Ship 11 Div 366 - PIR 092713

[Jason Wagner]

Got our form letter from our daughter on Friday 080913! Very Excited!! Pretty sure she is in an Integrated Division. Just wanted to create a space to reach out and keep in touch with those of you with SR's in the same Ship and Division. 

My daughter's rate will be STG once she completes "A" School. From what my wife (who basically LIVES on navyformoms.com lately) and I have been able to gather, there may actually be one or more STG's in her or her sister division, which we think is 365. 

We live in Las Vegas and will be there for PIR. We have already secured plane tickets, hotel room, and car rental. 

Hope to hear from some of you out there. Hooyah Navy!

[Peter A. Barber Sr]

Jason, We received our son's (Peter) letter on Saturday! The power of prayer. My wife would never have made it thru the weekend if it had not gotten here. He is also on ship 11 div. 366. His job will be an e-pact fireman/mechanic. He will be attending "A" school in GL. We have also made plane and hotel reservations. From what we have read, we should be able to spend most of the weekend with him. As you said it was good to "hear" from him. We got a short note as well. Still was a relief!!
Good luck to your daughter Savannah. See you at PIR. GO NAVY!!

[Jason Wagner]

Great to hear Peter! I'll let you know if we hear anything on our end. With the fact that your SON is in 366, I guess that clarifies whether or not they are in an integrated division! LOL! 

[Lance Pixler]

Jason & Peter,  Received our son's (Mike) letter today. Thank goodness as my wife has been going crazy waiting and wanting to send letters. He is also in Ship 11 Div 366. He will be going to Pensacola FL for A school with an AC rating. Will be making our reservations today for PIR. Hope to keep in touch with you all over the coming weeks and to meet you at PIR. Hear there is a "meet and greet" the night before that we plan to attend. Hope to maybe catch you there. This (navy) is all pretty new to us so we are learning as we go. Good luck to all our sons and daughters (and wife's). Stay in touch and look forward to meeting everyone. GO NAVY!

[Peter A. Barber Sr]

Jason and Lance, congrats on finally receiving your letters, but more importantly congrats to not only our children, but to all the young adults that have chosen the Navy to kick start their lives. The Navy is new to our family also. We are taking it day by day. My wife Patty is on the navy moms feed and has picked up a lot of useful info. We will also be attending the meet and greet. We are already counting the days(46) to PIR. From what I have read it is quite an emotional and proud time in our families lives. Keep in touch and look forward to meeting you in GL. God Bless you and your families.

[Jason Wagner]

Gentlemen! Good to hear from you Lance! Glad you got your letter! I know we (my wife and I) and Peter and his wife were becoming mailman stalkers! lol We will be going to Sarge's Meet and Greet as well so I'm sure we'll be able to meet face to face. For us, the Navy's not so new. I am a former Marine, my wife is prior Navy, my dad and uncle are both former Marines, my brother is prior Air Force, my grandpa was prior Navy, and the list keeps on going. Heck, I had a great-uncle that was actually in the Army Air Corps before it became the Air Force! So our daughter comes from a long line of military service and tradition. But trust me when I say this, it really makes it no easier. She is such a part of our lives that there is like a hole within the house now that she is gone. Even the cats know something is different! Honestly, there is no way I could handle this without God being in my corner. With Him at my side, I really don't worry about her. I know that whatever she encounters, whatever happens to her, that it will in someway, serve a purpose for the Lord. Of course I miss her deeply and sometimes painfully, but the reality of it is, I know God's got this, and that through Him, she's got this as well. I can't wait to watch her on the journey He has in store for her. Really glad to have met you guys. 

[Peter A. Barber Sr]

Still waiting for a letter from Pete. It's killing me.Any word from Mike or Savannah?

[Lance Pixler]

Peter, Still nothing here. Hoping tomorrow we get something. It is driving my wife crazy. She was on Navy wife's today and came across some random pictures taken Aug 13th. She came running into my office crying and showing me a picture she thinks is our son. It does resemble our son, but I can only give it a 70% shot that its him. She however swears its him ;-)  So I thinks she fells a little better tonight. Anyway, you might check it out and see if you can spot Pete. Go to Navy Moms - In the box that appears at the top is " Survival guide for Navy Mom newbies - click that and than click Recruit training command facebook page - then scroll down till you see Random Photos 13 Aug 2013.  They are all in yellow shirts. Hope you get lucky and spot him. I hear they might update this page every week. Will let you know as soon as we get a letter from Mike. Good luck.

