Mail is to a recruit what a trip to the ice cream shop is to a small child: pure bliss. etters are great, pictures are better, and a package is orgasmic insanity. But for every positive facet in bootcamp, the drill instructors ensure that the Dark Side has its due. Such was the case when packages arrived.

The drill instructors must look through each package to weed out any contraband that well-meaning friends or family might send. They look for cigarettes, alcohol, weapons, candy, coffee, pornography, small woodland creatures, and anything else that might distract the recruit from the training schedule. Because they see everything in the packages, funny situations pop up every time they check.

I could never handle not knowing what time it was. Recruits were not authorized to wear watches and the only way we knew what time it was to check the small watch that the DI's had taped to the duty hut. But I had a way around that. God helped me.

I guess I had seen too many spy movies but I noticed that the one thing that the DI's tiptoed around was religion. So I got the idea to have my girlfriend hollow out a small Gideon bible and put a watch inside it. The drill instructors never looked inside bibles so I got Carrie to do it.

The package arrived and I knew what was inside. Beads of sweat covered by bald head as SGT Robinson tore open my box. Of course it HAD to be SGT Robinson. He clumsily sifted through the box and I saw him pick up the bible. For just the briefest of moments I though he was going to open it but Carrie had the forethought to time a ribbon around it like a gift. "GOOD GIRL!" I thought.

That night, I opened the bible and there it was. It was just a little refrigerator clock with an adhesive back. I hid it where everyone hides all of the things they don't want the DI's to find, even though I know they knew. I was on the bottom rack and I placed it in the springs of the bottom of the bunk above me. This way when I woke up in the middle of the night, I could grab my flashlight and see how little sleep I had left.

I thought I was James Bond. Even minor victories over the system were considered glorious. To this day, I must have a timepiece with me and have a way to tell the time during the middle of the night. Luckily, I do not have to tear apart bibles to accomplish this these days.