BCT Day 6

These post are from letters that Jason has mailed to me. Sometimes his writing is hard for me to read so bare with me if some of the terms aren't right. I hope that you enjoy as much as I do.

BCT Day 6
September 18,2010

Today we had 8 more hours of land navigation class. They showed us how to plot points on the map, figure out the distance between points, and how to use a compass. We'll have to put what we learned to the test next Wednesday. We'll be broken in groups of 2 and will have to complete 2 land navigation courses, one during the day and one at night. They give us a map, a compass, and a few points to find. We'll plot the points on the map and use the compass to fins and walk to all points in a set amount of time. It should be pretty fun. We'll be camping in the field that night too.
I mentioned in yesterdays letter that I had fireguard shift. Fireguard shift is basically a way to make sure someone is awake and watching the bay all night long. They are 1 hour shifts from lights out(21:00) to wake up (5:00). Two people are on each shift and each shift has specific cleaning duties. Last night ours was taking out the trash and cleaning the sinks in the latrine(bathroom). Since we had the last shift we also had to wake everyone up. We have to start getting up about (04:30 or we won't be ready on time. DS's aren't happy when your late.
I also had fireguard on the second night here at BCT. It was at 1:00, so it wasn't fun. We slept a couple of hours , wake up for an hour shift, and then slept a couple more hours. Needless to say it wasn't a restful night's sleep.
Something pretty crazy happened during our shift that night. We were mopping (yes we were mopping in the dark at 1:00) and I shined my light across the bay only to see a guy standing at attention, with weapon in hand, by his bunk. I looked at the next bunk and he was out of the bed doing the same thing. I walked over to investigate, but the first guy wouldn't say anything, he was asleep on his feet. The second guy said someone came in and told them to get up because DS was coming. There ended up being 6 guys standing by their bunks. They all had the same explanation, someone woke them up b/c DS was in the room. This imaginary DS was never found.