OCS Day 79 (25/AUG/09)

August 30th, 2009 Doug Posted in Journal Entry | No Comments »

My wife and I at our table.

Well if there had been one day I had been looking forward to throughout OCS, it would be Thursday. However, today definitely would take a close second, as today was the day my family came down, and tonight was the night of the formal.

This morning we didn’t do a whole lot. We again had formation at 0800, then we were supposed to have our final out-processing for paperwork, but the people who were supposed to bring our paperwork didn’t show up, so now we have to do it tomorrow afternoon. This kind of sucks because we were going to be released after graduation practice tomorrow, but now we will have to stay later to get that paperwork done then. So then this morning we had ‘barracks maintenance,’ where we were supposed to clean up the barracks, but I just read and made a couple phone calls (as did everyone else, more or less.)

We were then released after chow to get ready for the formal. The formal, by the way, is a mandatory event. Everyone gets all dressed up in formal clothing, and is a ritual kind of event, where we practice socializing, etc. It is also for our spouses, to kind of orient them a little to being an Army spouse.

My family got to their hotel room at about 1400, but I wanted to wait to check into my lodging room on post so I wouldn’t have to do that later. So having done that, which included getting changed and putting a bottle of Champaign on ice, I then went to my family’s hotel room about 1500. My parents, my wife, and my two oldest kids (I have 3) came down, and it was great to see them after almost 3 months. I really recommend the Fort Benning lodging, by the way. You get a nice hotel room with kitchen for $45 a night, which far beats any hotel room.

So then on to the formal. My wife and I went back to lodging, got changed, and then headed to the formal. It was held at the brand new National Infantry Museum, technically on Fort Benning but just outside one of the gates. It is a gorgeous building and was a great place to have it. In the initial lobby they had a social hour from 1800-1900. Here they had Hors d’oeuvres like cheese and chocolate covered strawberries. You could choose from wine, beer, soda or water to drink. After the social hour was a receiving line. At the infantry museum there is an awesome exhibit, the first thing you do when you enter the museum, that you walk through covering the American Infantry’s history from the revolutionary war, complete with an actual Huey helicopter and a Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle. So we walked through this, and then met the company commander, battalion commander, and a couple other people, along with their wives, at the end. We then walked down to where the tables were set up. The colors were posted, we did a toast, and then we ate. It was a very good four course meal. After the meal we had our guest speaker, they retired the colors, and then we were pretty much released, though they had a DJ playing.

Overall it was a very fun night, something that both my wife and I enjoyed very much. If and when you come, and you have a spouse, make sure you bring him/her to this event. It was a lot of fun, and an excuse to get all dressed up
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