Mom Letter #1 - February 18, 2008 – Temp outside right now in Chicago 16 F.
Dear Thom, or Recruit Thom as the evidence may show,It is now 3 weeks before you ship to MCRD-SD. I am getting a little excited. Well ok a lot excited. Mostly because I know you are excited. There is so much anticipation. I will say this over and over again – I am very proud of you – and I know your family and friends are as well. I will do my best to write often and keep you as informed as I can – and I will try to remind others to as well. You are doing something incredible and I want to make sure that people don’t shy away from your experience because they are in such awe of you. I’m pretty sure that would be the case.
I’ve been reading and reading and will continue to – especially from the site I showed you. I recommend that you pass around to your fellow recruits the link to Marineparents.com to their parents and close friends. It is an extremely good means to the rest of us handling our end of your experience. There is a lot of support for family and friends. One of the things they suggest for letter writing is for the parent – such as me to write labels (I’ll ask the secretary at work how) and the labels will have your address on it and mine – or if you give me the other people on your address book I can preprint their names on labels. She suggests then mailing them to you in small groups in a regular envelope, so you can have them ready to mail out. They also suggest having plenty of extra labels with your address, so we can share them with people who ask about you and who might want to write. I can make sure too that Maury, Joe, and Alex get copies as well to hand out – I could see going as far as placing the labels on pre-stamped envelopes to make it incredibly easy for people to mail you. I think you would get bored if it were only us mailing you.
I hope that over the next 3 weeks I can persuade you to visit me also at St. Rose Center. My intention here is so that you have images of me in my more natural setting and of the people I work with. There are some ulterior motives – in that, I know that some of the groups have written people in the military and that would be another excellent source of letter writers. I think when you get to your humble states; you’ll think of how important this group of people I work with and for really are. They are very devoted to me – and they know have known all along the Ms. Ann has 3 sons. They have once met Joe. They call him my Karate son, because he gave a little demonstration and although that was 8 years ago, that’s still how they think of him. People with developmental disabilities are easier to impress, but I would especially like them to have an impression of you as you are – a recruit, and then later as a Marine – because, I am impressed with you and I want to share this excitement with them.
This would be such an incredible big deal to them – you could not imagine. All the 9
years I’ve worked there – they’ve never had the experience of someone in a uniform walking in – especially a marine – and especially Ms. Ann’s son, and perhaps answering a few questions. A good majority are very verbal and curious. It would be an extremely good experience if you could give a few moments of your time before you left – and once sometime when you return. It’s one of those things that would be a little hard for you, but would melt your heart after having gone through it.
Please consider if you haven’t already.
Hmm, have to consider at what time you might read this first letter. I am pretty sure that I will write one special letter that I will give you on the plane to read. That letter you can on the plane and throw out when you are done with it and prior to getting to the depot. I don’t know at this point what special things I will say that I am not saying here now, but I’m not quite ready for that letter.
Ok, we are working through this first letter on form and function for you being gone. I hope that you will see other letters being sent and you will write giving me the ok for pictures. I’m really good at including pictures in the word document as I write. No separate snapshots and you can throw away or share anything that you get. I just think it would be more fun and colorful for you to be receiving. This week – I have to take my digital camera into a place Sr. is recommending in Chicago to make sure it gets fixed. I use it quite frequently. Hehehe Maury and Joe use my little movie video thing more often, but I still think it was a good deal. Maury once sent me a video of Isa crawling into the cookie packages in the lower cabinets that made me laugh and laugh – I took the video and I put it to music. It was very good. I know … you especially, don’t want musical letters. Good Mom!
Another idea the parent site said was to include jokes to make you laugh. I’m not a particular good joke person, but when I get my computer back on-line – I’ll start looking them up. I promise. Same goes for the news. I have to warn you – that one of my favorite news items is what happens to Paris and Britney. I know what? How? Why on Earth could this happen to my mother? Don’t know how to answer that except to say – I’m into psychology and the fates of those two women are like a psychology phenomena of our cultural social stratosphere. Hmm, that sounded pretty good. I think I’ll go with that! Both are pretty messed up – well start there and just add for now they are like paparazzi rag dolls – just one is better at handling it face value. Hmm, it occurs to me now that Thom probably is so disinterested in divas – umm we’re talking Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. Ok, we’re moving on. This might be evidence that your mother has some light-hearted views on life.
Ok, let me think how will this go. I think when I get your address, I will send a current letter and I will send the first two letters, and then the next letter will be current and will go out with the 3rd and 4th letter until we get all 21 prior letters out with the current. That way there will be plenty of extra letters. WITH different views. Hehehe … yeah we’re like that. You’ll have to put them together like a puzzle. We’re also thinking that we should limit ourselves to 4-5 pages a letter – or less! I know we write a lot. It’s just the way we are. We’re writers above everything else. We’ll keep the letters numbered from the inside.
Ok, something from home now. Well, you know that my home consists of about 4 people and one I know just barely. I consider Alex part of home – but, mostly how he interacts with all of you. As to Maury – we are just up to the part where he is deciding on jobs between Comcast, AT&T, and maybe Sony or whichever, company puts together Playstation 3. I think that Comcast is the one Maury wants the most because AT & T is a union, but I think he’s gotten further in the door with AT&T. I think the Playstation job putting up displays and answering questions would be fun, but because the training is so intense on AT&T – 12-18 weeks, I am thinking that is going to be the highest paying job.
