Hi everyone! I just joined this great forum and I wish I had done it a lot sooner. My son graduated in the July 15th class F-185 ! we are from Washington state in the NW and after he was home on his 5 days leave.... my first born just left me for Portsmouth VA and the Frank Drew. I can so relate to so much of what many of you are feeling and saying. It was so hard to let go after 20 years especially all the way over to the east coast but I could not be more proud of my son and how much he is enjoying already his new CG Life. We flew out to Cape May a week early and had a wonderful vacation. Drove past the Training center almost every day and waited for that graduation on Friday. It was the best and seeing your son or daughter for the first time in 8 weeks like that coming out marching certainly still brings tears to my eyes. I hope I can become an active member on here and maybe share some of our experiences. There is so much I wish I woudl have known before I left for NJ. and I am sure a lot I could find comfort in now that I am that parent who has had my son move away. What do we do now??

Welcome Julie, glad you found us and look forward to posting with you. Your son chose an excellent career and I am sure he will have a blast. I was born and grew up in Spokane WA, moved to Texas after high school and have been here ever since...goodness it has been 27 years now. Lots of great people here on the forum, enjoy.

Welcome aboard Julie... what you do now is plan the next vacation! Portsmouth can be pretty at Christmas! It's great to have a place to go that you might not have ever had a reason to go there before. If you have any questions, let us know. We'll be happy to help however we can.