These letters were created by students in grades 1-5 from Little Fort Elementary School in Waukegan, IL. They wanted to send you their holiday greetings and express their gratitude for your service to our country. We hope you enjoy the letters!

this was mine

Coloured in crayon a blue border with yellow. On the bottom is a Christmas tree with a square and circle prestne and a blue door. Little butterfly and seal stamps. On the back is a red house with a jagged chimney, Santa in a sled pulled by reindeer.

"Dear friend,
Thank you for taking care of us and I
wish you a mery christmas to you
and I'm very sorry that your not
goin to selebrate Christmas with your
family. One day my dad broth (there's a dot over the o)me
a dog and i was very scard so a
playd whit him and whons i was
taking a bath and my dog whent
to my moms bed and pid honet
and my mom hade to whas it again.
One day i whent to the beach and my
step sister almost got biten by a snake
Love Lucia"


Do you remember writting these as a kid?
I do.

"Hey Corey..." a shipmate said after muster. "You have watch tonight from four to eight right?"
"Yea"
"You wanna switch with me? I have it from twenty to zero."
It didn't take long for me to respond. I wouldn't have to wake up at three to pull a mid watch, so I said sure. "Sure!"

There are three duty sections here at TPU and we rotate watch shifts. There are two watches, the Quarterdeck here and then over at 177 where the deserters are birthed. This shifts usually run in four-hour watches. Most people prefer it over here because you can sit down. Not me though those deserters are cheaper than a movie and more exciting than TV, besides there's a runner who stand watch with you over there.

Conversations with people at 177 usually revolve, actually always revolve around three things.
i. "So what are you an OSVET or a NAVET? Oh really the Army!? What was that like? Why'd you come here?"
ii. "Ya I got picked up for speeding and then they sent me here. I went deserter because...” and this is the part of the conversation where they try to convince you that there reason for desertion is better, more logical, and more legit than any one else there.
iii. "Ya so I fucked so many chicks. Ya I got a blowjob over there. Dude I fucked like five chicks at once."

As you can imagine, they do most of the talking. So it was getting late, phase iii. of the conversation was now setting in. I forgot to mention these conversations happen like this in order. Always in order. So phase iii. now.
Seaman walked past the quarterdeck.
"Permission to come aboard?"
"Granted." She passes through into the p.way.
"Dude I'm trying to get a blowjob from her."
---stop---

It was like a movie. I had what we like to call in the literary world, a flash back.
Seaman X is in my duty section. And this is what I know of her.
i. she isn’t' attractive by any standards.
ii. she's married, has been for like two months, and she's nineteen or twenty.
iii. I have seen her in the day room sleeping on the couches with one guy or another with her head in their lamp.
iv. Her husband used to be here at TPU and always calls to check in on her. He thinks she is cheating on him.
v. There are rumors circulating that she did three different guys at this hotel and passes out bj's like candy on Halloween.
vi. She’s ugly and immature and really really annoying.
vii. See item i.

---go---
I laughed. "Um ok. Good luck then."
I guess they were out on the smoke deck and she said something like I have a tongue ring and I love to give blowjobs. And he replied with lets try it out. He told me all of this was aborted when he CDO walked by on his rounds. To me it was just another story of infidelity or exaggerated lies. Either way I wasn’t impressed.
"Damn" my runner said, "I'm so fucking Horney."
This was a while later I guess they were downstairs in the laundry room just now.

I had to go over to the RTC side to pick up a new arrival. On my way out the door the runner handed me a note.
"Read it in the can he said!"
"Aye-aye!"

I had to log the miles into the book before I took left. Before I turned the lights out and shifted into gear I decided to pull out the little black piece of paper.
The note was written in scrawled girly loops and curves with a silver pen.
...the note read...
"You have your self a deal! Just name the time and place. I have to tell you I've wanted you for a while now. But I'll still do it. -X"

So am I the only one in my age bracket who is married and wants to stay that way? My dad asked before I got married "I hope you guys haven’t bought into that whole thing where marriage is taken lightly? Getting married five or six times are you?" I told him no, but I doubt he believed me. He never does. I could show up fifteen years later in a Master Chief Petty Officer uniform and he still would not believe that this whole Navy thing is real.
Our generation is fucked. Children of the eighties were watched and not raised I was recently told. But I can't find these answers in any book so far. Perhaps this is another example of the different world we live in than the rest of society.
I miss my wife.
I wish every one else could say the same thing about theirs, if they're not sleeping next to them at home.

