Post by Diarist on Sept 11, 2015 17:03:50 GMT 1
It has been a gruelling week and I am glad that I did a lot of training prior to coming here. Marching all day with 1 cwt. bag of cement in your pack is quite a test but I am determined to finish the course. Rappelling was fun but at night it was a bit scary. The bad news is that 6 people from my platoon have already quit. All the TRADOC trainees are still here.
The good news is that I have memorized the Koran. Thomas Shaw taught me how to pronounce the alphabet and how to write Arabic. The letters are written differently when they are at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of a word. There a lot of letter pronunciations which don't have an English equivalent! However, Arabic is a phonetic language which helps. My photographic memory amazes Thomas. I can quote the Koran but I have no idea what I am saying. We'll start with the translation next weekend if we have time.
Time to call Sally then evening dinner.