everyone else in my company didn't check in until Tuesday at noon. Since I got there in the middle of the night on Sunday I think that someone didn't cross a T or dot an I. Anyways I spent two days in this receiving area which is just a holding tank for people waiting to start training. It was basically filled with the scum of the Marines. People who had gotten into legal trouble during training or during their leave were here as were people who had been dropped from training due to integrity violations and also people who were malingerers.

When the instructors came late Tuesday to pick up everyone for training and put them in their respective groups my name as well as a couple of others that checked in early were not on the roster. At first I thought that I might have to wait another two weeks in this purgatory type platoon to start training because some idiot didn't fill out all the paper work correctly, but one of the instructors realized it wasn't our fault and we did everything we were supposed to and had the problem corrected.

The first week was a little boring and a little lonely since there was so much downtime. We got issued all of our gear we would need for the field and training but in between that there was alot of waiting around and sitting in the squadbay. I made the opportunity to meet some new friends. I can usually tell who the problem makers are going to be within the first few days so I tried to avoid them. I met two guys from Alaska that are pretty cool and squared away. Who would have thought you'd meet an Alaskan in California?

It was pretty cool getting all of our high speed gear though. We got issued night vision goggles, infrared scopes for our rifles, and flak jackets. Tomorrow we will start training in the field. The instructors told us we will get a little increase in our pay for the next week for "hazardous duty" since we will be using grenades. You've got to have a good sense of humor to make in the Marines I'm beginning to learn.

Anyways, a typical week here will consist of spending Monday-Friday in the field and then returning late afternoon on Friday. We will then clean and turn in our weapons and gear to the armoury before we get released for weekend liberty. I'm going to try to take some time each weekend to update this to talk about the training and any other funny stories that pop up. I plan on purchasing a laptop the first opportunity that we get off base liberty so it should make it a little easier and I'll also be able to post pictures of my friends, the base, and California. The training is going to be pretty tough especially since there are so many mountains out here and there weren't any at Parris Island. So all of the kids out here that went to boot camp on the West Coast are a little more conditioned for the mountains. I'm ready for the challenge though and all the good stories and memories the training and time out in the field will produce.

Until next weekend...