NUKE moms

MomofJoseph - enjoy the time with your son.  Power School will bring on a whole new set of challenges (for you and your son!) but hang in there!  He's got this and so do you ;-D

Thank you, B'sNukeMoM!  I am a little anxious to see what Power School brings about.  A School was so stressful for him, but he actually did well.  I'm hopeful that he'll continue to do well in Power School, but we'll see.  I'm just so excited that he'll be home today!

Good Morning and Happy Thursday!

MomofJoseph - yay - special hugs for you today!!!!

MomofJoseph - I don't think I wrote much about PowerSchool, I may have added some comments to the end of the A school discussion. Mostly PS is three subjects instead of 1 subject that they are working on at a time.  - So glad you get some hugs!!

Here's a link to the Wikipedia article on Power School:

Wikipedia - Nuclear Power School

Good Evening!!! I know that we have quite a few new Nuke Mom members whose SRs are at BC, some who have just graduated and will be joining us here more regularly. 

Please don't hesitate to ask questions. There might not be as much chatter posted here, but we are still an active group. Be sure to read my discussion above Nuke A school daily schedule

My son helped me with the above information. I know some things changed during COVID, so if there is anything you would like to update or add to the discussion, feel free to do a reply on the last page. 

Welcome Aboard!!

Hi Y'all! 

Welcome New Nuke Moms! This site is awesome! Some of us don't always respond, but we see your comments and enjoy hearing from you! Learning about Nuke School is a challenge for us but more so for them. My advice is when you talk to them don't always question them about school, they can't tell you a lot of things and they may just want to hear what is going on outside of school. Encourage them and let them know how proud you are of them and that you support them in their decision to serve our country. For my son it was hard to always call home as he said it made him homesick but he said that he loved it when I would text him encouragement and updates on the family and pictures. He didn't always respond but it made his day! School is hard and they need to focus to make it through and not always be worried about us at home. If you need advice, need to vent, have questions, need encouragement, this is where you need to come. We are here for you.

Well my son is in Japan now and really liking it! He said he is there with a few of his Nuke Buddies which I'm sure helped with the transition. We are thinking of making a trip there early next year! Has anyone been to Japan? Any travel tips?

My oldest daughter is getting married soon and her and my son are very close. Since the ship will be underway during her wedding I was wondering if any of you have some clever ideas to make him a part of the wedding. Other than FaceTime/Skpe as I'm not sure they will have a signal or if he will be available at that time. 

Thanks Bunches! BNMH!

Q's Momma, I remember that day well!  Welcome to the great adventure.

My daughter is now an instructor at NNPTC.  Let me know if you need help. She can't be in direct contact with students but she can usually answer questions for me. 

Q's Momma, congratulations. So happy you got to see your son off. If you need any help with anything just let us know. If you get a chance to visit the area after your son phases up I highly recommend it. SC is beautiful and after visiting the base I felt comfortable with my son being there.

Khryse, you could have a life size cutout made of him and have family and friends pictures of him. Let his sister do a special sister and brother dance with the cut out and video tape it. We did it with our Sailor, pretty cool.

Khryse, Thank you for sharing your son's perspective on phone calls home. Hopefully, this is helpful to many who do not always hear from their sailors. I also agree with the encouraging messages and the pictures. 

Do you have the information for getting on his Ombudsman information and possibly their private FB page for the family? 

Khryse - I asked my daughter who shared this that one of her friends did whose brother could not be at her wedding. She said they did the full-sized photo image. She thinks they even had him dressed in the attire that he would have worn, and thought that maybe he was standing at the guest book, as people were signing in.

Another thought is for him to be the Usher that walks you down the aisle as mother of the bride, unless he is to be one of the groomsmen. 

Hugs as you all go through this. My son was able to be in his sister's wedding prior to his BC days but missed his 2nd sister's wedding. We had no clue of any of these ideas, and I know his sister was sad to not have him there. But we all managed to have at least his side of the family at his small "wedding ceremony", and they are still planning to have another bigger one at some point. 

Jog6 - Welcome to the Nuke Mom page! If I recall, your loved one is still at BC, but be sure to come here and say hello. 

Khryse My sister just got married and my sailor son couldn't attend in person but wanted to "be there".  We called him on the IPAD, and he was "there" I even got pictures of us all.  It was sad but happy all at the same time.  BTW - he did dress for the occasion. 

