Two Hokies and a Poodle

Monday, January 07, 2008

Graduation, Part 1

After 15 weeks of OCS, I was finally ending it. Angela, my parents, Mary, and Rod came up to see me get commissioned in late December. It had snowed several times and it never got warm enough to melt, so we had large mounds of snow everywhere. Graduation week was great, as we had lunches with the XO and CO of Officer Training Command Newport. We got to eat at the Officer’s Club for the first time and have a sit down chat with the “Skipper.” On Wednesday everyone’s families started to arrive, and I picked up Angela from the Airport. It was great to finally be with my wife everyday! On Thursday we turned over command of the OCS regiment to the next class and had a big celebratory dinner. After change of command, we made sure Tony’s boat was still floating with the extra weight of snow on top of it! Angela and I also took my parent’s and Mary to one of our favorite Newport restaurants for classic Clam Chowder! The dinner was held at the Atlantic Beach club, and gave everyone a chance to meet everyone’s families and talk to Admiral Lotring, the commander of Naval Service Training Command, who came to the event. A slideshow of the hell we went through was shown, as well as speeches by our class team. It was our Gunnery Sergeant’s last OCS class as he was taking a promotion to Warrant Officer, so it was a special sendoff as he received a “NAM” for his work in training Naval Officers. It was nice to have one last meal with the guys I was trained with and was able to show my family a little bit of what I had gone through!

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