four letters in one!

After attacking the mailman everyday this week I got a letter! Its 4 days of letters in one and full of lots of information. We didn't get a call from Nic on Sunday so I have been worried about him. Its great to hear from him.

February 16 (gas chamber day)
"Today is President's Day so we didn't do anything but sit in safety classes. Then we watched "we were soldiers". We actually got to watch a movie! Its one of the best movies I have ever seen."
He talks about how very proud he is to be in the army and wear the uniform and says, "its the greatest honor".
"We went through the gas chamber today! It's filled with a very potent amount of "cs" gas...crowd control gas. You go in with your gas mask on and then you have to take it off and breathe for 15 seconds! Those were the longest 15 seconds of my life! It is designed to attack all soft tissue such as eyes, nose, throat, lungs and you can fill it burning all the way down. It is the most horrible feeling. Wow it hurts. It was a huge confidence builder tho."

February 18
Nic talks about a rumor that was spread about a fellow soldier. Nic and several others went and "vouched" for this soldier but the drill sgts said it didn't matter. The fellow soldier was pulled up in front of the whole company (240 people) and embarrassed and will probably receive a reduction in rank and pay. He said he thought that kind of stuff (spreading rumors) ended in high school.

February 19
He finally got the vitamin c I sent him. At this point he has only gotten 2 of the letters I had sent. Brandon had written and asked Nic about his daily routine and this is his reply:
0500 wake up; 0545 first formation; 0600-0700 PT; personal hygiene until 0800; march to "chow" til 0900; train til 1500 hours with lunch at 1200 hours; misc. training til dinner chow at 1800; 1900-2030 drill sgt time; final formation til 2100; 2130 lights out. They can they lay in bed and write letters. On "foot march days" they get up at 0400 hours.
"My weapon sleeps on my bed post every night about 2 inches away and it goes everywhere with me. I love it! The food is HORRIBLE! We have white rice with brown gravy on it with every meal and the main courses are nasty. When you guys get here we are going out to get food!"
He asks if I will send his watch to him because "they don't have clocks up anywhere here!" and it drives him crazy never knowing the time.
He has appreciated getting pictures I send him and says they motivate him a lot. He has them hanging on his wall locker. I write to him on papers we printed out that have different pictures of family, friends and weird stuff on them (one was a picture of the new orange flags to carry across main street crosswalks and told him I am glad they waited until him and alex left to put them up because I can only imagine what those two would do with them!).

February 20
"So I got the rest of your mail tonight..all the ones without 2's on them (from before we knew we had to write a "2" on the back). I had to do 250 pushups! It wore me out so much! But it was so great to get the rest of the letters you wrote!"
He misses playing hide and seek with Hayden and misses him a lot.
"I am so sick of the food here so SO sick of it! I want your home cooking so bad! Oh and I would kill for some ricardos!"
"Going to get some sleep. Tell everyone hi for me and I miss you all very very much"
Love, PFC Fowler

What a great son! I miss him more than I ever imagined I would. It is wonderful to hear he is enjoying it and doing so well. We are very excited to go to his graduation. I got a letter today from his Aunt Kelly that they had gotten a letter from Nic. They are also thinking about going to graduation which is 10 hours from them.