Robert S.'s Comments

I was stationed at Ft. Carson, CO in the 70's and use to make the run home with a couple of others from Ohio, in right about 24 with only gas stops...........guess old age is catching up. The drive wasnt bad it was the lack of talk radio..............I am hooked on talk radio, hate the sports though.........................lol.

The trip wasnt too bad................dont know which way your going, coming from Cleveland I went I71 - I75 - I65 then Rt 29/113 right to Fl.
Going through AL was boring !!!!!!!! Unless you have Sirus or other sat radio expect limited choices of radio once outside of Nashville heading south..............country/local talk and sports/local preachers/latino and not much else. Except for a few bad sections (normal Ohio roads), in the major cities and construction zones, the speed limit once out of Ohio was 70, it was about 17 hours each way stopping only for gas and fast food. It only cost me about 80 each way for gas (driving a Merc Mariner). As for hotels, I stayed at the Quality right outside the main gate as it was close by, and we werent sure when he would be released to come home, and we made several load up trips as he packed more stuff.............next trip I will drive about 10 minutes west 0n Rt90 away from the base, same level of hotels but at about 1/2 the cost. Food............Ruby Tuesday right down from the base was great (10% off for him with his ID), and waffle house was good (I couldnt eat the whole breakfast, under 7.00). For directions I went to the AAA site and used their on-line trip ticket option..........not perfect but quick and free. Two big heads ups................ you cant drive past stopped school buses on multi-lane roadways as you can here in Ohio and the speed limit is enforced strictly on those of us with out of state plates.

Unless the weather goes really bad I am driving down. The Navy in the infinate wisdom is giving him 2 weeks before he has to report back to Corry Station (about 2 blocks away from his school barracks). Needless to say they don't have any place for him to store his stuff for 2 weeks, so he has to drag it all home and back. So after looking at the fact he has a couple of boxes of junk plus all of his uniforms and civies, it's almost as cheap to drive down and since all the airlines charge for extra bags/boxes, and he won't have to try and drag it all through airports.

My son is at Pensacola (Corry Station), and also a CTN. If I remember correctly it was less less then a month before he was allowed "very" limited off base priviliges.........basically to and from the WalMart down the road from the gate was as far as he went. I am planning on going down in about 2 weeks to pick him after after C School graduation.

Great Idea thanks for the tip. I have been typing my letters so they take up less space.
At what point did you start reciving letters?

Just got a call from Eric...Everyone passed Battle Stations from Division 080!!!

Hey check this one out:
http://www.navy.mil/navydata/cno/n87/usw/issue_7/bootcamp.htm

Hey, we received another letter today from Eric. It was dated on 1/2/09. He said they are starting to get into the good stuff(live weapons fire and the Marlin Spike) now and that the division is starting to really come together. He said that there are still a couple of knuckle heads who keep talking and getting the entire division in trouble, but they are getting better. He even said that the RDC called them "Sailors" the other day instead of "recruits", which made the entire division feel pretty good, then someone started screwing around the next day and they all had to do some IT(intensive training). Hopefully they'll all learn soon:) He said too that on Monday, they were supposed to be talking to the Navy Federal Credit Union reps to help set up their banking and pictures on Friday.

Robert,
Thank you so much for letting us know what is going on! You are so correct in thinking about it the same way that I was. I thought that maybe the holidays would throw off their training schedule. It looks as though they are combining weeks 3-5 in their training cycles. I'd read on N4M that Division 080 will be doing their PT tests, have 2 big inspections, fire live weapoons, and the Marlin Spike this week. Then on the 15th they have their pictures done and on the 23rd they have Battle Stations and officiall become "Sailors". On the 28th they are supposed to be getting their plane tickets and orders for "A" schools. This is what one of the kids from Div 080 wrote to his mother. It's nice to know that some of the kids know what is going on(I'm sure not hearing it from Eric;)
I agree with you that I'd be at his PIR even if it meant that we were only with him for a few minutes. That is really neat that your son's Grandfather is going to be there and he is a Navy WWII veteran. I'm sure that he'll very much appreciate it.