[Peter A. Barber Sr]

How do we even know that's our division? I didn't see any sign of Pete. He wears glasses so that makes it a little easier. Lol. Hoping for some news today. Patty seems to think we will get a phone call. Fingers crossed.

[NavyDads Admin (Paul)]

you guys don't have to go thru all the intermediate steps: RTC album page at https://www.facebook.com/NavyRecruitTrainingCommand

and you can right click those photos, save to your computer and post here for those that don't use FB

[Jason Wagner]

Mornin' Fellas! Nope, haven't heard from Savannah yet. Wasn't really expecting too this week though. From what we've been able to gather, the SR's are allowed to start writing AFTER the third week from when they got there, depending on, of course, the RDC's. For our division, that put's the kids being able to start writing this Sunday (tomorrow). I say Sunday b/c from what I've seen, it looks like in the beginning, the SR's are only allowed to write on Sundays, which would put the mail out on Monday/Tuesday, us receiving a letter say sometime between Thursday and Saturday, depending on how far we all are from GL.

Still, that doesn't mean I'm not checking the mailbox the second I get home everyday!! Hopefully, our "figuring" is all off and we get a call sometime this weekend!

One other thing, and you guys might want to prepare your wives for this, as well as yourself, the first letter or two, may be a little disheartening. Their first letter generally has a tone of homesickness, "this is really hard", "what am I doing here", and sometimes even panic. THIS IS NORMAL :) :) :) Remember, their world has been ROCKED, and regardless of how we raised them, regardless of how we tried to prepare them for life, this military way of life is a true shock to them both physically and mentally. We found my wife's letters that she sent to her parents at the beginning of boot camp when she went through RTC. The first couple were written in just that, shock. But the second was better, and by the third, she was talking about what she was DOING at boot camp, instead of how she was FEELING at boot camp. I spoke with my mom just to see if she remembered what my first few letters were like when I went through boot camp (unfortunately, we lost my letters to a house fire a few years ago). She seemed to remember that my first one was a shell shocked, but that the second one was a complete 180. She also said I didn't write very often and that that was really hard for her. However, she also said that it was at that point that she realized that she was entering the stage of my life that had become, no news is good news.

Keep in mind, our SR's may not write as much as we are hoping they will. Again, that is normal. They have a TREMENDOUS amount of stuff on their plates right now and often, the time they are allotted to write letters, will end up going to studying, ironing, practicing drill (marching), working out, studying, ironing, etc. As tough as that is, as bad as I want her to write, if she is busting her hump, trying to get promoted or helping her shipmates be better prepared or helping the division be stronger, I'll sacrifice a letter from her, choosing to believe that she is doing exactly what I raised her to do; work hard and care about and help others. 

Now, all that being said, if I don't get a letter, you guys may have to come check me out of the looney bin to attend PIR!

Here's a positive spin though. On the N4M website (sorry, Navy For Moms), there is a link http://www.navyformoms.com/group/bootcampmoms/page/letter-writing-f... (if you can't click on that link, just copy and paste it into your browser) that gives letter writing advice. Towards the bottom, are some questionnaires that you can save/print out/customize and send to your son's to fill out and send back. We've done this already a couple of times. When you do that, be sure to include a S.A.S.E so all they have to do is fill it out, stick it in the envelope, and hand it to their Postal RPO. Also, we printed the questionnaire using both sides of the paper, so that way it cut down on paper so we would be able to stick the envelope in with the questionnaire and not have to need any additional postage. We send all of out letters out using business sized envelopes and we include a small letter sized envelope when sending out the questionnaires b/c it fits perfectly in the bigger one.

Those photos on the RTC page were great! Knowing that the chance of seeing Savannah is quite literally, 1 in 1000, maybe even 1 in 5000 depending on how many divisions they have at any one time, it's still awesome to see ANY SR doing something! I looked through each one looking for her, she wears glasses too, hoping for a glimpse, but by the time I got through about half of them, I realized that the men in the pic's all had fades going on for haircuts and figured that it was a more senior division than ours. Still, I kept looking!

Well, here's hoping that my and Amy's calculations are off and that we all get phone calls and or letters this week. Praying for you guys...

[Peter A. Barber Sr]

My wife just got a call from Pete. She is now in the Target parking lot crying. He said he is doing well. More later when I can understand what Patty is saying lol. Hope the rest of you get calls!!!!!! Out for now.

[Jason Wagner]

I got a call about 30 minutes ago while I was out. Have to fill you guys in a little bit. Gotta tell Amy all that was said! I'm pretty sure my daughter knows both Mike and Pete!