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The Princess Goes to Bootcamp
Husband and daughter; USMC vet and USAF Airman.
I come from a patriotic family. We stand and honor our flag, recite the pledge, sing the anthem at sporting events, love July 4th and appreciate those who have served in the military. However, the “Greatest Generation” was the last military service in our own family and they have now passed on. (Well, my husband served in the infantry in the USMC, but his service was well before I met him so I did not experience that sacrifice with him). In the four generations since WW2, no one in my own family has committed to military service of any kind. Until this year.
My daughter finished high school a couple of years ago and she had the near-perfect high school experience — an honor student and magna cum laude grad, homecoming court, student council, dance line, tons of friends, etc. We jokingly referred to her as “The Princess.” As expected, she went on to college where, not as expected, she floundered … too much unstructured time, too much interest from the wrong young men, too many parties, not enough devotion to study and classes. My mostly responsible high schooler seemed to have lost her mind! After a couple of semesters, my husband and I told her she was done and welcomed her back home and to full-on adulting: Full-time job, car insurance, cell phone bill, new tires expense, etc. She seemed lost and viewed herself as a failure compared to her high school peers who were progressing through college. She and I did a mom/daughter book club and read Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules book. She got back involved in the church through a young adult group. But she continued to struggle. She confessed that she felt purposeless.
Then, out of the blue, she made an appointment with an Air Force recruiter and decided she wanted to enlist. I was shocked but supportive. My husband had enlisted in the USMC after his own failed first college attempt and was very supportive. However, the parents of my daughter’s friends were generally not supportive. This was surprising to me. As word got around, many moms spoke to me about my daughter’s enlistment in the hushed tones I imagine are normally saved for confirmed cases of Ebola. Many moms asked me if I was upset or had tried to talk her out of enlisting. (Of course, these Debbie-downers were all politely disregarded.)
The Princess left for boot camp less than 60 days after she first met with a recruiter. She has now finished boot camp (or Basic Military Training, as they call it) where her nickname was GI Barbie or just “Malibu” — a shortened version of Malibu Barbie. She is now off to Tech School. I understand that her job will be radar operations/tracking missiles in the air as part of a flight crew. She is thriving again. She has scored a “win” for herself and she will be serving all of us.
Military holidays just got a lot more personal.
Published in Military
Since the OP talked both college and military service, recommend Malibu becomes well-versed on how to become fully vested in the Post 9/11 GI Bill.
This benefit, off the top of my head, provides
-36 months (i.e., four years) of tuition at the home of record state’s public university average.
-A monthly stipend of Variable Housing Allowance (VHA) at the E-6 rate for the university’s zip code (usually ~1200-1500 a month).*
-1k/annum for books.
-1oo% transferability to immediate family members.
*Pro tip: The stipend goes to whatever bank account the veteran specifies, so if the spouse/child the veteran transferred benefits to is, um, an unreliable money manager, the vet can get the stipend and dole it out as/when appropriate.
Absolutely! Malibu has already signed up! The great thing is, she did that on her own. (Without mom’s prodding…well, I couldn’t prod because they signed up (or not) in BMT).
I was that same person looking for direction in 1977 and followed the same path. I served as an enlisted man and then the AF put me into an ROTC program where I earned an engineering degree and met my future pilot wife. So the AF pretty much checked off all the life boxes for me. Now 40 years later we are both retired and happy.
I get annoyed when so many young people complain about lack of opportunity – it’s still there.
Great!
Best wishes to your daughter, and thanks for her service and commitment.
This particular comment made me feel really, really old. Has it really been four generations since WWII?
It doesn’t seem that long ago to me. My father-in-law fought in WWII. My son is a Marine today. That’s just two generations.