My DS is also going through Indoc and although I thought, and he thought, he was mentally and physically prepared for this challenge he wrote to me the following " This is harder than I thought it was going to be. There is a lot about Indoc that really sucks, but there is a lot about this place that is really great....especially the people (except when they are yelling at me). Just have to move on one day at a time"
I can see not much has changed in the 17 years since my son went through indoc.. Here's his first letter we got from him.. Enjoy
Dear Mom, Dad +
[little brother] Thur. 12th July 2001
Hey, how you all doin? It’s Thursday here.
This has by far been the hardest week of my life and I still have one and a half weeks to go.
[AND if you were to ask him after he graduated he would probably say it was one of the easiest weeks of his whole four years!!]
I don’t even know where to start. We PT all day long. Even when we are not PTing we have to work out if we screw up.
We push from 5AM to 9PM. We must do a thousand push-ups a day. I guess I’m handling it fine. I’m OK unless something reminds me of home or
[the girlfriend]. (which reminds me I want you to call her for me and tell her not to find anyone else just yet)
[he graduated in the 2% club then 3 months after graduation he and the GF split up; go figure] I’m bummed I have not gotten a letter from you
[We didn’t have time to write. We were too busy moving all his gear out of his former bedroom to make space for my new home office..lol], but the DI’s just harass anyone that gets mail anyway. That doesn’t mean don’t write though! The indoc thing is hard, but once or twice a day it can be fun. When the DI’s do funny trash to try and break our bearing
[like the ‘Bob Ross speech’ he later told me about]. That’s great. We try really hard not to laugh right then, but after lights out
[the roommate] and I laugh about it all.
[the roommate’s] from San Jose. You might remember him from the candidate picnic. Yesterday we went down to the waterfront, which was great because there’s no rank there and we got to row boats out in the sound.
This is
not a normal college
[Maybe he thought it was gonna be like UC Berkeley?]. Sorry about the disjointedness of this letter. I never know when they will make me stop. Also consider bringing
[the girlfriend] out in Sept. when you fly out. Tell her you will, when you talk to her.
That’s it. They just told me to wrap it up. I love you and miss you very much.
Write often.
Love
[a future KP grad]
P.S.
I’m having a stationary problem. They won’t let me buy anything, so I have to bum envelops and stamps off other people. They are a very precious commodity however. Don’t expect steady mail until the end of Indoc.
[he probably should have left off “until the end of Indoc” I don’t think we ever got another letter once school started..]
