Final Drill

Today is the Final Drill. I don't know if you remember, but towards the beggining I posted about "Initial Drill". They combine the points of the drills to arrive at "Best Platoon" at the end of bootcamp. Hopefully Plt. 1083 will kick some a$$ today. Even if they don't win, we still know who the best recruit is! ;)

Haven't heard from him in a while, so no news to report.

We Leave for PI ONE week from today!! The countdown begins!

Breakfast of Warriors

The Crucible ended at 8AM today and the recruits were treated to a "Warriors Breakfast" which includes steak, eggs and potatoes. Not only do the "warriors" get longer than 3 minutes to eat, they also get to talk to each other while they eat!!! How CRAZY is that!?

Two more weeks and he is done! We leave for Parris Island October 5th and we are all very excited to see him!

Keep writing! He is not done yet. Thanks everyone for your support!!

OOH RAH!!

Kara Got a Letter

What's up Kara,
Hope that everything at Cornell is going well and your plague class has gotten a little better, I hate boring "stuff" like that. Lately we've been having practical application classes which is CPR, saving people with wounds and the classes are so boring because it's taught by a moron drill instructor who never went to school. hates the people he is teaching and to top it off if you close your eyes.... done deal you'll disappear and not be seen for hours. So boring classes definitely suck a lot.
Let's see. Last week I qualified at the rifle range and worked at laundry headquarters which sucked a lot (I did that for something called team week) This upcoming week (Monday 12th) is going to be insane. We're doing night operations stuff with flares, shooting from windows, trying to hit moving targets going for one shot to kill. So we're gonna be up all day and all night doing that type of crap.
Today we're in 3rd phase which is when the crazy stuff happens (training wise) and we're perfected to do like everything exactly how it's supposed to be done. All like the younger kids watch us so we can never show fatigue pain or weakness which is tough but I love it. I've always wanted to be able to do that.
Recently I've just been counting diwn the days until I can get the hell off this island. I got your letters as Im sure you can probably tell, and I definitely want to go to Cornell for a bit, Im not going to have "stuff" to do for a few days so i figure what the hell. (several sentences excluded)
I got some things to do so I gotta get going but I'll try to write again soon. I hope school is going well and that you're doing alright. Miss you and love you.
Love
Erick

Where's Erick??

I can see him in this picture. Can You?
It's like the "Where's Waldo?" of boot camp.

Did you find him? Email me if you can't and I will point him out to you. kellyhoulihan@hotmail.com Maybe I'm wrong and just think I see him, but I'm pretty sure it's him.

If you click on the image it enlarges it and makes it easier to play.

One Week Until Crucible

Erick begins the Crucible a week from today. It is a 54 hour excursion that involves sleep deprivation, food deprivation, and mental and physical challenges. It sounds rather intense and difficult. Any extra encouragement is much appreciated this week, before he goes. SEND THOSE LETTERS!! I am attaching a link if you want to read about The Crucibe.

http://p217.ezboard.com/fparrisislandfrm38.showMessage?topicID=1356.topic

for some reason I can't get the link to work. You have to either cut and paste the web site into your internet browser or click here. Sorry. I'll be sure to keep my day job. If you have any problems or questions you can email me. kellyhoulihan@hotmail.com

WE GOT 3 LETTERS ON FRIDAY!!!

Mom etc. received 2 letters in Friday's mail and I received 1! I will write out my letter. He sounds good. We all cannot wait to see him on October 6th!

Hey Kelly, I hope that you're doing well, from your letters that seems to be the case. I love getting th eletters from you and hearing about all sorts of stuff you have to say. The one letter about all the food Lima made made me so damn hungry (I - Kelly - went to a friends house for dinner and she STUFFED me) What i would do for all that food, you have no idea. It sounds like your job is a ton of work, but you work with good people.

As for Parris Island it's still pretty gay, getting better though. Last week we had the rifle range which was awesome. 7 times out of 10 I hit the target in the head from 500 yards and never knew that was possible. It was a lot of fun, but also a ton of work. This week coming up is team week which should be a pretty good time cutting grass and what not, it will be nice to take a few days off from training.

Yesterday (Saturday) we went to the Parris Island museum and saw a ton of cool and old stuff about the Marine Corps. There was also a little movie clip section we weren't supposed to go in but me and my buddy went in anyway and watching TV was like amazing. I miss TV so much.

To answer a few questions you have. I made CWS 2 (this is a swimming qualification) which was hard as hell and I never want to do it again. The squadbay is actually airconditioned but almost everyday it's "broken" so it's like never on. The foods not bad 3 meals a day like 3 minutes to eat it so you're constantly hungry. Our beverage is always water that is warm and tastes like piss yet for some reason or another it's still refreshing. We got our pictures taken and I put on my "mean" face, but not to worry it was a good mean face (I hope)I haven't seen them yet. We gave Parris Island the nicname The Rock because there's one way on and one way off, but it's almost over. If only I joined another branch I'd be done with this sh*t except coast guard, I think that's like 10 weeks? Not sure, but I'm glad I didn't and I'm glad I'm at Parris Island busting my ass day in and day out.

Hey I gotta get going, almost time for church but I miss you and love getting your letters with stories about fat African ladies and thinking they smell when it's actually your food. I love em. All righty back to work I go. Love You Kelly, Erick

La Di Da...

Haven't heard from Erick in a while or seen him in any pictures or read any interesting posts on the message boards. I found a few pictures from the rifle range when Erick was there, just none with him in them. I'm posting 3 of them. It's cool to see what he was doing even if we can't see him doing it.

Not A Good Time on the Rifle Range for 1083

A Message from Erick's SDI

1083 Friends & Family,
I am sure by now all of you have heard the news about the range results. We went from racing with 1085 for first place to last place. That is how it goes sometimes, better here then in harms way though. I believe that the pressure of winning got to some of the recruits and they let it get the best of them, do not worry next week we will get the recruits who did not qualify in there where they should be.
SEMPER FI
SDI 1083