HM (Hospital Corps) "A" School in San Antonio

I'm going to go back and forth between this site and corpsman mom site. Time to get my feet wet in a new site

Katze and Proudmom....it is 2145 PDT here in Oregon and I just got home.  I had a class after work so sorry I didn't get to you sooner.  I am looking at the box and it is 3M Littman Classid II S.E. stethoscope, black edition.  I had his last name laser etched on it (he didn't want his first name or rank since the rank will be changing soon).  And again..I CANNOT TAKE CREDIT FOR THINKING OF THIS GIFT!  As mikes mom pointed out MARCY was the one who gave me the idea and the website.  I am just passing along what I learned.  See you guys on the Corpsman mom or Corpsman mom and dad sites!

I am one of the most famous HM sailors....ever...

Who am I?  Answer in the discussion area above....

This is when I played on the Navy basketball team....

WHOOHOOO! Bill Cosby was a Corpsman!

Drama thanks, that is the one I ordered! And Marcy thanks for suggesting it in the first place. I think I'm going to order the Gerber today too.

Received the JFK coin today! You guys weren't kidding. It really is nice. If Craig does this great of a job with all the coins he helps design, I can't wait to see what he does with the Ship 3 one (Wink wink) I know it takes time to design these so I will try to wait patiently! 

Some ideas here...Visit San Antonio

We went to the Alamo, Riverwalk and Sea World while I was there visiting before my son graduated.  I wanted to go to the Art Museum but didn't have enough time.

DramaSoul, Did you like Sea World?  I heard our Sailors are able to get in for free and bring family members in with them, do you know any anformation about that?  We will be in SA for Labor Day & spend the 4 days with our daughter and are also looking for inexpensive things to do.

Cathy Lorene...I really liked Sea World as did my son.  We both like aquariums and it was fun to feed the dolphins and get splashed by Shamu. Since it was hotter than you-know-what, we purposely sat in the splash zone.  If you go you MUST SEE 'Azul'.  It is a show with Beluga whales, dolphins, high divers, synchronized swimmers with a little Cirque du Soleil that has the Shamu show beat, in my opinion (and my son's as well).  Yes, military gets in free.  They have to go online to get a voucher. But the family has to pay. I suggest you go online and get your tickets as well because you save $25!  Food is spendy.  You may want to bring a cooler.  There is also a Waterpark there which we DID NOT DO since he had gone to Schlitterbahn Memorial Weekend with his girlfriend.  It was kinda cute when we were looking at the fish in the aquarium. A little girl said "Oh look Mommy, it's Dory and Nemo!" Be prepared for lots of walking (which I love to do). 

Cathy Lorene...one more thing about the food.  It is tough to find something healthy and I have some dietary restrictions.  They do sell a roasted turkey leg and fresh fruit cups as well as 'wraps' at one of the food places.  My son has given up junk food so it was an interesting search to find things to eat!  We just drank lots of water but you can get sodas and frozen lemonade.  I think you can buy an all-you-can-eat voucher for the whole day that was around $30. You get that once you are inside the gate. 

Actually Fort Sam does have a couple of claims to fame: the Apache Chief Geronimo was held there for 40 days, and it was also the site from which the first military flight in US history took off in 1910.

This time down I plan on going to the Fort Sam Museum's.  They say they're kind of cool....  I know when we went to Washington DC, one of the best museum's we went to was the Walter Reed Army Medical Pathology museum.  Because the 1st doctor to help President Lincoln was an Army doctor, this museum actually has the bullet that killed him.  You should see all the other stuff...wow.

I hope Fort Sam's museum is like Walter Reed's....

Here is the info for Fort Sam's

http://ameddmuseum.amedd.army.mil/ 

I actually like all the fun and weird places to travel.  I really am not that interested the normal stuff people see.  When everyone was going to the Sears Towers while in Great lakes, we where going to Gold Pyramid House, Where John Dillinger (bank robber and U.S. Navy sailor) was gunned down, and where Mrs O'Leary's cow kicked over the lantern that burned down Chicago (which is now the site of the fire department).  

