Comments

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  David R February 16, 2009 at 8:21pm

  I was stationed at Ft. Carson, CO in the 70's and use to make the run home with a couple of others from Ohio, in right about 24 with only gas stops...........guess old age is catching up. The drive wasnt bad it was the lack of talk radio..............I am hooked on talk radio, hate the sports though.........................lol.
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  David R February 15, 2009 at 4:50pm

  The trip wasnt too bad................dont know which way your going, coming from Cleveland I went I71 - I75 - I65 then Rt 29/113 right to Fl.
  Going through AL was boring !!!!!!!! Unless you have Sirus or other sat radio expect limited choices of radio once outside of Nashville heading south..............country/local talk and sports/local preachers/latino and not much else. Except for a few bad sections (normal Ohio roads), in the major cities and construction zones, the speed limit once out of Ohio was 70, it was about 17 hours each way stopping only for gas and fast food. It only cost me about 80 each way for gas (driving a Merc Mariner). As for hotels, I stayed at the Quality right outside the main gate as it was close by, and we werent sure when he would be released to come home, and we made several load up trips as he packed more stuff.............next trip I will drive about 10 minutes west 0n Rt90 away from the base, same level of hotels but at about 1/2 the cost. Food............Ruby Tuesday right down from the base was great (10% off for him with his ID), and waffle house was good (I couldnt eat the whole breakfast, under 7.00). For directions I went to the AAA site and used their on-line trip ticket option..........not perfect but quick and free. Two big heads ups................ you cant drive past stopped school buses on multi-lane roadways as you can here in Ohio and the speed limit is enforced strictly on those of us with out of state plates.
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  David R February 2, 2009 at 1:33pm

  Unless the weather goes really bad I am driving down. The Navy in the infinate wisdom is giving him 2 weeks before he has to report back to Corry Station (about 2 blocks away from his school barracks). Needless to say they don't have any place for him to store his stuff for 2 weeks, so he has to drag it all home and back. So after looking at the fact he has a couple of boxes of junk plus all of his uniforms and civies, it's almost as cheap to drive down and since all the airlines charge for extra bags/boxes, and he won't have to try and drag it all through airports.
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  David R February 1, 2009 at 4:09pm

  My son is at Pensacola (Corry Station), and also a CTN. If I remember correctly it was less less then a month before he was allowed "very" limited off base priviliges.........basically to and from the WalMart down the road from the gate was as far as he went. I am planning on going down in about 2 weeks to pick him after after C School graduation.
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  Michael B - PIR 3/20/09 January 26, 2009 at 8:50pm

  Great Idea thanks for the tip. I have been typing my letters so they take up less space.
  At what point did you start reciving letters?
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  Bob January 23, 2009 at 3:00pm

  Just got a call from Eric...Everyone passed Battle Stations from Division 080!!!
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  Bob January 7, 2009 at 9:24pm

  Hey check this one out:
  http://www.navy.mil/navydata/cno/n87/usw/issue_7/bootcamp.htm
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  Bob January 7, 2009 at 4:59pm

  Hey, we received another letter today from Eric. It was dated on 1/2/09. He said they are starting to get into the good stuff(live weapons fire and the Marlin Spike) now and that the division is starting to really come together. He said that there are still a couple of knuckle heads who keep talking and getting the entire division in trouble, but they are getting better. He even said that the RDC called them "Sailors" the other day instead of "recruits", which made the entire division feel pretty good, then someone started screwing around the next day and they all had to do some IT(intensive training). Hopefully they'll all learn soon:) He said too that on Monday, they were supposed to be talking to the Navy Federal Credit Union reps to help set up their banking and pictures on Friday.
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  Bob January 6, 2009 at 4:37am

  Robert,
  Thank you so much for letting us know what is going on! You are so correct in thinking about it the same way that I was. I thought that maybe the holidays would throw off their training schedule. It looks as though they are combining weeks 3-5 in their training cycles. I'd read on N4M that Division 080 will be doing their PT tests, have 2 big inspections, fire live weapoons, and the Marlin Spike this week. Then on the 15th they have their pictures done and on the 23rd they have Battle Stations and officiall become "Sailors". On the 28th they are supposed to be getting their plane tickets and orders for "A" schools. This is what one of the kids from Div 080 wrote to his mother. It's nice to know that some of the kids know what is going on(I'm sure not hearing it from Eric;)
  I agree with you that I'd be at his PIR even if it meant that we were only with him for a few minutes. That is really neat that your son's Grandfather is going to be there and he is a Navy WWII veteran. I'm sure that he'll very much appreciate it.
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  Bob January 4, 2009 at 11:07am

  Oh, we're so glad that you were able to get a letter from him. Sounds as though things are going well for the division(except for the letter writers from the "brother" company. That's interesting, when I was at bootcamp, we called them our "sister" company. Must not have been politically correct. I've been trying to figure out what phase of training that they are in. My assumption is that they are at the end of week 4 or 5. There are a couple of places where you can look and see what those weeks look like and what their training will be consisting of. It was probably nice to hear your son's voice too, even though it was pure business. They should be getting a bit more free time and the RDC's should possibly be backing off of them a bit now. They are more than half-way home now. My hope is that they are all finding their life-changing experience a positive one and I'm looking forward to seeing the transformation from my boy to him being a man.