Hearing His Voice Again!

I finally got a phone call yesterday! It was wonderful to hear his voice again! He seems to be happy and he still sounds like his goofy self. :) He told me about his gas chamber experience which sounded awful! You can see what it does to the soldiers at steelrainsoldiers.blogspot.com. They have a couple pictures and the men are slobbering all over themselves. Shaun was laughing about it even though he said it was the worst thing he has experienced in his life. I love his positive attitude! The marksmenship certification stuff is for the next two or three weeks. Shaun absolutely loves guns so I think he'll enjoy this part a lot. He does have a cough that is stopping him from getting his sleep but the cold that he has had this entire time is finally going away. He has lost 12 lbs!!! I thought that was pretty incredible. :) The count down is now at 45 days! I'll get to see him then when his family and I drive down to Oklahoma. It'll only be a total of about 18 hours with him (maybe more if he doesn't get shipped out until later) but I'm happy to take what I can get. It'll be a fun trip even though it takes four days to get there both ways. He's already been gone 29 days so time is going by fast enough for now. :)

A Weekend Break?

Shaun didn't get to call me tonight like the commander said so I was pretty sad about it. one of his platoon members must have been dumb and asked the drill sergeant about it. If they do that their phone privileges get taken away as punishment. I emailed the commander yesterday asking if he knew if Shaun would have a weekend break between graduation and his shipment to AIT. He said the soldiers start getting shipped Saturday and the shipments go through Monday but he can't tell me anything until the shipment orders get in and they won't come until the last week before graduation. Well that doesn't help us make travel plans... whatever. I was frustrated so I said, "why don't they schedule it so that the soldiers who don't have family visiting them go early and the ones that have family that traveled two days to see them get to spend the whole weekend with them!" :) That would be very nice. I miss him so much. It's been three weeks now. 7 more until I get to see him, 14 more until he comes home.

A Blog About Shaun's Platoon

There's a commander that keeps in touch with the soldiers in Shaun's platoon and a few others. He has created a blog that talks about what they do almost every day. From what I've read things are going pretty good with the soldiers. I've been worried because I've heard stories from my dad and grandpa about basic training and the way the sergeants treat them is not pleasant. Shaun told me that their not allowed to lay a hand on the soldiers anymore, but what I didn't know is that they are not allowed to verbally abuse the soldiers either. They're not supposed to curse at them. They are trying to encourage them. I think that's a much better tactic anyway. :) They should have started that long ago. No one feels good about themselves and tries much harder when someone's yelling degrading remarks in their ear. So I'm very grateful that has changed. I'm not so worried about it now. This commander is assuring us that the soldiers are safe. It's kind of fun to read about some of the things they are doing. He has also posted a few pictures so I've been trying to see if Shaun's in any of them. not yet... in the post the commander put up yesterday he said we'd hear from Shaun this weekend! I wasn't expecting that so I'm pretty excited! I can't wait to talk to him, it's been a week. Time is going faster than I thought it would, at least when I stay busy. Thanks for all your support and the help you've given me.

To see the blog this commander has created about Shaun's platoon go to this website: :)
http://steelrainsoldiers.blogspot.com/