Alpha Battery Graduation

On February 19, 2010 we were honored to attend the Alpha Battery, 1st Battalion, 79th Field Artillery Basic Combat Training Graduation Ceremony at Fort Sill in Oklahoma.

It was so great to get to see where my brother had been for 9 weeks. We arrived on Wednesday evening, after a very long day of traveling, and stayed for the family day presentation Thursday and graduation Friday. We started out Wednesday with a 2+ hour drive to the Indianapolis airport. Then, ate lunch and headed to the dreaded security check. Going through security wasn't as bad on the way there as on the way back...let's just say, if I can avoid it, I will not be flying with my kids anytime soon! Some people can be really helpful and some people can be total jerks. I'll share one story (of the many from this trip) with you. We had to check two bags this trip because we just had too much for four people to carry on. So, we get to Dallas (our flight was from Indy to Dallas and then we drove the 3 hours up to Lawton/Ft. Sill, OK) and head to baggage claim. There are revolving doors to get in (weird and totally not accommodating to anyone with a stroller or wheelchair) so Artie and I decide that he will go in and get the bags and then meet us back out. Um yeah, so there was no sign posted but once he went in, he couldn't get back out. In the meantime, I'm holding the fort by myself with a ride-a-long stroller, Spencer in the seat at the front and one of the two car seats we were traveling with in the spot where Avery rides. I have the other car seat on my back in a carrier, along with the diaper bag and my huge "personal item" (aka overnight bag filled with toys for the kids, all kinds of snacks, my school books, portable dvd players...). Then in my other hand-that isn't pushing the stroller-I have both of our carry on pieces of luggage strapped to each other so they'll both roll together. Avery has her preschool backpack, which is about to topple her from the weight of everything inside. Okay, so security inside is screaming at Artie that he can't go back out and he's trying to tell them that I'm right outside the doors with all our stuff and the kids. They don't care. They keep telling him to call me-even though I see him and he sees me right through the revolving doors that I clearly can't get through with my long stroller-to tell me to come through the revolving doors. Ugh. Meanwhile, people are whizzing by me as they de-board planes and I'm trying to keep track of all my stuff and my 2-yr-old who pretty much has free reign at this point. Avery is trying to play in the revolving doors and I'm standing right there doing my best to not let her and a lady on the other side with Artie says in a very rude tone "where is her mother?!" Thankfully, my husband put her in her place, geez. Finally, a nice man who is returning a wheelchair to somewhere in the airport sees what's happening and offers to take me to a security check to get through to Artie. Well, he grabs the stroller-to help me out-and takes off and never looks back once. I freak out because Avery is slow as molasses with her backpack on and I have everything on my back and shoulders and one hand so all I can do is try to hold her hand. I keep encouraging her to go faster while keeping one eye on her and one eye on the man who has temporarily kidnapped my son when a random woman walking past us tells me that my daughter's backpack is falling off and she looks really uncomfortable and that I need to stop and help her and if I don't she will! OMG! So I said "look lady (yeah I said that but I was pretty much at the end of my patience rope here), see that guy up there, he has my son and I am trying my best to keep up with him because I do not know where he is going, thank you but we can't stop." Finally, we get to where the guy was taking us and it's a security point where people are going through the opposite way we're trying to go. Luckily, after the man with the wheelchair explains the situation, they stop people coming through and let me go through to Artie, waiting on the other side, with all of my stuff! Phew, sorry, there was no way to make that story short! Anyway, we made it and traveling was very stressful and I literally slept the whole day Sunday when we were home just to recover!

Now on to the actual graduation.

He was so happy for his first flight:) Unfortunately, our flights happened to be smack in the middle of nap time so we had a bit of a fussy guy towards the end of both flights, but he did really great:)

Jake's little corner of the world for his 9 weeks at Fort Sill (He was the top bunk).

His closet-reminded me a lot of college!

This name tag reminded me a bit of grade school! His platoon was called the Mad Dawgs:)

The start of the family day presentation. They did little demonstrations of everything they had been doing during training. I really liked the cool purple colored smoke they had (to the left)!

The Mad Dawgs marching in.

The presenters/MC. You can see peoples heads in this shot of other family members. This place was seriously packed! They had a ton of bleachers set up and there wasn't an empty seat anywhere!

A quick pic after the presentation. The soldiers had about 10 minutes to see family/friends before marching back to the bay to change into their Class A uniforms. This was the first time we had seen Jake since we'd gotten to Ok.

Family picture.

One last formation! Jake is 4th in from the left. This is the pad beneath the bay where he had numerous formations during his training.

Two very proud sisters of their little brother!

Right after graduation on Friday. Doesn't he look sharp in his Class A?! He already has a pin he gets to wear on his uniform for his sharp shooting skills:)

Family pic where everyone is pretty much looking!

Siblings:)

This is pretty much the only shot I got inside at the actual ceremony. This is how they sat for the entire hour of graduation. They weren't allowed to look anywhere or make a sound. Jake's second from the left. It was pretty cool because they went up row by row and said their names and where they were from:)

Jake had pass time both Thursday and Friday for about 8 hours each day and it was so nice to spend time with him. It was incredibly hard to say good bye when we dropped him off Friday night because I don't know when I get to see him next. He left for Georgia Saturday morning at 1am. He safely arrived at Fort Gordon (Augusta area) and is trying to get used to the freedom he has. He actually said he almost missed the discipline of basic! He was supposed to start his AIT this coming week, but will be a "holdover" for quite sometime, probably not starting for 1-2 months (and his AIT is 5 months long), so he's going to be in Georgia for awhile. We can't go see him until he phases up to phase 5 when he will get weekend passes. It takes a lot to phase up and I'm nervous that we won't get to see him until graduation! My daughter doesn't understand distance and keeps asking to play video games with Uncle Jake or go see him because she misses him-it's heartbreaking! Hopefully we'll get to start planning a trip to see him soon!

Thanks for reading, if you've hung on this long! I'm a little overwhelmed because I haven't been on a computer for much leisure time in almost two weeks so hopefully I'll get more pics of the kids up soon!