The time with Daredevil flew by. He is now at Camp Pendleton. He has a couple more weeks in the cast and then he will be preparing to deploy to Iraq. My heart sank yesterday when he mentioned that little tidbit of information. He kinda slid it into the conversation. He sounded apprehensive about it. Now I know why. I googled Northern Iraq. Daredevil mentioned that he would be sent to that region. It seems that is one of the hottest spots right now.
Violence is at its lowest level in Iraq in four years, according to U.S. officials. But al Qaeda in Iraq maintains an active presence in northern Iraq and U.S. and Iraqi raids regularly target them. (emphasis mine)
Great. Crap. I hate the Internet sometimes. Ignorance is bliss. I want to crawl back under my rock. The tentative date is sometime in mid September.
Chowhound has his second audition for the Marine Corps Band tomorrow morning. Someone from Parris Island is coming down to evaluate him. Although, he performs percussion in the front ensemble mainly on the Marimba, he has to audition on the snare drums. Fortunately, he has a drum set so he has been able to practice the rudiments he has to know. I hope they take into consideration that he only started learning them a month ago. Chowhound is a talented musician. I'm sure he will have no problems tomorrow. Once, Chowhound is accepted into the Band then he can firm up his date to report to Parris Island for Bootcamp. Right now, it is either September 8 or sometime in October. They told him they changed it but he doesn't have it in writing so I'm not banking on it.
Improviser leaves for Air Force Bootcamp in October as well. His brothers badgered and tormented him until he finally enlisted. I think it will be great for him. He has been living in indecision since he graduated three years ago. His attitude changed immediately once he made the commitment. He signed on for 6 years. He has a test scheduled for Thursday to determine if he is eligible for the computer programming billet. He scored an overall 87 on the ASVAB (a minimum score of 49 is needed to even get in any of the services). He made a 94 on the mathematics portion. They said he can pretty much get into any field he wants. He is my computer geek so I hope he does well Thursday.
So, more than likely my boys will be scattered out around the world by Christmas time. It will be my first Christmas without them. I'm tearing up now just thinking about it. I am so not ready for this.
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