Waiting and Writing

Since I posted last week, "George" has gone off to boot camp and I have missed him much more than I realized I would. On the other hand, I have learned again how much information is on the internet if you want it! After about the third crying spell, which my husband, bless his heart, assured me was not only OK but a good thing (none of the "thank goodness he's out of the house" stuff), I got on Google maps with the satellite overlay feature. I can see the track he'll be running around, and the barracks building where he sleeps, and so forth. The base even provides a "driving tour" for people who are coming to the graduations -- every week, year round-- and I can identify the buildings by name. When we finally get some mail, I'll be able to visualize what he's doing pretty precisely.

Which brings us to the "waiting" part. The first week of boot camp is essentially "intake processing", where they sort out the ones who maybe have a medical problem missed by initial physicals, or don't have all their ducks in a row with some other aspect of their life. Some they keep, some they send home. But during this process all the recruits stay in an intake barracks, (which I can see on Google ;-) ) until they are assigned to a recruit company with a number (e.g. N175) living in a "squad bay" in a particular barracks. And until they get that assignment, they don't have a mailing address.

My husband, who did all this himself just over 30 years ago, assures me that as soon as the assignments were given last Friday, they sat all the recruits down and had them send a note home with their addresses (and probably not much else.) Since getting mail is good for morale, they want those addresses out there to family and friends. (We have an email all prepped to go to the whole extended family as soon as we get it.) But since yesterday was "Columbus Day" -- and I'm old-fashioned enough to like Columbus, and think he did a good and useful thing -- there was no mail service. Our long-awaited address was just sitting somewhere. No wonder they call it "snail mail" ; and then the snails get a vacation!

I have about a four-page-both-sides-on-legal-pad handwritten letter waiting to go, and the minute I get that note I'm going to address an envelope, slap on a stamp, and head for the nearest late-pickup mailbox. He may not be my baby anymore, but he's my son, and he's going to get mail!