I was told that Friday was the last day I would be able to take my swim evaluation for two weeks. On top of that I was told that if I did not take it that my leave would not be granted. You can imagine how upset I was when the alarm went off after we had gone back to sleep following the zero seven muster. -beep- -beep- -beep- -beep-
"Hey what time is it?" I said.
Sitting out of bed turning the alarm off he said, "It's late."
"How late?" I said, worrying now because swim qual is at twelve and I need to be downstairs at eleven.
"Twelve forty-five." he said, as I jumped up in a panic.
"Shit!" I threw on my clothes and ran downstairs. I stepped out to the smoking deck where I ran into a shipmate, James. "What's going on?" he said. "Ah" I went on angrily " I just slept through my swim call. "Dude no you didn't it's only nine thirty eight." and with these words, I felt that somehow my life had been spared.

"Ok listen up." The instructor said firmly, to show authority to the line of recruits waiting behind me. "When we get up to the platform you will cross your arms over your chest, look straight ahead, and shut up."
I hope this isn't what I have to look forward to at A school. I've already been through this shit. I really want me E-4 back I thought to myself.
...i thought to my self...
What does that mean? "I thought to my self"? Of course I did who else would I think it to other than me. This sort of ties in to a piece of conversation that has come up again and again within my group of friends. My group being my wife Leah and Matthew. Wouldn't it be easier if we could just give each other memories? Just so we'd all have a better understanding of what we were all talking about. Until this conversation came up I always felt I had this "If you could have any super power in the world what would it be?" problem figured out. I thought I had beaten the system by choosing 'The ability to teleport through time and space. With this I could fake the sensation of flying by essentually falling and every so often I would teleport upward. I could also travel back and forth through time, and essentially if I did this fast enough between fixed point A and mathematically calculated current moving point in time C in an exact frequency I would appear to the human eye to be invisible. I could go anywhere I wanted to. To Rome and back in the blink of an eye. Chinese carry out? Why settle for my father's China Buffet when I could have the real thing. I could build a suit and go to the moon, anywhere in the universe, and when things started to get a little harry, -zip- back at home safe in my bed. But this new concept opened up all sorts of new avenues and exciting ideas. What if we could share memories? Like in the Giver only we would still be able to hold on to them. We only use ten percent of our gray matter. Wouldn't it be great to fill the rest up with other peoples memories? Wouldn't it make us all a little more humane? If passed down enough from generation to generation, I would remember things someone long before me did, at the Parthenon. I could share my dreams with out fumbling with Ideas, such as "It was my house but it wasn't my house." Writing would become a lost art form of the few. No more blogs written by fourteen year old girls, no more entries from another squid. You want to go through boot camp and not actually have to go? I'll give it to you. Instead of story telling we could instantly experience the punch line or the tragedy. Late at night when I stare into the darkness I could call out to my wife, and share every moment of my day. It would almost be like never leaving home.

