Letter #2 and the End of the Crawling Phase

The same day Lou came home, two of his letters arrived in the mail. After spending several days deciphering these I've posted the first one below. Thought you all would enjoy the stories of a severely sleep deprived letter writer! These are all written during the Crawl Phase, which he graduated from on Friday. We thank the Lord for his goodness to us in giving Lou a "go". Again, Lou's writing is in Army Green and mine follows with explanations as needed.
 Date: "Honestly not sure what day this is"
So much has happened in the last week that this notebook wouldn't cover the half. The lack of food and sleep is definitely having an effect. I am thin already and hilousinations 

  (hallucinations-took me a minute to figure this out! I know one guy started hallucinating that his buddy's rucksack was the Chips Ahoy talking cookie from the commercial, lol)  are very common. We didn't sleep last night and only got 1:45 the night before and every night since we got to Camp Darby. Bill has a count and it was at like 20 hours total for past 11 days lol. I was patrolling at 03:00 something in the morning and am now famous for the "zig zag" or "weaver". Every ten steps I would make it from one end of the formation to the other. I had no idea the guys had fun watching but I don't remember. Still loving this craziness, all my love! These guys are crazy!!! (he picked up the multiple !!! habit from me, I think. Its a trademark Kim communication element. :)) We eat dinner at 2 am when we go to bed and eat breakfast at 04:30 or so when we get up and that's it. All day. You must (eat) it all, then can't eat anything else through the day. I'm sorry, I'm just upset that we spent the 2 hours of sleep time this morning getting yelled at. The night before we would have gotten 2.5 hours but some dude stole 2 MREs. We got group punished at 04:00 in the morning for nothing. Yelling and push-ups, all after a full day of missions. I did think it was pretty funny, but then I would think about the sleep and then "cry tears" would come into my mind. Then I'd think how ridiculous the whole thing was, 100 dudes getting smoked for $8 worth of MREs, what a mess!
I got 5 of your letters on Thursday, maybe? I was so happy having them in my pocket while we got yelled at for being chow thieves! Ranger games! Still haven't had a chance to read all of them yet. So busy! We got up at 04:00, chow/hygiene til 04:30. Then at 05:00 do a full equipment layout. At 06:00 if you are running the mission that day you do a w____ (couldn't figure out this word to save my life!) 30-40 minute brief on the day's mission. The format is crazy and it takes all 14 guys (there are 14 men in his squad) that hour to write it. Then from 07:00 to 10:00 we all work like crazy to get the op order ready. (click the link to see how technical it gets) We write it by scratch every morning. Draw diagrams on 8 chalkboards, terrain models and so on. We all work like crazy, team effort and then you brief it all if you are in charge that day.  10:00 your brief can take up to 3 (yikes) hours. Then you do equipment inspections and march out of camp around 2-3 in the afternoon. It is always so hot. The second you hit the woods the RIs (ranger instructors) hit you with arty (artillery) and ambushes. Its crazy and a lot of fun. We go several miles through the woods and swamps each day. It always goes into the night. We get back around 12:00 pm and then do a layout/MRE draw and possible chow. Bed at 2ish. That was my week. I was a team leader for one patrol, they don't fail you if you get a go or not but our squad leader did some dumb stuff and the RIs are HARD. They probably didn't give any of us "go"s. You get two patrols and you must get a go in one to move on and not recycle.

"The Burn!!!"

Very Traumatic!!! For last week I've been nursing a severe rope burn on my leg. We did the Darby Queen and my pants hiked up on one of them and the rope got me. Its about 3x5" It is above the top of my boots. Hurts so bad like needles, thousands. I put my socks over it to stop my pants from rubbing but then it healed into my sock and ripped it all out. It's huge, like a nightmare. I was so worried I would get kicked out or it would get infected. All the sweat, marching through the woods all day, lack of food and sleep make it impossible to heal. So I do my best to air it out for our 2 hours of sleep. But pants, sweat, briers, and patrolling just make it worse. I was very blessed to have an ER nurse in my squad. We got a fancy scrub/brillo pad 

(this is his description of a betadine OR scrub sponge :)) and scraper from the medics. So we grabbed a water can and I may never have experienced such pain. I was crazy, we brushed it and scrubbed it, scraped all the skin off. He said it was dead but it felt alive to me. (my poor husband, now he will know with certainty that nurses are heartless meanies! ) 6 days later I'm almost there. One little spot need to scab over but we have classes and an air drop so I'm so relieved. So much pain every step for 22 hours a day gets to you. Then my T.H.S. starts up. :) Tehe tehe.

(Tiny Heart Syndrome, its the guys' joke about the faintness of heart that comes on every so often. They say its when your heart looks something like the Grinch's before he has a transformation) 
I'm really doing very well, my love. And can't wait to see you..................................
Oh, and just for a little more sympathy my leg swelled up an extra inch or so. Tehe tehe. (Did I mention that I love my soldier? He's so funny!)
"I Got My Go"
So there I am stressing out because this is my last graded patrol. If I don't pass this I recycle the whole phase. Got up and ran around like crazy doing co-ordinations and planning, keeping the guys busy. We had all had about an hour of sleep. Just enough to make you miserable. Well, just to make it short. I botched it, I was using a totally different format, crazy long and I didn't write half of it. Some cards and sections I couldn't read cause its a team effort and some people do all sorts of stuff and then we bring it together and the squad leader (me) briefs it. (Hmmm, a group effort, after no sleep. Wonder why the handwriting was so hard to read? And here I was frustrated with group projects in microbiology, when everyone was awake.) Didn't have time to rehearse. Anyway, that's 20% of your grade and you need 70% to get a go. We moved out and got to the woods and I ______ (not sure of the word)  we moved, assaulted, and completed the mission flawlessly. So we finished and he (the RI) was an old school grader, hard and didn't like officers at all. They are not allowed to tell us whether we got a go or not until the end of the phase. But he said you did good and don't become a XO!X (Lou's abbreviations crack me up, the one for profanity resembles hugs and kisses far too closely!) because you got yours. Te he. Stressful day. Anyway, I am here at Airborne School...........................................................................................

(This is actually on post, about 8 blocks from our house. They brought them to the field and only the Airborne qualified guys could jump. Lou doesn't have Airborne yet so he was with the men who were able to sit down and watch the show. He will be going to Airborne when he graduates from Ranger School.) I'm just sitting here watching the road for a glimpse of you. (If I had known, I would have come up with many frivolous excuses to go driving down that road by the Airborne School last week!) I just have to stick it out and get my tab. I'm thinking that going straight through is do-able but we'll see. Pray for your man. I want to get a pizza, a milkshake and see you. Its nearly irresistible.
Finis.