Letters to My Son Day 3, Reception Purgatory

As I imagine what it might be like for you there on base the day after Thanksgiving in battalion reception purgatory, the only experience I have that comes close was pilot training for my first freight job. The company put candidates up in shared apartments near the airport, and we trained overnight from 8:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. You have never been so tired as memorizing federal aviation regulations and standard operating procedures at two in the morning tired, trust me. It was a completely different living arrangement with strangers, learning new things, on a new circadian rhythm, in a high stress environment. It was possible to fail out of training and we lost about half the class by the end.

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