Letters To Home

C077/K051 Feb 21- Apr 25, 1990

I recently received the letters I wrote home from boot camp. I was wondering how to share these, so I figured I would transcribe them. I will have to add a little background to each, but otherwise, it will be my own rods from 1990. I find some of what I wrote humorous at times, looking back on things.

This first one, I talk about going to the hospital for my injured eye. Those who have read everything I have written will recall I injured my right eye on the first night in our compartment. I believe the zipper on the edge fo the pillow scratched it. During my time at the hospital, I was making phone calls, far in advance when we were allowed to.

Lorri is my sister and Ally is my niece. Kathy was my fiancee at the time, no ex-wife.  Enjoy, and I hope this jogs some memories for everyone. My written grammar will be messed up for sure.

Dear Mom, Dad, Lorri, and Ally                                                                    90Feb28    9:10pm

Well, I’m still going to the hospital for my eye. The doctor gave me some pain killers for the headaches I’ve been having. The eye itself is getting much better. The bruise is shrinking, and the infection is almost gone. The only problem is some of the medication dilates the pupil, so it is a pain during the day marching around in the sun with no sunglasses. This is the first time we have been able to write letters. I wrote Kathy while I was at the hospital today. I called her from there yesterday too.

Most of the time we spend folding our clothing and making our bunks, and in the compartment learning all kinds of Navy stuff. Yesterday we had to straighten out our medical records and get our eyes checked. All of the nuclear people had 4 vials of blood taken. The food is OK. I’m eating a salad with almost every meal to help fill me up. Today fr lunch we had steak, and that was really GOOD!! Today for the first time in a week, the coke was working.

Tomorrow the CC can “Officially” treat us mean by running us extra, extra pushups, and whatever else he can think of. Monday is the official Day 1-1, the start of training. I told Kathy to set up the wedding for May 5. Well, its tattoo so lights out in 5 minutes. I’ll write again when I have time. Say hi to everyone.

Bye,

Jim

I found it odd our return address included our full SSN. The pain killers would come in handy as we began PT with reckless abandon. I know that sounds odd. Here is something I learned recently, thanks to my former CC. Anyone remember the day we went to the Field House and were taught to do PT? Workweeks showed us how to do each exercise, so when we did them at PT or when cycling, we did them correctly with less chance of injury. And cycling came from the CC handbook. It referred to the cycle of training we were on and was a guideline for how hard they could push us. So, now you know.

I really am looking forward to getting the time to write all of this in one cohesive form, i.e., book. I know I can sell a few dozen when I get it done. Thank you to everyone who has been reading along with me. I hope you have enjoyed it as I have.
Bewarned, more to come tomorrow.