The left end of the hall, with about half of the 12 graduating divisions:
There were 12 divisions graduating, with approximately 80 sailors per division. We're talking just shy of 1,000 young adults standing proud and tall out on that floor, and there was easily room for three or four times that number without having to intrude on the area where they'd set up the stands. Compare the size of the people or the doors to the building itself, and you'll get an idea of the scale of this place. It's mucking HUGE!
I do have some better shots, but specific individuals possibly could be identified from them, so they're not going to be posted here. Privacy issues. Might get into security issues as well, although this was one of only three places on the Base where photography was not only permitted, but encouraged. The other two permissible areas were outside of the hall, facing it, and at the statue of The Lonely Sailor, which we didn't get to see. It's a closed base, so civilians aren't exactly encouraged to go wandering around. Even the newly graduated sailors aren't permitted back inside the gates once they've left.
We met all sorts of interesting folks from all over the country (and some from elsewhere!) who'd come to watch their sons and daughters, wives and husbands, or grandchildren pass-in-review. Most of them were nice folks. Although there was one woman we encountered outside, who I very badly wanted to bitch-slap. There were a bunch of us standing around waiting for our sailors to retrieve their seabags from the barracks, and she had her camera out, trying to get a shot well away from Midway Hall. Well, one of the men (dunno if he was Navy or Marines) working security put his hand up and told her no pictures. She lowered the camera, turned away from him, gave me a grin and said: "I took it anyway!"
Stupid f***ing cow. I'm just sorry she didn't get hauled off by the MPs and have her camera confiscated. At the time I was too shocked to say anything, but now I wish I would have.
2 comments:
Wow...congrats to you and your son! Basic training was some of the most difficult yet rewarding weeks I've put myself through! Being in Florida in August didn't help. Not that I envy Great Lakes in the winter! So where to now?!
Thanks, Dori! We had to put him on a plane yesterday morning for Groton, Conn. BESS (Basic Enlisted Submarine School) starts tomorrow, then he'll be on to his "A" school after that. I think he'll be there for 8 months or so, then...who knows?
I've been told that seeing them off eventually gets easier; I'm nowhere near that point yet. I tear up every time I think about him being so far away. But he's wanted to enlist ever since he was a little kid, so I try to cope and not make him have to deal with my pain. (At least he'll be safer on a submarine that he would be as a grunt in the field!)
Basic training in Florida in August? Damn, hon, that's hardcore! But thank you for doing it for our country.
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