Third Letter from Tom

So it's been 2 weeks since I last wrote you a letter, so there is a lot to fill you in on. I apologize for not writing to you last week, but we didn't get to come to church because we were working on RLP, and the rest of the time was also spent working on RLP. If you have yet to figure out from my letters, church is about the only relaxing time around here. We come from 7-12 and hang around in the waiting room with a tv, 2 phones, and occasionally they bring out donuts. I spend my time calling my parents, watching Sportscenter, going to mass, then spitting out a couple letters. But enough about church, on to RLP.

RLP stands for Room, Locker, and Personal Inspection and it is conducted by about 8 DIs who pick rooms at random and beat you while they tear apart all the stuff you spent the past 4 weeks (about 70 hours in total) getting into perfect shape. There can be no loose threads, no stains, no specs of dust, and no wrinkles on anything. This means you spend hours ironing, folding, and lint rolling. And trust me, it is an absolute bitch to fold your shorts into a perfect 6x6 square that won't move when the DI picks it up to measure it. Furthermore, DIs are not exactly known for their light touch. Basically, the whole thing is a bitch, you can only lose a max of 20 points, usuall 2/3 of the class fails the first time and 10% of the class fails a second. If you fail twice, you roll, and the next class is 5 weeks behind us. There is no more depressing thought than waiting, in the holding company, doing absolutely nothing for 5 weeks, not getting any closer to leaving this place.

To make this whole thing worse, I caught strep throat on Sunday before RLP, which was Thursday. I tried to avoid sick call to make sure I got to do RLP on Thursday, which I would be rolled if I missed. This was a huge mistake as I had to run 2.5 miles in the fast group on Monday. It was the worst run of my life and it took everything had to just finish. I came in about 5 seconds behind the group and I was perpetually worried the DI, who was leading the group, would put me on my face. I finally went to sick call Tuesday, got antibiotics and bed rest on Tuesday and was cleared to continue (I asked to tough it out) on Wednesday.

On Thursday, the first RLP, the DIs busted in the hallway screaming and yelling right after the last note of the national anthem played on the loud speakers. My room was one of hte oens picked first, and my DI beat me relentlessly with rifle exercises while I was forced to scream at the top of my lungs. Furthermore, the more you put out and scream, the easier they are, so I gave it everything I had. Unfortunately, I lost 22 points total, mostly on stupid things, and 2 points because I lost bearing and said what to my DI, which really hurt because without that one I would have passed. Afterwards, they gave all the failures a speech about how we all suck and are trash (it's all a stupid head game, they fail half the class just to stress us out, which works very well). The good news is everyone who passed helps everyone who failed (someone else folded everyone of my clothes) and I managed to get an 87 (minus 13) and the one DI who doesn't beat us on Saturday. I was sweating constanly about rolling, but thankfully that was all for not.

The good one is that everyone says it gets a lot different (not easier, different) now and the changes are for the better. The beatings have dropped from 2-3 times a day to 2-3 times a week, however, the hour of PT every morning is getting really really hard, especially when running in the fast group. The good news is I have dropped 5 more pounds and I am down to 170 now, which is especially impressive when you consider I probably ahve 5 more pounds of water with as much as I hydrate here.

Well, that's about all for my exciting life here. We had a 2 hour picnic here (we didn't do anything beside sit, eat, talk with our classmates and clean up) and I was so hungry and this was my only chance to eat as much as I wanted so I had 3 hamburgers, 3 hot dogs, 3 different types of potato salad, and macaroni salad. It was AWESOME. Plus, I loved the dog story, I think it inspired me to get a golden retriever puppy (I want to call him Mel) after I get out of this place.

I hope everything is going well at work. Take care and I hope to hear from you soon.