You can find all the weird places in Texas by going here:

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/map/tx

or

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/

So in San Antonio we plan on going to Barney Smith's Toilet Seat Art Museum.  God knows why?  But it seems like it would be fun.  The reviews are really good.

 http://www.yelp.com/biz/barney-smiths-toilet-seat-art-museum-san-an...

Hi Everyone, I was wondering if anyone has a sailor graduating from "A" on the 5th of September.  My daughter is in 160 alpha. I will not be going to the graduation, instead I hope to spend a week or so in MD once she gets settled at Bethesda Hospital.  I was hoping if anyone is going and takes pictures would you take of picture of my daughter, Blonder,  I know we are not suppose to put our names out there but it would be wonderful if I could get a picture of her at graduation.  My email address is ragschung@gmail.com Thank you so much!!!!

Craig, If you ever make it back to Great Lakes, Chicago go visit the Volo Auto Museum on Volo. Its only about 30 mins. from RTC..  Its amazing & huge! 4 big barns, cars that have actually been in movies, antiques, etc. cars to buy and just look at. They also have a fully armored amphibious missile launcher, captured from Iraq that they say is the only one known in U.S. If you like to visit strange but amazing places...this would be it.  I put a discussion above to let others know. Oh ya, &...tix are  very inexpensive too!

I didnt put comment above....I put it in discussion on "Bootcamp Moms"

1proudmom...I love cars! There was soo much I wanted to see in Chicago but I only had one full day.  I have been to The Peterson Museum in Los Angeles.  Makes me wish I had a reason to go to Great Lakes.

Cars, now that's the ticket!  

My son and I are really into the car scene.  He has actually started a company that gets people involved in the car scene.  Whats good is his company uses the Navy guys worldwide to cover all the car shows.  He now has basically every region covered, California, Texas, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Germany, and Japan.   The sailors go to the car shows and take photo's of the hot cars and models (both go hand-in-hand inside guys brains)  These sailors then post the pictures from the shows.  They also show off their own cars and start hotrodding them.

They are mainly into the asian "tuner" cars, but they also show muscle cars too. What's good is the car part vendors at the shows use the website to get their parts noticed.  So they will sell their parts to the sailors that cover the shows at cost and sometimes free, just to get the word out about their products.  It's a win-win for both, the sailor and the company.  These sailors cars are building extremely sharp for next to nothing.  Whats good is it gets them out of the barracks and into the car  scene.

His facebook company only started 3 months ago, and has almost 14,000 talking about it, and over 120,000 views.  So if your sailors are into cars, have them go check out his facebook. These photos are all taken by sailors.

http://www.facebook.com/AwesomeSauceLifestyle

1proud - I will be going to that car show, next time I'm up that way.  I love stuff like that.  

robert - My wife and I will be at that graduation.  I'm not sure how it all works, but I'd be happy to take some photo's of your daughter getting her certificate.  

Also, if you are not able to attend graduation and even if you are, you might want to  check out the Basic Medical Technician Corpsman Program page on Facebook.  They usually have someone taking pictures at the graduations and they take individual pictures of each as they walk across the stage-at least they did when my son graduated in December, but I think I've seen pictures of many graduations on there since then.  The picture they got of my son walking across the stage was much better than the one I got.  

Also, you are free to walk around and take pictures during the entire ceremony.

Anyone going to graduation on September 5th for class 160 Alpha, would love pic's or video, please, please send to ragschung@gmail.com  Congratulations to all our great sailors from "A" school in San Antonio, TX, Hooyah!!!!!!

Well get there if you can. If you like cars & even if you dont...you will love this place!!! As I said....you will not regret it.I even loved it myself. We were only able to spend a short time there because my Sailor was at Airport and I wanted to get to airport for him (my other son was the one who decided to try Volo Auto Museum) but we could have easily spent ALL day at Auto Museum. Google it before you go and they may even have an event going on at the time. Along with cars(btw...the cars that were in movies, well they have a flat screen tv on top of each car showing you scenes of that particular car in that movie)they also have a trolley tour of vaulted cars...Oprah Winfreys, Lady Dianas, Michael Jordans, etc), huge barn with everything antique. Can you tell I loved it??. Im hoping others, from Bootcamp Moms, see my discussion. Like I said...close by, inexpensive..makes for a great day!!!!

