CU Graduation and U. S. Army Commissioning (May 9th, 2015)

We woke up this morning to another very soggy day, which is unfortunate because today is the campus wide graduation for the University of Colorado, Boulder. My parents spend their winters in Mesa, Arizona, so they drove home yesterday just so they could be at today’s ceremonies. Today’s all-campus graduation is optional for graduates, but required for all ROTC cadets, and is held outside in Folsom Stadium on the Boulder campus. The weather for the last 2 weeks has been very wet, so we kind of expected this, but it’s still not ideal for an outside graduation. 

We decided to make the best of the situation, so we packed up the coffee pot, and a bunch of food and drinks for lunch, as well as clothes to change into. We wanted to get to campus early, because traffic and parking are very difficult whenever a large event is going on. We took our truck with Steve’s parents, and my parents, and our soon-to-be son-in-law's parents followed us. When we got to campus we unloaded the entire back of the truck into Steve’s office, where we made coffee to warm ourselves up, and sat and talked until it was time to walk over to graduation. 

It is about a 10 minute walk from Steve’s office to Folsom field, and since it was pouring rain, we all dressed very casual and warm, and had our umbrellas. As we approached the stadium, it was a sea of umbrellas! 

Our oldest daughter waiting for us with her coffee.

Our oldest daughter was already there, and waved us in to where we were going to stand (it was much too wet to sit). As the graduates started filing into the stadium, they had people with leaf blowers blowing the water off of the graduates chairs so they could sit, which was great, but when they stood for the National Anthem, their chairs were immediately soaked again, so they stood for the rest of the ceremony, just like us! 

Leaf blowers clearing water off the chairs as the graduates file in.

The camera men hiding from the rain.

Phil Di Stephano (the chancellor of the University of Colorado Boulder campus) did a VERY abbreviated ceremony for the graduates, listing off each school so quickly that he sounded like an auctioneer. He did a very nice job with a very difficult situation.  Everyone really appreciated his brevity.

The graduates threw their hats into the air, and then many of them ran to the end-zone, and started running and sliding on their bellies like a slip and slide on the rain soaked lawn. 

Hat toss

This was a very memorable event to say the least. Our soon-to-be son-in-law showed up, chilled to the bone, and decided that he’d rather head back home so he could warm up, change and relax. We packed up all of the clothes, food, drinks, coffee pot and umbrellas and made our way back to our house. We all met at our house for a nice lunch, and took time to relax and warm up before the next big event. 

At about 11:30, we once again made our way to Boulder, this time for our soon-to-be son-in-law's commissioning ceremony, as an officer in the U.S. Army. It was still pouring, but this ceremony was held inside “Old Main”. Old Main was the first building on the CU, Boulder campus. It is a beautiful building inside and out. It is a two level theater with very steep stairs and very low railings. It was the perfect venue for an intimate ROTC commissioning ceremony. We found our seats in the balcony, where we had a very nice view. Our daughter and his parents sat on the mail level since they would play a part in the commissioning ceremony. The cadets walked in as a group and took their oath as a group. 

There were several speakers, and then each of the cadets was commissioned one-by-one. Each cadet had chosen one or two people to affix their rank bands. Our soon-to-be son-in-law chose our daughter and his mom. 

Once his rank was on his uniform, he gave his first salute to his grandpa Jim. He is now a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. 

After the commissioning we were all invited to an after party at Folsom field, where desserts were served and we had a chance to congratulate all of the newly commissioned officers.

We are so proud of him and all of his accomplishments. He and our daughter have been dating since their senior year in high school, so we have literally watched him grow from a boy to a man. What an emotional experience today was.

After the commissioning ceremony, we all went back to his parent’s house for a wonderful graduation/commissioning party. His mom had wonderful appetizers, and served spaghetti for dinner and we brought a Caesar salad to accompany it. 

It was a very fun day!