The Official Graduation on Parade Grounds

The Parade Grounds were surrounded by many aircraft which we walked by on the way to the bleachers.

Squadron A & B lined up on the far side of the grounds. We were informed through an impressive historical lesson about how discipline was started in the armed forces in the USA during the Revolutionary War at Valley Forge by a Prussian General who was given charge of 120 soldiers which he trained and they were dispersed throughout the ranks to instill discipline everywhere, and shortly thereafter the Revolutionary Soldiers won the war, and now you know the rest of the Story.

The national anthem was played and I shot this picture across the Parade Grounds of the Color Guard.

The training flights then marched in formation in front of the stands which held dignataries and parents and friends. We were able to pick out Rudy and got this shot at, I mean of, him.

Our seats in the bleachers were exactly (or sakto in Cebauano) in the center between the two exits, and they announced that all should exit using the stairs only, we parents then needed to show our discipline. We were some of the last parents to be able to go to our "airman" and release him from formation while he waited patiently for us to arrive.

Airman Rudy then took us on a tour of his dormatory. He was the "latrine princess" of the flight as his mother had done such a wonderful job of teaching him the rules of "sparkling" a mirror. By the way, his MTI's first called him Minnie Mouse, but by the end they were actually calling him Mighty Mouse. He did well.

I bet these Brazilian flip flops are the first to graduate Boot Camp.

We went to the enlisted club for lunch and finally at 14:00 were allowed to take our airman off base. We went to The Alamo. There was actually an IMAX theatre on site and before going into the Alamo we watched the Reed Smoot IMAX history of the Alamo. Very informative and historically accurate, we were told.


After our day in the Alamo, Rudy had signed us up to go to a minor league baseball game. The airmen who signed up to go to the game were allowed to stay at the ballpark with their families until the end of the ballgame which started at 19:05, instead of being required to report to their barracks at 19:30. We enjoyed his stories and a fair ballgame at the same time.

We did leave in the 8th inning as the Missions (home team) were down 13-7 to the Rough Riders. Rudy also realized that it was dark out and he had left his flashlight in his foot locker. One of the rules he has to live by is no walking on base after dark without a flashlight. This made him nervous until he found that 99.4% of the airmen at the game also had forgotten their flashlights.

When we got him to the parking lot where we could drop him off we waited until another airman showed up to march with to their dormatory. We watched them march off as long as we could. By the time they got to the street at least two other airmen had joined them, also without flashlights.

Well that is all for tonight. We anticipate many more adventures tomorrow.

Love to all,

Dee & Lisa