July 03 - 3rd Letter From Bradley

This letter came today 7-7-09. What a surprise. We are so glad to be getting letters on a more regular basis! Again...here are excerpts from his letter dated 03 Jul 09.

****"Dear Family, I've sent you at least 4 letters by now. I don't know why it is thing so long for the letters to get to you. A lot has been going on here. I'm exhausted. Its
's our 4-1 today, well yesterday was (weekends don't count as days in boot camp). We did alot 2 days ago. We had this thing called 'marlinspike'. It is a replica of a smell ship and we all had to work with the lines. We had to get the ship docked and ready to go in 12 min. It was insane! A lot of yelling. Not by the RDC's but by each other. Yesterday we had a PI WTI (Physical Inspection and Weapons Turnover Inspection). It was a long inspection! The PI is basically - an officer comes in, usually a petty officer, but we had a Chief. He inspects our clothes, boots and everything on us and asks us each aone question about Rank and Recognition (chain of command, collor devices, sleeve insignia). The WTI is basically - properly turning over a 9mm with a question along with it. The whole thing was about 2 1/2 hours long! Standing at attention the whole time. It sucked! I got one hit because i got a question wrong. But some people failed the inspections and they're going to get 'AZMOED'. (sent back to 2-1 day) LOL. So far we have had 10 people Azmoed out. Most of them for medical reasons, but a few got kicked out because they were'nt following orders. One kid (well he was 27) left during our 2- week. He said he couldnt take it any longer.

Its the 4th of July tonight, we can hear the fireworks (thats all we can do). It sucks, our RDC's left early so they can go see the fireworks. I can only get 4 tickets for graduation (so everyone gets an equal opportunity).

I might be able to make 1 phone call a week if I'm lucky. If everything goes good with the inspection then we get a phone call. But that's if everyone does well, all 80 of us. And we cant get any compartment hits. My RDC's say we are the worst division in the ship (score and team wise). Our scores are low and we constantly fight with each other. So we are not going to get any special rewards. But everything is fine here.

Its our 4-2 day and 5-1 is the beginning of 'hell week'. I cant wait because I'm really bored. I don't get frustrated with the things we do here (constant marching, drill practice, etc), I'm just bored...even when we IT. I'm just tired of it. But I'm almost done, just 4 more weeks.

Hopefully you will get my call this week. We might get to make it on Wednesday (if they let us). But tell me whats going on in the world. We have no contact with the outside world. It feels like this place is the world and there is nothing past the gates. LOL

Well write me a lot, because I can only send letters on Sundays.

Love you all, Bradley"****


Well we are all proud of Bradley! And from the letter it sounds like he is determined to get thru it all. Not letting it get to him. Poor tired kid :) His PIR (pass in review = graduation) is set for 7/31

Everyone feel free to write to him. Just include dates so he can organize his letters. I guess they get letters in a bunch...not daily.