Zach Update

For those who asked for a Zach update. I meant to publish one last Friday. My mother emailed me but I didn't want to type a complete update on my phone..so here it is. Zach finished MCT at Camp Pendleton last week and headed straight to Pensacola, FL. He is currently located at the Naval Air Station there. This base houses a great deal of the aviation training not just for the Navy but for all the armed forces. There are many Marines there. I will put some pictures in here that show the barracks around the base.

Zach likes the base soo much better already. The temps are 75 during the day but still a little chilly at night. Apparently about 3 weeks ago it was really cold and getting into the 20's at night 40's during the day. Zach does not know exactly when he will start classes. Even though they arrived at the base they have to wait to "class up" There is a little back log at the moment and they could

The front barracks is Zach's (and Ricky and Steve)

easily wait 2-4 weeks or more before they start. In the mean time they get these great jobs like cleaning, guard duty, firewatch, and physical training. So there is plenty of opportunity for boredom. Zach is getting a laptop to help pass the time. For those who are advanced enough technology wise, he liked the webcam thing that other Marines do with their friends and family so his new laptop will have a built in webcam.

Zach had managed to get a good case of Bronchitis. Probably was developing even before he left for MCT. By the time he arrived at NAS, Pensacola it was a really great case of Bronchitis. So he is on two weeks of light duty. That just means that of those lovely jobs he gets to do while he waits for class, there will not be runs and heavy workouts. Because he was on light duty he was not able to participate in the All Marine Run the commander decided to have. I believe Zach said there was 2000-3000 marines running. He was not sad about that as the shin splint pain of running really makes it undesirable. Instead he and 40 others got to get up at 3:30am and go out to various instersections and play traffic cop. The run didn't start until much later though like 6:00am or something like that so he just sat there waiting for a few hours. I guess thats the military though.

It sounds like we won't have to worry about Zach getting caught up in any short lived, misguided, military romance yet. Now that he is finally on base where there are women Marines, he doesn't think he'll be running after them. Lets just leave it that a large majority of them share several common undesirable traits. Now apparently plenty of Marines head over to the "D" Barracks which is the barracks for the Navy women. According to Zach's somewhat elitist view, they are prettier than the Marine women, but still the military women in general just have a certain .."aggressive go getting"...personality that he is not interested in.

Going backwards I think Zach was definitely interested in a number of things at MCT. I think he liked all the weapons. It sounded like he liked the various assault training and clearing buildings and 5 man sneaky marine stuff. I feel bad but half the time I now just say "yeah, uh huh, sure.." when I'm on the phone because I have no idea what he is talking about and he uses a lot of terms I don't understand. I suppose its like talking to a computer programmer.

I think that covers the majority of his last 5-6 weeks.