PIR: to attend or not to attend

[Arwen]

This isn't for advice, or to encourage bootcamp parents to attend, or not attend - just a chance to share your experience and choice.

Did you, or will you attend your sailor's PIR? And why? What factors influenced your decision?

[Arwen]

Oh, to answer my own question... I have so far been to two PIRs - my own, in 1988 and my older son's, in 2009. But I will not attend my younger son's PIR, which will likely be in 2013.

For my own PIR, it's not like I had a choice, but for my son, it was a huge choice. I went, along with my younger son, despite it costing more than $2,000 that we couldn't really afford. It was a full weekend with my sons, my parents and grandparents, in Chicago, where I had never been before. My husband and daughter chose not to attend. The PIR itself wasn't a big deal - to me. I went in order to get it over with, to be there to pick up my son to spend a weekend exploring a new place with my family.

Maybe, since I had gone through with my own and had experienced way too many high school and college graduations in the past few years (as part of my job I attend even those I have no personal connection to) I've become a bit jaded. It was an event to see, but IMO, once you've seen one, you've seen them all.

The Navy has changed, there is no longer a full weekend. Now you get Friday, from noon to an evening hour selected by the RDCs.  My younger son is working toward joining the Navy, and neither he nor I can come up with a reason to justify spending that much money for a one-day event. And keep in mind, this is a young man who engineered failing a class in his senior year so that we could not force him to attend his graduation ceremony. He took a summer course and still managed to get his diploma before he turned 18. If he could, he would probably find a way to avoid PIR, too.

What we will do is buy the DVD of PIR, and plan either a long weekend visit to his A-school, if it's a long school, or his new duty station, if his school is shorter. I can always get screenshots from the DVD as our photos of the event.

This doesn't make us any less proud of our older son's accomplishment, or our younger son's future accomplishment, simply pragmatic about the cost and benefit of such a trip.

[lemonelephant]

If you can attend, then do, but if your circumstances prevent it, then don't feel bad about it.  My daughter, a friend of my Sailor, and I drove up together and attended my son's PIR, which was a very proud time for us and we have some great memories.  My ex was unable to attend for financial reasons, but we knew that before our son left, so our Sailor was not expecting him and no one thought badly of him for not attending.  We were able to spend Friday and Saturday with our Sailor and had a great time together.  He flew out on Sunday morning, but we had to be back for his friend and me to be at work on Sunday, so we missed spending time with him at the airport.  That was before the change to flights on Saturday and he was actually supposed to fly out on Tuesday and it got moved up, so we had not planned on seeing him off at the airport anyway.  I would do it again if I had another Sailor even if I were only going to have Friday with him.

For A School graduation, I chose to pay for my Sailor's flight to go home for Leave (yes, I know he should have had enough money to cover it) rather than attend.  I wish I had been able to attend that graduation as well even though it was just a 30 minute thing, but I couldn't take off nor could I have afforded to drive and then pay for his return flight as well.  I did attend his C School graduation recently and was blessed to have been there for that and I am happy to have made the nearly 12 hour trip to see the 30 minute ceremony, especially since he was also frocked at the end of the graduation. 

Each graduation is a special time and you have to consider your own circumstances and the memories that will be important to you and your family.  Some can't attend PIR, but are able to visit during A School or later at a duty station and some can't do that.  No matter what, make sure your Sailor has your unconditional love and support.

[Anti M]

My own PIR was during the Dark Ages, when the Navy had three boot camps; mine was in Orlando (1979).  I knew my parents would not be attending, Dad was working in Saudi Arabia and Mom was with him.  They didn't even expect me to make it through boot camp (which I found out later, when I made E-6, geez).  I didn't pay much attention to the handful of families in the stands, and was dying to get back to the barracks, grab my stuff and get off the RTC side of base.  The reception after was pure torture.  

But to this day, when I hear the music, the marches, I stand taller and stride out with a different step.  It is wonderful, patriotic, and can make you tear up forever after.  If you have never experienced a military ceremony, and you have the means to go, do it.  You'll never forget it.

Although my swim aerobics instructor has one CD which includes all the marching music, very strange when I'm doing water weights...

