First Aid Training Day & Eagle Tower

First Aid Casualty Course

Hey Mom,

Eagle Tower

This week has been good, although some Drill Sergeants are bullies.  One woke us up every hour on the hour to smoke us.  I guess it was because 4th platoon messed up on their night watch.  And then yesterday I had a Drill pour his Powerade in my helmet for no reason. That was really annoying, but other than those two times the Drills have been pretty fair.  Thanks for sending the extra garments.  It gave me more of a chance to share about the Gospel.  Most guys here haven't either met or talked to a "Mormon", so I've had six or seven really good conversations about it.  We did the Eagle Confidence Tower (repelling).  It was AWESOME!  Today was the First Aid Casualty Course and my 9 man squad had the best time on the course of out of the whole company!  21 minutes!  We had to find our casualty in the woods and provide Care Under Fire, which is basically provide a tourniquet and drag him to cover so that we can provide further care.  Just my luck, our casualty was the biggest guy from 1st platoon, 245 lbs!  So we dragged him to a nearby building, provided splints and bandages then had to carry him on a stretcher through the building over an 8 foot wall and then through a river...all the while providing "covering fire" to safely navigate through the rest of the course.  I think the hardest part was either lifting Tepper over the wall or trying to diagnose the tension to the pneumothorax (air in the chest cavity, crushing the lungs).  Normally you have to insert an NPA in the nose.  It's basically a tube that goes from your nose to your throat, and then use a 14 gauge needle and insert it between the second and third rib.  Luckily we only had to do that part on a dummy and not on Tepper  ;)
So it was a really cool course anyways.  And then for lunch.... more MRE'S.  I still think the Buffalo Chicken is my favorite one out of all of them.  Ok...so I wasn't really able to finish that last thought because it was lights out.
We just got finished doing the Confidence and Hardcore Obstacle Course.  It was awesome!  It starts with some hurdles, then a rope climb, and monkey bars, and then crawling over a few walls and under some barbed wire.  Our platoon tied for 1st as a whole on the course.  The Confidence Course was cool too, but a lot harder to explain.  But it was a lot of really tough obstacles.  One of our guys, Warren, fell off to top of the rope.  He's gotta be one of the hardest, toughest guys I've ever met.  He still kept doing the obstacles as best he could without his left shoulder.  Definitely a really inspiring dude.  I carried his assault pack for the Ruck march back to the barracks. 
So I found we get to do the NBC chamber (gas chamber) tomorrow.  Looking forward to that one - haha!  I gotta say though BCT (basic) has been nothing like I expected.  Well, either that or I just got really lucky .  Drill Sergeants Camp and Weiss are great.  They focus more on teaching us how to be better people and better soldiers.  We really hardly ever get smoked.  I got your letter and the pictures.  Thanks!  I was really happy to get those.  Ya'll should send some more cause it'd be great just to see something that isn't camouflaged or dirt.  haha
I was able to go to church again today.  The gas chamber got moved to Tuesday.  Church was good.  Schwarz, a guy about 3 bunks down from me, was curious about church and he's been asking me questions all week.  He came with me today.  He thought it was alright.  He didn't say what exactly he didn't like about it, but I'm pretty sure it's about having a living prophet today.  He's the kind of guy who doesn't think anything was necessary after Christ's resurrection, but he's still a great guy though.  So I thought of some things you could send me....toothpaste, bodywash (soap), spare razors for the gillette fusion razor, some sticks of deodorant....we only get to the PX like every 3 weeks and i'm kinda running low on those supplies.  But..hey....good news!!  Red Phase is almost over!!!  Which means.....PHONE CALL!!!!  It'll only be like 5 minutes though.  Maybe longer.  It kinda depends on the Drill Sergeants.  It'll be from a pay phone.  I don't know if you got that information about graduation yet, but my company has a Facebook site that you can look up and see some pictures of the things that I'm doing.  E 119th or something like that.  I'm sure you'll find it.  Ya'll got some time.  haha
So we're on tornado watch till 2030 tonight.  It's been super crazy rain storms all day today.  It's been really cool to guess the difference between artillery and thunder.  Speaking of thunder, what is going on in sports? I've been totally cut off form sports while I'm here. All I know is that Boston and Miami went to game 7, but I don't know who won!  Who's in the finals?  What all is going on with football news?  O.T.A.'s?  Heck, I'd even kill for baseball or golf news right now!  haha!!!  Just sports withdrawls.  I just found out how to take apart my M4 rifle.  It's pretty cool, and it's neat to take it apart and see how it works and then put it back together.  Anyways, I guess I'll finish this letter now since I've been writing it off and on for about a week now.  haha  I love you guys and miss ya tons!

Love, Lance

(You can see pictures of Lance and his platoon on the his company's facebook page.  Join the group E 1/19 Cycle 30 May-02 Aug 12    There are some really cool pictures of things he described in this letter....and if you look close you can spot him!  It's like finding Waldo!!!!)