Dan's Graduation

So, for those of you keeping track, Dan graduated from basic training about a month ago. (09/09/09!)Here are some pictures of the proceedings!

Here is the field of sorts. There were six companies graduating that day. Dan was in Yankee company. See, there are 26 companies and they each start with a different letter of the alphabet. So there's Cougar, Hawk, etc., but when they get to the end of the alphabet they get a bit desperate to try to think up something cool. For instance, two of the other companies graduating with him were Quebec and Zulu. Hmmm...also, during the first week, one of Dan's commanders told them that a Yankee was a cowboy. He was like "I don't think so", but he kept his mouth shut. I think that's Military 101.

The ceremony was all of your standard boring stuff, but at least it wasn't too long. Near the end, all of the parents get to go out and put hats on their respective soldier--I guess it's supposed to be a symbol of something, although I wasn't sure what. It sure was crazy down there though...
Dan looking soldier-y.

Mr. Ling putting Dan's hat on.

Dan and his mommy. (No, I don't have a picture with him on my camera unfortunately, but there are some on Dan's parents camera. If/when I get hold of one I'll add it up here.)

I can't remember exactly what they're pledging here, but they look all serious and stuff, so I'm sure it was kind of important.

With some of his friends, relieved to be done! 10 days of vacation for everybody!

Dan on the ferry ride home, looking sweaty but happy.

We were actually in a super hurry to get home, because we had tickets to a Bossa Nova concert downtown that night. We had bought them a couple of weeks ago when we still thought that the graduation ceremony was going to be in the morning. However, we found out about a week beforehand that it was actually at 4:00 in the afternoon (and the concert started at 7:30). Oh, and did I mention that the camp and graduation is on a island off of the coast of Singapore? So the ceremony ended around 5:15, we got on the ferry about 5:30, then got shuttled to the car, then drove home, so by the time we got home it was 6:45. Then Dan had to shower because he was gross and we were back in the car by 7:05ish, pulled into the parking lot around 7:30 and ended up only missing the first song! Phew. Then afterward we ate Korean food, yum!

Update on what Dan's doing now: they wanted to send him to OCS to become an officer. This is the highest you can get during your regular 2 years and you get paid the most and get the most respect an such, but you also have terribly difficult training for 9 months. Yes, 9 months additional to the 3 months of basic training. Including going overseas, being generally tortured by your commanders, killing a chicken, skinning a rabbit, getting thrown into pools in the middle of the night, and only getting one day off per weekend for the entire 9 months. So he decided he didn't want to do that and would rather just be a sergeant instead. However, they were planning on making him and officer, so they called him 3 or 4 times and finally made him to talk to the Colonel (this is a major dude in Singapore) just to say "Sirryessir, I don't want to be an officer, sir." It was kind of a major deal, but now he's in his third week of sergeant training, and everything seems to be going well.