[Concernedad]

I certainly wouldn't want to guilt you into attending. I don't know your financial situation, so can't comment as to how badly it might hurt you financially. However, with that said, my son went off to MEPS telling us we didn't need to come to PIR. Of course that wasn't going to stop us. We were there for him just as we were for his high school graduation, and his many, many swim meets, and his little league games and so on. We were there because we wanted to be able to share in his successes. Even though he wouldn't normally admit he wanted us there, it does make a difference to them.

I know, I was the kid whose parents were never there.

When he finished PIR, (and it was frustrating because a baby in the row in front of us cried throughout the entire ceremony) I could see in his eyes he was desperately looking for us. He appreciated our being there for the weekend to take him out to get pizza and tour Chicago, and generally allow him to feel like he was amongst loved ones again.

In summation, you only need go if you think it best for your own family. What we think doesn't matter one bit.

[BunkerQB]

I don't think it makes sense to go into debt to see PIR. If it could be done - by being frugal for the some period of time - then, by all means make the sacrifice.  PIR is just one milestone in a sailor's life.  We went to our son's OCS graduation (PIR equivalent for officers). Nuke Power School graduation was going to be in S.C., Prototype was going to be in NY and Sub School in R.I.  He really didn't think it was necessary for us to be there for the the stuff after OCS. He wanted to be home as soon as he could for leave.  Besides we suspect that perhaps his girlfriend (his future wife to be) might have wanted to go and they wanted to spend time together w/o parents.  Totally understandable.

We all have many obligations which will hinder being there for our loved ones at special times.  Does not mean we love them any less.  Life is about making choices. No one can make those for you. 

For all those who can't make it to your recruit's PIR - it's OK. Don't beat yourself up over it.  But do order everything you possibly can and join the PIR group - make contact w some of the other parents - use their photos to create your memory book.

[BR549]

absolutely, positively would not have missed it for anything in the world,  A complete wonderful awesome experience.  Would sacrifice, spend, save whatever to get there if I ever had to do it again.

 

[judy r]

I attended both my sons PIR's but that was back in the dark ages 1984 and again in 1988 each was inspiring and made me realize what they wanted to do with their lives and how very proud of them I was. I drove because it is only 8 hrs away and we had family to stay with so minimal expense for us. We also had the weekend with both boys. Being able to purchase the dvd is a great way to see what happens and can keep a family from going into debt. I have since found that if this was happening now instead of then I might opt out and attend just the homecoming from deployment.  Both are emotional happenings in a sailors life. I have since attended my oldest sons retirement from the Navy with all the pomp and circumstance  and Naval tradition rolled into one event again very emotional. My youngest son says he may just pull his papers and call us and say I'm retired we will wait and see I personally think he owes his wife and children a bit more than that.

[kdmac1]

We are attending our sons in July.  We are fortunate that we only live 4 hours away but I would not miss this.  This is a big moment in my sons life and I want to be there to support him and show him how proud we are o him.  

[sailorwifenmom]

My husband and I attended, in fact, we traveled from Japan to be able to be there, which I know is pretty extreme under most circumstances, however I'm a Navy vet, and my husband is still serving on Active Duty in the Navy, and we both have older relatives who served in the Navy as well, so it was kind of a big deal for us as far as the tradition and family heritage went.

Also, because we weren't sure at that time when our son was going to be graduating from his A school (we knew how long it was supposed to be, but we didn't know exactly when he would "class up" or anything), or where he was going to be going from there, nor did we know where we were going to be transferring at the time.  We just knew that we were due to transfer in July, but we didn't have orders yet, and we knew our son would be graduating some time that summer, to go who knows where, so there was the very real possibility, depending on when we were all PCSing, that seeing him for that day at graduation would be the only chance we would get to see him for a couple of yrs at least.  After all, we could have been sent to, say, Italy, and he could have been sent to, say, Hawaii....  We were also very lucky that my husband is at a relatively small command where pretty much all of them knew that our son had enlisted in the Navy and they were all asking about him, etc, so the Command was very supportive in my husband getting the leave dates so we could go.

For us, it was worth the hassle and expense, but I do understand that not everyone can get the time off from work or can afford to make the trip.  Plus, some people choose to save that money so that when their Sailor is able to get leave (usually after A school), they can do something together at that time.