We are back from SC!!!!
And I'm so pooped out I can hardly keep my eyes open (but I better because I'm at the office....lol). We arrived at our rental home late last Wednesday only to find out the rental agent forgot to notify the guard we were coming (the house is on Fripp Island which is a gated community); so I had to call the owner on the cell phone, then let the guard speak to her, and then he had to print out a car pass with the dates of our stay. Finally.....we were able to get into our house. It was 2 stories with 3 bedrooms and 3 baths. Nice.We got up early Thurs. morning and headed to Parris Island for family day. Waiting in the "all weather" facility for the troops to march in was the hardest part. We sat thru a short movie about what our Marine went through during his bootcamp training. After about 30 minutes, they opened up a big garage door and in marched all of the platoons! Jacob was in the first platoon...#2080. I told everyone to look for him...that he would have on glasses. We kept trying to guess which one was him. But I was wrong....He had in his contacts. After a short speech by some of the "higher ups", the platoons were dismissed to come find their families. Of course I was crying like a baby as we all hugged him. He was kind of in a daze and said he didn't know how to act since he hadn't been around "civilians" for 3 months. I thought that was funny....calling his family civilians.Then he took us on a walking tour around base. He took us into his squadbay where he slept for the last few weeks. He actually had 3 different squadbays during training. Lots of bunk beds all made up very neatly (my sister-in-law told me to tell Jacob to teach her how to make up a bed while he's home...lol). The beds are called "racks", and he slept on the top rack and his "rackmate" slept on the bottom. He showed us the "head" which is the bathroom, and the showers. He gave me his pictures he had made of himself in his dress blues uniform, and a big portrait of his platton. Then we walked around some more. He showed us the building where he arrived on his first day that have the famous "yellow footprints" painted on the street where he had to stand when he first arrived. He said that when they first arrived at Parris Island and came to the first guard shack at the entrance, the MP made them all put their heads down so they were not supposed to see exactly which way they were going. Then when the shuttle arrived at the check-in building, he was the first one off the shuttle and had to stand on the yellow footprints in front of everyone else. This is where training started and the yelling started.Then we walked around some more. He showed us where he ate "chow", where the clothing issue building was, where he got his hair cut, the obstacle courses and the firing range. I bet we walked at least 3 miles.Afterwards, we got a Subway boxed lunch at the visitors center, and sat in there and ate and talked. Then we drove to the new MCX store on base so Jacob could purchase a few things. Family Day ended at 3pm and Jacob had to go back to his platoon.Family Day Thursday, the temperature was in the high 60's and just a little chilly. Friday...Graduation Day....we all dressed warmly and headed back to Parris Island. There was an arctic wind blowing and it was so cold. Graduation took place outside, and there was not enough seating so we had to stand up. Took about an hour and a half. But the ceremony was really nice. The band played and marched and then finally the platoons all marched out in the dress green uniforms. Jacob said that the Crucible ended on Saturday Nov. 15 and afterwards they marched to the Parade Deck for the Globe & Anchor Ceremony. This is when a recruit is given the title of Marine. I wish we could have been there to see that. After graduation we went back to his squadbay so he could get all of his gear. We loaded up the van, went back to the MCX store so Jacob could buy some civilian clothes, then headed back to Fripp Island after stopping for lunch along the way. We stayed Friday night in the house, then got up Sat. morning, cleaned up the house and left around 10am. We didn't get back home until Saturday night around 8.I took 4 rolls of 35mm film (my digital camera is broke), so I will try to get some pictures posted here when I get them back.