"Now there's going to be two commands. First I'll say 'to the line' and I want all ten of your toes hanging over this edge." His voice went out across the Olympic size swimming pool, bouncing off of the back wall fifty five meters away and scattering over the water in every direction as it played off of the waves and came back down again, hundreds of times off of the ceiling, the walls, and water again, back into my ear. The acoustics of this room could not be mocked by any add on in Cool Edit pro. Nor would you ever want it to be. Below his voice you could hear dripping water, echoing amid the water from the pool flowing into the side drains of the pool. A candy for the ear that I get to hear every Sunday night in thirty second increments as I watch Adult Swim.
"Next I'll say 'Step' and at that point I want you to take a step out, do not jump, dive, or hesitate or you will fail."
I was the first to go.
"To the line."
The platform didn't look this high but I figure from my viewpoint. The water was in fact 16'3" down. That was only from my eyes of course, my feet would only experience ten. His hand touched the small of my back.
"Step."
And I did. The water came rushing up at me in a most exciting way. I gasped for air. Mistiming the jump I managed to hit the water just as I was breathing out to take another gasp for air. It was fun. I need to find something higher next time. I swam my fifty meters, jumped in while inflating my clothes, and floated for my five minutes face down in the water, coming up only for air and immediately putting my face back down in the water. It was very relaxing. I can imagine this being the only true moment of solitude during these recruits boot camp. Five minute of free-floating void, the lights put on a show for your inner eyelids, and every muscle in your body is relaxed. I want to be floating right now.

For as chronically boring as this place is and as much as I want to write I sure do put off writing in here a lot.
So here to make up for it should be paragraphs of rambling with no particular theme.

In the Navy there are a few skills one must master. I'm not talking about the brainwashing bullshit you might see on the history channel, but the simple everyday things. Skills that if one doesn't master, ends up talking to them selves, or you could find them locked away in their room, watching cartoons. Back up. I'll start before that. Upon joining any branch of the armed service two things must immediately abandoned. Logic and reason. I can't begin to explain this to those of you who don't understand what I am talking about already. So in absence of these two vitally important things one must replace them with a few skills.
I. The art of the courtesy laugh Standing around the smoke deck, in the lounge, in line at the galley, in the passageway, actually anywhere you might find Naval personnel. The military is full of people with a sense of humor similar to that of my Uncle John. And if there's anyone reading this, who doesn't actually know who he is, think of the Stapler guy from Office Space. By sense of humor from these people I mean blurting out half mumbled nonsense and slightly laughing. I wish I could give you an example but... you wouldn't understand. Wait. Ok here we go. When I was younger, somewhere between fourth grade and high school, I remember talking about the local fire works for the fourth of July. My Uncle muttered something about that they weren't real fireworks, but instead mere puddles. He laughed. Somewhere I missed how this had any comedic value. Fireworks to Puddles? That's the best example from a random memory from youth that I can muster. I know you still probably understand what I am saying.
II. Small talk This one is pretty self-explanatory. Most people in the services of today can hold an intelligent conversation for about as long as some bleach blond floozy, drinking beer at a party down in Newport. Start dipping into irony in any subject matter and they will usually steer the conversation somewhere towards, "I really like guys who wear those shoes you are wearing." The only thing that prevents most people from sinking to this level is the fact that we all have one common interest. That’s right, we are all slaves to the government. So we spin yarns about past time triumphs, and shortcomings, usually with a comedic spin. After the stories and 'little Johnny' jokes run out, we can talk about the places we've been, or what exactly it is we do in the Navy. Ex: "So you're an Operations Specialist? What is that any way? Oh really? That's interesting. Wow. Great, hey can I have a smoke? Wow! So you say you were stationed on an AirCraft Carrier? What was that like?" And so on.
III. Patience Whether you are sitting around waiting. Listening to some jar head ex Marine talk about how different things are in the Corps, or maybe you're hanging out in the lounge and some jack ass puts in Rocky for the third time this weekend. Perhaps you'll find you’re self-talking to one of those people as mentioned above in section two. Patience is virtue.

..........................................................................................................................................................................................................