Oh, we're so glad that you were able to get a letter from him. Sounds as though things are going well for the division(except for the letter writers from the "brother" company. That's interesting, when I was at bootcamp, we called them our "sister" company. Must not have been politically correct. I've been trying to figure out what phase of training that they are in. My assumption is that they are at the end of week 4 or 5. There are a couple of places where you can look and see what those weeks look like and what their training will be consisting of. It was probably nice to hear your son's voice too, even though it was pure business. They should be getting a bit more free time and the RDC's should possibly be backing off of them a bit now. They are more than half-way home now. My hope is that they are all finding their life-changing experience a positive one and I'm looking forward to seeing the transformation from my boy to him being a man.

Yeah, we kind of do the same thing here. We watch all of the bowl games from start to end. This year has been kind of boring though. Sorry to see that the Tide didn't roll last night. I still believe that they need to have a playoff system for Division I football. I don't know if Utah would beat Florida or Oklahoma, but I'd sure like to see it be done on a field instead of computer rankings and opinions. Have you recently heard from your son Robert? We've not heard hide nor hair from Eric when he'd called on Christmas Eve. Mom's not liking that but I'd told her that the boys are probably working their tails off.

Ouch!!! The dawgs put a whopin on the Spartans today. Eric will be disappointed(much like dad), but they did out-play them. That little running back(Mareno) is pretty good, so is the GA QB. I thought that both teams played a bit sloppy though. Congrats down in the Peach State!

LOL...I'm hoping the underdogs take on the Dawgs and pull off the upset. Eric's classmate is #96 Kevin Pickleman for Michigan State. He's a defensive tackle. Eric used to play next to him when they'd played football together. We layed low for New Years and hung out with some friends. Didn't do much drinking or mess with the crazies at all. We have a friend who recently picked up a DUI after a Christmas party. I'd really hate to be in hi shoes right now:( Please have a great day and again GO SPARTANS:)

Robert...Happy New Year to you and your family. GO SPARTANS beat those dawgs!!! :)

Yeah, we still have 2000 w/o power in our county. We are used to that kind of stuff though and just roll with the punches. What is one supposed to do except move on?:) Yes, we did read that in his grad packet and I'm ticked that I hadn't picked that up earlier. Apparently there are 5-6 other guys in the Division that are staying at Great Lakes along with Eric. We went out this morning and picked up a small artificial tree and some lights so that we can celebrate Christmas with him on that weekend. We hope that he is allowed to check-in and then go on liberty for the rest of the weekend. If I were in your shoes, I'd do as you'd suggested and visit him in Pensecola. I was stationed there and having been to many Navy bases, I can honestly say that NAS Pensecola was one of the nicest bases that I've ever been to.

We just arrived home from up north. What a stinker is was...we left at 8:00am this morning and just drove into the yard. There were blizzard-like conditions for the first 4 hours of the drive. Snow and 50mph winds. We were driving about 25mph during that time:) I did check Eric's grad packet and that division is Grad n Go. Again, I hope that after he checks in on Friday, that they give him liberty. I too agree with you that you'd be better off visiting him at Pensecola(one of the most beautiful bases in the Navy) because he'll have more time and things won't be so hectic. I hope that we have the opportunity to meet you folks while your there.

That is my hope, we are staying at the Residence Inn right up the road from GL. We plan on baking a small turkey and maybe a small ham and have our Christmas dinner and stuff with him there. I certainly hope that they give him liberty after he checks in. We'll see when that happens:)

Where is your son supposed to be attending "A" school? I can't believe that the whole division is grad and go. My wife has been on N4M for a few weeks and some of those poor ladies are going crazy. Again, Eric is supposed to stay right there at GL after graduation, so we're planning on spending the whole weekend over there.

Yeah, we're hoping that we have one waiting. We're heading back south tomorrow. We have a friend whom we've talked to in our hometown and she said that it's almost 55 degrees there today...wow, what a change! I'm not sure about the grad and go for Division 080. I do know that Eric is supposed to be going to "A" School at Great Lakes so he doesn't have far to go:) I'd have to look to see what his grad packet says.