Stationary

HappyKat

5-Year Member
Joined
Aug 21, 2010
Messages
16
Should my new plebe bring paper and envelopes for letter writing, or is this provided by USNA?
 
Hi,

Your soon-to-be plebe will be given stationary, pens and stamps.
 
Should my new plebe bring paper and envelopes for letter writing, or is this provided by USNA?

Both.

Your Plebe will be provided with envelopes and writing paper with the USNA crest. In fact, when your Plebe's squad leader was a Plebe, he/she was ordered to write home within the first few days of PS.

Unless it's changed since 2012 were Plebes, your Plebe will be allowed to keep and use their own writing paper and envelopes or post cards. Many parents pre-write letters with check boxes for answers (i.e. Q: How is the food? A1:good, A2:good but not enough, A3:terrible, etc), and they pre-stamp envelopes, to make things easier for their Plebes.
 
Many parents pre-write letters with check boxes for answers (i.e. Q: How is the food? A1:good, A2:good but not enough, A3:terrible, etc), and they pre-stamp envelopes, to make things easier for their Plebes.

Last year I made up 2 page "quizzes" for DD with questions like "who are your friends?"; "tell me the funniest thing to happen so far", open ended questions that elicted LOTS of writing. She told me she was too tired to think of stuff to write before she started getting the quizzes.
 
Since we knew DS wouldn't have a lot of time to write, we sent him letters that were prefilled and all he had to do was check boxes and fill in blanks. He got a kick out of them. Here is an example of one of the letters we sent him to fill out:

_____________________________________________________



Hi Mom/Dad/Sister/Sister/Dog/Dog,

I am doing:
o Fabulous
o Pretty good
o Just OK
o Terrible
o The Hokey Pokey

I miss:
o My Xbox
o Net Flix Rentals
o My mommy, daddy and sisters
o My man cave
o Chicken Kiev
o The dogs
o Doing the dishes

Please send:
o Clothes : ________________________________________
o Toiletries :_______________________________________
o Hugs & Kisses
o Home baked goods :_______________________________
o Gatorade/Protein Bars_____________________________
o Other :__________________________________________

I’m having:
o Fun
o Achy muscles
o A hard time
o A hoarse voice from yelling
o Tinnitus (ringing in my ears)

My favorite thing I’ve done recently______________________

My least favorite thing I’ve done recently___________________

I just want to say________________________


___________________________________________________

We also sent him jokes, such as military jokes that I found online. He requested these as occasionally the plebes had to tell the detailers jokes. We also sent him photos of the family, homemade cookies (we baked them and then sealed them in food saver bags and send them in the plastic shoebox containers), protein bars, compression shorts, a small flag with a small stand to put on their desk (DS mentioned something about this protecting them from a "mutiny"). I remember at the second phone call DS requesting a Swiffer Duster, which seemed so funny to DH and I that DS was requesting cleaning supplies!

We wrote frequently to DS. He said that he didn't always have time to read them, but knowing that he had letters was very comforting. He said he liked the shorter letters better because he could read them quicker, but when he did have time he enjoyed reading the longer letters.

I remember last summer when forum and listserve parents started reporting how many letters they were getting from their DS/DD. Some got only the 1 mandatory letter that all plebes had to write at the beginning of PS. Some got A LOT of letters, and others were somewhere in between. Our DS wrote some very short letters written on tiny pieces of paper from his small notebook, some of them were the check list letters as above, and other letters were several full pages long. They all were great! If you think that you guys spent a lot of time waiting for the mail carrier for news on appointments, just wait until you are stalking the mail carrier for letters from your plebe!

Good luck to everyone! I can't believe that it was only a year ago that we were getting ready for DS to leave! It has been an amazing year!
 
So True, mumsyto3! And know we wait, wondering where in the world they are on their summer cruise and when will they be home!!:smile:
 
Do they get stamps from the Academy? We sent stamps with ours, and he asked for more part way through. We also sent self-adhesive address labels with our address, with his address and a few with addresses of family and friends as well (but not as many as we sent of ours :wink:). Addressing envelopes takes precious time away from writing! I know some people send pre-addressed postcards as well. (Mine said he didn't want to write on postcards for the whole world to read, but that's typical of him as he's a very private kid...or at least he was, the Navy probably cured him of that! :yllol:)
 
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