What to expect

[Mommamac MM(CVN77)]

Our son leaves for basic training in 30 days and we do not know what to expect. He has attended UF for the last 4 years and made the decision to join the Navy. We are very proud of him and we know that he has made the right decision to serve his country. Any help or advise for my husband and myself would be greatly appreciated to help us with his departure. The lack of not being able to talk to him will be extremly hard.

[lemonelephant]

Breathe and take one day at a time.

You may wish to join the group, Leavin' for bootcamp in October or October Boot Camp Family. You will meet others with loved ones leaving the same day/week who may be in the same TG and have PIR together. I also suggest you join New Members Stop Here and check out the Pages and Discussions there.

Your future Sailor may want to join http://www.navydep.com to learn the ins and outs from the DEP point of view. Craig runs that and will steer you to some good links on there.

Here are some things you need to do:

1. Assist your future Sailor in getting his slim black wallet ready. (See the discussion, Help (clickable link), to know what he needs to take.)

a. Decide if he is going to use NFCU (I suggest that he does.) or his own financial institution. He will need to have form 1199A completed at his bank (the bank has the form) if he will use that and put the form in his wallet. b. Get the calling card numbers.

2. Help you future Sailor decide what he will wear to MEPS and if he will take a change of clothes or not. He must have clean underwear (boxers) and socks at MEPS. Also discuss his options of sending the clothes back in the box, trashing them, or donating them.

3. You need to determine if you are going to MEPS and airport and find out from the Recruiter when you should be there if you are.

4. Talk with your future Sailor about how you want to handle any bad news. My Sailor told me he only wanted to be notified if his father, sister, or I were to die. He asked that news of any other deaths or hospitalizations, even grandparents and close friends, be kept from him until after PIR. Fortunately, we did not have to face that.

5. Decide if you need a power of attorney. There are 2 types, a general Power of Attorney and a Medical Power of Attorney.  You may need these if he has bills that you will need to take care of or if he were to be hurt while at the RTC. (Talk about BEFORE they leave for bootcamp.... goes into more detail on this and other things you will want to take care of.)

6. Help him determine the names of up to 4 people who he will be listing on the Access List. (See page 2 of the Family Guide to help you decide.)

7. Call and put his cell phone on military hold while he is at BC beginning the day after you expect him to arrive. Set it up so that you can call the day before PIR and remove the Hold so that he wil be able to use his phone on Liberty and once he gets to "A" School.

8. Have him help you decide what to do about the things in his room.

9. Relax and enjoy the time you have together.

I hope that helps.

(Group names and the link within this reply are clickable links. To join a group, click on the group name and when the group page opens, click on "+ Join..." in the upper right.)

[Concernedad]

lemon, if you have any pull with the powers that be here, your post should be a mandatory read in order for people to initially log on here. Sure would save you some time.

[lemonelephant]

Thanks for that--I have the same pull that you have; I use the "Report an Issue" button when needed.  I joined each of the DEP groups, so now I can point people to the Discussion there and not have to copy and paste.

[lemonelephant]

I have made a bettter checklist--at least I hope it's better--and posted it in the October DEP group at Things to Do in the Last Month Before Your Future Sailor Leaves for... (clickable link).  (Acutally, the discussion is in every DEP group now.)

[Concernedad]

Great job! I hope everyone appreciates your efforts. You are tireless.

[lemonelephant]

Thanks.  I just try to help when I can.  If you see something I need to add or change, let me know.

[BunkerQB]

Why don't you start a discussion with that title? Then, it could be linked to it from all different forum discussions and it could be "featured"

[lemonelephant]

I did.  It's in the General Discussions, Things to Do in the Last Month Before Your Future Sailor Leaves for... (clickable link).

[Concernedad]

The problem is, most parents come here in a panic and are just looking for answers. If you link it somewhere, you're still going to have to post for them to read it for answers, and they're going to wonder why you didn't just answer their question instead.

If it's a link they must first navigate before they can start posting, it would probably save you and them a lot of time.

[BunkerQB]

The way this site is set up (the way the NING platform is set up) is not appropriate for the use of this site.  I had ideas on how to make it better and easier but the firm that runs the advertising for the Navy did not want to allocate funds to do so.  For example, we could have more tab across the top (take out INVITE - who really clicks on this?). Each tab can have up to 12 subtabs (don't remember if this is the limit). Imagine, if you hover your mouse on GROUPS, a drop down menu will show some of the more prominent groups useful, important, etc.  Of on TAB could be PIR with drop down menu showing the most recent PIR Groups, the PIR reference group. 

You can see the usefulness......

[lemonelephant]

I will probably be doing things as I have been, but rather than posting the list since it is long, I'll post the link to it in the DEP group that the person needs to join and save myself the copy and paste.  I just recently got smart on that and saved some things on my computer so that I am not typing everything all the time although I would sometimes copy and paste a previous post.

[Concernedad]

I think you miss my point, which is, when you're new, you don't even know the questions you need to ask. But hey, if you're ok with doing the work, who am I to complain.