In case you noticed, I wasn’t around much this weekend. That’s because I left Thursday for Great Lakes Naval Base to attend my son’s graduation from Basic Training.
no matter what your feelings are about war, fighting, or the military, I hope you can appreciated why I feel proud…
Nate set his sights on being an aircraft mechanic when he was 12 years old. He planned and did things to accomplish this goal, such as attain his Billie Mitchell award in Civil Air Patrol. His ASVAB scores were so high that every branch of the military and reserve was wooing him. But he played them one against the other until he got the best “deal”. And that was joining the Navy.
He left for Basic Training August 15th. There were approximately 900 other recruits, but with attrition (Nate says the Navy is the easiest job to get fired from - unlike the Army, the Navy has too many recruits) that number got down to 891 on graduation day. Nate was awarded one of the top 6 places in the graduating class, and received the USO Shipmate award for meritorious service. Our family got to sit in a special place for graduation, and we had a reception with the base commander afterwards.
He also was promoted, and came out of Basic an E3. He didn’t even have time to have the extra stripe sewn on his uniform before graduation.
Currently, he’s “on hold” with about 80 others waiting to go to Pensacola, then after a short stint of school, will be stationed on the USS Truman.
His only complaint about Basic (he actually said it was a piece of cake, and his encampment in Civil Air Patrol was MUCH harder) was having to iron his underware. I took him out to Walmart while we were there (he had Liberty all weekend) and bought him some white boxers!!
He’s a great young man, and we got a lot of good comments from those in authority over him.
hey - FC - sure do. We are West Siders (College Hill), but that CAP squadron I referred to that Nate was a member of met at Lunken Airport. And Noah, my youngest, goes to Walnut Hills. Also had relatives in Mt. Washington, and Nate’s girlfriend’s family lives in Anderson.
There is NO easy way to get from west to east in this stupid town!!!
Denny- it’s possible. He was throwing around so many acronyms (sp?) I was doing good with even having a slight idea of what he was talking about.
He’s already planning how he can get “known” and all and get his next test under his belt.
Emm - I know what you mean. When someone asked Noah if he was like his brother, and knew what he wanted to do, he answered “Yeah. I’m gonna be one of those people that live in their parent’s basement until they are 50 years old”.
actually - if he had HIS choice, he’d either want to work on a KC 135 (he got to go up in one and be in it while it was refueling) or a Corsair (he got to “babysit” one during an air show).
He had a dream of buying an old, wrecked Piper and rebuilding it. I asked him WHERE he was planning on doing this - I mean - he wasn’t going to do it in the garage like he did with his pick-up truck!!!
Of course, now he’s planning on taking the truck with him when he’s stationed at a base and working on it during his spare time (it’s a 1979 Chevy 1/2 ton).
All of the parts (ship, each squadron, etc.) donate bodies to the jobs that no one wants…
Laundry, kitchen, scullery…
…at E4 you are exempt from most of the onerous jobs.
