Ranger School Graduation Day (Friday, April 1st, 2016)

I woke up several times during the night to the sound of pouring rain and thunder.  The weather has been beautiful the past two days, but the weatherman has been predicting rain, and it looks like it is here.  

Our son (in-law) will be graduating from Ranger school today, and the graduation is outdoors, so of course we have been hoping against all odds for sunny skies and a nice warm day.  But as we got moving, the rain continued to fall, and as we made our way down stairs for breakfast, it still continued to fall.  So we got dressed for rainy weather and left the hotel at about 7:30 a.m.  As we made our way toward Fort Benning, the rain continued to fall.

We made it to Victory Pond, on Fort Benning Army Base by about 8:00 am.  They had not opened the gates yet, but we wanted to get there early and get good seats.  This is definitely a once in a life time graduation, and we wanted to savor every moment of it.

Ten months ago, our son (in-law) left Colorado for training in Fort Benning, Georgia.  First he attended IBOLC, which we refer to as officer's boot camp, and then continued directly into Ranger School.  It has been a very long, very difficult road for all of us, but I'm sure especially for him, although he will never tell us that!  He's a very, very strong person both physically and especially mentally! We are so proud of how he and our daughter have handled this very difficult, strenuous time in their young lives together.

As we sat and waited for graduation time, we had a chance to observe the beauty of Victory Pond and see the obstacle course, which was one of the first things the soldiers had to do when they entered Ranger School. It was very worthwhile to get there so early so we could just sit back and absorb it all before the masses starting coming in.  The serenity of this place is surreal.

Steve commented a couple times about how powerful it all felt. We were here today at this beautiful pond to observe this wonderful graduation but also to reflect on how dreams of other soldiers had been shattered at this same location when they weren't able to satisfactorily complete the obstacles.  We were both very emotional thinking about it all and were so PROUD of our son (in-law) for making it through!

It is truly humbling to think about the training they have received here at Fort Benning in Camp Rogers, as well as the mountains of Georgia and the swamps of Florida.  

Shortly before the ceremony started, we were joined by our son (in-law's) family and their close friends (husband, wife and two young kids....so cute!) that had also made the trek for the glorious occasion.  The husband of the friends, who is also in the Army, was the pastor that married our daughter and son (in-law) 10 months ago, so it was very nice to see them again.  

Our daughter also had a chance to take pictures with some of the other ranger wives that she has become so close to through all of this.  And although they talk daily, this will be the first time they will meet in person.  Now that's a great support group!

Our daughter with her friend Kathy.

 Ranger School graduation usually starts with the soldiers demonstrating some of the skills that had been taught during the last 3 months, but today since the weather was so bad, they cancelled the demonstration.  We were so sad, since this would be our only chance to ever get a glimpse of what these men have been through and what they have learned over the last three months.  

But as the actual graduation ceremony started, the rain stopped. The guest speaker did a great job, reminding the soldiers that although Ranger School seemed like the hardest thing they would ever do, they would now have to go our into the world as Army Rangers and live up to everything that stands for.  He kept his speech short, and then it was time for the students to receive their Ranger tab.  The tab is pinned on to their uniform by someone of their choosing.  Our son (in-law) chose our daughter, his wife, to pin his tab on, but he also asked his mom and me to join them for that part of the ceremony.  It was such an honor for him to include me, so I did my best to take good pictures so they will have lots of memories to enjoy through the years.  

Our son (in-law) is the only one with a grin on his face.  I love this picture!!!

Our daughter pinning on his Ranger tab

Our son (in-law) with his mom

Steve put together a video of the tab pinning for class 4-16.  It looks a little bit chaotic, but it was so much fun to experience. The quality of the video isn't the greatest as he only had a little point and shot camera.....I had the good camera with me at the pinning....sorry!  We hope you enjoy this. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzcxzNsJTgs&nohtml5=False

As the families finished tabbing their soldiers and the ceremony concluded, it once again began to pour.  The soldiers had to stand in the rain, but the families returned to their seats in the covered bleachers as the ceremony was called to a close.  

At this point, it was raining hard.  These poor guys!  But I guess they are used to being wet after the swamps of Florida

And then, once again the rain stopped, so that we could all join our soldiers on the field to celebrate their accomplishment.  

Our son (in-law) with his parents

And with us!

With his grand parents

Family friends that came in for the graduation

 There was even a proposal at Ranger graduation.  We didn't know them, but it made for a very special day.

She said YES!

It was a very humbling day thinking about what these men have been through for the last three months, and the culmination of their effort here today.  We are so proud of all that our son (in-law) and all the other Rangers have accomplished together!  

We waited for the parking lot to clear out, and then headed out to get some lunch.  We decided to swing by the hotel and change, and then went to a new restaurant called Mongo Fire Pit.  It is a mongolian BBQ restaurant,  where you choose your vegetables, then your meat, then your sauce.  

They cook it up for you and then deliver it to your table. Sometimes it is hard to get the sauce mixture right at these types of restaurants, but Steve and I both nailed it!  And they have brown rice, which is great!

We really enjoyed what we made, and had plenty of leftovers for a snack in the car tomorrow.

We left the hotel again at about 7:00 to meet up with everyone for a 7:30 dinner at Mabella's Italian Steakhouse.  It is in a beautiful historic building in downtown Columbus.

The happy couple reunited at last.....at least for a few more days!

There wasn't a bad meal in the house, and the company was fabulous!  It was so nice to spend this time with our son (in-law) and so many of the people who have been such an important part of his life.  

What a glorious day!  

