Almost
every time you do something new, there’s a side benefit in terms of learning
something else along the way. It might have nothing to do with what you were
doing, but can be kind of neat to know about when you hadn’t before.
When our
son, Nick, graduated from Army basic training at Fort Jackson, SC, two weeks
ago, there were a number of announcements on the Fort’s website and Facebook
page. One of them, which piqued my interest a bit, was that Family Day
activities would begin with a naturalization ceremony.
Several
people responded on Facebook, asking if that was something they had to attend,
and one of the officers diplomatically responded that while they were certainly
welcome to, it was primarily a ceremony for new soldiers who were also becoming
U.S. citizens following completion of basic training. As fate would have it, we
got an opportunity to meet one of the new soldier-citizens the next day.
The Private from the Middle East
In a post
last week I noted that the basic training graduation is an event the Army tries
to promote these days, and there were several thousand people in the stands at
Hilton Field for the ceremony. When it’s over, the new soldiers are marched
down to the far end of the field, and the families rush on to it to join them.
It’s kind of like the fans storming the football field and tearing down the
goalposts after a big win.
That makes
for a lot of bodies you have to work through to get to your soldier, but
finally we found Nick in the scrum. After hugs, handshakes and greetings, he
told us that he had taken the liberty of offering one of his fellow soldiers,
whose family wasn’t present, a ride back to the barracks in our car.
I won’t be
giving out the soldier’s name, but the reason he had no family at the ceremony
was that he was from one of the countries in the Middle East where we have
lately had a considerable presence. The details were a bit sketchy, and we
didn’t press for more, but apparently he had been helping U.S. troops in his
country as an interpreter, and with things becoming more unstable, it was
getting a bit hot for him back there. An offer to join the Army and study
languages looked pretty good, so he took it.
Don’t Put Me on Facebook
We took the
two of them to their barracks (they were in the same modular building) so they
could get their gear together and get ready to move on to their next posts for
advanced training. Nick went with us to Fort Eustis in Newport News, VA; his
friend was off to a posting a couple of thousand miles away, but still closer
than his home.
I asked if
I could take a picture of the two of them, and Nick’s friend hesitated for a
moment, then said it would be OK as long as I didn’t post the photo on Facebook
or elsewhere on the Internet. I promised I wouldn’t and took the picture on my
phone, but later deleted it. Why take any chances?
Nick said
two or three people in his platoon had become naturalized citizens at the end
of basic training. In addition to his friend who rode to the barracks with us,
one was from China, and another from Latin America. It would be interesting to
know what their stories were, but their presence certainly adds another
dimension to America’s modern Army, about which most of us know very little.
