C Adam's Mom:  Yes, Starke County is right up the road!   Our son graduated from Purdue in May 2012, and from OCS in Sept 2012.  He is in naval intelligence, and is stationed at Whidbey Island Naval Air Station, Washington, off the coast of Seattle.  We were just there two weeks ago to visit him and daughter in law. Beautiful area!  Our son is an aviation intelligence officer and works closely with electronic warfare planes.  He will leave soon with his air squadron for his first long cruise on an aircraft carrier, 6-9 months!!!  He has been on shorter training cruises before, and has been able to keep in limited touch with email and the occasional satellite phone call, but this one will be a long haul for his wife and all of us!     I see that your son is in flight school, and hope that is going well for him.  My son was originally accepted to OCS as a pilot trainee, but was medically DQ'd from flight school at OCS for a (seemingly) minor problem, so he transferred to Intel.  He still works closely with planes, so he had to pass all those scary dunking exercises that I'm sure your son had to do --where they strap them in a fuselage, then submerge it and roll it over, and they have to get out.  Then, they have to do it blindfolded!  He also had to be dragged through the water in a parachute harness.  None of this seemed to faze my son, but it doesn't sound fun to me!!!   What type of aircraft does your son hope to fly?  My son works with Growlers.

How are you doing? I got back from graduation Monday night.It is really amazing, you will be so proud of Amad.Andrew got to come home to Texas in Austin and work under his recruiter until mid June when he has to report in to Virginia beach.Let me know if you have any questions about Newport, graduation.... :)

Andrew asked if you could please send Adam's wifes address, I guess he doesn't have it. I didn't know he was married.Andrew had liberty this past weekend and was happy to be able to leave the base and go eat at a restaurant.I can't believe I will get to see him next week. :)

I haven't heard from Andrew since Friday,he said he was getting about 4-5 hours of sleep only.He graduates on March 29 and I am going to Newport on March 27.There is a dinner the night before graduation called Hi MOMS.He will be going to va beach for intel training but he doesn't have to report until mid May so he is hoping he will get to go to Austin and work under his recruiter but he doesn't know if the navy will approve it yet.It has been hard for me too I have two other children a daughter who is married and a son a year younger than Andrew.Andrew was my child who called me all the time, at least two times a week.You will find when you do hear from Adam it will be all that more special.I am a big baby so I know how you feel.I cried when he left and when he would call me I would cry so I know I will cry when I go to graduation.I found a pretty reasonable flight $243 round trip on United going through Newark.I have joined a navy moms group here in the Dallas area, we go to dinner once a month.Also look at joining Blue Star moms, it is for moms who have any familiy member in any branch of the military.They have monthly meetings and get together once a month to pack boxes off to deployed military.I am going to do that later this month.Hang in there,write to him a lot,he will really appreciate it when his DI let's him have his letters,they have to do 10 pushups for each letter.When Andrew first was able to have letters he had 8 and he said it was worth doing 80 pushups!!! :)