Grace is super hugged by Mom after the Family Day presentation.
I left Wednesday to go to Fort Sill Oklahoma to see my younger sister Grace Graduate from basic training. Mom and Mariam and I met at the airport in Dallas and flew in to Oklahoma City together. Thursday morning there was a brief program for the families, with skits of what the soldiers in training had been doing each week.
Here they are demonstrating how they prepared to go into the gas chamber.
After all of the skits the soldiers were released for the day to spend with their families. This mostly involved eating and picture taking. Grace's "Battle Buddy" Savard joined us for the two family days since his family was unable to make it to Oklahoma from Rhode Island. We had a lot of fun with the two of them.
Grace and Savard (first name is Frank) in the car on our way off the base.
As I said before, the day involved going out for a nice lunch, driving around the beautiful city of Lawton, OK and getting more food and coffee (this is missed on base) and red bull (I've never seen people drink so much red bull, but apparently the soldiers in training are very sleep deprived!). We had to have the two of them back at the base by 8:00pm.
The next day there was the Graduation ceremony at the McMahon Auditorium in Lawton. We arrived and all of the soldiers were already seated in the auditorium. They had strict instructions not to acknowledge the presence of anyone, looking only straight ahead. Something Grace later said was very strange and zoo-like because so many people were taking pictures.
Grace with her fellow C Battery graduates.
Captain David Leibovich, Battery Commander
Grace's Drill Sergeants - Gonzalez (left) and Alaniz (right)
After the ceremony we took the mandatory gajillion photos. Here you can see Grace next to her Drill Sergeant Gonzalez.
A nice photo of Private Frank Savard
Later Grace took us back to her base and showed us around a bit. We got to see her bay (where they sleep) and some of the grounds where they do physical training. Including below, the Treadwell Tower.
Finally saying goodbye to mom and the rest of us....it had to end sometime.
She then fell in to formation with her battery.
One more shot of her Drill Sergeant - I swear this guy is right out of a movie!
And that concludes Private First Class Grace Sergenian's graduation from basic training. She's now off to Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas for 16 weeks of Advanced training. Congratulations Grace!
Videos posted here: http://postcardsandsnapshots.blogspot.com/2011/06/graces-graduation-videos.html
