The Commoner Goes To Boot Camp

That's right friends.  I was in Chicago for the first of two monthly visits.  This visit was to see Danny graduate from boot camp.

I don't have much experience with the military. By much let's say none.  But every body who did said we HAD to go to graduation so we did.

Chicago's a great city.  We were able to get Dunkin Donuts in the airport on the way to baggage check.  We got our car and made our way to Gurnee where our Holiday Inn was.  We'll be back next month but next month we'll be running that town.

It all went smoothly.  They allow 4 guests per graduate and there were 886 graduates all inside a fake ship.  Entertain yourself with that thought.  Here are some observations from someone with no knowledge of these things.

There are a lot of people who go to bootcamp every week and come out sailors.  There were 886 sailors at Dan's graduation and they do that every single Friday.

 They did a cool parade of flags.  But not like in the Olympics.  A state's parade.  The states were presented in order of state hood. Let me tell you in a sea of flags of Blue and Gold (really all those states like blue and gold?  They were either in the navy or University of Michigan)  California stood out with the beautiful flag.  White with a big old Bear.

There were also cool drums.  I love drums.

There were fancy rifle guys.  That was really cool.

There was a band who made me feel very patriotic.

There were the divisions marching in.  Since Danny was so tall he was in the back.  We never saw him until the end.

There was the Secretary of the Navy-He was neither a Secretary or in the Navy but whatever.

There were other highlights.  Like the sailor in Danny's Division who fainted from standing at attention for over an hour.  But the real highlight was getting to see Danny.

 They aren't aloud to smile on base.
We had a lot of fun for a few hours before he had to take off to San Antonio for more training.  We went out to eat, and we had donuts at DUNKIN DONUTS.

Next month we go back for THE MARATHON.  Chicago.  You can say we have adopted you.