We headed out on the evening of September 9th for the long drive to Ft. Sill/Lawton, Oklahoma.
Earlier that day, Helena talked me into going to get our nails done. I have never had acrylic nails before... and I probably never will again. They make it so difficult to do just about everything! I can't type! I am having to make corrections to typos in EVERY single sentence. Ugh! They also get in the way of working with clay at school. But, yes, they are very pretty. Just so impractical that they are driving me crazy!
I realized as we pulled out of the driveway that I hadn't seen Tigger that day. More on that in the next post.
The drive was LONG and AWEFUL. I drove the first 9 hours through the night as the others napped. Helena was the lucky one in our group. She's the only one that can actually sleep in a car. Bill dozed off for a few hours, but Brenna (Will's girlfriend) stayed awake with me the whole way.
At the half way mark, and in the morning at about 7 or 8 am, Bill took over the driving and drove us the rest of the way. I have to say, I LOVE GPS! Back in the day, we had to drive with a great big road atlas in the navigator's lap as we traveled. Now, you just enter your destination into the GPS and it programs your route and lets you know exactly where and when to turn. That was handy, because in Texas and Oklahoma the GPS sent us on some side roads that we would have shot right past. Taking those side roads instead of the main roads cut at least 20-30 miles off our trip each way. Done!
I will say now that Oklahoma is FLAT!!! The "mountains" near the base were hills. HILLS, people! LOL! And the grass barely rates the name. But, boy, do they have a lot of sky! I thought there was a lot of sky here in the high desert... NOPE! They have us beat!
Helena loved the base. Our IDs were scanned every time we entered, which was about twice to four times a day. The MPs manning the gates were super nice, though. The base is large and acts as a city of its own, with schools, stores, housing, and even gas stations. But, everything very orderly. VERY. Helena said it reminded her of Top Gun. LOL!
Our hotel was adequate, but not luxurious. We were staying on base, so it had a military feel to it. Meaning the stairwell looked like it needed an upgrade back in 1950s, but the rooms were clean and only felt 20-30 years outdated. LOL. The on base hotel serves primarily to house military members who are on post for training that is so temporary that it isn't worth the hassle of setting up housing. So, lots of uniforms everywhere. Actually, there were uniforms everywhere all over the town of Lawton, too. The town would not exist if it weren't for the military base, so it is just swimming in patriotism and all things military.
We arrived on the afternoon of the 10th and settled into our hotel to get a good night's sleep, because Family Day started bright and early on the 11th. At check in, I met another Army Mom, Patti Warren, whose son was in Will's platoon! She was there alone, so I invited her to join us in the dining hall for breakfast the next morning. There was a Wednesday evening meal served by the hotel, too, which Brenna and I went to, but Bill and Helena chose to remain in our suite. I thought it was pretty yummy, but Bill would not have been able to eat it. We ended up having Patti join us most mornings for breakfast and following us to the various functions in her car, so she wouldn't get lost.
Family Day found us in front of Will's Basic Training Barracks. There were tents set up (in case it rained, which it didn't) and bleachers for us to sit on. There were vendors selling pictures, dvds, t-shirts, and necklaces. I bought a necklace and a dvd. Will had already bought the pictures.
They marched out in their tropics dress uniform... short sleeve white top with the dress blues pants. They looked amazing! A quick demonstration of some of the skills they learned and some instructions on what to do and not to do on leave, then they were released to their families!
It was so good to hug my boy! He's grown taller! He walks with precision and bearing, now. He has also gained a lot of patience, He's always been pretty short tempered with his dad, flying off the handle in anger when Bill gets too goofy and starts teasing him. Now, however, Will just patiently rides it out. He's a grown up! Wow!
I noticed right away that he had a bruise on his right cheekbone. I asked him about it and he acted surprised. He didn't even know it was there. He couldn't even tell me where it came from.
We drove him to our hotel, the PX, and off post to the mall. We hunted down the Verizon store and took him in to get his phone upgraded. We ended up with a smart phone for him, and tablets for him and his sister. LOL! I had to up our data package to handle the extra load. I can't really afford that, so Helena is going to start paying her portion of the phone bill, and Will is going to start paying his portion when he gets home from his training.
We had lunch at Whataburger. I'd never eaten there, but Will's Texan buddies told him he had to try it, so we did. We had dinner by ordering pizza.
Will was antsy around other people. He didn't want to be around so many uniforms, because pretty much everyone we passed outranked him, and he didn't know if he was supposed to salute officers while we were shopping in the PX. So we took him back to the hotel and took him swimming in the pool. Even that made him nervous. He swam in his PT shorts, which was allowed by the DS, but he was still nervous that he was doing something wrong and would get in trouble. Still, we picked the only warm and sunny moment of the whole weekend to hit the pool, so that made me happy!
We had to have Will back to his barracks by 2000 (8pm). All the soldiers and their parents loitered near the barracks up until the moment they all had to go. Then we went back to the hotel and Helena and I went down to the hotel gym to get our exercising done. That room was stuffy and hot! Ugh. Still, I got it in.
