PIR and beyond

[Leah Gaylord]

Good morning all. Thought I'd update. My son, Justin, graduated on Friday, Oct 10. It was a wonderful ceremony. Not exactly what I envisioned but still great!!!! We went there and got to spend Fri, Sat, Sun & Mon (Monday only because it was Columbus Day) with him. He has definately grown up & matured in ways I thought would take years. There were 948 in his graduation and they all did great. To answer some questions that have been put out there before: Yes you can take baby strollers, the traffic line to get into base starts at 6 a.m. but it moves quickly to get you into the parking lot, DO NOT forget your green parking pass and identification for everyone in the car (not babies or real small children), When you get parked and out of your car, TAKE YOUR ID's with you, you will need them again!!! you just follow the masses into a building where you stand in line, when you get to the "registration" table, they ask for your recruits division and name then you show your ID again. Then you wait. We arrived in line to get into the base at 5:50 a.m., got thru the registration line by 6:45 and finally into the graduation hall by 7:20. They have signs up showing where each division will line up so you know where to sit. Then you wait. They show some cool videos to help keep you occupied while you wait. The ceremony starts promptly @ 9 and when the divisions start to come in it is magnificent!!!! Our PIR concluded @ 10:45 and as soon as its over, you are free to go down the bleachers to see your sailor. If they are a grad & go, you will only get about 20 minutes with them, if not grad & go, then you get the rest of Fri, Sat, & Sun until what ever time their div chief tells them to be back. They do have to return to base EVERY DAY!!! Keep in mind when you bring them back - they have quite a walk to get from the parking lot to their ship, so make sure to allow enough time for them to get to their ship without being late. If even one shipmate in a division is late, the chief can cancel liberty for the entire division. It was a wonderful experience for my son and our family. I did not want to leave him there. I wanted to bring him home with me. There were some tears and will probably be some more, but he is doing great & not regretting this decision. He shipped out to A school this morning in Pensecola Florida. Now we are just trying to get his A school start day moved up.
A HUGE THANK YOU to this website and everyone on it. Without it I would have been a huge mess!!! I will check in periodically to update as we go along. Please e-mail me or post questions anytime.
Leah - PROUD MOM OF A USN SAILOR

[Steve's Mom]

Glad you sailor is doing great! You sound like your doing good too. What a proud time :)

Just a few more suggestions for the new bootcamp moms reading this
if your pir package says grad and go and your sailor is going to A school in Great Lakes, you will get to see them all weekend.
If you want a division tshirt, you get them at the door, get them rite away, they sell out quick
We have had some lucky families that get to keep their sailor overnight and all they have to do in check in by phone. But this is rare on the site.

[Lucile]

We are staying at the Econo Lodge that states it's walking distance to the base. Did you see a line for people walking? Were they there as early as you?

[Becky M.]

I was one of those lucky moms that got to keep my son for overnight liberty the weekend of his 10/10 PIR. It was wonderful. He was Grad & Go but since he was only moving down the street in Great Lakes, he could spend all night with us. We didn't know this beforehand though and we had to leave very early Sunday morning. If we had known, we could've stayed with him through Monday.
It was a great weekend all around. Loved the PIR and loved spending time with my new sailor.