So here i sit

waiting

waiting waiting......

I have no Chris updates and am not sure when I will so instead I thought I would just ramble for a few minutes about my first born.

When Chris was in the 9th grade he made the decision to leave public school and enroll in the National Guard Youth Challenge program. We were a little surprised because although Chris was never an Honor Student, he was also never a problem student. He made decent grades, played football, baseball and basketball, had a large group of friends and a steady girlfriend.

When we started discussing and researching NGYC we saw that it was a great program and it was a program that Chris would benefit from. You see Chris needs structure in his life, he needs challenge and he is a true adrenaline junky. Standard classrooms were not his thing, he was bored and because he was bored he was lazy. No matter how much we pushed him, how much we grounded, yelled and took away, Chris could care less about his grades, he wasn't failing but he wasn't excelling either. When Chris went to NGYC he excelled. He breezed thru his classes, thrived on his pt, did community service at the VA hospital and graduated as the Cadre favorite. He had found his niche.

Chris has always said he was going in the Army and knew this was the place for him. He immediately attempted to join the National Guard. When his recruiter made all these promises and then right before Chris walked in to sign his contract the recruiter had to admit that he was not getting the MOS that he wanted and that there really had never been a chance that he would, Chris was so disappointed. He was a 17 year old with no direction. He was lost. He enrolled in college and decided that the Military was not in his cards, he started taking computer networking classes and never talked about jumping out of airplanes, flying in jets or being a soldier. I watched the light slowly fade from his eyes whenever a Army commercial or documentary would come on tv. I didn't know how to help him, I wasn't sure what to say. Everyonce in a while I would mention something I saw or read about the military and he would nod and go on about his business. I knew he was unhappy in school, sitting at a desk all day fiddling with computers but he would not say anything, when I would ask about school he would say it was fine and leave it at that.

So one day we were set up for our usual Wednesday night date to watch TAPS, which has nothing to do with the military and everything to do with Ghost Hunting and I saw my oppurtunity when a commercial for the college he was enrolled in came on the screen and Chris made a huffing noise. I jumped right in and told him that if he was not happy at school we could talk about it. Chris finally came clean and told me that "it bored the hell" out of him. I picked up my laptop and opened 4 screens Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and said ok... lets see what they have to offer. We watched videos, we read job descriptions, and slowly I watched the light begin to shine in those deep chocolate brown eyes. He started getting excited, I called his dad and put it on speaker phone, we talked about all four branches. Chris started to talk fast and fidget like he does when he is talking about something he loves.

Within the next week Chris had dropped out of college and was back to PTing every afternoon, he was on the laptop reading military sites, he was in the ASVAB book going over practice test. His dad and I asked him to talk to each branch to see who had the best offer, his dad (Greg)made an appointment with the Air Force, Chris and Greg showed up for the appointment, the recruiter never did. Chris went and talked to the Navy, whatever they told him didn't float his boat, (bwaaaahaaaahaaa), no matter how much I tried he never considered the Marines (mom, I am not choosing my career based on the fact that you love the uniform) and by the end of the day he was set up to take his ASVAB with the Army. Things moved fast from there. I would ask him each day if he had second thoughts, his answer was always the same. NO!!

Now he is at BCT/AIT in Kentucky and the last thing I heard was "We landed in Kentucky, we are waiting for the van to take us the base, I love you mom.

So here I sit waiting.......

God Bless,

Tami