National Infantry Museum and a Great Dinner (Thursday, March 31st, 2016)

We woke up at the Microtel Hotel this morning after a really good nights sleep!  We ended up at this hotel on accident, but we are enjoying our stay, and that is what matters.  We typically book at Holiday Inn Express since we are reward club members with them, but there is a Microtel Inn very close to our son (in-law's) apartment, so our daughter wanted us to stay there.  So last week Steve booked our hotel, not realizing that there was more than one Microtel in Columbus GA.  To make a long story short, we didn't realize that we were at the wrong hotel until the day before we left, and we knew at that point that we wouldn't be able to get the hotel that is closer to Ft. Benning.  So here we are, in a really nice part of Columbus at the wrong hotel!

We will have today on our own to explore Columbus, so we have decided to visit the National Infantry Museum.  It is outside of Ft. Benning, so doesn't require a pass to get on post, which makes it accessible to everyone, whether they are associated with the Army or not.

But we also thought it made sense to do a test run to see where we needed to go for graduation tomorrow morning.  

As we approached Fort Benning from the highway, the landscape around the clover leafs was very patriotic and very beautiful.

It made us very proud to be visiting this post to see our son (in-law) graduate from Ranger school.  So we drove onto the post and followed the GPS to where we were told the graduation would take place.  It took us on rutty dirt roads, way off the beaten path, and into several dead-ends.  

Our daughter had warned us that GPS really doesn't work well on post, but we didn't realize how bad it was.  Several hours later, we think we finally found where graduation will be held.  Being off just a little bit can cost you hours when your are driving in circles on post.  But one nice thing about being lost is that you sometimes see things you would otherwise miss.  I grew up in the military, and we often lived in base housing, which was definitely not something to brag about back in the 70's.  But during our excursion, we ran across the base housing on Fort Benning, and it was quite impressive.  I had to text my dad and tell him that we got jipped. Our housing certainly wasn't this nice.

Ok, so now we knew that GPS was unreliable on post, but we figured that it would be better in town near the Army post.  So we turned it back on, and tried to let it navigate us to the Infantry Museum.  But no, it was no more reliable for this than it was on the post.  It sent us on another wild goose chase.  In our search for the Infantry Museum, we probably hit six different spots where the road just dead-ended and we had to turn around and try another route.  

We've never had this happen anywhere else in all of our travels, even in Puerto Rico, it was more reliable than it is here around Fort Benning.

After all of our driving in circles, we were getting hungry, so we decided to take some time for lunch, and try to find the museum again after we had eaten.  Good choice.  We went to a great sushi and Thai restaurant called Wasabi. 

It had a very nice atmosphere, and was much more crowded than we expected it to be.  There was no waiting for a table, we were seated quickly and each enjoyed a salad (which came with our lunch), and then Steve had a dish called "The Amazing", which was a peanut curry with chicken, broccoli and raw spinach, and I had red curry with chicken and a nice variety of vegetables.   We really enjoyed the southern food that we had yesterday, but it was also nice to have a nice healthy lunch today.  

From our lunch spot, we put the address for the National Infantry Museum back into the GPS, and even from this location, it tried to use one of the same routes it had taken us before, that lead to a dead-end.  So we manually changed the route, and forced it to take us a different way, in hopes that this would not result in another dead-end.

With only a little thanks going to our GPS, we finally made it to the National Infantry Museum.  

It is a very interesting museum that shows the role that the Army Infantry has played in all of the wars that the U.S. has been involved in, clear back to the revolutionary and civil wars. 

They also have a section that talks about the Army Rangers, the training they are required to complete, and the role they play in the U.S. Army.  

I thought this was very pertinent because our son (in-law's) next training will be airborne

Just like the Navy seals (which are more well known), the Rangers are the first-responders for the Army.  

We enjoyed the life like depictions showing how the army has evolved through the years.

As we were finishing up at the museum, we received a text from our daughter, telling us what time to meet at the apartment for dinner.  We asked if we could bring anything, and she said that drinks would be very helpful, so we swung by the Piggly Wiggly grocery store and picked up some drinks to take for dinner.

We have purposely stayed away, and given our daughter and son (in-law) room to themselves.  It has been hard because we know he is right here, and has had day passes both yesterday and today, so to not see him has been really difficult.  We will see him very soon though since our daughter is having his parents and two of his grand-parents (they flew in today) and us over to his apartment for dinner tonight.

Dinner was fabulous!  Steve and I arrived first, and our son-in -law was just waking up from a short nap.  A big part of Ranger School is sleep deprivation, food deprivation and stress, to see how the soldiers can handle the harsh conditions, so his nap was very well deserved.  

Soon our son-in-law's parents and grandparents arrived, and we all enjoyed some wonderful fajitas while we listened to the tales of his last three months.  His parents had a lot of questions for him, so Steve and I just hung back and listened to his stories.  It was a very fun and interesting night for all of us.  

Notice the Christmas Tree in the background.  Our son (in-law) left for Ranger school right after Christmas

We left shortly after dinner, since our son (in-law) once again had to be back on post by 10:00.  Since it was still early, we headed back down to historic downtown Columbus where we enjoyed the sights and sounds of the evening for awhile.  Don't be fooled, the night life of Columbus is only about one block long, so there isn't that much to see and do, but we still had a good time walking around and taking in the sights.  

This is the window of the hat and wig store, all decked out for Easter

Inside the hat and wig store, a huge variety for the high-society women of Columbus

There some very cool buildings in downtown Columbus!

Some of the evening entertainment on the street of downtown Columbus

We finally picked a spot where we stopped in, had a beer and listened to a local entertainer for awhile before we headed back to the hotel for the night.

One thing that we have definitely noticed while we've been here is the southern hospitality.  It is really a thing.  Everywhere we go, the people are so nice!  At our hotel, everyone from the front desk to the housekeeping staff are such a pleasure to be around.