Photos and Letters

In the past couple of days I have received a lot of stuff both from Earl and the Army.

After an entire month of waiting I finally received a packet in the mail from the Commander with all of our insurance information, military ID information, Earl's company information, Earl's Christmas Exodus information and Earl's graduation ceremony information.
I am so relieved to have received all of this, as I was kind of stressing out a week earlier on what was when and where.

The three letters that I received from Earl today were mostly about how almost the entire group of soldiers at Basic Training had become horribly sick with anything ranging from pneumonia, to having Mono and to having the H1N1 flu virus. Apparently 2 people have actually died while at Basic Training from being sick.
Earl got sent to the ER for 13 hours at one point for having a fever and a temperature of a little over 100 degrees. They then sent him to the Infirmary along with 80 other sick soldiers to rest and recoperate for 3 long days.
Last Saturday Earl was finally deemed healthy again and resumed his training.
Earl has made the switch at Basic Training from Red Phase to White Phase. There are 3 phases during Basic: Red Phase (3 weeks), White Phase (2 weeks) and Blue Phase (2 weeks).

More information on the phases during Basic Training can be found here.

A few days ago one of Earls aunts husbands was able to visit Earl during Basic Training.
Earls aunt and her husband (Clarke) have been emerged in the Army way of life for a little over 30 years. Clarke is a Chaplain (A chaplain provides spiritual and pastoral support for service personnel, including the conduct of religious services at sea or in the field.) and has the rank of Colonel in the Army.
Clarke was able to also take a couple of photos with Earl while visiting him and happily agreed to pass them on to me.





So that's about it for this week.
For those of you who have Earl's address, please continue to send him letters, he always looks forward to those.
And for those of you who are interested in what Earl is going through, I am going to add a few more links about OSUT Basic Training.

Thank you again to everyone who reads this and remember to check back for updates!


Ft. Benning - OSUT Phases

198th Infantry Brigade, 1st Battalion 50th Infantry (History and Information)