We’ve been talking to Maury about in his spare time becoming a sports official like Rich. Rich has been officiating baseball, football, and basketball for over 30 years. He says you make about $35 an hour, which is pretty good money for a job that he loves. It’s the money he uses to go fishing, play cards and go golfing … *Sigh* Maury is hopefully going to consider volleyball so he could like do it as to HIS schedule. Rich might do 3-4 games during weeknights and then do 2-3 games on a weekend like right away in the morning while we’re still typing – it adds up to about $12-1500 a month spare change (some games are 1 ½ - 2 horus). I don’t mind the time out because most the time it gives me time at the computer to write or be finishing up overtime at work. Then we get after evenings together and Rich loves his man-entertainment-stuff. I think Maury would like getting out some too – besides he loves being “in-charge!”
As to Joe – we haven’t seen him since his birthday at the beginning of this month.
He talked of almost having enough money saved to buy the other partner out of the business. That’s a very positive thing – and I think good for him! He seems to enjoy both the business end and the program end of the Karate business. I think he’s in an ideal position to do something he loves for the rest of his life if he so chooses. Only time will tell what kind of a business person he is, but I’m betting on Joe because he has some common sense. He’s frugal. I laughed when his first instincts were to look at the bills and say “Hmm, this is too much, we’re going to need looking at this.” I could almost hear Sensei Steve saying, “Joe, go at it!” It might benefit Joe to go back and get a business masters. I think he could do it on-line if he could afford to work only at the karate school, but it would be tough and I think Joe really wants to work on relationships … we’ll stop there though.
Now as to Thom. How’s Thom? If Thom is reading this letter you are probably through with receiving, have been doing a lot of drills and running – I’m afraid to ask if they’ve pulled teeth … I just learned about that yesterday. Maybe you are up to the part where you are going through marine history and/or are learning to fight. That and I know there is cleaning involved. I don’t know where you are with all that, but I know your intentions are to be the best at whatever it is that you are doing. I am saying a prayer right now that they are feeding you well and that you are growing as strong as an ox – no time for injuries – but if you do get one make sure to tell someone! You can now write anytime and fill in details, but they are also telling us at the parents’ site that no news is good news because it means that you are hard at work. They are also telling us not to worry because the DI’s are taking such good care of you – they want you to graduate. I’d like to think that looks good on their record. Maybe they just yell a little?
Hmm, I was just wondering. I wonder if the recruiter has a standard presentation that he gives to the parents like me. Ok, we just left a message on your machine.
WOOHOOO!!! We just talked to your recruiter ourselves! First time! He seemed like a real nice guy. He said he’s got two of you in boot camp now. I’ll have to remember that Sergeant Jason Jenson. It turned out my questions were directed in two directions … I needed to know more about shipping out and I wanted to know more about the Intelligence part. He says that he’ll be picking you up on Sunday, the 9th and you will be spending that night in a hotel, because you will be leaving very early to go to San Diego. He said he would like to get there at 8 pm. We would like to make an arrangement then to see you sometime that weekend to say our goodbyes. Should probably be saying goodbye no later that 5 pm or 6 pm so you can be ready, but you might have other plans before that – we’ll have to check.
He says that your job as an Intel guy will be gathering info on top secrets. When asked he said that you don’t go into the combat zones, but that you will be on the base. He says you don’t leave the base because you are like the briefcase with all the money – they don’t want you to get captured, and for the record – neither do I!!!!! Sergeant Jason said that there is one Intel guy per battalion and that you work directly under the CO or commanding officer. I think that is a good idea. He says that while you are in training it will be decided whether you become an Intel specialist and get 12 weeks of training, or if you become a topographical specialist and work in the “vault” for 42 weeks of school. He also said that you’ll most likely be stationed on the East Coast, the West Coast, Hawaii, or Okinawa Japan.
Man-o-man Thom did you manage to do all this? He also reminded us that you could then work for CIA or FBI or that you could stay or train for another job afterward in the Marines. Oh, and he said that most likely you WILL learn another language, but that wouldn’t happen until you get on base.
Hmm, I think I should start over again saying Dear Thom for the amount of time loss staring at this last paragraph. Sergeant Jason says by the way that he writes to all his recruits at boot camp and while I’m remembering they say that the pack floats in the water so there are no problems with buoyancy. I didn’t ask Sgt. Jason that … just something I’d read.
Ok, thinking maybe I should sign off here. There is a lot to internalize with the ideas of all that you are going to be doing. There is no doubt that Sgt. Jason is proud of you I think he calls you “those guys” Hehehe, obvious pride! Those guys do this and those guys do that! All I know is you’re my guy and I’m proud of you doing just as you are with the simplest stroke of a brush or cadence march. Just keep doing what your doin Thom - I believe in you!
Love you to pieces,
Mom
posted by Ann Marie @ 3/08/2008 09:08:00 AM
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