Home from my son's Basic Training Graduation at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma. It was so, so good to see him. It was so hard to leave him there.The first thing I noticed was how white his teeth are. When I mentioned his teeth, he said, "Yeah, I brush them at least three times a day now." Wow, I thought.
The second thing I noticed was his voice has seemed to change. It's deeper than it was when he left home in April. Must be all those cadences during marches on the base.
The last thing took a little longer to realize, that was just how nice he was, how polite he was. He's turned into a perfect gentleman.
His girlfriend came with me, and we had a wonderful visit. We left the house at 6am for our 7am flight. We arrived in Oklahoma City around lunch time, 12:30pm. Fort Sill was an hours' drive southwest of Oklahoma City on I-44.
We stayed through Saturday afternoon, longer than most of the families. Most of the soldiers shipped out to their next stop the morning following graduation. My son was one of six who were not leaving until Sunday a.m.
That gave us a whole'nother day with our soldier! Here's a couple of pics...
Graduation day, June 20, 2008 with girlfriend.
9 comments:
Aww! I'm so happy for you. I had a strong feeling everything would be ok. There really is nothing like a dose of basic training to turn an angry boy into a good man.
You both look so happy! Where will your son be stationed? My son is at Ft Hood, Well ... his wife is, as he left for Afghanistan last week. I'm so glad you got to go to his graduation. Hugs! ~~Kath~~
Oh look at these awesome pics....Such a nice young man you have there. I know you are proud. Hope you are doing ok....tell all the fur babies hello from Tugie the Toy P.
Sonya
My son's graduation from basic training is one of my most memorable experiences. It was then I realized that all our wars have been fought by (mostly) teenagers.
Wow, what a revelation that was.
How's everything going? ~~Kath~~
What a handsome son you have ... I think I've said that before when I saw his photo.
As for the polite - that was something I had noticed about my boys after they graduated from basic training. I also noticed that it didn't take long for them to "normalize" once they had been out of basic a few months!
I should mention they are still much better in the polite department than they were before.
Thank you for visiting my new blogspot home. I've actually been with blogspot for a few years now - the business blog is there and I already LOVE it around here.
Monica
OMG - I thought we lost touch but I have found you - lol...it has been way too long...
your son is very handsome - my son did his AIT training at Ft Sill...he is now deployed in Japan in military intelligence - which FT Sill is infamous for....
It is so good to see you again - I have been with blogger for a while with my art blog but now my personal blog is here since AOL is having a mass exodus...I hope all is well with you and PLEASE click on my follow me so we can stay in touch - I do not want to lose touch again....
Here is my url:
http://ellie-crazylife.blogspot.com/
take care
--Ellie
okay - I tried to read the next blog but your page is messed up - at least by my view - I got this pop up that says I need to download some missing plug in - do you know what that is about?....hmm I guess eventually I will figure it out...in the meantime - I looked at your photo blog - OMG - OUTSTANDING PHOTOS...I paint digitally and I would love to take one of your photos and paint it if you would not mind - just for my fun, excellent pics tho girlfriend - they are breath-taking!!!
thanks for sharing it all
-Ellie
You must be so proud! I had to laugh at what you said about him becoming a gentleman because that's what I noticed about my son first off at his Army graduation. I commented on how fast he hopped to it when given instructions by a superior and told him he'd never have done that for me and he said.."Yeah Mom, that guy can make me do pushups until I puke! You couldn't imagine doing something like that!" LOL! Congrats and give him my thanks for his military service! Blessings, Lisa
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