Craig, Good Luck to your son.....sounds great!

Dramasoul, If we ever get back there we'll go again!

Drama - When the line them up, do they do all the Navy, then the Air Force, then the Coast Guard, then the Army?  or do they mix them up and just randomly do it by name?  or how do they do it?

I'll say no more about Volo......lol (Ive said enough)   but  1st question...what time does Graduation usually get over?,   will they be able to spend the rest of the day with us?,  if so,  til what time? &  is there a set time that their flight usually leaves (whether to duty station or home) the next day? My son said that he has to stay til 7pm (Wed.)....he thought.

 So does that mean his flight will leave aroung 10pm since they(airlines) like people to check in 2 hrs. early

1proudmom....This is what I experienced and my son was coming home for 14 days leave before reporting to Camp P.  After the graduation, there were a few minutes to visit and take more pics, meet their friends and such.  There was an admin briefing which for my son took about 90 minutes.  At that time he got the voucher for his ticket which would have sent him to Camp P.  He had to call the airlines to get it re-routed to Portland and had to pay the difference.  He was able to get a flight out at about the same time I was leaving (0605) the next morning.  Then we had lunch.  We could've spent the rest of the day until 2200 out and about but he had to pack up and check out of his room.  I made numerous trips back and forth getting stuff that was going in my suitcase as well as taking some of his things that were packed as I was picking him up at 0400 so we could go to the airport together.  He ended up sleeping on the floor of one of his buddies' rooms since he had turned in his key once his room had been cleaned up (his roommate had gone to bed and he didn't want to wake him up.  A suggestion for those who are graduating in a couple of weeks and not staying at Ft. Sam for C school:send home some of the stuff and not wait until the last minute to have to pack it up.  I had made this suggestion to my son which he did not do but did learn his lesson!  He paid for the extra heavy weight of my suitcase!! 

Craig....there were only Sailors at my son's graduation.  The Air Force graduation was after ours as I saw my son's favorite instructor (Senior Chief McMillan) in his khaki's instead of his dress whites later and I saw Airmen going into a different room than our graduation. Be sure to check the time of your graduation.  I don't think it can happen at the same time as they share some instructors but I am not sure.

Craig: My bf's class was the first combined Navy/Air Force graduation and they seem to be sticking to that. For ours it was Air Force first then Corpsman but there was one Air Force guy sitting among the Navy guys. 

Also they are alphabetical within each group.

Craig...I remember seeing some of those pics from your son's FB page!

What really funny is one of the moms in the Cryptology section was looking through those pictures when the topic of cars came up and found her sons car on it.  Her son is really into "tuning" his car and has a real nice ride.  

Every sailor need a hobby, whether it's material (ie cars, stamp, coins..ect) things or physical things (families, kids, travel) just to free their mind of all the Navy stuff. If you don't have an outlet, you will burn yourself out. 

Craig...that's true for anything, I think. It is sooo important to find ways to release the intensity and stress associated with work. I have been a dental hygienist a loooonnng time and while I have to read a lot to keep up with current research, I have developed ways to maintain my sanity that are sooo not related to dentistry or working with patients! BTW, my son has model cars my uncle gave him...Franklin Mint kinda stuff. Really cool.

Craig, thank you so much, my email address is ragschung@gmail.com  My daughter last night is Blonder.  Once again I know we shouldn't put that name out there but I really have to get some pic's of her.  She was the only female in her coed class that made the dean's list.  She ended with a grade of 92.3%.  I now regret not going to graduation but cant change it, my daughter already put in for a plane ride to come home,so anything you can do to get a pic is so very much appreciated:D

Navywife...yes, my daughter graduates in October. 

Hello, I had a question about orders.  My son picked ATV C school and when his orders were posted today he will be going to FMTB at Camp Lejeune NC then go to AVT c school.  Why would he do both? Just curious if anyone knows the answer?