Thank you Paul for the warm welcome. Right now our son is in OCS in Newport - we have gone through PIR, A School, C School, Mini Deployment last year and Deployment this year for seven months and now our DIL is out on her seven month deployment.  OCS is very stressful for the parent and added to that the worry of our DIL but we shall get through this and to say we are proud is an understatement.  Thank you for all the information I have truly got a lot and was able to print off all the weeks of OCS making it easier to understand the steps.

Sir : I can not get parking pass for up coming Grad. Pass word not working. Other parents having same .Issue . Great Lakes no answer , phone or E-Mail. Can you help or point in the right direction . Sir .

Paul,

Thank you for the add.  I appreciate you and your family and their service to our country and your time and the great site navydads.com.   

I live in Cottonwood, AZ.  Southwest of Flagstaff.

Thank you again.

Take care,

James Langley

Paul, thank you for the welcome and great intro.  I look forward to catching up on Navy life through Navy Dads. And please thank Eric & Kat for their service!!

Thank you for the add and the wealth of info. Of course, I have gotten a lot of info over the last 2 years from the NavyDads FB page as well. And thanks to our mutual friend, Dale, I am sure that you have seen many pics of both of our daughters.

Thankful for men such as you and others involved in putting these sites together for all of us who want to support each other during our mission in life.

Thanks again, and have a wonderful Christmas!

Hello Paul.  Thanks for the gracious welcome and also for all of the work that you and the admins are doing here for all of us and our Navy family.  The OCS Survival Guide and the video posted are sure to be an invaluable help to Mike.  This info is also a great comfort to my Wife Pat and I, since it helps Mike and takes some mystery out of the mix.  This is not going to be easy but its clear that we have been welcomed into special family and are very, very appreciative.  Thank you for all you are doing.

Thank you so much for the welcome!  My son, Eric, is packing as I write this; his flight leaves tomorrow--flying to Minneapolis, then to Detroit, Virginia, then Bahrain.  I am enormously proud of him, but worried as all heck, too.  I'll be praying everyday for his safety--such a dangerous part of the world.  It's going to be so hard saying good-bye in the morning--he will be half a world away, and I'm not sure when he'll be back.  One year?  Two?  I'm looking forward to the info and support from this site.  Glad to "meet" everyone.

Thank you Paul and Tom for the welcome.  My daughter graduated from boot camp on 12/11 and is now in Pensacola.  I'm hoping she can come in June to see her little sister graduate from high school. 

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Here is an 8 ft. x 4  ft. sign that hangs on my garage for our family of Veterans from Civil war to Iraq

Gary Swensen

Hi Paul - thanks for the welcome and the info! 

Thanks for the info!

Hello Paul, thanks so much for the info.  I will certainly spend some time getting familiar with things here, seems to be a lot of great info. 

Thank you for the information.

Thank you, Paul, for the kind welcome and for sharing your stories about your children's service. I know that Kylin is in great hands and I'm glad that he chose to serve. I don't know any of the lingo yet but (with the help of this site) I will learn. I can't wait until June when we drive to the Great Lakes to see him graduate! Thanks again and have a great night!

Thanks for the reference to the CTN rating card.  I note that the card is dated Feb. 2016 - very recent.  Someone else commented that this is a very new rating so there must not yet be a lot of chatter about it.  As we learn about it from our son we'll share the experiences so that future CTNs can benefit. 

Thanks Paul for sharing some great information and the warm welcome to NavyDads.com. Both my wife and I are both excited and nervous at the same time. Our son is a good kid and has and will be a great man. 

Thanks Paul. Our son is finishing week 3 at RTC today. A couple of seemingly simple things caught us by surprise. Many young people today never wear shoes that require polishing (our son) or have ever used an iron (again, our son). Recruiters seem to overlook little details but parents should help their recruits avoid the embarrassment by giving them some help with this before they leave.

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the welcome info. I will check out the forums, and will update the group as my son progresses. HOOYAH!!

Thanks so much, Paul. All of this is very, very helpful. Very much appreciated !!!

Thank you all for your warm welcome. Like you all, am am very proud of what our son is doing for our country.  Not only that, he is furthering his career and thanks to the opportunity the Navy is giving him, will potentially benefit him for the rest of his life.  I believe the Navy is the choice service for any young person to enlist in.  It gives the sailor exposure to the world, to becoming a mature man or woman, and an education which can't be beat.  Also, the benefits aren't too bad either.   Thanks again for your warm welcome.  I hope to learn and communicate with others on Navydads.com as time goes on.  Thank you and thank all our sons and daughters for their service.  Sincerely, Curt Akesson

Thanks for the welcome.  we are so proud of James and his decision to join the Navy.  He is doing quite well at OCS and we couldn't be prouder of his accomplishments. We received our first phone calls from him last week as well as several emails since they were supplied with laptops.  It has been great to hear from him and learn that he is doing so well.  We are looking foward to his graduation in late July and his future as a Navy aviator. 

This site has been terrific for getting some background information to help us better support James and to understand what he is doing at OCS.  Thanks so much for all your advise and the links you send as well. We really appreciate the time you took to get us started.

Thank you also, Paul, for both the greeting and information and links.  I hope to be not only learn more, but to also offer input based on my personal knowledge and experiences through this journey.

thanks paul for being so welcoming and for all the info

Thanks. There is a lot of information there. I sent it to my wife and she said she has read all that. Guess I need to get a briefing from her. LOL! My big question was since he will be going to Pensacola if he didn't go until Sunday and our flight leaves Sunday we could miss the airport to give him his phone and Surface, as you know the next round and the communication would be important to us, would there be another way to get him the phone etc. but it looks like he should be shipping out Saturday. Thanks.

Thanks for writing, Paul.  Just one correction:  George is my FATHER, not my son.  I was a Navy brat for the first 18 years of my life, so I'm pretty familiar with Navy life, at least from the perspective of a dependent.  We lived in Guantanamo, in Rota, Spain, and in several locations in the US.  I'll always be grateful to the Navy for the experiences it gave me and my family.

Sorry Jim, one more question. If he has to wait for more in his A school in Pensacola and has to stay in Great Lakes then he won't be going to the airport for a while so then how do we get him his phone etc.? Or does he even get to have it while he waits. 

Thanks.

Thanks so much Paul!

No Ginger....you are assigned to an 800 Division based on your Rating....

Thank you Paul. I am trying to find as much info possible to pass on to my son. He said he can call twice a week. I was hoping to give him information before he meets with legal this upcoming week.

Thanks for the warm welcome, Paul.  I'm not sure my son will go to Great Lakes at all, he's going through OCS in Newport now, and I think then goes to Pensacola for flight school.  The site looks great and useful, though, and I appreciate having it available!

No problem at all.  There's a lot to try to get a handle on.  After I posted I thought "maybe there's a Great Lakes in Fla, and I just don't understand", like it took me awhile to figure out what to put down as Zach's title.  I thought NA for naval aviator, then NFO, but that's different, I finally figured it's just Pilot, though I thought there should be an abreviation, so I still don't quite get it.

Thanks for allowing me in.

Thank you so much, I appreciate your time.