ODS Graduation & PCS to Bethesda

About a week before the end of Audrey’s Officer Development School, we received a small white envelope in the mail. Inside was our invitation to the ODS graduation on 24-July-09. We had anticipated this event and I had arranged for travel for the family (Audrey’s mother and brother and myself) to Boston with a drive down to Newport.


It was great to see Audrey looking so confident in her summer white uniform the evening before graduation. The class hosts a reception for friends and family attending the graduation at the Officers’ Club on base and we were able to meet some of her peers, along with the Sr. Chiefs who had provided training for the students. Vice Adm. John Mateczun (the highest ranking MD in the Navy, I think) was the guest of honor at graduation the next day and we were fortunate to be able to meet him (picture). The Executive Officer of OTCN also attended the reception and we met Cdr. Julie O’Neil as well.

Graduation the next morning was held indoors due to inclement weather (unfortunate since the circumstances didn’t allow for much marching and some of the ceremony was scaled back). However, Adm. Mateczun gave a very nice speech and awards were presented to the top students in various categories. I’ll include pictures of Audrey’s company (Victor) as well as her first salute from the Sr. Chief attached to Victor Company.

At the conclusion of the ceremony, students were detached from Officer Training Command Newport and ordered to report as per their individual written orders to their next duty station. For Audrey, that is Bethesda, MD and she was to report not prior to August 5, so we had about 10 days of vacation. We visited parts of New England (waved to the sub base at Groton on the way to the ferry from New London, CT to Orient Pt, NY on Long Island), and through New Jersey and Delaware and the eastern shore of Maryland and Virginia on the way to Washington, DC. We had a few days helping her get settled in her apartment (base housing at the National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda is nearly non-existent) before we flew home.

She reported for duty 05-Aug and completed in-processing the next week. Orientation for her medical school program was last week and she completes her first week of studies in medicine today. Her courses in Anatomy & Physiology, Biochemistry, Military Studies, “Human Context”, and “Intro to Clinical Medicine” – these are foremost in her thoughts right now. She says that already the quantity of material seems just a bit overwhelming, but she’s developing strategies for coping... One week down and four years to go.

She called last night to say that she was appointed a platoon sergeant for operations (the operations leadership is encompasses all military services in the class (so includes Army and Air Force in addition to the Navy), and while elsewhere a "sergeant" role would be filled by an enlisted person, the med school class is all officers, so this is a leadership position for their off-campus maneuvers). She also interviewed for a position as a platoon leader for administration for the Navy company of students.

Her mother and I are adjusting to the three-hour time difference (after six years of her living away from home while in college and working as an EMT but in the same state). While she reports to class in uniform and is subject to military discipline and procedures on the base (campus), her off-duty time is her own (what little is not consumed with studying).

If any of you are curious about the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, the school was profiled in the recent independent film, “Fighting for Life” that was shown on PBS television stations last Spring (and might be shown again in re-runs). The film connects medical and nursing programs at the school with the work of alumni serving in combat support hospitals in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the airlift programs that bring our wounded home for convalescence.

As you can discern from the length of these posts, we’re very proud of our sailor and her commitment and resolve, as I’m sure all of you here at NavyDads are of your sailors. Her path might be a bit different but no more or less valuable and rewarding. I’ll try to remember to keep you updated as the Navy parts of her trajectory play out.

JL