Word of the Day

Pathology: Study of roadmaps

Today is Wednesday. This time next week, HTP and I will be on a plane, winging our way to Georgia...and from there, we'll be driving on to South Carolina and Parris Island. Our daughter is graduating from Marine bootcamp. I've got to be honest with you. I, never in my wildest imagings, thought that any of my children would join the military. Well...maybe my son. He was seriously talking about it when he hit those high school years but it never occurred to me that one of my daughters would think about joining the military.

Making a Marine Update

My daughter passed her final PFT with flying colors. She ran 3 miles in less then 27 minutes. That's the fastest that she's ever made that run. She went through Crucible and wrote that it was a blast. And here I was sitting at home all worried about her. But then...

In the letter that she wrote on the day after Crucible, she wrote that the entire platoon underwent a regular check-up. My daughter mentioned at that time that her hip was bothering her a bit. She had mentioned this in previous letters but figured that it was just normal stuff and no worse then her ankles. Anyway, it turns out that she's been training with a fractured hip. We've found that stress fractures are fairly common with women. So...Running three miles in < 27 minutes, miles and miles of marching, repelling, PT, The Crucible...all on a fractured hip. One tough Marine in the Making. Well, as of that last letter...she will be graduating with her class but she'll have to sit it out in the stands during the ceremonies with the other walking wounded. I'm sure that she's not too happy. She was looking forward to Moto run and all the Graduation marching with her platoon. She won't be able to do any of that now. But...She'll be a Marine! She's looking forward to seeing us all. She's also looking forward to her leave time. If she never saw Parris Island again, I'm sure she wouldn't be upset but... who knows...I never thought that she'd think that Crucible was a blast. After her 10-day leave, she'll have to report back to Parris Island for physical therapy until her hip heals before they'll release her to MCT..(infantry training) and then on to her MOS (fire-fighting...I think she'll be going into forensics of plane crashes). In the meantime, she's back on crutches.

Anyway, from all I've heard, her life on Parris Island after leave will be physical therapy, and doctor visits until she heals. Her only job will be to get better. She'll have access to the library and computers and phones. She'll be a Marine and so she'll have more privileges then she had as a recruit. She even can leave the base on weekend trips. At least this time, she won't have to depend on snail mail to keep in touch with us all.

We're hoping that she'll have time to call us this Sunday...Liberty Sunday (this is the only day that recruits are allowed to use the phones)...so maybe, if she can get near the phones, we can hear more about her hip fracture and graduation. We've been depending on our daughter's fiance to keep us updated...she writes him more then she writes us...go figure.

HTP and I are going to be leaving for Parris Island on March 30th so we can attend the graduation ceremonies and spend time with our new Marine before she heads off on leave with her fiance. Our daughter's fiance is driving down from Nebraska so he'll be there too. He and our daughter plan on driving on back to Omaha after graduation. They'd hoped that she'd be able to stay longer in Omaha working in the recruiting office as an RA but it looks like that might not happen unless they'll let her do her physical therapy at the airforce base. BTP (my daughter's fiance) told me he was going to talk to the recruiter about it but...

Murphyism of the Day

Handy Guide to Modern Science

1. If it's green or it wriggles, it's biology.
2. If it stinks, it's chemistry.
3. If it doesn't work, it's physics.

Cerf's Extensions to the Handy Guide to Modern Science

4. If it's incomprehensible, it's mathematics.
5. If it doesn't make sense, it's either economics or psychology.