Corpsman Moms

New Mom with son stationed in Naples, Italy. My kiddo just left A school San Antonio before Christmas. Anyone familiar with Naples or have a family member stationed there?

My son was there for two years, enjoyed it.  He and his friends really took advantage of the opportunity to travel not only within Italy, but to a number of other countries, too.  

Hi Everyone,

I'm a newbie mom.

My son has soft orders for the Jax base out in Florida. Anyone have any Sailors out there? And how is it? He graduates in March. When will they find out how much time they will get before having to report to their duty station?

Thanks so much. 

My son has just started the SOCM course in Fort Bragg.  Does anyone have any experience with their son or daughter going through this course?

DD arrived at her first duty station in VA just before the holiday weekend. This last week sounded to me like P-Days all over again - more vaccinations, paperwork, signatures and orientation-type classes.  I know she’s ready to get to “work” and put all of that A-School training to good use.

She’s met the others in the dept. she’ll be working. It sounds like she shouldn’t have too hard of a time fitting in considering what she called their “special” kind of humor/attitudes.  I’m thinking her sarcasm and somewhat dry sense of humor will serve her well...finally! 

Krikris, it’s been a long time since my son reported to his first assignment after A school.  He wasn’t too excited to be returning to his hometown but enjoyed learning his “trade” from those in his hospital clinic.  

Over the years, he’s become a mentor to many new “docs” and enjoys teaching them skills they didn’t learn in A school.  I hope your daughter will have someone in her department like that.  

krikris: Glad to hear your daughter's first assignment is going well. Our son is "settling" in Japan after A school and so far so good. :)

IDCmom#1: Thankful to your son for taking up the baton and choosing to be a mentor to the newbies. They are so lucky to have him.

Hi,

My daughter is due to graduate from A School in San Antonio on Dec. 11th.  For the sake of planning, does anyone know how many guests are permitted for each grad.?

Thanks so much :)

Hi smom16.  I don't think there is a limit...no tickets for this one.  Your daughter will have to turn in names in order for you to get a pass to get onto base for graduation.  A very quick, 30-45 minute ceremony that is wonderful, however not as formal as PIR.  My suggestion would be to arrive 2-3 hours early the day of to get your pass to get on base or even the day before if you're arriving early as the line is very long to get the passes to get on base.  Hope this helps.

Thank you so much for the information warriormom.  I will definitely follow your advice and I'm looking forward to December 11th.  Have a great day :)

Our son's graduation is Nov 28, the day before Thanksgiving. I'm hoping we can spend Thanksgiving day, together. Not sure when he leaves for C school, though.  

you will definitely be able to spend time with your son LeonaLee, this isn't like a boot camp graduation, really casual, you can take as many pictures and get up close and personal!  it is in an auditorium and you will have lots of time with your sailor, on and off the base, enjoy!

My daughter is presently in C School for advance med lab tech 8506.  She is in her 4th week of the program and it sounds like a very rigorous program.  Many in the class are very stressed and I am wondering if and when it is going to ease up a bit.  It sounds like there is a weeding out period and I just hope that the students can breathe a bit easier soon.  Thanks

smom16, sorry to hear this, can’t comment as my son is currently in A school.  Who determines C school anyway?  Did your daughter apply or were her orders to continue on to C school.  

Thanks Tammy. As the sailors approach the end of A School, they are given their orders and some are assigned to ships, hospitals in the fleet and some are selected for C School.  She didn't apply for it.  Her orders were to continue on to C School. 

@smom16, thank you SO much.  I’ve been wondering about this issue for awhile.   

You're welcome Tammy. :)

SMom16, I asked my son about sailors receiving C school orders right out of A school.  Over the past 15 years as a Navy Mom, I had assumed that unless you specifically chose to request C school, that graduating corpsmen went out to learn how to be corpsmen before deciding what direction they wanted to go.  Silly me.  I forgot DING, DING, DING, Needs of the Navy.  

I don’t know what selection criteria for your daughter’s school was but it is very undermanned and that is why new corpsmen are going straight to it.  

My son did say that there should be opportunity in the future for her to apply for another field if she wanted something different. Some C schools have time and rank qualifications before you can even apply  (such as IDC Indepent Duty Corpsmen with a year long intensive school).  

I hope she loves her new field.  

Thank you for your response and information ICDmom#1.  It is good to know that she might have another option in another field if she wishes later on.  Thank you for your kindness.  

Just a note to say "Hi."  I am new to the page. My SR just arrived at METC.  He is not scheduled to start classes until 3/20.  Any ideas about how your sailors made the most out of their time - after they catch up on a few zzz's from basic, of course. :)?