Before last month I have never taken a train that wasn't going around on a quarter mile or so track. I have taken the train from Dearborn to Chicago, Chicago to Great Lakes, Great Lakes to Chicago, Chicago to Dearborn, back again to Chicago and up to Great Lakes. And you know what? Next week I'm about to do it again. But I tell you this. The American Train system is decaying for a reason. I may have spent a total of an hour and a half sitting on the tracks with out the view of passing communities, lakes or trees, for this or that technical problems. The romance of riding the rails wore off just outside of Ann Arbor. The first ride was ok; for the most part the car was empty. The rest however were not so fortunate.
The car rocked back and forth as we past through the industrial wasteland known as Gary Indiana. The clickety clack of the train in perfect rhythm to the rocking was pushing me closer to the point of sleep as I sat in my dress blues in my green coach class seat. Clicking, rocking, drifting...drifting...to sleep.
"Praise Jesus!" a voice from the back of the car, or perhaps the front depending on your point of view. Our seats pointed in the opposite direction of our travel. "The Lord is my shepherd" I had to get away from the Tarret like symptoms of the passenger in the back of the car. I got up to move to the dinning car. As I past him he stood up and with the rocking of the train as we slid across to a separating track he fell into me exclaiming "In the name of the Lord!"
To me this was proof that God does not exist in the way most Christians would like to view him. I could be wrong, but if I am he sure knows how to pick spokespeople.
The train is a glorified bus ride
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I hate Detroit.
A part of me was glad to escape the toxic air I had just recently returned to less than seventy-eight hours earlier. Actually almost all of me was glad to leave. There were only two parts of me that actually did not. One is leaving my wife and son, and the other is coming back here to TPU. I'm sick of being here, and really want to be out at the fleet whereever it may be. Somewhere beyond here, and beyond A school. Anywhere. Even Virginia as long as my wife is there.
I am bored.
I apologize for being so indirect.
I'm sure today's writing was not as well written as previous ones, but my brain is rotting from lack of simulation.

Sorry.

On the up side my friends (Leah and Matthew) will be pleased to hear that I will be able to bight on tin foil for at least another six months. On the down side, I just came back from having four teeth pulled. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was, and it sure didn't seem to last the entire two hours. That's a half-hour per tooth, for a total surgery time of -8- EIGHT Aqua Teen Hunger Force episodes! No drills, just a lot of crunching, popping, and forceps grinding. Now my face is hanging at the cheeks like a Mongoloid, you should see me do my sling blade now. mmm hmm. However I won’t be able to enjoy biscuits and gravy for a few days, they did however give me a thing of Enfamil.
Last March or maybe even April there was a knock on our door. The red light shone through and the smell escaped the hallway as we opened it up to greet our knocker. Mary the lady to content in her bliss to escape the tragedy that was her every day life, had brought us a bunch of cans of Enfamil for our new son. I thought it was a nice gesture and though Leah was a little snooty when she threw the cans out immediately after our visitor wandered back down into the rot infested structure that was our dilapidated farmhouse. Enfamil is what the government gives to our children to help their parent's financially. I opened a can to show her it was as good as our name brand baby product. With the plastic lid popped off and the metal seal pulled back the powder erupted into my face where my nose told me I was severely mistaken. I look forward to my single serving size of chocolate milk Enfamil.

"We don't have Yellow Fever, you'll have to come back tomorrow."

Yellow fever is an ailment that I associate with the Oregon Trail.

I am supposed to be at indock today, other than the next step to leaving here I'm not sure what that is. I wasn't able to go because I was supposed to get -9- shots today over on the Recruit Training Center side. Those recruits looked so sad. Moreover, stupid I suppose. That’s one downfall of the American society lessening their brain activity over the past few decades, the people who sign up to defend their right of stupidity are usually worse off than the norm. I swear to god every person I saw on the other side today was from Belleville, or at least had ancestral ties there. So as you can see I in today's first statement I wasn't able to get my shots.
Here's where the problem ferments. At thirteen hundred today I am supposed to have oral surgery, to get anywhere from two to four teeth pulled. Normally, I am told after such an operation the patient is put on SIQ for three days. SIQ means sick in quarters, military folk have a hard time with double syllable words so we use a lot of acronyms. So, If I am SIQ for three days that means I can't get shots until Monday, which means I can't 'INDOCK' until Tuesday. Which means I'll never get out of Oz. My only hope is to bear it tomorrow, get my shots, and hopefully be able to catch the next INDOCK cycle on Monday.
I look forward to seeing my wife this weekend. I'll let you know how everything else goes.
Anchors Away Boys!

The Navy's Blue Jacket Manual gives proper procedure upon entering the quarterdeck.
Come to attention, salute the ensign properly (the United States Flag), and showing your ID say "Permission to come aboard."

