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Comment by ellen0502 on December 12, 2018 at 2:10am

The FB groups can be a good thing when your recruit is out of BC. Many of the schools have FB pages and so do many of the ships.

Do be very careful if you join a group for a PIR date. Your full name and personal information is visible to the group.

Comment by Allison on December 12, 2018 at 1:00am

Daniella, Facebook isn’t for everyone, I get that, but I would recommend joining just for navy related things. The Facebook groups are much more active than these forums here, you can follow command pages for updates and events, and you can connect easily with ombudsmen.  

Anyway, good luck to your recruit, sounds like he’s halfway there! Let us know if you have any questions! 

Comment by Sailor_lover on December 11, 2018 at 7:10pm

Daniella join the Facebook group for their PIR!!

Comment by Anti M on November 29, 2018 at 5:59pm

You can also post it in the blog section, and link to it there.

Comment by Allison on November 29, 2018 at 4:01pm

Im glad you did! It’s a nice concise record of everything that happens. Even on this great site, it’s hard to find all that info without digging through tons of posts because it’s in different places. If you haven’t already, you should put it on your profile to reference it quickly to others :) 

Comment by isaabelr123 on November 29, 2018 at 2:51pm

Allison - yes I would definitely love to add that everyone's experience through bootcamp is extremely different and my information may not line up with how others go through this, just wanted to share my experience throughout the time!

Comment by Amanda on November 29, 2018 at 11:19am

Thank you Isaabelr!! It was refreshing to read from your stand point!

Comment by Allison on November 29, 2018 at 10:40am

This note is very sweet. If you’re open to edits, I would suggest separating the 900 division from the idea of extra days in PDays. How long you spend in PDays is dependent on a lot of factors, and a 900 division can sometimes fill quickly while a standard division can take over a week to fill. Maybe you didn’t mean to imply they went hand in hand, but it was a little confusing to read.

Assignment to a 900 division is pretty special as there’s typically only like 2 per PIR group if any. 900 divisions are different than regular divisions because they are performance divisions. They will have extra skills to learn/practice for the graduation ceremony (or sometimes multiple graduation ceremonies if other PIR groups do not have 900 divisions), so they only assign recruits they think can handle the extra work and do well with less time to focus on the skills and knowledge required to graduate bootcamp. Assignment can be based on lots of different things, height, exceptional military bearing, physical fitness level, ability to play a musical instrument or sing, prior service, etc.. Those within a 900 division are divided into three groups, sticks (those you saw carrying all the flags at graduation),  triple threat (those in the choir band and drill team), and the honor guard/ship staff (those “guarding” the doors, greeting people, escorting Officers, and a few others wandering around). These divisions do overfill to prep for seps/asmo/illness/injury, so the rest will help prep and clean up and march the same as the other divisions, but they are still held to a higher standard throughout bootcamp. Just a fun side note, there are also 800 divisions, which are typically those going on to special forces. If your recruit is in an 800 division, it is better to be cautious and keep that info private.

Also, yes, they do try to have 900 divisions perform battle stations early because they need to be well rested for their performance. It doesn’t always happen this way though. 

I would also add a disclaimer that every experience will be different. I saw you mentioned it in a couple spots like “no news is good news,” but I think one right from the beginning would be good because there’s all kinds of little things that can change the experience for everyone, and I remember hearing stories that stressed me out back then because it was different for my husband, so it might help those that have a different experience from you.

Thanks for sharing! This has a lot of useful information, and I’m sure users will find it very helpful and comforting on their own journey. 

Comment by isaabelr123 on November 28, 2018 at 3:50pm

hi all!

I wrote out on this attachment my experience of my boyfriend going through bootcamp and how we're doing now.

Reading this page and your stories helped me tremendously over these past few months, and I wanted to share mine as well. 

If you ever have any questions, always feel free to reach out to me! And I will try and keep you all updated. 

(sorry the attachment is so long, I tried to keep it as short as possible!)

bootcamp.docx

Comment by Allison on November 28, 2018 at 10:27am

Your sailor can go to JAG (legal) to give you power of attorney. We’ve only done a letter of authorization for car insurance because my car at the time was still in my mothers name (she had better credit when we bought it), and the Navy needed proof of insurance to move with the vehicle. We attached the letter to the policy, and basically it went like this:

To whom it may concern,

I (my mother’s name) authorize my son-in-law (my husband’s name) to drive my (car year/make/model). 

Sincerely, 

(my mother’s signature)

date 

And she had the document notarized. 

Very short and sweet. Basically just identified herself, identified who she was giving privileges to, what privileges she was giving, and then she had it notarized to verify it was truly her that had written and signed it. I hope that helps somehow.

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