Welcome NavyMoeder, my son is still at his A-School in SA.  We are looking forward to his graduation next month.  My son seems to spend a lot of time studying and going to the gym.  He has ventured out of the base, I believe, twice but mostly stays on the base. 

Good evening, Y'all!  My son graduated from Corpsman School in May, and is currently on ship, deployed. I'm a Marine wife, and have worked in military family programs for more than 25 years, so while shipboard deployments are new, I may be able to answer some questions.  This whole thing is a journey, and I hope things are going smoothly for each of you and the sailors you represent. 

AmyBeth1991, my son graduated Corpsman School in April.  He's now at Camp Pendleton where he got the job he wanted, FMF.  (not what I would have picked for him).  But he's happy and starts training next month with the marines.  He says afterwards he is slated to go to Naval Medical Center San Diego, also known as Balboa.  I hope that is true and he doesn't get deployed to the Middle East.  Do you think that's possible?

@Tammy_girl, 

I say this ALL.THE.TIME. Nothing in the military is ever final until the after action report is filed, in triplicate. In other words, everything is subject to change. In the Marine Corps, we joke that the motto for families is "semper gumby", semper meaning always, and Gumby, as in flexible like the Gumby toy. 

Balboa is a fantastic hospital and should be a great experience for him. If he is assigned to a Marine unit, and they deploy, I would expect him to go with them. However, at this moment, he has orders to Balboa, and there is no point in dwelling on the "what ifs". You can drive yourself crazy with that.  Remember that the news reporters make their living causing anxiety. "If it bleeds, it leads" is a journalism mantra. Think about it. If the water's tested in your community,  a news anchor teases it with something like, "City water testing results are back, and you won't believe what they found!" You watch for 28 minutes, trying to find out if your water is poisonous,  and finally, at the very end, you find out your water is just fine. News is all about ratings, these days. 

If he does get assigned to a Marine unit, please know that Marines LOVE Corpsmen, and are FIERCELY protective of them. 

Things you can do now: 

Every military family member should have a passport.  We hot new ones while our son was in bootcamp. It can ease your mind to know that task is done

Plan a trip to graduation and/or San Diego. We did two tours in San Diego, one at Pendleton,  and one at Miramar. It's a fabulous place to live or vacation.  

Buy good luggage. With an active duty family member, traveling to see and celebrate him is more likely.

Be blessed!

AmyBeth1991, wow, what great information.  I will print your words and hold them dear to my heart.  I wasn’t even sure what semper Gumby meant, so thank you.  

casey04lynn, wow.  Stationed in Japan.  Would you go see him in Japan?

casey04lynn - there is a good Japan moms group on here.  Here's the link for you to join:

Japan moms

@Casey04lynn, I can only imagine your struggles. My son left from port for his first deployment on a hospital ship not long ago, and that's plenty of stress. Add that your son left from Japan, and I know you're stressed. The time difference doesn't help. 

My son, like a lot of the lower ranked corpsmen is "cranking in the kitchen" (working in the galley) during the first part of this deployment. But because he's (at least for now) in the same time zone, and a whole lot closer than Japan, we've heard from him when they were close enough to get cell signal. I know it feels like a long time, and three months is a bear.  One of the things my Marine told me, and I tell families, is "no news really is good news".  After some initial frustration, I was able to make contact with the Ombudsman for my son's ship, and joined a Facebook Group for that ship's families. (Had to jump through some hoops to join the private group, which took a lot longer than it should have, but it's done, now.)  Your son can authorize the Ombudsman to have contact with you, and send newsletters and information.  (The Ombudsman is a spouse of someone on the ship, and operates according to Navy regulations.)  After several days of searching my son's ship name every day, I found several pictures on the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS).  These are photos and videos that are produced by military public affairs and mass communication specialists, and shared with the public. You can create an account and then subscribe to anything with his ship's name in it.  I will get texts if new information goes up.  You can find this at https://www.dvidshub.net and create your account as a miltary family member.  It isn't the same as contact, but at least you can see something about the ship, which may provide some sense of comfort.  If, for example, your son went out with the USS Reagan, you could search the ship and subscribe to that specific ship, and anything that popped up would be something you can see. Also, if he's a Corpsman out with a Marine unit, there is someone in Family Readiness (probably a Deployment Readiness Coordinator) who can also include you in information with authorization from the sailor.  If that's your situation, and you can't track down the right person, let me know.  I should be able to help locate a point of contact for you. 

Hope this helps. 

AmyBeth1991, though my son. is not on a ship, I found your post very informative.  Thank you.  Awhile back I got on Twitter just to follow The Navy - and I will admit it's been very informative and some things I learn I pass on to my sailor in San Diego. 

