Guillotine Choke Hold

Day 48 23 July 02 Tuesday

What a great view to have this morning. Of course we had PT in the dark as usual but after that for chow formation, the sun made a brilliant picture as it got out of bed. The clouds recieved a light red, pinkish tint. It reminded me of a picture I took when I was in Hawaii. I wish I could have sat and enjoy it more. I wish sunrises and sunsets would last longer. Hey, I bet Rachel (though she is not up yet because its 0730 here) is/will be giddy/excited that he b-day is tomorrow. Now that she got her license (finally!). I wonder where/what she'll be doing for it.

We had hand to hand combat training today and man was it great. We spent the morning leanring all sorts of grapling techniques. Most of the moves we learned were for fighting on the ground. Strangle holds, counter-moves and other stuff. In the afternoon we got to go against someone. I went against Craigs. We went at it for over 5 minutes when I finally, after fruitless attempts of the bent arm break, went to the guillotine choke-hold and he tap'ed out. I did however, obtain a bloody lower lip, a cut by my right eye and a scratch running from my forehead to my right eyeball.

Oh, last night for fire guard I had to watch a guy who tried to kill himself yesterday. I guess he was in 4th platoon and just couldn't take it. They took his boot laces and stuff like that. Which reminds me, at reception there was a kid who tied the end of a hall wax buffer machine cord to his neck and threw it out the window (3rd floor). He did survive, however, because the cord was too long the buffer hit the ground before it tightened around his neck. How sad is that? One, its at reception which is nothing to basic and two, he couldn't even kill himself when he tried. On a lighter note, tomorrow is the day we leave on our bivuak. We marched 10k to our site and from there we spent the next 3 days. There will be little sleep involved since the excercises we will be working on is night movements. So I will be spending Rachel's bday marching and firing the M240B. We will be firing the M204B til 0230 Thursday morning and still get up at 0530. We were issued 1/2 a tent and a sleeping bag (which I will not be using due to the heat). We will be out in the field til Saturday night. I think there will be a lot of mail waiting for us on Monday. It is suppose to rain almost every day we are out there so that is going to bite. That's weird, I just checked my calendar and count down to Family Day sheet (I made both of these) and tomorrow, the 24th of July, there is also 24 days left til Family Day. What are the chances of that? And it being Rachel's bday. Weird. Happy Birthday Rachel. Have a great day. I wish I could have been there with you. Hope you enjoy your gifts.