Justin's BCT Graduation - Family Day

Since I have lots of time to kill, and JD is currently napping at the airport, I figure this would be the best time to tell you all about Justin's Graduation. Just to warn you, it will be long.

FAMILY DAY

Seriously, I have never been happier to see Justin in my entire life! It has been a long 10 weeks, and I was thrilled we were able to make it out to Ft. Jackson and see him. We arrived at Columbia, SC on Tuesday night. Family day was on Wednesday, and I felt like it was going to be the longest night and morning of my life. Before we were able to see our Soldier, we had to start off at Hilton Field, the place where they were going to have graduation. Family Day started at 10 a.m. and we got to Hilton Field at 9 a.m... It was a long hour, and JD was so ready to see Justin. He kept saying "I want to see Daddy." They of course started a few minutes late (not cool), but they started off with an interesting presentation of what they learned. Gerry compared it to Water World at Universal Studios.

  

 

 

 

 

 

     

Then the Lt. Colonel gave a little speech... He said he was going to keep it brief cause he knew that we just wanted to see our soldiers. He kept it short, but then his "right-hand man" (Command Sergeant Major) needed to give a speech also about what they learned. That was longer... then, they finally brought out the soldiers! They threw out smoke grenade-thingys, which was pretty awesome, and then through all of the smoke, the soldiers walked out. It was exciting and emotional all at the same time.

  

   

After a few more minutes of talking, we were finally able to get down to the field and find Justin. They had us sit in bleachers that was sectioned off by our soldier's Company, so it was a lot easier to find him, although I had no idea where the heck he was. After minutes of standing in front of the group, Justin finally walked out and it was definitely a bitter sweet moment. JD was so happy to see him!

 

After tears and hugs, we grabbed Justin and we got to spend time with him on the base. The first thing he wanted to do was eat. Unfortunately, they don't have the best food on base, so we settled with fast food. At first he wanted Burger King, and then he saw Taco Bell and wanted that instead. After eating and some catch up, we went to the Base's PX store, where they have no sales tax. We looked around for a little bit, and then decided to do something else.

We toured the Ft. Jackson Basic Training Museum, which was pretty interesting. It goes over a little bit of what the soldier's learn and showed some dioramas of what they did (Repelling, Shooting Ranges, Map of Ft. Jackson, etc), weapons they used, and compared some things from what it was like in the past to what it's like today.

  

 

 

Afterwards, we decided to do something fun for JD and went to a playground on base. JD has been loving playgrounds lately so this was so fun for him. Then, we went to get some ice cream from Burger King (not very good). We went back to the PX store and decided on some stuff we wanted to buy.

We headed over to Justin's Barrack (the building where they sleep), and got to see the building where Justin lived, but we didn't get to go inside his Bay (the actuall place where he slept). Each building is divided up into 4 Bays (4 sleeping rooms). There were 2 floors with 2 sleeping rooms on the "first floor" and 2 sleeping rooms on the "second floor." They were only touring one Bay, so we didn't get to see where Justin actually slept, but we got the general idea. The place was stinky and smelled like nasty cleaning chemicals they use at school, and the rooms were filled with lots of bunks. Justin said it was either cold on some nights, or hot on other nights... it was never really that "comfortable." As you can imagine, his bed wasn't really that comfy, but at the end of the day, it didn't really matter. Each Barrack also had 4 classrooms where they would go and learn about whatever they wanted them to learn.

It didn't feel like there was much we could really do on base, and so we headed back to the playground so JD could play, and our dads went back to get some stuff for Justin that was left at the hotel. Justin wasn't able to leave the base on Family Day.

For dinner we had Popeye's and JD was pretty tired by that point. He didn't take a nap at all that day, and once we got back into the car, he fell asleep. Our day with Justin ended a little short, but seeing that there wasn't much else to do on base once it was dark, we dropped Justin off back to his Barrack and we went back to the Hotel. When JD woke up from his nap, he asked where his dad was and cried when he couldn't see him.

More on Graduation Day on another post...