Corey Letter posted Nov 21

On pages torn out of a small spiral notebook (5 2x4 pages on both sides).

Dad,

I got your letter. Thank you very much. It was a very welcome surprise. I am ½ way through my final FTX (?). We did an urban assault yesterday. There was a small town with civilians and insurgence. 4 platoons were assigned to secure the town and capture the head terrorist.
Each platoon was broken into Alpha & Bravo squads (this was written teams in several places then crossed out). Alpha squads were to secure the outer buildings and handle civilians. Bravo squads were supposed to hold until the perimeter was secure and then clear a 3-story building and capture the leader. I was a bravo squad member. My team of 4 was the first Bravo unit to get to the objective building. We cleared all 3 floors killing two insurgents. When we reached the roof we wounded and captured the leader. We then formed up with a 2nd bravo team for added security and lead the terrorism out of the area.

The day before we did our 10K march. It was mostly hilly but not that bad. I did really well. I am looking forward to the 15K on Tuesday. After the 15K we do the night infiltration course. We do a ½ mile crawl through barbwire and obstacles with live rounds from M16’s (50 cals) and explosions going all around us. It will be a fun cumulation of all our training.

Unfortunately it looks like Angela won’t be able to come to graduation. She doesn’t have any one willing to baby sit for her. I really hope she can find someone but I don’t know who. It really sucks. I really want her to be here to see me graduate. If she doesn’t come when I graduate I won’t see her until the 19th of December when I get leave for exodus.

If she doesn’t have an apartment by then I don’t know where I will go. I don’t have a place to stay for Xmas. And I really don’t want to miss Xmas with the girls. I don’t know how we are going to work things out. I got to talk to Angela briefly on the phone yesterday. She said she wanted to get new rings and renew our vows.

I miss you a lot and I wish we could talk more. It would make being here a lot easier. I enjoyed reading in your last letter about your time in the Army. It gave me another perspective.
I hope everything is going well at home. Give Anita a hug for me and give Hobbs a scratch or two.

Your Son, Corey Rutherford

New piece of paper (US Army stationary)

Dad, Nov 20

I went to the PX and bought some new paper and envelopes. What do you think. I had a great day today. Well just start off saying I like combatives a lot more than you did.

Last night a group from anther plt come to scruff up one of our privates. I wouldn’t let them and that made them mad. Today I finished it in combatives. I made the cocky shit eat his words and bleed all over me, my uniform and the mat. Needless to say he doesn’t have a problem any more.

As a reward the drill Sgt. from his plt. Let me watch an ultimate fighting championship pay per view for 2 ½ hours. I guess I made an impression. I will better explain it later I need to get to bed.

I love You,
Corey Rutherford.

Observations by Richard

When I was in Basic each building called a Barrack housed a Company. This is how I remember the numbers there were 6-8 companies to a battalion. Each company had 2 Officers (a Company Commander and an Executive Officer). There were four or five Platoons. Each Platoon was made up of 4-5 squads of 8-10 soldiers. The platoon was all housed in a large room with 3x6 medal bunks stacked two high. Each soldier had a footlocker 2x2x3 at the end of the bunk and a standup locker 7x2x2. You bought combination locks for these. Weapons (ours were M14’s) were assigned but locked up in a gun rack near the platoon door. The floors were tile on concrete and became messy very quickly if you can imagine 40+ young men who had seldom previously had to clean up after them selves. We had a mixture of regular Army (in for 3-4 years), draftees (in for 2 years) and National Guard (in for 6-8 months – then 8 years of weekend meetings).

My platoon Sgt. was a 5’ tall bundle of energy. I think he had false teeth because he talked funny and they just seemed to big for his mouth. For a short guy he did this funny thing. He lined up everyone by height and picked the tallest guy for platoon leader. The next 4 tallest were made squad leaders. I was a squad leader. I don’t remember to clearly all of the guys in my squad. There was Shanks (everyone is called by their last name). Shanks was a 6 foot black kid from LA who was a jazz drummer. There was Righthand a Native American. There was a small Mexican from LA who always called me "Lumpy" after some character from "Leave it to Beaver". I hadn’t ever watched "Beaver" and didn’t relate. The last one I remember was a short roly-poly Jewish kid who struggled mightily to do the physical things. The rest have faded from memory.

Days started early and we were busy for about 10-12 hours a day. When you were not doing directed activities there were always Shoes, Boots, & Brass to polish and weapons & barracks to clean. You had to stand watch a couple of times a week and had KP every couple of weeks. KP started at 4 am and ran to 9-10 pm with short rests only when you sat down to eat. You were allowed 15 minutes to eat before they opened the doors for everyone else to eat. Most of the activity was physical but there was a lot of waiting. You would double-time every where and then stand at parade rest and wait to get your turn in a classroom or onto a PT course. After a short time you felt like you could double-time (slow run in step) all day.