Graduation was held off post in the McMahon Auditorium. I intended to arrive around 9 am to stand in line because it started at 10. I lost track of the time in the morning and we ended up arriving at 8 am instead. Oops! We were pretty much the first people there. We saw the soldiers pull up on Army buses and saw Will as he went inside. Actually, he saw us first while he was still on the bus. He dropped a window and yelled at us! :) My cell phone chose that moment to freeze, though, so I don't have a picture of it.
We stood in line for two hours. Well, I should say, Brenna and I stood in line. Helena and Bill went back to the car to stay warm. It was cold and wet, with a fine drizzle coming down. As the line grew, I saw some of the other Army Moms from the Fb support group, so I was able to go say "hi" and take some selfies with them. They were the ones who supported me through having my son gone to BCT. I often felt like I annoyed everyone at home, because they thought I was too emotional and why didn't I get over it, already? The other Moms on the support group understood me and what I was going through better than my own family did.
Graduation had me emotionally strung out. When they opened the doors to allow those with disabilities to enter, everyone else came surging forward and I went from being at the front of the line to being behind about 20-30 other people. It got me riled up. We were all there for the same purpose, I just found the "want to get to" attitude that we constantly see everywhere else to be so out of place in that venue. I admit I was really upset when we first got in to our seats and when Helena said, "we should have gone up on the balcony, the camera angle is better from up there", I completely lost it. I flared up at her and told her to just shut up already! I was in tears, because I felt that she was right, but there was nothing I could do about it, because the house filled up instantly. I was a basket case.
It turned out that we were in the best seats of all, actually! The soldiers came in and sat all down the middle of the main floor and we could see where Will was sitting. All the parents suddenly crowded the aisles, taking pictures of all the soldiers sitting stone still. Will said it felt like they were animals in the zoo having tourists take their pictures. The crowd started thinning out, so I got up to try to take a picture, but right then a drill sergeant came down the aisle and instructed everyone to take their seats. So, another photo I didn't get.
Oh! While we were in the lobby waiting to get into the auditorium, a Drill Sergeant was wending his way through the crowd when Bill saw his nameplate was ROSS, Will's Drill Sergeant! Bill spoke out and told him that Will liked him. Oi! I knew that would have repercussions for Will, and sure enough; after everything was over, Will told us that DS Ross called Will out and informed him that "apparently I'm friends with your family, now". LOL!
The graduation was short and to the point. The moment the guest speaker mentioned these soldiers' bravery for enlisting in a time of war, a mother right behind us lost it and began weeping uncontrollably. The 200+ soldiers stood and recited the Soldier's Creed, then re-took the oath of service. That was a powerful moment! The soldiers came up to the stage one by one, recited their name into the microphone, then marched past each of their Drill Sergeants and Officers, shaking hands with each of them.
And then, it was over! They marched out together singing a funny cadence about Drill Sergeants ("Drill Sergeant Won't You Leave Me Alone") and we worked our way out of the crush of people to find Will outside. Brenna and I got separated from Bill and Helena. I was craning my neck to try to find them and find Will. I had other people pressed in on me on all sides... so I did not see the curb right at my feet! I stumbled and fell! t was so embarrassing! I skinned my knee and wounded my pride.
But, I finally found them. Will was in his dress blues, including the jacket. He looked fantastic! We got to have him with us until 1900 (7:00 pm) that day. He wanted to see the Artillery Museum on base... which was outdoors. So, we wandered around in the rain for an hour or so. My umbrella did not survive the encounter. It did great all the way until it was time to get into the car, then it caught a tricky gust of wind and turned inside out and sideways. There was no fixing it. We ended up throwing it out before we left.
We had dinner at an all you can eat Chinese buffet. I honestly don't even remember much else. Oh, we went to a local KMart to get him some hangars for the garment bag we had bought him the day before to put his dress uniforms into. Other than that, I can't remember.
We took him back to the barracks right after dinner. We all needed to go to the bathroom, so Will showed us where those were on the ground floor of the building. I had already read that we were allowed to be in that part of the building, but apparently Helena didn't hear me say that, because she was terrified we were going to be chewed out by a drill sergeant. She was skittish coming out of the bathroom and nearly jumped through her skin when we walked out and right into a platoon of soldiers-in-training and their two Drill Sergeants! LOL! She said that it was one of the worst experiences of her life and she never wanted to do that again.
1900 came too soon! We all stood around outside his barracks until we had to say a final goodbye.
Hugs and kisses and then he was gone. I cried.
He left on a bus the very next morning for his journey to AIT (advanced individual training) at Ft. Leonard Wood, MO. We left for our arduous trip back home.
And now we are on a new countdown to AIT graduation. He will graduate from Chemical Weapons School(barring any problems) on Nov. 21st. Then he just has a short 3 week training on the vehicles his unit uses, and he'll be home in time for Christmas!
