20SEP09

Sunday, today is divine hours and we can definitely say it is our favorite day of the week. After spending the morning at chapel services, writing letters, and squaring away our uniforms, it was time to get back to training. We were excited to participate in our first off base run! We ran 1.5 miles and sang cadences along the way. The run made us feel good about our company, our formation was squared away and the way people off the base looked and waved at us made us take pride in ourselves, our company and our country.

21SEP09

Today started week 05 in training, but by the way we acted we were nowhere near the expected behavior that our company commanders want from us. Our motivation and dedication is strong in our minds, as individuals, but our teamwork we present everyday is inconsistent. We constantly learn the hard way that this journey is not possible without working together, and thinking as a unit. Although times like this give us little hope that graduation day will soon, we should all remember that there is nothing worth having that doesn’t take hard work.

22SEP09

We spent most of the morning at the uniform distribution center. This is the second trip to the center since forming week four weeks prior. All of us recruits were dying to finally try on our new dress uniforms that we will be wearing on graduation day! This gave us hope that we desperately needed; graduation is so close. After chow we went to seamanship class to learn about using radios and the phonetic alphabet. We paired up with each other to practice mock search and rescue scenarios. It gave us a feel of what it feels like to be a guardian in the fleet.

23SEP09

Today most of the morning was spent in the gym. Each session we have is usually lifecycle or a cybex weight equipment workout. Today it was lifecycles, and boy did we sweat! The workout consisted of many different speed intervals that wore us out by the total forty five minute workout. After the workout was complete our legs felt like jello as we marched into formation for our seamanship class for the midterm. Everyone did excellent because of all the review our instructor gave us. It was a long day that finally came to an end but what kept us going was the anticipation of receiving our orders for our permanent duty stations.

24SEP09

This morning was our cybex workout class, and to get out of the rack and immediately start exercising with your eyes half open is hard work. Everyone has been having watch this week which means if we have a shift at three in the morning until four we have to wake up an hour early to get dressed…This means we are losing two hours of sleep every night! We’ve all gotten sick since we’ve arrived at the training center and the hygiene and military bearing of us all needs to tighten up. When the class dismissed we were taken to be read our orders to what unit we will be heading off to after training is over! The list ranged from Rhode Island all the way to Alaska, most of us were happy with our duty stations but you could see on the faces of some of the recruits that they were shocked at the location of which they will be sent shortly after graduation.

25SEP09

We knew this day was coming…The dreadful day of receiving our small pox vaccinations. As we stood in line with sleeves rolled up, our minds were going crazy with fear. The fifteen jabs in the arm were not pleasant, but luckily we all made it through alive. Since the vaccination makes us contagious to anything that comes in contact with our vaccination area, we were given directions on how to properly dress and sanitize our arms. After spending the morning in medical, we had our first uniform inspection. We scored fair but really need to work on squaring away our hair and uniforms so we don’t look too jacked up…as our Company Commanders would say. Lastly we spent the remainder of the evening practicing marching and Manual of Arms; with continuous practice we should get to be precise enough to pass the Manuel of arms test and close order drill.

26SEP09

All of us recruits had no idea how much the smallpox vaccination would affect us… the nurse said flu like symptoms may occur but we didn’t know how true it would be. The morning wakeup all the way until hitting the racks was filled with bouts of the chills and fevers. We couldn’t complain or the ambulance would have to arrive and pluck us off to medical so we popped our ibuprofen and continued with the day.

We discussed commitment today with Petty Officer Rosas and it was insightful to hear all of our shipmate’s reasons why they are committed to the Coast Guard; it brought us together as a company. We finally got to take hot showers after a rainy day that filled our gortex jackets and pants with puddles of unpredictable New Jersey rain.

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