Amybeth1991, assuming your son is on the Comfort.  About 8 years ago, my son was deploying with the Comfort but ended up with an injury that required a PICC line and cancelled orders. Prior to Injury, I got to tour the ship.  I was amazed.  It truly is a floating hospital.  I was not so impressed by our sailors’ bunks.  I would be claustrophobic. I know, despite some really interesting deployments, he still wishes he had made the cruise.  Hope your sailor gets out of galley soon and gets to do OJT.   

If he takes advice from you (seems like lots of our kids don’t, my son included), please tell him an IDC mom highly recommends he try to shadow an IDC.  Most of them really enjoy mentoring “baby” docs.  

My son was assigned to Camp Pendleton after completing IDC school.  I spent time there taking care of my granddaughter  while he was at FMTB and ex wife was deployed.  Very impressed.  I’m an Air Force Brat and DAC wife/employee so have spent many years on bases/posts CONUS and OCONUS but Camp P was first Marine base experience.  

B'sNukeMoM⚓️MMN Thanks for the info, I joined that group :)

Tammy_Girl I’m not sure if we’ll go visit. My husband wants to go for good sushi. I’m a little uneasy about flying that far. Also, will really depend on his leave & training. From what I understand it’s hard to plan around their training.

AmyBeth1991 Thank you so much for all that information! I will look in to it & surely reach back out if I need help. He’s the young one on the ship too, while he’s in dental, he still primarily does medical since he’s on a smaller ship with not many Corpsmen. He called last night, they got in to port on Tuesday & they head back out to sea for another few weeks till their next port. Not sure when I’ll hear from him again, but so relieving to finally talk to him.

Hello! As an admin on this page for longer than I can even believe, I am delighted to see it active again! My son has left the Navy, after 7 years in. He served from basic with the Marine 2/2 out of Camp Lajuene, earned his FMF qualification in 2008 when he was deployed with the 2/2 to Iraq. He, due to his procrastination, bumbled his reenlistment to go to Afghanistan with the 2/2 (which did not make me unhappy, I have to say), then was put in charge of the Methadone Clinic at Camp Lajuene....a real eyeopener for him, and heartbreaking to hear those stories from him about our young troops fighting the battles of addiction after injuries in combat.  He ended up at Camp Bullis in San Antonio, teaching combat medical techniques, only 80 miles from home here in Austin.  And thankfully, he fell in love, decided to leave the military in 2012, entered UTSA and got his degree in business. Very active in young vet groups, UTSA vet groups, etc. He was offered a job by another vet with his same degree at Pulte Homes, worked as a purchasing agent there until offered a great job at another homebuilder. During all this, he and his girlfriend split up (I don't care, I will send her Christmas cards forever for being the basis for that decision to leave the military!) and has since met the love of his life. We'll be having a wedding in August! It'll be in Tennessee, so her NY family and my son's friends from all over the country will be able to attend. I am looking forward to meeting more of his vet friends, I've heard great stories about them (but not many about what they actually did while on deployments) .

I've only met a couple, including a young Marine who came to stay here on his R&R after being injured in that deployment to Afghanistan. My son called to say he was coming in with a friend, and they'd be doing a lot of laying around Barton Springs and talking . His CO had okayed him taking that time to make sure his Marine buddy was adjusting okay. One of those instances when you realize your child has abilities and experience that you never saw coming. Ma Navy was in charge and it's something we have to always remember. 

You're in for the ride of your life, and you will make friends on this board and others who will hang with you forever. There's a crew of us "Navy Moms" that are still close, visit daily on FB and in person as we can. Some still have kids in, some do not. Like our kids, we made bonds during their enlistments with people that gave us support at some of the worst moments in our lives. We have a Gold Star Mom. God Bless her, she just loves hearing what our kids are doing and how they are. 

I'm semi retired, a Navy brat with a dad 30 years in, born on a NAS in Newfoundland, raised in a Navy town. My brother was a Marine. My son thought he'd 'fool" me by enlisting in the Navy, not the Marines, and then volunteering to serve with a Marine battalion. He walked that line of Navy/Marine for most of his military career, considers himself more Marine than Navy, I think. 

If this board is going to be active with you "new" Moms....perhaps one would want to become an admin. We tried to do that a while back, but never heard back from N4M admin themselves. So I haven't let it go, because I did not want the board to close. I also admin a group for Moms with kids in War Zones, thankful that one is very quiet now. Hope it stays that way. 

Let me know if any one wants to be an "admin" and I'll try to get through to them again!

