Scott's BCT Graduation

At the end of March, the 31st, Scott was ready to graduate Basic Combat Training.  I planned a trip to visit him and see graduation.  I was so excited!  By that time Scott had been gone for 10 weeks.  We had communicated very briefly about 3 times by phone.  Most of our communication had been through cards and letters.  I made arrangements for the kids to stay with Russ and Linda and Dan and Brandee.  Dan took me to the airport early on Tuesday morning.  I flew to Denver, Atlanta, and finally Columbia, South Carolina.  It was a long day of flying.  Getting a rental car didn't work out.  So after taking a cab I checked into a hotel.  It was an okay hotel, but you could sure hear everything going on in the hallways.  Wednesday was Family Day.  I tried to figure out my morning running route to get to Enterprise to rent a car so I could get to Ft. Jackson without having to use a taxi the whole time.  After talking with Scott I realized I didn't have to do that.  He hooked me up with a ride to Family Day with one of his buddies family.  They were so nice.  His buddy and his wife happen to live in Utah, although his family lives in South Carolina.  They were super gracious to pick me up and let me sit with them through the Family Day orientation.  For some reason I felt a little nervous to see Scott.  It had been a long time and I wasn't sure if he would be different or what.  It was a very rainy day.  The rain didn't start until after I got a run in that morning, but now it was pouring.

We were welcomed given some information, introduced to some of the people, and given the rules for the day.  It was true, no PDA (that is public displays of affection) for soldiers in uniform.  He was allowed to great me with a hug and a kiss, but that was it.  We weren't even allowed to hold hands in public throughout the day.  Okay, well that made it a little torturous, but okay.  After the orientation we were instructed to go out to the lawn and meet our soldier.

 
Well, there he is.  He blends in well with all the others.  He has lost weight.  I think he is looking for me.

I did notice some differences.  First of all, thinner and much more in shape.  He is definitely in the best shape of his life.  He also has a new sense of confidence that wasn't there before.  Also, I noticed a stress free look on his face.  And he was so polite.  He was polite not just to the Drill Sargent but to me and everyone else.  I liked it a lot.


On Family Day the soldiers were not allowed to leave the base.  The visitors had until 8:00pm.  Scott introduced me to some of his battle buddies and Drill  Sargents.  We decided to go to the PX and see if we could get our rental car I made arrangements for.  It wasn't ready so we did some shopping and got the kids some gifts.  The rental car ended up not being ready for awhile, about 2 hours.  So we had time just to sit and talk.  Scott introduced me to a few more of his battle buddies as the came by, but it was nice to just get caught up.  When we finally got our car we went to see a few more places on post.  We had a nice dinner at the officer's club, went to an open house with the branch missionaries, and visited the barracks. 

I then had to say goodnight and head back to my little motel.  I decided to get a nicer hotel for my visit with Scott the next day and so booked a room at the Marriot down the road.  I also found a gym I could go to the next morning.  My long run along the busy high way was okay that morning, but the forecast was for more rain and graduation started 2 hours earlier than Family Day.

On Thursday morning I drove back to Ft. Jackson for Graduation.  There were A LOT more people coming for the graduation than for family day.  Two of Scott's cousins, Jeannette and Joy were meeting me.  However, there was so many people and we were being packed into the gym because of the weather that I wasn't able to meet up with Jeannette and Joy until after the graduation ceremony.  

All the graduating soldiers were marched in.  There were introductions, ceremonial things, they sang and stated the Soldier's creed, honors were given to some.  It lasted only about 30 minutes which was great because most of us were standing, packed together.  It actually was very moving and patriotic.

After the ceremony I found Jeannette and Joy.  Then we went out to the lawn to find our soldier.  We were so happy to be together.  Jeannette and Joy found a place to have lunch.  After Scott said his goodbyes and thanks to a few people we joined them.  It was really nice to visit with Jeannette and Joy, we look forward to visiting with them again this summer when they are in Utah.  But we were anxious to just spend time together at the hotel.  Those few hours that we had together go right up there with our honeymoon.  It was amazing!  Having that time together though makes me miss him more now.

 Drill Sargent Wall.  I heard about her in a number of Scott's letters.  She doesn't seem so intimidating and mean to me--what is he talking about? :)

By 8:00pm or rather 2000 hours I had to take Scott back to the post and say goodbye.  That was hard.

I hope that when Scott gets back home he will add to our blog his own insights and experiences.  I'd like to have his view of his time during BCT.

I had a fairly uneventful day flying back to Utah.  We did have to sit on the runway in South Carolina for 40 extra minutes because Atlanta was so busy there was no place for us to land.  And then in Atlanta there was a plane jam.  The plane got in line on the runway to take off.  It took 45 minutes to get to the front of the line.  Wow, big airport with lots of traffic.  Thankfully I didn't have another connecting flight and just got to relax until I got to Salt Lake.  And that was the last time I did relax for a while.  Dan picked me up at the airport, I got the kids from Dan and Brandee's.  We went straight to the church to help with the Young Women fundraiser spaghetti dinner.  We were home by 8:30pm.  Put the kids to bed.  I got up the next morning at 5:00am and packed up our X-terra.  Woke the kids up at 8:00am put them in the car and we took off for a week in Arizona.