RAP Week is OVER!

Well, he's made it past the hardest part of Ranger School - the first week! Rap Week is officially over and he got "GO's" on everything and the first time through on each task as well. Apparently they will give you a second chance on some tasks if you don't pass it the first time before they recycle you and he never needed any second chances!

I got a VERY long letter from him yesterday. He said to heck with the postcards and mailed me a 12 page letter! (Don't worry - it's not on 8.5 x 11 paper...just small paper from a pocket notebook he has!) I can definitely tell by reading through the letter that the exhaustion is having an effect on him because many times he didn't make any sense and he repeated himself often. However, he seemed to have high morale and he definitely stills has his sense of humor!

He said the heat is the worst part because they just stand around in the sun all day long. But they do keep some of the water ice cold for them, so he was pretty excited about that. His company began with 114 and they are now down to 59 guys....just after the first week! He is meeting a lot of new people, several of whom are stationed in Savannah at Hunter Army Airfield with the 75th Ranger Battalion. I see new friends in our future! :) He even ran into a guy from Hilton Head who he use to hang out with when they were kids...isn't that wild?!

They had a "Demolition" class a few days ago where they actually got to make explosives and then blow them up. He said it was probably the most fun he's had yet. haha. He's still a little boy at heart!

He still isn't getting much sleep. The night before his 12 mile Ruck March he only got 45 minutes of sleep. In regards to food, he said, "The longer I'm here the more hungry I get. My intake has not changed, I'm just in need of more food! But, I'm fine - promise!" He said he can tell he is not nearly as strong as he was 3 weeks ago. He said he put some of his gross dirty clothes in a trash bag for a couple of days and when he went to wash them, he opened the bag and it smelled like pure ammonia. Apparently, when you start burning your muscles off, it smells like ammonia. Yuk!

In his letters, he reminisces a lot about our life at home and he said those thoughts keep him going. He also said, "Please tell everyone to write and send pictures! It is hard to have all this, all the time, so I think my mental escape will be letters and so forth." Geez, I can't wait to have him home again. We're almost 1/3 of the way done! YAY!

Here are some pictures from me, Christy and Elena's photo shoot last night. We wanted to take some pictures to send to Uncle Johnny!