10-16-07

Hey Brad:

How are you doing sweetie? How is everything going with your camp out? I'm really interested to hear about these last few days and about what your final rite-of-passage experience was. I also hope that once you are done on Thursday that we will be able to talk on the phone more. If we are then I probably won't send you a letter every day. I also probably won't send many letters next week since you won't really even get them before I am there with you! My being there in person is going to be SO MUCH better than a letter :)

I was thinking about how our family is pretty spread out right now. Daddy is in Oklahoma, Mommy and Maren are in California, and Jane is in Utah.

Anyway, I got another great letter from you yesterday. You talked about being excited for track and school which makes me really happy. You also talked about Private Fisher's memorial service and it sounded like it was a pretty nice experience. Hopefully it helped you guys get a little closure about the experience; especially your battle buddy. Well, actually I don't remember if it was your battle buddy or your bunk buddy or what, but I remember that you told me that one of your buddies was the one firing the gun and that he was having a really hard time with this whole thing. How is he doing now? I was thinking it might help him to hear about your experience with Steven. You probably have already shared it with him if you guys are friends, but it's kind of the same situation where you feel some personal responsibility even though it was totally out of your control. Anyway, I'm just so proud of you and how well you have handled every challenge and responsibility that has come your way so far in this whole boot camp experience and it is about to pay off. You are almost done! Can you let me know when you know for sure that you are going to graduate (I know that you already know that you are) so that I can have Sgt. Williamson find out when your last day of AIT will be. Before, when I asked Sgt. Williamson what your last day of AIT would be he said that he wouldn't be able to know until he knew that you were going to graduate from Basic Training.

The lyrics for today are from an episode of the office. The beach day one where they take a bus and Pam walks across coals and Andy floats away in the giant sumo suit. They sing this song on the bus on the way to the beach. It is Kenny Roger's “The Gambler”:

“On a warm summers evenin' on a train bound for nowhere, I met up with the gambler; we were both too tired to sleep. So we took turns a starin' out the window at the darkness 'til boredom overtook us, and he began to speak.

He said, son, I've made a life out of readin' peoples faces, and knowin' what their cards were by the way they held their eyes. So if you don't mind my sayin', I can see you're out of aces. For a taste of your whiskey I'll give you some advice.

So I handed him my bottle and he drank down my last swallow. Then he bummed a cigarette and asked me for a light. And the night got deathly quiet, and his face lost all expression. Said, if you're gonna play the game, boy, ya gotta learn to play it right.

You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away and know when to run. You never count your money when you're sittin' at the table. There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealin's done.

Now ev'ry gambler knows that the secret to survivin' is knowin' what to throw away and knowing what to keep. Cause ev'ry hands a winner and ev'ry hands a loser, and the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep.

So when he'd finished speakin', he turned back towards the window, crushed out his cigarette and faded off to sleep. And somewhere in the darkness the gambler, he broke even. But in his final words I found an ace that I could keep.

You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away and know when to run. You never count your money when you're sittin' at the table. There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealin's done.”

I wanted to tell you about the things that I am going to bring to you for you to have while you are in AIT and you let me know if there is anything else or if I don't need to bring some of these things. I'm planning on bringing you a cell phone and wall charger. I'm also going to bring the iPod and a wall charger for you. I'm also going to bring you some extra civilian clothes for you to wear on the weekends in AIT. It's so exciting that we are even able to start talking about this and planning for this and that it's all going to happen next week! I love you so much Brad and I can't wait to see you again. I love life with you! I love you more than Santa Clause loves Christmas...

Love-Jess

P.S. I just bought your iPod wall charger today on Amazon.com for $5; pretty cool huh? Since I'm going to Utah on Thursday I had the charger mailed to your parents house.