Marcus in training

Marcus is the one on the far left in the glasses:)

Marcus is the one in the far right:)
Obstacle courses
Marcus went the fastest on this part of the course:)

Well Its real now, He's gone and won't be back till January:( I am so grateful for family and friends that have helped me in so many ways!! Marcus joined the army as a special forces recuit. He has OSUT(which is like basic) till November 4, then he goes straight into airborne school for 3 weeks, then he leaves Georiga and goes straight to fort bragg NC for special forces training for 24 days then he has Special forces selection which is 3 weeks. Hopefully it will go by fast! Keep Marcus in your prayers. Im going to add some bits and pieces from letters Marcus has sent me:)

July 22

We have been in processing all week, which is super boring, but we are not even allowed to exercise or anything until we ship to the red phase next week. Tomorrow since its Saturday we get to sleep in until 5am. I think I'm getting some new, super cool, military issue eye glasses. haha Time is going by really slow for me right now. I hope things are going good for you.

July 26th

How everything going? It was really good to talk to you guys on Saturday. I had no idea how much I would miss you all. Being here is like being on a job site 24/7. Reception is really boring.The drill sergeants are actually pretty cool for the most part, unless you cross them. Oh yeah, I got my sweet new army eyeglasses today. They look pretty hot ha ha. We are up for about 17 hours a day and right now we do alot of standing around. I cant wait till you can write me back its really lonely here. I'm so glad you put the pictures together for me. It takes the edge off a little bit.

July 31st

Im missing you and the kids more and more everyday. Sorry this is sloppy, Im writing by flashlight.The days are flying by now that im at real training. we're getting our machine guns tomorrow, and after that they go everywhere with us,even to bed haha, im gonna name mine Melinda. I look at those pictures every chance I get. I get sad when I see the Halloween one cause I know im going to miss it this year.It was really good to talk to you even if it was short. We only got 2 mins, I guess that's more than you normally get from me haha. our drill Sergeant's are actually pretty cool. They smoked us a couple times, but our platoon is getting pretty squared away. Its funny, right as i was writing they were cool, one came in and yelled "shut the F up Privates unless you want to do the line and start doing push ups" haha. Ill write more once im out of the red phase. right now we are the lowest life form here, and people are dropping like flies. At 30th which is processing, six guys quit before we shipped to training, but they will still stay there for several months because the army intentionally makes their out process take a long time. Keep praying for me, I know they are working. Even though Im pretty out of shape, Im stronger than most of the guys here, or maybe more determined, I don't know. When we get into trouble they destroy us, which basically means they work us out till our muscles fail. Ive been getting about 4-5 hours of sleep a night so I gotta go.

August 2nd-

Its the middle of night right now and I;m on fire guard duty.we have 1 hour to to do laundry and write letters a week, but we will soon be getting 2 hours which will be pretty cool. Anyways, today we did the obstacle course, and there were 4 heat causalities, meaning there bodies core temperature rose above 98.6. I did pretty good on it. Out of our group of 10 guys I climbed the rope the fastest. the course was a 50 yard low crawl, (on your elbows, and the inside of your knees) jog in place until everyone finished, run to some monkey bars, go across those, run across a log over a pit,run a while more, jumping down a couple of 5 ft retaining walls, hang upside down on a horizontal rope, and pull your body across it, do another 25 yard really low crawl under barb wire.and you had to push your forehead through the dirt all the way across, jump over some more obstacles,a 50 yard bear crawl,a 50 yard crab walk, and that was about it. It was fun but about 101 degrees outside today, and the humidity is always high. Oh yesterday I ran a 6:40 mile. That's 20 seconds better than last weeks. Im constantly hungry here. At chow time we get maybe 3 minutes to eat. It Sucks! Standing outside, waiting to go in , is like standing outside of a haunted house at Halloween. All you hear is drill Sergeant's wigging out on people to "hurry the F up!" the other day a drill Sergeant scared a kid and he started choking. haha He had to give im the Heimlich maneuver. 18x guys are dropping like flies here. I think they are starting to psyche themselves out. I have not had one doubt, I don't know if its false bravado, or faith in the lord but I know Im going to make it.

Aug. 3

HOLY FREAKING GAS CHAMBER!! It was a nightmare. We went in about 40 guys at a time with gas masks on. it was a 15X40 feet cinder block wall with a door on each end. so, as you walk in , all your exposed skin immediately starts to burn, and then the drill Sergeant's rip your mask off and have them say their last name and last 4 of their social. After that, about 10 guys line up, and take their mask completely off, and start saying the soldiers creed until all 10 guys are coughing and gaging. some guys puked, several panicked and tried to make a break for the door but the instructors would grab them and drag them back inside/ I was trying to stay composed but I actually started to panic too. I took a deep breath while I had my mask on and was going to try and hold my breath but they caught onto that and starting shouting for me to say the solders creed. as soon as I started i just about lost it. It goes in your eyes, your nose,your throat, all the way down to your lungs, like battery acid or something. I almost threw up but I stayed pretty calm, but as soon as they opened the door to let us out, I was pushing guys out of my way to run out. after I got outside I almost puked about 3 more times. It was honestly the most pain Ive ever been in, but it only last for 3 mins.

8/7/11
i went to church today for the 2nd time being here. Its a pretty cool set up, they do the missionary lessons 1-5 in order. 2 guys were baptized last week, and theres another baptism this week. Over half the congrenation are non memebers. Ive made a pretty good group of friend here, but none will come to church with me yet. Oh next week M Russell Ballard is coming to speak to just our little branch next week. Robert ay is coming with him and then next week Bishop Edglry of the general bishopric is coming. That's really exciting. Im going to try and get there early and introduce myself.