Boot Camp Graduation: Part 2

Getting to the graduation was an adventure in itself. The MCRD is only 15ish minutes from Shelly's apartment but it took us over an hour to get to the MCRD. We had fun watching all of the traffic craziness. There were two sets of train tracks that were pretty busy that people kept stopping on. There were some crazy intersections that people kept stopping in the middle of. People not going to the graduation really couldn't get to where they needed to go. Big semi work trucks were honking up a storm to get people out of their way. The funniest was the car in front of us. They weren't aggressive at all. Finally the driver and passenger got out of the car and traded places. My brother was ahead of us a bit and asked Shelly if they were having a Chinese Firedrill. Unfortunately, neither of the people in the car looked like they were having any fun. In fact, the woman, who had been the passenger, looked furious. Needless to say, she got the job done much better than the guy with her. We eventually made it to the MCRD and got good seats in the bleachers.
The graduation was very nice. They had a few speakers, the Marine Band played a few numbers and the recruits marched around the parade deck. The poor recruits had to stand in formation the entire time, over an hour, in the sun. One of the guys in Doug's platoon actually passed out! He started to stumble forward and the guys next to him had to grab his arms and hold him up until some of their superiors could come and take him off the parade deck. We talked to Doug about it earlier and it turns out that it was the Commander's son that passed out! Doug just couldn't believe it! I'm sure that he's not going to live that one down. The medics managed to fix him and he was able to return to his platoon for the inspection march and the end of graduation. After the graduation ceremony, Doug went and picked up his bags and then we took some pictures.


A relaxed Doug and his luggage.

Doug and Michael making Shelly feel short.

The whole Halladay clan (minus Travis)

Once we were done with pictures Doug insisted that we go to In'n'Out so that he could have a 4x4, animal style fires and a strawberry milk shake.


It was gone in under 5 minutes. But I guess that they are only allowed 4 minutes to eat in boot camp and apparently he is still in that habit.

All in all, it was a great time. It was great to see Doug and see how much he has grown. I also got an update from my mom that he went to church with her and bore his testimony in sacrament meeting. I really hope that he has had a change of heart and has found his testimony and that he will continue to strengthen it.