Josh, Beth, and Karleen were off visiting his brother and sister-in-law in Virginia and seeing nature there, as well as going to our mutual friends' wedding. Yay Alex and Kelly! Congrats, you two! So, my letter from this past Sunday isn't posted yet, but here I am at their house enjoying my Liberty weekend. My mother and Mary surprised me at graduation on Friday, and they were here 'till yesterday (Saturday) evening, so I got to spend some good time with them as well as these three friends. We went out for lunch on Friday after pass-in-review, and then us yung'uns went to the mall because it was nearby and we didn't have much time, and then they left and Mom and Mary took me out to the Rainforest Cafe for dinner. Yesterday, we went to the Lincoln Park Zoo, which was my request because I hadn't been to a zoo since I was maybe 11. I saw some fabulous things there, and we had a great time. And we got to see some of the sections where Return To Me was filmed, though the zoo didn't put any emphasis on that themselves. We then visited Navy Pier, which has a great USO, and a marvelous Stained Glass exhibit. Then Mom and Mary left from there (to fly home), and Beth, Josh, and Karleen came back with me to the base, where we got to enjoy ourselves in a relaxed atmosphere. This morning, I went with them to church, and we came back to their place and I slept for like four hours or something, sprawled out in Civilian clothes, enjoying a comfortable couch and not-entirely-sterile-all-tile-almost-all-metal-and-everyone's-dressed-the-same atmosphere. We watched the See Spot Rock DVD (they'd been watching a Guster one while I was asleep) and are listening to Over the Rhine now, at my request, and we've had good food and they broke out their newish espresso machine, and it's so nice here. Only about an hour 'till we'll have to leave to get me back to the base in time, but it's been a really nice visit.

I certainly don't have the same appetite I did as a civilian, prolly because of having to eat so quickly and a lot of the foods in the galley just not appealing to me.. they weren't bad at all, just only so much I was motivated enough to spend my time and energy eating, since both were very limited. I lived off a mixture of blue Powerade and Pineapple Juice (they had pineapple juice, of all things, in the galley!) and chocolate milk for one meal a day when we didn't have PT or a promised ITE session to follow. And I've mentioned the hashbrowns several times, and peanut butter with bananas or pb&j sammiches, and green peppers.. have I mentioned those? They have slices of green peppers there most days, and I actually eat them raw (with no dressing, either).. which is funney, since I used to absolutely despise them as a kid and even pick them off pizza and all. Now here I am, eating 'em up with most of my meals. Some of my division kids told me I was really weird for it, too. ;)

A lot of my division introduced me to their parents, and it was funney because it was the way I'd imagine it would've went if I had had a chance to introduce them to my RDC's.. they talked about what I did in the division, and I talked about how much they helped out and whatnot, and I felt like the summer camp counselor (because boot camp graduation felt like summer camp graduation) or the teacher or the RDC, instead of a fellow recruit. But really, that's kinda how it was all along.. from when the males first got there and they thought I WAS some level of RDC or something because I'd already been running the forming-division for almost a week before they got there, and I was they only female recruit they were allowed to talk to (because I was the yoeman and we had to interact) and I was teaching them all the basic stuff we'd been taught before they got there, and I was in the office fairly often and all.. so they didn't know that I was really just a recruit like them, and that's never entirely changed.

There's still been a lot of talk of favoritism and double standards amongst some of the lesser esteemed members of the division, but the ones that'll be in the fleet longer and that have the character that'll get them advanced sooner have already come to understand some of the subtletees of how things work in the adult world, whether military or civilian. Of course, I myself got to see some of the frustrating political side of things in regards to the Awards Board, with kids who had horrid military bearing and limited ethical convictions getting awards that spoke very highly of them, and with the awards being stated at the ceremony in a way that made it sound like they were chosen in a way to indicate they actually EARNED the awards, and throughout their entire bootcamp experience, when in reality the selections were made a month in advance, and based on one high-pressure interview with the awards board and maybe a couple of strings pulled. But I've been around long enough to have seen such politics in action before, and don't reckon the awards themselves will mean a whole lot when certain of the winners get out into the fleet and mess up really bad or such. Some of them, mind you, were fabulous and I fully support them winning. I was really proud to stand up front with those ones during the ceremony.

And then there's communication, which is severely lacking in most areas of this world, military and civilian alike, and which I'd love to increase. That was the one thing I mentioned at the debriefing with Captain Moran and other high-ups in the bootcamp chain of command that all the award winners and honor-recruits from non-award winning divisions got to attend. The debriefing at which I was told by a Commander who worked with Admiral Patricia Tracey that I share her name and to look up her bio when I got back on the internet.. and then by the galley boss who worked for her as her personal chef when he was in the military that several of the folks at the debriefing were commenting that along with her name, I also shared much of her military bearing. That made me really proud. So, I will be looking up her bio and learning more about her soon. It's funney, because right now there is one Patricia Tracey at each end of the rank/rate spectrum (if you count me as a Seaman Recruit, since I don't officially get the title of Seaman 'till I leave for A School, 'cause we're all Seaman Recruits at bootcamp, regardless of our pay grade). I do wonder if she'd've heard somehow.

So, I'm off to eat some dinner before returning to the base, and spend more time with my friends here. Love and blessings!

Patty -- the bootcamp graduate!