Family Weekend - part 1

Mike's family weekend was 10-3 through 10-5. We arrived early thinking he had a 2 hour leave on 10-2 but that didn't turn out to be the case. We did get to circle his barracks for 1.5 hours, til the DS's noticed me and asked if I needed help. I told them what I was there for, and reluctantly, who I was there for...JUST in case he was waiting somewhere for me. He wasn't. According to him, when he told me the next day, he was in the large group of what Anastasia called "dirt bags" (they were Soldiers sitting on the ground - to her they looked like bags of dirt. Hey, she's 7!) And he watched us drive by all 903 times.

We left and went through a drive through, brought food back to the hotel in Elizabethtown and proceeded to pass out without eating any of it. At this point I'd been up for 37 hours, 16 of it spent driving on the highway. I was totally wiped out.

We were all up early the next morning and went to breakfast and then headed back to the base. His ceremony was due to begin at 13:00 but I wasn't taking any chances. The night before the DS said the doors would open by 12:30...so we were there by 11:45. They had some tanks and a Humvee out for people to get their picture taken with. The girls had a blast on/in them.

We wandered around the front of the Olive Theater for a while, met up with one of the other Mom's I'd talked to on GAP and eventually got to go inside and get a seat. There was a group of bald men in camo sitting up near the front and I was afraid if I took one look at them I'd start crying so I sent my mom and the girls up to take a picture of them, hoping we could figure out which was Mike by looking at the pic on my camera. No chance. I can see it enlarged now and I still don't know which was him.

They are all bald, wearing camouflage and can't make eye contact with you. It's a semi-hopeless endeavor. Then a woman announced that if your Soldier was graduating, he would not be seated in the theater yet. Ok. um. Mike wasn't technically graduating so...damn. He was in that group of bald men. This wasn't going to be easy.

The ceremony started and it was great. Lots of emotion and tears going on in the dimmed theater lights. I think most people were just so on the edge of exploding from the happiness of being so close to their Soldier. I know I was.

Ceremony ended and I passed the mom I saw earlier as she was going after her Mike who had gone back in the theater and I was going towards the barracks to see if I could find Mike.

Did I ever mention how many Mike's there were in this Platoon? Lots!

As we were standing there waiting for either him to find us or for everyone else to leave and he be the only one left...he ran past us. And all of a sudden I couldn't understand how I couldn't have found him before. He looks like...Mike. He's been bald before. He's even had a mohawk or 5. So I've seen him bald. For some reason I couldn't find him but now...here he was. He got back in with his Troop and we waited til they did what they had to do and he happened to see us waiting and nodded.

I have never been so happy as when I got to walk over and hug him and I tried really hard to not cry. Really. I did. I just started leaking a bit but I got it under control. He introduced me to others, who had leaking moms and dads, so it was obviously not embarrassing him. We met the Soldier we were adopting for the weekend and then I signed them both out and we were on our way.

Gotta go get some food on the stove...part 2 to follow momentarily...

Saturday phone call

I got TWO calls on Saturday!! I was just sitting down to a huge plate of BBQ ribs when he called the first time. We talked for 26 minutes. Then while I was doing dishes (yes I ate my ribs cold, he's worth it) he called back again. This time for 10 minutes.

I was totally unprepared for the second call so we just babbled. I told him we are going to have to stick either him or Mark (the Soldier we are adopting for family day, and his best friend there) in the back of the Escape. After some grumbling (and me saying we could leave them both there, or just tie them to the luggage rack) they agreed it would be JUST FINE! LOL :)

He sounds like he's definitely past the point of being depressed, now he's just ready to go be a Soldier. NOW!

He wants to go to Six Flags in Louisville, I have to make sure that's an authorized destination before I buy tickets that we can't use. I'll ask on GAP but if anyone here knows it's definitely off limits, please feel free to let me know.

I asked about when he gets his beret, and he says he has it already. He doesn't like it much either. (I won't even tell you his words to describe it :( ) He would rather have his Stetson. I really never ever in all my years ever would have imagined my little boy wanting a Stetson. It makes my cowgirl heart so proud. :D

Now I have got to go get some work done.

Talk to you all later!!

:)

OSUT Definition

When I say my son is in OSUT, it brings on blank stares...so I end up explaining this a lot. His MOS is not one that consists of a typical 9 week Basic Training period, it's a little different. He goes to "BCT" for 10 weeks, gets a short break (1-3 days, depending on many factors) that he takes within 50 miles of his base, and follows the rules given to him as if his life depends on it, then goes back to the same place and finishes his training with six weeks of Advanced Individual Training.

Here is a description of what OSUT is according to WikiPedia.com

• One Station Unit Training

With some MOSs, both the BCT and AIT phases of training are accomplished back-to-back at the same location, with the same instructors, as well as with the same fellow recruits. This is called One Station Unit Training, or OSUT. For example, the Infantry MOS consists of the usual ten weeks of BCT followed by six weeks of AIT, all within the same location. A similar program is followed for cavalry scouts, tank crewmen, field artillery cannon crewmen, military police, combat engineers, and chemical operations (defensive) specialists.

Glad he got to call us :)

Got a letter from Mike telling me how happy he was to talk to me last time. He's sending me, what appears to be, last minute instructions for our trip up. I have a list of items I'm supposed to bring, all of which will be returning with me when we come home. He's asked me to get him a laptop so he can play some games. I'll grab one this week and install Crysis for him. I'm not sure what else he wants so that's all he's getting til we get there. Unless he calls again.

He wants game news. I'm going to print some stuff out but I remember someone saying they couldn't have printed pages from the web...I'm not going to hand write 6 pages of technical details on games so...he's getting it printed right from wikipedia.com. I guess I'll find out if that is ok or not, won't I? ;)

He's going nuts for news...anything on new games, new movies, new music. He wants to see Batman, maybe I can see if it's playing at a discount movie when we are there, as I'm pretty sure it won't be in the regular theaters still on October 3.

He's all fired up about the new Challenger. I guess someone got pics or something, he's practically drooling about this cars specs. I'm going to create some note paper, to write to him, using the images I downloaded from the Dodge site.

He also got to shoot a rocket launcher and claymore mines. He sounds happy about getting a couple of pounds of C4 next week and getting to blow up whatever they want on the course. Sounds like fun.

He had to go because his DS was chasing them and shooting rubber bands at them from a "rolly chair"...He's always indicated that his troop is great and I'm guessing they all get along fairly well. That has to help a lot in this situation.

Ok, off to get girls in bed and then will catch up on the rest.

:)

Mike's sisters are feeling the stress now

We are having problems with Mike's 9 year old sister acting out and I'm not sure if it's the stress of me being so unpredictable lately (could start crying for what she thinks is no reason) or if she's just scared something will happen to him. She was pretty quick and figured out the risk involved before he left for Basic Training.

I think I need to start finding some other outlets for them. They were supposed to be writing to Mike every day but they keep avoiding it. I'm fairly sure they are afraid to open up right now.

I keep trying to tell them he's fine (and myself too). I mean, he's at Basic Training...ok, so he's sleep deprived, physically exhausted and being stripped of all but the most basic of emotions...but he's still in the country, and he's got medical care nearby if something does happen. So...technically, he should be fine. Right? (ok, I'm not convincing myself here. LOL )

Well, we have 2 hours of gymnastics practice to race off to. I'm going to try to get through one practice without looking like a sad sack. I'm gonna smile! A lot! Of course, then they might think I've lost it...but whatever.

I'm in control of my own little hell here, I might as well try to make it bearable.

Later!! :)