Daughter arrived at RTC Feb 21st. Just found your group

[tpadul]

Hello!! 

This is my first official time being on this amazing message board!  I finally got access to this site yesterday and had been waiting since April 2016 to get approved. I'm so glad they cleared up thousands of old inactive accounts so those of us that are brand new and need this support so much were able to finally get added!!

My name is Michelle and I am the very proud mom of my SR daughter! She is 19yrs old will be 20 in August and she just arrived at RTC on Tues Feb 21st. Her PIR date is set for 4-21-17 provided no mishaps occur in BC.  So far so good I think as no calls yet except for the "I am here" call means good news at least in terms of physical and medical issues, fingers crossed. But this mamma is very worried about her emotional health and how is she handling this emotionally.  I'm very sad because as of today 18 days after her arrival to RTC I still don't have her initial form letter that was mailed out yet, and so far no personal letters yet either, but I know they were just allowed to first write letters home this past Sunday and some Mom's already got their personal letters yesterday, so I've been very sad.  After 11 days went by and so many other mom's in another group I am on got their form letters in the mail, I contact her recruiter and she gave me my daughter's ship and division. And her Division was the first one formed that day so I should have received the letter by now as all the other Divisions that formed after hers have all sent their letters home and the parents received them.  So, I'm left thinking the mail got messed up, I don't trust it too much anyways. :-(  But I've mailed her 9 letters and cards since last week and I'm hoping at least by Today or tomorrow she should have some of them.

We are Chicago natives, and she processed at the Chicago MEPS so she had only a short wait at O'hare while they waited for other's to arrive at the airport and then the short bus ride up to Great Lakes. 

I moved to Northwest Indiana two years ago but we are only 45 minutes from downtown Chicago so I still consider Illinois and Chicago to be my home. 

I am an Officer with Immigration and I have had the very unique experience of being able to spend an entire year up at Great Lakes, twice a week for one whole year from 2012 to 2013 naturalizing the new recruits at RTC that were not yet U.S. citizens when they joined the Navy.  Our Immigration office in Chicago has a program were we travel up to Great Lakes twice a week, we take the biometrics and fingerprints from the recruits and help them complete the citizenship application, then we interview them and then swear them in and give them the Oath of Allegiance as brand new American Citizens right before they graduate from RTC.  So during that one year, I fingerprints, tested, and interviewed and swore in hundreds of new Sailors at RTC. I had the unique experience of seeing them during their trainings, talking to them about how they liked boot camp, because at the time my daughter was only a Sophomore in High School and I was hoping she would join the Navy, so I was trying to find out as much about the experience in Boot Camp as possible.  

Normally we had our naturalization ceremonies on Weds mornings and many of those Sailors had just passed their Battle Stations early that morning and were dog tired and falling asleep in the ceremony when I was making them new citizens, and now I am getting a much better understanding of why they were tired, and also understanding so much more about why many of them were so eager to want to make a phone call home when we needed to get more information from their parents about their possible citizenship status, as some of them were already U.S. citizens but they didn't realize it yet because their parent or parents had naturalized already before they turned 18, so we would have them make calls home to their family to find out more specifics about when their parents became citizens. I remember distinctly how so many of them were telling the person on the other end of the phone that they were fine and to please stop crying because they had to hurry up and get the information and get off the phone. I would let them try to talk as long as they could to their family member but sometimes I had to make them hurry up because many others were waiting to make calls home.  OMG now I totally know why they were so happy to have spoken to their families.  Little did I realize just hard how this separation was.

My daughter is my only child, and she has dreams of getting her degree in Fashion and working in the Fashion industry after  the Navy.  She has the rate of QM, Quarter Master and I am very excited to know that her A school is in Great Lakes because that way I could possibly see her a few times while she is still in the area.  She is hoping to get stationed in San Diego because she finally wants to live in a semi-warm climate and is tired of cold Chicago winters. 

I have a younger cousin in the Navy now, he is in Japan and has been in for the last 6 years and loves it, he is young only about 26 and joined when he was 19, and over the past two years he has helped us learn a lot about the Navy.  

My Grandfather  on my father's side was in the Navy during WW II and was stationed at Great Lakes for a while as a Training officer.  I also have a great Uncle on my mother's side that was in the Navy and died on board the USS Vincennes that was sunk by Japanese off the Solomon Islands August 9, 1942.

I'm excited about my daughter's journey and I am so proud of her that she agreed with me that the Navy was the best way to start her life out. I told her that her time in was going to mature her and prepare her more for a successful life and give her the discipline and organizational skills she needed to do well in college.   

[2Navyladies]

Hi! I sent you a personal request so we can chat soon.