Our son called Sat afternoon. He sounded great. Very upbeat and energetic. He has received and enjoyed the letters that his mom and I as well as my parents wrote him.

Apparently DIs are very accomplished at getting in peoples faces and yelling. As my son said "Yes dad, they are much better at it than you are.". :?
He has been "drafted" to be in the Basic Training band though he does not seem too happy about that part of his basic experience.

He only had 5mins and he did most of the talking.

Lookin' good so far.

Best regards,

Thanks for the status on these functions.

I appreciate the effort you invest in keeping STalker land running.

Best regards,

My wife told him after the swearing in ceremony that she was proud of him.

He responded .... "Mom, I haven't done anything yet". :jawdrop:

Another jawdropping moment from my Skid. :O

I am so used to seeing him bask in the everyone gets a trophy praise for breathing that schools pump out these days that his comment actually surprised me.

Maybe he learned something of what his mom and I have been trying to engrain in him after all.

Time will tell.

The kid climbed in the cab for his hotel at 5:06 PM. We had an extra hour with him in the recruiter's office. It was enjoyable to spend an hour with a young recruiter, our son and four other young people.

Listening to their comments and plans for the future. Maybe, just maybe, our country is not as screwed as I fear that it is.

The recruiter ~25 just finished his 5th year in the service, is finishing up his bachelor's degree in marketing, is planning on staying in until he hits 20yrs, then retire and go private sector. I am very impressed with this young man.