Welcome to our newest members ~ Amouse, jog6 and Sarie!

Please be sure to read the ***NEW MEMBERS*** info at the top of the page.  Lots of good info there.  Also take a look at the Pages (20) to the right under the member profiles - be sure to hit "view all".  And the discussion forum above has some good info too - be sure to read Chipmunks "Nuke A School Daily Schedule".  And of course, feel free to ask any questions you may have.

Morning Everyone! 

We are going with the Life Size Cutout of him. Not sure we will be able to talk with him as we are not sure where his ship will be at the time of the wedding. We were hoping that he could be there to walk me down the aisle and then stand up there as a groomsman, I might just walk with the cut out and then have the cut out stand in place! LOL! I wanted to do some head cutouts as well but my daughter reminded me gently that this was her wedding and not about him. LOL! We are 5 weeks away! I am getting excited!

Have an amazing day! Lots of blessings! 

Are there any other Nuke Japan Moms on here?

khryse, he will absolutely love it. I think the walking down the isle with his cut out would make it really special. Do alot of fun things with the cutout. I think add some great captions, he probably is feeling a little blue missing everything and he is very much in need of some laughs. Hope everything goes smoothly!

Khryse - I hope things go well. I am sorry I missed your message the other day!! Hopefully one day we can meet up. 

Can anyone help out  Myliajre she posted this in the general discussion area for the site - Sept 30 Prototype Graduation

I am not certain of all the new details for Prototype Graduation, if someone can post a reply to her and send us an update that would be great!

Q’s Momma - that picture message/address was for you. And yes you can send him care package. I remember my son the very first day he arrived at GC he asked for contour boxer shorts and his laptop as his very first request from home. Good luck to your sailor and welcome to this group. I don’t post much but im still around. Have a great evening all :) 

Q’s Momma - INDOC waiting period before A school could be from 2weeks to over a month depends on how soon they can make a class. My son’s rate is ETN, very few of them compare to other rate. BTW - this is how i addressed  my son not FN or SN (depends on rate)  ETN last name, first name. What’s your son’s rate? 

Q's Momma - I have a little bit of info since my son is in T-Track now (and about to start Power School).  Letters should be addressed to "SN Last Name, First Name" at INDOC.  When he classes up, you will get a new address (but everything is the same except that INDOC is replaced with his Class (e.g. 2215-B, or something like that).)  Once they graduate "A" school, they get promoted and you can address their mail "ETN3 Last Name, First Name" but then their address changes again because their class number is replaced with "T-Track". 

Not sure what's going to happen when my son classes up for power school, but I expect I'm going to have a new address to remember.  :-)

Q's Momma - Good to see you posting here. I trust you all made it back home just fine. Be sure to read my discussion above, - Nuke A school daily schedule - sailor's perspective - Navy For Moms... - it will explain some of the lingo. And yes, he should be addressed as SN Last Name, First Name as MomofJoseph shared. 

Gigi - Thanks for posting, I was away for the evening. 

MomofJoseph - I don't recall, but PS had a similar class # as when they were in A school. 

Q's Momma - be sure to ship most items via UPS in the the Priority flat rate mailboxes. "If it fits, it ships". Check with your post office, you may also have the boxes delivered to your house as, well, I think. I believe Priority Mail comes with up to $100.00 insurance but buy more if you need to. It also comes with a tracking #. Be sure to give your sailor that tracking # and go in and also tell it to alert with Text messages (you may send to more than one), when it has been delivered. Your sailor will receive a slip of paper from their Mail Petty officer for their class and he will be able to pick it up from the mail room at NNPTC. I believe they are open 9 - 5 M-F and 9 - 12 noon on Saturday. 

Q's Momma - That is great!! My son was INDOC for a month before his ET class started. 

Assuming they let the sailors travel again, which I believe they are from NNPTC - as I recall at Thanksgiving, they had Thursday and Friday off, but my son was back in at least on Sunday to study. I share the study time information in my discussion above.  That was not even enough time for my son to feel like he could fly to the Midwest and back and it be worth it for him. The first year, he was invited over to one of his fellow classmate's houses, his 2nd year in Prototype, he went to one of the instructors' homes, I think, and they had a large gathering of sailors. 

