An Email from Texas..........

Hello All,

I have not had internet access during my stay in Mississippi, but here I am now in the wonderful state of Texas and they have an accessible computer room for us. I don't know why they say God Blessed Texas, because boy oh boy is it hot down here! When we got here it was 98 degrees, and don't get me started on the humidity. That would be fine and well, but we're staying in wooden shacks with no AC! It should be fun. My last experience at Camp Bullis, which is about 40 miles outside of San Antonio, was in July 2004 and it landed me at BAMC (Brooke Army Medical Center). I was bitten by a brown recluse (they actually thought it was a scorpion bite at first) and my knee swelled up twice the size it should and I could not bend it, not to mention the bite mark had turned a black color and had grown to the size of a quarter. I still have a scar on my knee to show my Camp Bullis experience. This is our first day down here and classes start tomorrow. We rode 13 hours on a bus from Mississippi. We drove through New Orleans and Houston (I waved to my Houston crew as we passed). It sounds as though we will not get a break while down here, so I guess I'll just have to come back to Texas and enjoy it some other time.

As our bus passed downtown San Antonio we saw the alamo and I was remided of the time Katy and two of our best friends, Jessica and Chance (both were in our wedding) drove 23 hours to spend a long weekend with me over Memorial Day. That is one of my best memories. I also was remembering when Ryan, Heather, Tom, and Bev (the Houston crew) all came down and we enjoyed the river walk. Good times in the army.

Speaking of good times in the army, I am in the same platoon as Seth and so we have been able to enjoy Mississippi together. We do all our training together, spend our free time together watcing movies, and go to all our meals together. Wake up is 4:00am, we do pt twice a day (physical training) and then we usually don't call it a day until 5:00pm. We have been doing lots of "theatre specific" training as they call it. That has consisted of a day of Combatives (beating eachother up) IMT (individual movement techniques) which include low crawling and high crawling through dirt with all your gear on, and the gas chamber! I sincerely hope none of those activities are truly "theatre specific". I would like to think I have done all those things for the final time. These things were not too awful though. Combatives brought back good memories of the beach as we fought in a sand pit. When I showered that night I was washing sand out of every crack and crevice in my body, just like the beach! and the gas chamber did a great job of clearing my sinuses! So there are some positives to everything.

I have made this e-mailing list a lot larger from my first one I sent while I was with headquarters company in Winchester, and I have thoroughly enjoyed getting e-mails from you all that replied to me. Again, if you know of anyone else I can e-mail to keep up to date on all the happenings of this deployment, please let me know. Thanks to everyone for all your love, encouragement, and support. You all mean the world to me! My one battle buddy saw a scrap book Katy had made me lying on my bed and asked if he could see it. After looking at it he said, "it seems like you left one hell of a good life back in Virginia," to which I replied, "that's one hell of a good life I absolutely can not wait to get back to!"

Love,

Eli