From Recruit to Sailor

My summer started off running and hasn't stopped yet!  At the very beginning of June my parents, my brother's girlfriend Kayla, and I all went up to Great Lakes, Illinois to see my brother, Patrick, graduate from boot camp.  After not being able to see him for two months, you can imagine that we were all pretty excited!  We drove 6 hours the day before and got up bright and early the day of his graduation.  The ceremony was very cool, but also very long.  If I remember correctly, there were about 5 divisions graduating and about 88 people in each division.  So there were a bunch of sailors, all wearing the same thing, who all looked the same!  Needless to say, it was very difficult to try and find one sailor among 440ish other sailors. Here is a picture to attempt to show you just how many sailors there were:

And that's not even all of them!!!

After graduation was over, we only got to see Patrick for a short while because there was still paperwork that needed to be filled out before he could spend time with us.  So we twiddled our thumbs and spent a whole bunch of money on t-shirts, bumper stickers, sweatshirts, mugs, etc that said things like "Navy Mom," "Navy Dad," "Navy Girlfriend," "Navy Sister," "Proud Family of a Sailor," "United States Navy," and so on.  And then when we finally got to see Patrick again that day we got to take pictures, get milk shakes, and talk.  His flight plans had been changed, so we also got to see him the next day.  

We were able to spend a lot more time with him than we had expected, but he ended up staying at Great Lakes after we left because of medical stuff.  They did a blood test which showed he had low iron levels, so Patrick had to take iron pills and vitamin C for a month before he was allowed to fly out to South Carolina.  Well, when they tested his blood again they told him he was healthy enough to fly!  He is now safely in South Carolina and once orientation is over he will begin A school and then he will start nuclear school!

It's been a very long journey, but Patrick is now well on his way!  Praise the Lord for being his strength and his guide and thank you to everyone who has been praying for him!

God bless and thank you for reading!