Your right TDM ... Ladies you will make friends for life ... You'll bond with people you may never meet but yet call your bestfriend  ... 

Up to last Tuesday I had been a military mom for over 18 years ... My three children all decided to join (two Navy one Army) ... 

My son was with the 2/2 as well for 5 years ... He joined in 2008 ... if it wasnt for this group and one other and the moms (and a dad) that I met I would have gone crazy for sure ... 

Most of you your journey has just begun ... Enjoy and know these groups are amazing and I'm sure just like myself you will make friends for life ....

AmyBeth1991, your son wasn’t late to apply for IDC school; he’s too early.  I believe he has to be in 4-5 years before he is eligible  and E4 for Surface IDC and E5 for Sub IDC.   Lowering rank to E4 eligibility happened a couple of years ago, I think.   

The school is 12 months long and so intensive that many students opt to not have family members accompany them.   My son and ex daughter-in-law were in classes six weeks apart so we had our granddaughter while they were in school.  I took her out to visit them half way through.  It was a long and hard year for them.  

Happy New Year, corpsman moms!  Some of us have been mothers of corpsmen for years; others are just now entering a world often described as a roller coaster.  As we begin 2020, I hope to see moms connecting, learning, sharing, and making connections and even lifelong friends as I have.  

Years have flown by. My son is 4 years from retirement. Ironically, he’s never been assigned to a “real” ship, just a very small one. He figures he’ll spend his last three years on a boat.

He’s had some really interesting deployments but OPSEC prevents me from sharing. The last one does not involve OPSEC as it becomes a public mission as soon as they returned to the States.

He was a member of a team that went to Vietnam for two months, searching for remains of soldiers killed during Vietnam war. It seemed surreal searching for men who would be his dad’s age. It was a real education for him, seeing the country and meeting the people.

I’m a very proud of my son. He’s certainly grown up over the years and is good husband and father. Someday, he’ll be one of those old codgers crowding the commissary aisles, reminiscing about the “good old days”!

Nicole, my son graduated A School last April in San Antonio.  My son was the first class too at the start of 2019.  He would call us on the weekends and spent his free time studying and going to the gym.  Congrats to your son!!

Hi Nicole, my son graduated on a Friday in January. He filled out the guest clearance info over the phone and had to give them to us in person. He had to meet us at the gate. They got their itinerary for graduation day only a few days prior. The Ceremony itself was only 30 minutes. He shipped out the next day for "C" school we got to take him to the airport.

 Hi Ladies,

How has everyone been doing? How are your Sailor's? Mine is still in Florida. Please be safe out there as states start opening up.

partyofseven, sorry I'm late in responding.  Our sailor is doing great.  He is still stationed at Naval Medical Center.  What was sad for us is the missed trip to see him during this pandemic.  We were suppose to fly there last month to visit him.  He is hoping to get leave around 4th of July to come home.  I'm worried about that because the close proximity to other passengers.  But for now the military has a ban on travel. 

Mid-May, I had the blessing of seeing my sailor for about an hour as his flights connected through the San Francisco Airport.  I was able to get a gate pass to meet him at the arrival gate and walk with him to the departing gate. It was only about an hour, but totally worth it (4 hour round trip drive). He is stationed on a ship that is based way way (way) out in the Pacific.  And he says he already has crazy stories to tell and is dong well. 

Good Morning jillybean,

That is awesome. It's been a while since I've seen mine. Here's hoping I get to see him over the summer. I would have done the same thing. Hope you are doing well during all of this. It's good to see you on here. Blessings.

Hi my daughter is wanting to be a corpsman and she has questions.  He will graduate this May from HS with 2 years of college credits.  Someone told her that the Navy will pay for her to finish college before she joins.  Is this true, anyone know how to go about it?  I know she can do it with ROTC but I guess just looking for some more info 

Tammy Mom ,

I haven’t been “here” in so long, I don’t remember how to navigate the forum.  

I mailed a small package to my son at Camp Lejeune and mail clerk denied ever seeing it.  A couple weeks later it turned up.  

After that, he set up a mailbox at mail store (maybe one of the little UPS stores?) to avoid that problem.  Since his TAD is just about over, I didn’t bother to mail anything more.  

I would advise my son to file a formal complaint if monetary value was involved.  

Marilyn in Pensacola

Thanks Marilyn for responding.  I did file a complaint with USPS, but unsure if I will get any payment of a claim as it said it was tendered to a military facility.  In speaking with the post office in San Diego, all military mail goes to a warehouse and it gets sorted there.  I feel like that is where the priority letter is lost.  My son has always gotten a package, this was a letter.  I would only be out $25 for a gift card.