Master at Arms

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Comment by Ray Norberto on May 4, 2011 at 9:52pm

Indeed! The greatest oddity was my son's becoming proud about the fastidious care he took with his personal belongings, and especially footwear. One of the first pictures he took when he settled into his quarters in San Antonio? His "shiny ass boots"! And I remember thinking, "Where the hell did this person come from?!"

Comment by Ray Norberto on May 4, 2011 at 12:01pm

Have a great time at PIR. It's a very emotional singular moment in your lives. I still get emotional remembering Chris' graduation back in January. It didn't help that he spent Thanksgiving and Christmas there!
And I don't know if the yogurt and milk really helps, Chris never told me! Get ready for the stories to start among his shipmates! They'll be forever joined together.

Comment by Ray Norberto on May 3, 2011 at 10:02am

What's the countdown Redfly? Is it less than 48 hours?

Comment by Redfly143 on May 3, 2011 at 5:32am

Going to San Antonio this week to see my son graduate from A school...Can't wait...

Comment by Jeff Drinski on May 2, 2011 at 8:08pm

Scott, next Friday will be an incredible day for you and your son, enjoy it. My son is still in MA school for another two weeks. He left GL early Saturday morning too. He loved it in San Antonio right away. Take your sons laptop, phone and other comfort items for him. We bought Ty a black backpack at the NEX at GL to take his things with him on the plane to SA. You will have to give them to him at the airport at about 3 am though, can't have em at GL. Ty's liberty on PIR day was until 7 pm but he asked us to get him back by 6. I couldn't believe the change in his confidence and maturity. Like Ray said, Ty had a week to kill before classing up. He did not qualify for PRP so there were no stateside billets, Bahrain, Japan and Guam were his choices. He applied for a military working dog and was accepted. The good news is his Japam orders went away and he was offered Connecticut and Virginia, bad news is no leave until August when he completes MWD training. Otherwise, he would have come home for a couple weeks after MA training. Hope this helps

Comment by Ray Norberto on May 2, 2011 at 7:35pm

1) A School for my son was roughly 2 months, from the time they 'class up', which means they fill up the class seats. MA seemed to fill up easily enough, but Chris still had a week to himself before classes started.
2) The graduation ceremony is smaller, Chris' class had 34 or so mates. It's less formal but no less moving, primarily receiving certificates and getting their badges, which they can have pinned on them by instructors or loved ones. Chris wanted to get pinned by his instructor, who he really really liked.
3) There are way more than two choices. Every base needs MAs for force security. Some earlier groups had sailors deployed to Japan, Bahrain, and every place in between. When Chris received his choices they included:
Guam
Sicily
Washington State
San Diego/Coronado
Norfolk
Oceana/Virgina Beach
New Hampshire
That is the list of options for his class, each class gets choices based on the Navy's needs.
The selection is top down: those who ranked highest get first choice, etc.
There are also other options available to them that they learn about when they get to San Antonio/Lackland AFB. The PRP-Personal Reliability Program (I think!) which gets the sailor assigned to Nuclear facilities, with a higher security clearance. There is the MWD program-Military Working Dog program - which keeps the sailor at Lackland for another 11 weeks or so, where they are paired up with a dog trained for detection.
I hope that helps! Any mistakes I made I apologize in advance, it's a lot of information to digest.

Comment by Jim Santucci on April 25, 2011 at 9:14am

Congratulations, Jeff. Your son is going to love being in the MWD program - a very elite group of MA's.

Bill - what a great pic of your son! Can't believe they put a Navy MA on the front cover of the army times...

Comment by Elbert Steven Rakes on April 25, 2011 at 1:02am

That's great Bill You have a right to be proud of your son Conrad : )  Wow. I would think the Army Times would send him a copy for being their front page Star ! Priceless Picture thanks for sharing

Comment by Elbert Steven Rakes on April 23, 2011 at 2:57pm

Congratulation Jeff to your son Ty good to see he got what he wanted I know he will make a fine MWDdog handler : ) Cheers !

Comment by Ray Norberto on April 23, 2011 at 10:40am

Groton is pretty centered between Yankee Universe and Red Sawx Nation, but I would actually suggest flying into Logan in Bahston. La Guardia sucks, Newark and Kennedy are too far to be an easy drive, and Logan is easier in and out compared to the NYC airports. ALTHOUGH, you could fly in once and visit me during a homestand at Gate 2 of the Stadium. I'm not allowed to pat down, only visually inspect! Groton is nice and sleepy, but close to Mystic which is a nice little town. Plus Mohegan Sun is 20-30 minutes away if you have a love-hate relationship with your money. My great aunt Mary "Ma" Ryan ran a bording house for nearly 30 years in Groton for the Sailors stationed there, so I love that part of the world. Congratulations and oorah! BTW, I love the 'praise an inanimate object' question. I would probably have praised Al Gore...!

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