This site is for mothers of kids in the U.S. Navy and for Moms who have questions about Navy life for their kids.

FIRST TIME HERE?

FOLLOW THESE STEPS TO GET STARTED:

Choose your Username.  For the privacy and safety of you and/or your sailor, NO LAST NAMES ARE ALLOWED, even if your last name differs from that of your sailor (please make sure your URL address does not include your last name either).  Also, please do not include your email address in your user name. Go to "Settings" above to set your Username.  While there, complete your Profile so you can post and share photos and videos of your Sailor and share stories with other moms!

Make sure to read our Community Guidelines and this Navy Operations Security (OPSEC) checklist - loose lips sink ships!

Join groups!  Browse for groups for your PIR date, your sailor's occupational specialty, "A" school, assigned ship, homeport city, your own city or state, and a myriad of other interests. Jump in and introduce yourself!  Start making friends that can last a lifetime.

Link to Navy Speak - Navy Terms & Acronyms: Navy Speak

All Hands Magazine's full length documentary "Making a Sailor": This video follows four recruits through Boot Camp in the spring of 2018 who were assigned to DIV 229, an integrated division, which had PIR on 05/25/2018. 

Boot Camp: Making a Sailor (Full Length Documentary - 2018)

Boot Camp: Behind the Scenes at RTC

...and visit Navy.com - America's Navy and Navy.mil also Navy Live - The Official Blog of the Navy to learn more.

OPSEC - Navy Operations Security

Always keep Navy Operations Security in mind.  In the Navy, it's essential to remember that "loose lips sink ships."  OPSEC is everyone's responsibility. 

DON'T post critical information including future destinations or ports of call; future operations, exercises or missions; deployment or homecoming dates.  

DO be smart, use your head, always think OPSEC when using texts, email, phone, and social media, and watch this video: "Importance of Navy OPSEC."

Follow this link for OPSEC Guidelines:

OPSEC GUIDELINES

Events

**UPDATE 4/26/2022** Effective with the May 6, 2022 PIR 4 guests will be allowed.  Still must be fully vaccinated to attend.

**UPDATE as of 11/10/2022 PIR vaccination is no longer required.

**UPDATE 7/29/2021** You now must be fully vaccinated in order to attend PIR:

In light of observed changes and impact of the Coronavirus Delta Variant and out of an abundance of caution for our recruits, Sailors, staff, and guests, Recruit Training Command is restricting Pass-in-Review (recruit graduation) to ONLY fully immunized guests (14-days post final COVID vaccination dose).  

FOLLOW THIS LINK FOR UP TO DATE INFO:

RTC Graduation

**UPDATE 8/25/2022 - MASK MANDATE IS LIFTED.  Vaccinations still required.

**UPDATE 11/10/22 PIR - Vaccinations no longer required.

RESUMING LIVE PIR - 8/13/2021

Please note! Changes to this guide happened in October 2017. Tickets are now issued for all guests, and all guests must have a ticket to enter base. A separate parking pass is no longer needed to drive on to base for parking.

Please see changes to attending PIR in the PAGES column. The PAGES are located under the member icons on the right side.

Format Downloads:

Navy Speak

Click here to learn common Navy terms and acronyms!  (Hint:  When you can speak an entire sentence using only acronyms and one verb, you're truly a Navy mom.)

N4M Merchandise


Shirts, caps, mugs and more can be found at CafePress.

Please note: Profits generated in the production of this merchandise are not being awarded to the Navy or any of its suppliers. Any profit made is retained by CafePress.

Navy.com Para Familias

Visite esta página para explorar en su idioma las oportunidades de educación y carreras para sus hijos en el Navy. Navy.com

Badge

Loading…
My son just started OCS. I'm looking for ideas on what to put in our letters to him. Can I include crossword puzzles or Suduko? Any creative ideas? Thanks!

Views: 417

Replies to This Discussion

Welcome LizV,

It depends on how strict his Drill Instructor wants to be, but with my son's OCS class, we were told not to send any loose enclosures in the letters, like no cartoons or loose photographs, etc.  I was able to get around that "permissibly" by photocopying cartoons on letter paper and inserting photos into the body of the letter on letters typed on the computer.   You could probably photocopy a Sudoku onto letter paper. 

They don't have a lot of free time to do puzzles, etc.   The only free time they have is when they could be sleeping.  But if your son really likes that sort of thing, you could ask him.

Fill your letters with lots of encouragement and all the news from home.  The first few weeks of OCS, they are kept isolated from the internet, TV, newspapers, etc., so letters from home are their only contact with the outside world.  Send him all the news of his favorite sports teams, or anything else he is into.  They get so discouraged sometimes because OCS is so stressful, physically and mentally, that some of them quit.  Just keep up the encouragement and tell him it gets better after the first 3-4 weeks, and that he must keep "his eyes on the prize" and hang in there so matter what!!!

Good luck to your son!

RE: we were told not to send any loose enclosures in the letters - who told you this and how did they convey this information to you, and when?  Thanks!

I sent my son a newspaper clipping of a major news story at the time while he was at OCS and he asked me not to do that any more in a letter to me... He said he could get in trouble for doing that so I stopped sending that kind of stuff. This was in summer of 2018. 

I don't know, When my son was in OCS,(he just graduated 9/21/18, I sent him a news clipping from something that was big in the news, and after he received it he told me not to send any more to him, that he could get in trouble. But then someone else told me they sent something similar and it was fine. What is good for one class may not be good for another class. I just sent letters, typed, and talked about what we were doing, what was in the news, encouraging words of support, etc.. I thought what I was typing was boring,but he seemed to enjoy all the letters.  But, the crossword puzzles and the suduko sound like a good idea but bear in mind, they have almost no free time to do those things until possibly the last three weeks of OCS. 

I would retype a few jokes in the letters I wrote to my son. He told me later that he would share them with others.

Please for your son's sake, don't put anything in your letters.  Stick to the guidelines which are a plain envelope and standard writing paper. 

I will add just a little bit to your other responses - if you want to send puzzles or crossword, copy them onto typing paper and write your letter around them.  What you don't want is for anyone to be able to "feel" anything extra in your envelopes.  As long as all your letter and extra are on regular computer paper no one will know what all is your "letter".  I would send my daughter little clip art pictures to make her laugh at some of the crazy stuff she had to deal with.  Like this little "ruler guy" picture I found online when she was going through RLP and everything was measured by the drill instructors!!!!  Gave her something funny to think of while dealing with all the BS!!!!!!  Good Luck to your son!!!

RSS

© 2024   Created by Navy for Moms Admin.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service