As for Christmas - this is how it was in 2017 with mine. Things change. You either took the full two weeks of Holiday stand down time as leave, or you stayed behind and stood watch. If they do not have enough leave time built up, they may borrow leave. It is best to take leave when you have a reasonable opportunity to do so, as it is not always feasible at other times, especially when they are in school. 

That is the basics - if you want more details, you might need to wait until your son has more instruction from his SLPO.

My sailor's recommendations are: make sure the sailors continue to do their pushups, planks and run.  Make sure they get their UI (under instruction), training done for being able to stand watches. This must be done before they complete A school. 

Q's Momma, just make he takes the time when he gets it. My son with his big ole heart stayed and did watch so others could come home, it's been almost 3 years now and he has not been home. He said Mom there are guys that have been home for 2 years so I decided to stay so they can go see their families. Silly boy, had to remind him in two weeks it will be 2 years since you've been home also. He didn't even realize he had been there that because how busy they keep them.  Prayers you see yours soon.

Holidays are always tricky.  B left in October 2012 for the Navy.  He's out now but last Thanksgiving (2021) was the first time since 2011 that we spent a Thanksgiving with him!  We did better with Christmas visits - either he would come to us or we would go to him!  You just do what you have to do lol. 

And thank goodness for facetime!

Q's Momma - we are also curious about Thanksgiving.  In 2021, my son's PIR was the day before Thanksgiving, so we got to spend that whole weekend with him in GL (well, during the day).  He went to GC on the following Tuesday and didn't class up until end of January.  BUT, he did come home for 17 days for Christmas (woo hoo!) and was supposed to class up Jan 10th.  He got Covid after Christmas, so he was instructed to stay an extra 3 days at home.  That caused him to get rolled back to late January.

I am a PLANNER and being a Navy mom is *not* fitting well with that.  LOL.  So now I'm making various versions of plans for Thanksgiving.  Plan A - he comes home for T'giving; Plan B - he has time off, but can't go more than 150 miles away.  Plan C - he only gets one day off.   Next, is making various versions of Christmas plans.  (And all of this is with the expectation that the final plan will have to be tweaked at the last minute.)  LOL

MomofJoseph - sounds like it's clear as mud lol!  And you've definitely got the Semper Gumby down!

I want to say Welcome Home to the USS Harry S. Truman!

They returned today after a 10 month deployment. Thank you for your service!

Q's Momma and anyone else keeping tabs on the leave discussion - Thanksgiving is a short time, it might also be a good time for the Sailors to see about qualifying to stand some of their Under Instruction watch training. To have some down time from studying. If they are close enough to get leave, that is one thing, but A school is tough!!  They might need this time to just chill. 

We did Skype with our son and included him as best as we could but that even proved to be difficult over the years. 

Welcome Home USS Harry S. Truman!! 

MomofJoseph - I use to be a huge planner. Now I am getting more like my husband, "just tell me when and where" and I will cancel all other appointments or obligations and be there as soon as I am able, or wave my magic wand, move boxes, shove furniture and blow up the air mattresses if they are coming to stay with me!!

Yeah, I think I'm going to have to let go of some of my planning genes.  But I'm resisting as long as I can!  LOL

LOL!!

MomofJoseph - once you are truly able to let go (and let the Navy have it's way) you will have a sense of relief.  It doesn't mean you won't get upset occasionally but you will learn to roll with the tide so to speak...

Remember......

So true. Am actually part of a military family (30+ years - Army) and have been keeping tabs here as my son is currently set to start Prototype soon. Navy is new to me, so am quite open to advice relating to it. As far as schedules/plans go, the only ones I will confirm are the ones already completed! (joke). The best way we manage such schedules is to loosely plan, such as "if they are able to, we will do this, else we may have another contingent plan."  In the end, we just tell them that we would love them and will do our best be available either here or there. It really is an adjustment, isn't it! 

Yes emilyl! Sounds like you understand the assignment lol!

And the big thing is when plans change and we are disappointed we have to remember our sailor is disappointed too.  You are right - we have to love them and support them through all of this!

emilyl - Most definitely!! The interesting thing about plans changing, I think I actually have a better handle on it than my DIL who is also a sailor. After she got done trying to plan their "honeymoon", and things with the ship where my son is still stationed got switched around, she said, "No more planning on my part until at least he is out!". She has reenlisted, so we will still be dealing with Navy flexibility for several years thought!