The air is cold and dry out here and I was on the way back to pick up some chapstick from the exchange. It's about a quarter to half-mile walk away.
"Permission to come aboard?" I stated to the watch personnel.
"Permission granted." He looked at me closely. "What the hell is all over your face?"
This rash thing has gotten worse. I think the cold air made it flame up. My hands are so swollen that I have no feeling aside from a tingling sensation. The same kind of numbness that comes from sitting on your hands all day. My knuckles are also disappearing, and I cannot remove my ring. It kind of hurts. All over my body, it feels like poison ivy. So I went to the hospital.
After fumbling around with my blood pressure, it was repeatedly high like 180 something over like 90 or 100. The machine was broke. It only took four of these test and a question of weather or not High blood pressure ran in my family, where I had to explain that the opposite was true, that they decided to try it manually.
"There we go," he said jotting down more notes on a clipboard. "That’s much better."
I had to strip to my skivvies and gown in the hospital's height of fashion before the doctor would see me.
"Wow! That is all over!" he reassured me. "Well it's definitely hives."
Hives are still a scary thing to me. But at the same time a relief that it wasn't ring or hook worm or scabies, or even contagious.
I was given five steroid pills, (Prednisone Fifty MG Tab *54343*) to take every day until they run out.
I was also given Diphenhydramine 25 Mg Cap *e648* to take as needed every four hours for the itching.
I was told it wasn't serious enough to need a shot, yet but if it continues or gets worse I'll need to come back.
The Doctor asked me if I had tried anything new in the past few days, food, soap, detergent. I told him no and that I thought it was due to the sheetless mattress that I had woken up on two nights prior.
"Oh it couldn't be that." he insisted, but then again he hasn't seen my fifty year old skin soaked, scabies infested bed.
The duty driver and I talked about this and he said it's happened before and it was in fact the mattress, and told me to change it out and what the 'good' one to get was.
On the topside with my hands looking the way they do it dwarfs my swollen ankles to a normal state.

The day after I left my son started to crawl.
Today I hear he just said 'da da'
The only thing that saves me from the guilt of not being there, is knowing that my sacrifice, our sacrifice will guarantee us a better life than I could possibly have in Detroit. Better than any one else who thinks they know more about what to do with my life as well.

"You have an AT&T collect call from...'Corey'...Do you wish to accept the charges?"
-click-
...
ring

This is how I call my wife. She denies the charges and then immediately calls me back at the pay phone from her cellular which goes into free unlimited long distance at 10pmest.
Long into the conversation the call is dropped.
We're are able to fly a man to the moon, nuke the world into oblivion, and yet a simple cell is hard to hold onto. I suppose the general public is still getting used to 'dial tone'
We are that stupid believe me.
NAVY. FIGHTING FOR YOUR RIGHT OF STUPIDITY
But at least they have microwave white castle burgers.
I remember my sister sometime in middle school having to use the rotary phone at my grandmother's. She pressed and pressed the numbers in those little plastic rings, but for some reason couldn't get the phone to dial. In reward, my parents sent her to college.
I pulled out the 15-minute calling card I got free at the USO yesterday to call my wife back.
Somewhere along the way I accidentally hit '4' instead of the -1- as the third digit of the phone number.

"Hello Leah?"
"No. Who is this?" she said "Corey?"
I was stunned, the voice sounded familiar. All women’s voices sound the same over pay phones. "Ya who is this?"
"Who are you trying to call?"
"Leah, do I have the wrong number?"
"How did you get this number?"
"Who is this?"
"Sally." The pay phone next to mine rang. I picked it up. "Hello?"
"Hi baby."
"Leah let me call you back."
"What!? How?"
"Let me call you back” We fumbled with this for a moment.
-click-
"Hello?" I said into the first phone. "Sally who?"
"Well it used to be fritz. How did you get this number? Who are you trying to call?"
"My wife. What number is this?"
"294-****"
" I dialed the wrong number this is so weird." And the conversation went on for almost ten minutes.

