UPDATES on Jacob and George

No pictures, just new info. Jacob has been having problems with his knee since he started basic and then during Airborne his shins started bothering him, so after talking to us and his sergeant he decide to opt out of his Ranger contract for now and pursue that later. The decision was made on Monday and by yesterday they had his orders and he was packing to come home to get his belongings together to move to his first duty station. The possible locations were Ft. Bragg, NC and Italy. He got Ft. Bragg (all of them that were not doing Ranger got Ft. Bragg) He is very excited, Italy would have been okay with him, but he is glad to get somewhere close to home for his first duty station. He hopped a bus late last night and got home this afternoon at 4:45pm. It is good to have him home. He reports to Ft. Bragg on Mar. 11th, so we will have to celebrate his 19th birthday early (which is on Mar. 16th). At this time the plan is for us to take him down for his report date. He will see the doc if his shins are still bothering him when he gets to his unit, but hopefully being able to relax for awhile will allow them to heal from whatever the problem is and he won't have to.

George is doing well. We got a letter yesterday. He did misunderstand and did not get Platoon Guide, but he was made Team Leader and is happy about that. There is the PG, Squad leaders (there are 4 squads in his Platoon) and then him. His job is to make sure his squad accomplishes their missions. The letter was dated Feb. 19th and he said they had an eventful day because they were in full ruck gear and all 33 of them were standing in a small hallway and his clumsy a-- hits the fire alarm with his ruck sack as he was trying to get it off his back. So, of course, he runs down the steps, cause they live on the 3rd floor and he had to tell the drill sergents what he had done, so they had to file outside and wait for the fire dept. to clear the whole building, which houses 2 companies. Surprisingly, he didn't get smoked (punished) for it at all. He is, however, the guy that now makes sure that people stay away from the fire alarm trigger. I almost peed my pants reading this letter. It was so funny - I could just envision it all happening and him running down the stairs in a panic.