My American Soldier

It's official! Patrick has graduated from Basic Combat Training! To hear it from him, read his blog about the subject. He is officially an American Soldier. Our trip last week could not have been better. We made it safely to South Carolina on Wednesday. Upon arriving, we found out that, due to the threat of Hurricane Hanna, Family Day had been canceled and Graduation had moved up to Thursday. After hearing from Patrick that night, we had our plans all worked out.

Thursday morning, we got up bright and early and made it the the graduation ceremony location. We were really early, so we waited about two hours. I tried to find Patrick across the huge parade field with my binoculars. After some time, the soldiers began lining up in their companies. I was able to spot him briefly. The ceremony was relatively short. As soon as it was over, we got to see Patrick.







After a trip to see his barracks and grab all of his stuff, Patrick was signed-out to us for the remainder of the weekend. We got to spend all day Thursday together as a family. Then, as a special gift, our family treated the two of us to a hotel stay for the night. It was very nice to get to spend some time talking and catching up.

Friday, we all spent the day together visiting some places on post and hanging out at the cabin. Then, Saturday morning, my mom, sister, and brother-in-law left for the return trip to Texas, and my brother, sister-in-law, Patrick and I all set out for Norfolk, VA. We arrived at Little Creek Naval Base with time to spare and enjoyed a great dinner together before dropping Patrick at his next training school. He will have more freedom at the School of Music than he had at Basic, but it will be a lot of work. I still miss him greatly, but I know I can hear from him on the phone more often and he can also e-mail. And I'm looking forward to seeing him on the weekends.