Submarine Dad Here

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Permalink Reply by joseph whiting on March 4, 2009 at 10:55am

Finally I linked with submarine dad here. My son is attending culinary school after graduating from basic. After that I understand he will be going to sub school. What can he(I) expect during the time he'll be there and in his rate. Will he get a chance to come home before classes. Thanks for having this blogg

Permalink Reply by Leonard on May 5, 2009 at 2:44pm

My son is also out to sea. For all those other dads out there who have sons that hope to wear the dolphins, thank you. Your son's are joining a special group of people. The day Nathan graduated BESS was great. The day he finished A school he was so proud. But, the day he got pinned was the high point of his life! I'm so proud of him. And right now, I miss him terribly.

Permalink Reply by Kenorian on May 5, 2009 at 4:22pm

Yeah, it is tough. Paul was on a WESTPAC for a little over six months. He was able to call me three times... It'd always be a call in the middle of the night - talk about waking up immediately!

Do you have an email address for him on his boat with instructions? I have the link buried somewhere... Sometimes I'd send an email and get a response in days - sometimes not for many weeks.

In what I have to nothing short of a miracle.... It was my birthday, and I was missing him a lot. The doorbell rang and it was UPS - with a package from him!! He mailed it from Australia, never ever imagining that it would get to me on my birthday.

Paul's boat has been in dry dock for a major overhaul and will be doing sea trial for the next little while. I'm guessing sometime in the fall he too will be off for another extended cruise.

Permalink Reply by Leonard on May 5, 2009 at 6:25pm

Yes, we have an email address for him on the boat. I've read the rules about email, no photos or file attachments and keep it brief! We'll send him email even though we know he may not get it for weeks. But at least when the boat does surface he'll get mail from us.

I really can imagine what it would be like to get a call from him in the middle of the night! We experienced that several times from our son-in-law when he was deployed to Iraq (Marines) for two years. Our daughter came home to live us while he was gone and when the phone rang in the middle of the night we were ALL awake instantly!

I don't know what to expect about the frequency of communication. And for me, that's the hardest part right now. We can't send him packages. We don't even know where he is or where he is going. But, we do know that he and the other crewmembers are well trained for what they do, so we don't worry ....much. It would just be nice to know where they are.

Kenorian said:

Yeah, it is tough. Paul was on a WESTPAC for a little over six months. He was able to call me three times... It'd always be a call in the middle of the night - talk about waking up immediately!

Do you have an email address for him on his boat with instructions? I have the link buried somewhere... Sometimes I'd send an email and get a response in days - sometimes not for many weeks.

In what I have to nothing short of a miracle.... It was my birthday, and I was missing him a lot. The doorbell rang and it was UPS - with a package from him!! He mailed it from Australia, never ever imagining that it would get to me on my birthday.

Paul's boat has been in dry dock for a major overhaul and will be doing sea trial for the next little while. I'm guessing sometime in the fall he too will be off for another extended cruise.

Permalink Reply by Kenorian on May 5, 2009 at 7:41pm

Forgot to ask - is he on a boomer or a fast attack. As I'm sure you know, the boomers are underway for three months without any port stops, then back. The fast attacks do, generally, stop at various ports, depending on the length of the cruise. So, for example, on Paul's WESTPAC (Western Pacific) cruise they stopped in Guam, Australia, Japan, and Singapore. I was able to send packages to his FPO address. Believe it or not, they know where the boat is going to surface next (if it's a fast attack) and the packages and/or letters are waiting for them there!

Permalink Reply by Leonard on May 5, 2009 at 7:46pm

Fast attack, Virginia Class. I didn't know we could send packages! We do expect him to have a couple of port calls on this cruise, but we don't know where. I didn't think about the Navy having letters and packages waiting on them! I'll have to check on that. Thanks for the tip.

Permalink Reply by Kenorian on May 5, 2009 at 7:54pm

Here's a link regarding FPO (Fleet Post Office) information =>http://www.shipitapo.com/info/apo_fpo_guide.php

If you have a number for the ombudsman, she'd have the boat's address.

Permalink Reply by Kenorian on May 5, 2009 at 8:03pm

http://www.shipitapo.com/info/apo_fpo_guide.php Has some info about FPO addresses. You can get the details from the ombudsman. This is a key contact person. If you son didn't give you a name and contact info, I can help you get it with the name of the boat. I think all subs have FRGs (Family Resource Groups). The Cheyenne's has a Yahoogroups forum, monthly newsletters, etc.

Permalink Reply by Leonard on May 5, 2009 at 8:36pm

I have a name and an email address from a news letter we used to get before the ship was commissioned. I've sent an email to that address. We'll see if its still valid. He's on the New Hampshire. I've been searching for information for families of the crew, but no luck so far. I'll try some more tommorow.

Thanks for your help.

Permalink Reply by Kenorian on May 5, 2009 at 8:58pm

I'll stop bugging you, but, is the NH based out of Groton? If so, you could try:

OMBUDSMAN
USS NEW HAMPSHIRE (SSN 778)
Groton, 7 06340-4049

Permalink Reply by Leonard on May 5, 2009 at 9:12pm

Kenorian said:

I'll stop bugging you, but, is the NH based out of Groton? If so, you could try:

OMBUDSMAN
USS NEW HAMPSHIRE (SSN 778)
Groton, 7 06340-4049

You're not bugging me at all. I did find an old address from before the boat was commissioned. It was:

PCU New Hampshire (SSN 778)
73 Eastern Point Road
Groton, CT 06340-4049

I'm assuming that if I just change PCU to USS (since the boat has now been commissioned) that I could use this address to send him mail. I'll try to contact the ombudsman by phone tommorow to make sure that's right.

Thanks again for trying to help.

Permalink Reply by Leonard on May 6, 2009 at 1:07pm

Kenorian, GOOD NEWS! I got in touch with the boat's ombudsman and got all of the info about mail, packages, etc. Seems they had lost track of me when they transitioned to email from snail mail after the commissioning. I'm now back on the mailing list for his boat and will be updated as info changes.

Thanks again for the tip.

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