Week Four

This past week was the first week of the 2nd phase of BCT, White Phase, or Student Leadership. Sean says that the leaders that have been chosen are all pretty good except for one. He is glad to not be part of the leadership at this point because he is seeing that, as he puts it "it is like the scriptures say about power that as soon as men get a little power they abuse it." He says some of the guys will whine because who they want isn't in the leadership, then they whine when their friends are in leadership and won't do what they want. He says they have no respect for anyone, not even themselves. Sean is learning a lot by watching the Drill Sargents and those student leaders.

This week has been spent mostly on the rifle range, where they trained most of the week, then had a chance to shoot qualifying scores. Thursday, the qualifying was cut short due to a fire started by another group that was firing (it is very hot and I don't think they've had any rain at least since Sean arrived). They had another chance to qualify on Saturday. Sean shot a 33 out of 40 (23 is qualifying) and there was only one other SITin the battery (about 220 SITs) that shot a score higher than his. He was happy to do well, but was disappointed because a score of 35 is Expert. This exercise was shooting man sized silhouettes at 50, 175, and 300 meters that pop up. Sean had the chance to coach several of the other SITs and help them qualify. Some of them came up to him later and told him that he is a better coach than the Drill Sargents.

This morning Sean called me from the hospital. Nothing serious, he was passing a kidney stone and got pretty sick so they sent him to the hospital yesterday. Luckily, he has passed it and when I talked to Sean this morning, they were getting ready to discharge him. Sean was anxious to get back to his platoon, he does not want to miss any training. The Dr. told him that he will be fine to continue training, that the only thing that would keep him out of the army is if he lost his kidney. Still, many prayers would be appreciated to help Sean be able to complete BCT without any further health issues. We appreciate all of the love and support from you all!

This coming week they will be training with hand grenades. Sean is pretty excited about that! Again, thank you all for your support, we love you all!!