Sally Fritz was a girl I dated in High School my sophomore year. She was my first girl friend in high school actually and by the time I built up the courage to hold her hand, her dad took her away to Virginia or something.
Semper Fi.
It is an odd thing to have my wife’s parent's phone number one digit off from hers. From what I gather she and her husband just bought a house in Taylor. "I'm a homeowner she said." Now when someone tells you that they just bought a house you can immediately assume many things. To know what they are you have to read Generation X by Douglas Coupland.

It turns out that Siobahn; Matthew's old girlfriend was over so we talked for a bit. I never really liked her. In grade eight she wrote in my yearbook that I smelled.
The whole cosmic event reminded me of one of my last nights at home when I ran into Teresa.

Teresa was a girl that I met my freshman year in high school at my first real job. The Allen Park Dollar Theater. I was fourteen.
Her and her friends were my first group that I knew outside of High School. They went to Aquinas and I was a Jaguar. I have stayed in touch with her for all of these seven years. We decided in a half ass email sort of way to get together on the Friday before I left.

Matthew came over and my folks watched Cameron. The three of us L,M, and I headed off into the night.
All I knew was that they go to some bar I remember it was Nics something or the clover or something. It was in downriver. After that they went to J Dubbs.
Not knowing anything other than that about the first bar we drove up and down the lower suburbs. We actually found it. I went in to check and immediately came out smelling as if I had just smoked a carton of cigarettes. It was a Pipestone show waiting to happen. We then headed to Riverview, a city with no view of the river aside from the huge steel plant that occupies it. I waited in line to hearing this week’s local band 'rocking the mix' there was a cover and I hated that scene. We decided not to go.

We set out to drink an hour and a half-ago by this point and with the night still young, or what used to be young we set out to reach our goals. Unfortunately the better bars are on the North Side or at least downtown. I didn't have the time, energy, or the gas. So we opted for a hotel bar. It seemed like a good idea until we found out it was closed. The Red Robin was a few blocks down and we settled to go into there, although none of us really wanted to. A six pack of beer and sitting in a dilapidated farm house in ecorse came reminiscing. We walked into the restaurant to see Teresa and her gang settling down for some drinks. A lot of weird six degrees of separation type stuff happened that I soon left into my scotch on the rocks.
The night ended and we headed home. Other than the train station, and that final night with my wife, these are my last memories of home.

It's really boring here.
I wonder if prison is anymore exciting. At least you’re occupied with having to watch your back. Here though... today, the day after thanksgiving I cashed my cheque, picked up some things I needed from the Exchange, played some pool while half heartily watching a Clint Eastwood marathon on TV. After that I went to the USO again to play a little guitar where I met Glaab's bizarro Mexican other half. Came back here and wasted my afternoon watching more movies. I honestly don't remember what they were. My only escape was calling my wife, which by the way, the weirdest thing happened.
Let me tell you all about it.

Not a pleasant way to wake up.
This morning when I got out of the shower and I was looking into the mirror I saw what appeared to be the letters H O in a rash form on the skin between my eyebrow and lid. To me it really looked like ringworm or hookworm or some other terrifying disgusting ailment. By mid morning it had faded to a soft red spot. The air is really dry here, and it whitens the skin. I went to the NEX to pick up a few things I needed, shampoo (RIP), cotton swabs on a stick (non q-tip brand), shoe polish, juice, and mouthwash. On the walk back my skin began to irritate me. I thought it was only dry skin. When I got back I went to my room to inspect it further. I don't know what the hell slept with me in my bed last night, but on my feet I have two nickel size what look like spider bites. Along my thighs, back of the leg and but are probably around a hundred little tiny bites...that itch like hell. They look like ant bites but less than half the size. I of course scratched them for a good five minutes, which I now regret. Sick call is open on Monday, until then I would have to go to the emergency room. "Building 200H" I was told. I'd like to hope I'll wait until tomorrow to see if it gets any worse. But honestly it feels like sun poisoning, as if bugs were crawling all about me as we speak.
I'll keep you posted.
.